Sketched

by David Alan Jones

  Rose’s crew hit the condo in the middle of Alice’s workout.

  “Cameras are down, front door is unlocked,” Moss said over the main comm channel from his office in Atlanta. “I’ve deactivated the alarm system and blocked all outgoing calls from the local cell area. Can’t maintain this too long, though. People are going to take notice right away.”

  “Roger,” Matt said. “We’re inbound.”

  Situated in a residential area outside the main hub of capital traffic, Alice’s brick condo stood amongst hundreds of its kind—the sort of overpriced luxury space favored by high-power, mid-level executives too focused on their climb up the corporate or government ladder to spend time at home. The sun had set more than an hour ago, leaving the streets and sidewalks empty save for a lone driver puttering east along the separated lanes in front of the building. Later, in a police statement, he would swear he saw nothing, even though twelve people dressed like SWAT members entered the condo at that exact moment.

  Rose pushed through the entrance on point, her blacked-out subgun pressed hard to one shoulder, muzzle down. Her combat boots made almost no sound on the plush carpets as she jogged toward the front desk and a wide-eyed man dressed in a sport coat and tie. She glanced at his name tag.

  “Hi, Rick. How are you tonight?”

  Rick shut his mouth, his eyes suddenly glistening, and smiled as Rose’s charm washed over him like steam. “I’m great, ma’am. How can I help you?”

  “By forgetting you ever saw my friends or me.” Rose checked behind. All eleven succubi had assumed tactical positions inside the condo’s entrance. No one on the street seemed to have taken particular notice of the group thanks to their cloud of combined charm.

  “Okay,” Rick said, staring right through Rose and the others.

  Matt motioned toward the elevators, and five of the crew peeled off to follow him that way. Rose led the remaining five to the building’s wide, carpeted stairwell to begin the climb toward the seventh floor. Her team all possessed a draw on speed, strength, and endurance, including Olivia, who had refused to separate from Rose. Negotiating a full-speed run up six flights of stairs presented nothing more than an excellent warm-up for them. Rose took pride in the fact they beat Matt’s team to the top. She would rib him about that later.

  They congregated outside Alice’s section of the building, maintaining an onslaught of charm to keep neighbors on the floor from getting nosy. A bright white security door made of steel barred Alice’s unit. It reminded Rose of a smaller version of the doors you saw on bank vaults.

  Tanner Watts gave Rose a questioning look, and she nodded.

  Though not much bigger than the average incubi at 5’8”, Tanner possessed a deep draw on strength matched only by his ability to heal. Those two factors made him an ideal entry man since he could mend any damage he caused himself when he drew strength and kicked the door with the power of a five-ton hammer.

  Forged in steel or not, the door’s frame bent with an earsplitting screech before the hinges failed, sending the door hurtling backward. Moving with drawn speed, Tanner rushed into the apartment fast enough to catch the ricocheting door with his shoulder and thereby keep it from bouncing back on those who followed him inside.

  Rose sped inside on Tanner’s heels. After hours poring over the condo’s blueprints, she knew exactly where to go. The foyer, wide enough to admit two people abreast, opened at an angle on the dining room, which gave way to the unit’s living area. Trusting the team at her back, Rose passed through the kitchen in a rush of wind to crouch behind a leather sofa, her subgun aimed directly at Alice McAleese’s forehead.

  Dressed in yoga pants and a sports bra, Alice looked less than prepared for armed intruders. As planned, Rose had caught her in the middle of her nightly exercise regimen. A fitness video blared from the flat screen affixed to the wall, the host encouraging those at home to squeeze out one more rep. Alice, a seventy-five-pound dumbbell in hand, blanched at Rose, her gaze momentarily flitting beyond her to the rest of the team.

  Melody stood next to Alice, similarly dressed and covered in a sheen of sweat. She narrowed her green eyes at her sister. Her glare could have put a linebacker off his game.

  A couple of Alice’s men, the guys she referred to as lads, stumbled out of the master bedroom, but were headed off by Matt and Tanner, who held them at gunpoint.

  Alice, who had schooled her expression from her initial shock, grinned with one corner of her mouth. “Rose Carver. I take it you want to chat; otherwise, you would have already pulled that trigger.”

  “Put the weight on the floor and back away,” Rose said. “Both of you.”

  Casually, Alice placed the dumbbell on the carpet without a sound and motioned Melody to do the same. The younger woman gave her a peevish frown but followed suit, and the two of them backed off.

  “Do you have any other guards in the building?” Rose asked.

  “What do you want, Rose?” Alice’s accent sounded deeper than the first time they had spoken. And while she showed no fear, she did appear angry, which was almost as good.

  “Tell me if there are other guards in the building. Where are they?”

  Before Alice could answer, the sound of shuffling feet came from an outside patio, followed by a glass door sliding open near Alice. A tall incubus with a star-shaped scar on his cheek, bald and florid, tripped into the room, encouraged by a kick from Piper. The petite vampire looked like a finch harrowing an eagle, but Rose had seen her in action and knew the strength she possessed. Four of her daughters swept into the room behind Piper, their hair pinned back to protect their vision, followed by six wights of varying genders. Valerie Satterfield, one of Rose’s good friends and treaty hostage to Piper, followed behind the wights with Piper’s son, Preston, bringing up the rear.

  “Got the jump on you, did they, Figgin?” Alice asked the man with the star-shaped scar.

  “Sorry, Alice. They came up the wall all quiet-like. Never knew they was there til they had the drop on me.”

  “Ah, well, can’t go poking the mote in yer eye when I’ve a pole in my own.” Alice turned back to face Rose. “That’s the lot. You got ‘em all, Rosey. Now what?”

  “Now you slither back to Ireland, and you never set foot on U.S. soil again.” Rose maintained her crouch, her gun still trained on the Irish leader. Part of her wanted to pull the trigger. So many problems would melt away if Alice McAleese disappeared. Of course, killing her would create a whole new set of complications. Rose doubted the Irish would forgive her for killing their leader. They would retaliate, and if they couldn’t reach Rose, they would likely attack regular members of the Order who lacked the sort of security detail she enjoyed.

  No. Better to stick with the plan.

  Figgin, who had taken a spot between Alice and Melody with his hands raised, laughed and rolled his eyes. “This one’s not the full shilling, is she?”

  “She’s yet to be schooled s’all.” Alice’s upper lips curled into a cross between a smile and a snarl. “You know, Rose, when I first arrived on your shores, I thought you’d give me trouble, especially after all the things I’d heard about your vaunted Order. Melody here swore I’d have you pounding on my front door inside a week. But then, when nothing happened, I thought all the rumors were false—you had no steel in yer spine. But now, look at you. Here, in my house, throwing shapes like a pissed bloke trying to impress his friends.”

  Rose had no clue what half that meant, but she got the gist. Alice wasn’t afraid of her, and she wasn’t going to take intimidation lying down. Time to up the ante.

  “You’re taking advantage of people in crisis.” Rose stood, making sure she kept her gun trained. “You’ve killed enough people, no one would fault me for shooting you in the head, but I don’t want war with the Irish. I want you out. Still, if executing you is the only way to bring peace to American Society, I’d do it ten times a day for the next hundred years.”

  Figgin’s already red cheeks flushed nearly purpl
e as Rose spoke. His meaty fists clenched at his sides, and his shoulders bunching under his coat. “Try it, girlie.”

  “The only things I’ve killed since coming here are vermin or—” here Alice met Piper’s eyes. “—or as you’d call them, vampires. Your country’s infested with them if you didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t kill Barbara Griffith?”

  Alice laughed. “Kill her? Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I was trying to win that fat bitch’s support. I needed her endorsement. Would have had it too, except someone killed her before she decided to give it. Want to know who? Look no further than the beasts standing behind me.”

  Rose glanced at Piper. The vampire’s expression remained calm, unaffected.

  “What? You expect her to break down and confess?” Piper asked. “She killed Griffith to make way for her own ascendancy. She’s not going to admit it.”

  “Right now, I don’t care,” Rose lied. “I’m giving you a chance to leave. Don’t pack, don’t call anyone, gather your people—and that includes Melody—get on a plane, and go.”

  Alice, wholly unimpressed by Rose’s threat, started to speak but was cut off when one of Piper’s daughters, Tamika, swarmed forward like a fleeting shadow to smack Alice’s unprotected head with an elbow. The blow made a THUNK like the report of a small-caliber rifle. Alice, caught unawares, pitched forward, ass over elbows into the couch.

  Figgin spun like a distributor on a twentieth-century hot rod and punched Tamika in the face. She hurtled backward into and through the glass patio door, sending shards in every direction.

  A fraction of a second later, Melody scooped up her discarded fifty-pound dumbbell and flung it at Rose, who had to dive away to avoid having her skull caved in by hurtling iron. The weight struck Barry Holmes, a longtime member of the Order, in the right knee. The joint buckled and, from the sound, the surrounding bones shattered. Barry screamed and inadvertently fired a burst of five rounds from his subgun into the ceiling.

  By the time Rose regained her footing, Piper’s wights had split into two groups, three climbing around Figgin like enraged chimps and the remaining three going after Melody. Though Rose thought all her familial love for her sister had long ago evaporated, something inside her cringed at seeing the pale monsters clawing and snapping at Melody’s throat. Part of Rose wanted to shoot them, and she might have done it if Melody hadn’t caught the nearest wight by the chin, planted her bare feet its hip, and ripped the beast’s head from its shoulders trailed by a length of spine.

  Everyone froze in place.

  Rose had seen some horrific sights during her time fighting for the Order, but nothing like this. Blood and viscera flew in all directions, splattering the floor, the couch, the other wights. A stench like rotten meat filled the room. It made Rose want to gag as she stared in stunned silence. Even the other wights, creatures whom Rose had seen shrug off bullet wounds like bug bites, appeared momentarily dumbfounded. They shuffled back from their fallen comrade and the lithe young woman who had neutralized him, their mouths hanging open.

  Piper, her face a rictus of anger, was the first to react. Hands spread wide like claws, she rocketed toward Melody with a scream that shook loose what little glass remained in the patio door. Sharpened fangs bared, she closed to within a foot of Melody before a spinning dumbbell, moving as if fired from a rifle, smashed into her face. Seventy-five pounds, being an appreciable percentage of Piper’s weight, sent the vampire flying after her daughter Tamika, her face a bloody pulp.

  Alice, back on her feet and moving fast enough to make the wind snap around her limbs, vaulted the couch. She landed in the middle of the Order ops, who, despite their experience, appeared caught by surprise. Tanner squeezed off a burst of rounds at Alice but missed wide, succeeding only in killing her flat screen. Alice repaid him with a supersonic Muay Thai kick to his right leg. He gasped and would have collapsed had she not taken him by his harness and spun him like a mini-tornado into Thomas Black, who, in turn, stumbled into Matt.

  The entire process of neutralizing Rose’s team took perhaps one second and resulted in freeing Alice’s other two goons to act. Like workmen plying a trade, the lads set about inflicting as much damage and pain as possible to the eleven armed ops in their path. It was like watching a movie sped up four times. A couple of people, including Matt, attempted to use their subguns, but were thwarted each time by Alice or her people.

  Drawing speed, Rose hurled herself at Alice. Despite her size compared to the lads, she dealt out the most damage, making her the prime target. Rose shoved the barrel of her gun into the woman’s unprotected back and squeezed the trigger, only to scream in surprise when Alice spun away and Rose found herself blasting Sarah Hensley's Kevlar vest. Sarah grunted and shuffled back but looked whole. No blood seeped around the new deformations in her armor, thank God.

  Rose abandoned the subgun due to the confines of the fight, letting it swing from her harness, and spun to catch Alice a blow with her fist. She punched nothing but air. The Irish succubus had not only weaved under Rose’s punch, she likewise avoided a kick aimed at her by Sarah, and a slash from a knife-wielding Nathan Moore. Alice turned her dodge into a fluid attack by punching Nathan in the throat where his armor didn’t protect him and then kicking Sarah into the kitchen table.

  It took all Rose’s dexterity to avoid tripping over a choking Nathan as he fell, clutching his throat with both hands. Awkwardly, she side-stepped him, intending to land a kick on Alice that would send her into one of her lads. By the time Rose’s foot left the floor, Alice had already closed the distance between them, her face as stoic as a monk’s. She smashed her elbow into Rose’s nose like a crowbar, sending a jolt of pain so sharp through Rose’s head, she nearly blacked out.

  Only drawn healing coupled with dexterity kept Rose on her feet. Baring her teeth, she went after Alice again, drawing all the speed her votaries could provide.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Alice slipped Rose’s punches and kicks like an adult playing with a six-year-old. All the while, her expression remained fixed, a look Rose knew well from experience. Alice was drawing fear and, by the way she moved, a lot of it. No matter how Rose struggled, no matter what depths of drawn abilities she plumbed, she could not match the Irish woman’s physicality.

  Alice McAleese was playing with her.

  Fear seized Rose’s mind. She felt it coming, knew its source, and yet could do nothing to stop it. Her legs turned to jelly, her stomach tightened, and her hands shook. Tears sprung to her eyes as she scuttled away from Alice, struggling in vain to lift her gun, but her arms felt too weak.

  Alice pursued Rose slowly, as unconcerned about the armed Order ops surrounding her as a lioness encircled by baby chicks. They wore expressions of utter fear, their eyes glistening, their jaws sprung open like haunted caves. Even Matt, who had time and again proven himself against charmed mind control, shrank under Alice’s fear-induced onslaught. He cowered on his knees before Alice’s lads, his hands spread palm down on the floor.

  Rose glanced across the room, hoping to find help from that quarter. What she saw dashed whatever hope remained in her heart.

  Of the four daughters who accompanied Piper on this death mission, two remained along with Preston and Satterfield. Piper, Tamika, and the wights had fled. While the vampires appeared unaffected by Alice and her crews’ fear draw, and they were getting some blows in against their opponents, the fight was by no means going their way. Melody, moving with more speed and power than Rose had ever witnessed in her little sister, wielded a splintered chair leg like a club. She caught one of the daughters a resounding blow on the side of her head that left the vampire visibly dazed and followed it up with a punch that sent her flying. Neither she nor Figgin showed any signs of vampire bites, which might have slowed or even incapacitated them with its venom. They were clearly adept at avoiding such attacks, instead forcing the vampires to fight with fists, elbows, and knees—a realm where the succubi clearly dominated.

  Sa
tterfield, cowering on the floor in a pile of broken glass, played no role in the battle. Chest heaving, eyes and nose glistening with wetness, she looked up at Rose and shot her a pleading gaze. Please make this stop. Somehow, make it stop.

  But Rose couldn’t make it stop. She had no power, not even those drawn from her votaries. She belonged, mind and body, to Alice McAleese.

  A titanic, banshee wail reverberated through the building with such force, Rose had to clamp her hands over her ears. Even then, the sound penetrated to her brain like a knife plunged through her skull. She reeled back, adding her scream to the sound, too overwhelmed to realize what was happening until a racing shadow crashed into Alice and a large knife bloomed from her chest.

  Piper pulled the knife free and plunged it into Alice’s breast a second time. She followed that blow up by sinking her fangs into Alice’s throat.

  Blood flew.

  Rose, the fear that had seized her shattered by Piper’s scream, watched dumbfounded as Alice’s two nearest lads scrambled to aid her. Piper spun away before they could lay hands on her, so they settled for dragging Alice’s limp form down the adjacent hall and into a bedroom. Melody and Figgin broke off their fight with Piper’s daughters to join their fellows in protecting Alice.

  Tamika, who looked battered but whole, aided her mother in standing between the Irish and the Order ops as the former retreated and the latter regrouped.

  In the next instant, Rose found herself moving and speaking as much by instinct and rote drill as by conscious thought. She drew voice as she socked her subgun to her shoulder. “Retreat! Everyone out!”

  “What?” Piper glared at Rose, her bloodied fangs shining.

  “We’re getting out of here while we can.” Rose motioned for her team to back toward the exit, barrels out.

  “We have them. Help me finish this.”

  “And expose my people to the fear draw again?” Rose shook her head. “To hell with that. We’re retreating while we can.”