Soul Bite

by D. N. Erikson

  “It’s Eden.” I let the gusts die down. “Tell Commander Scott I have Taylor, but the agent is being an uncooperative bitch.”

  Kai raised his eyebrow.

  Right now was as good a time as any to get a little payback for him being a goddamn martyr.

  Commander Scott’s voice cut through the cubicle hell. “You have him?”

  “Can’t move him with you assholes shooting. One of those rounds already caught me.”

  Scott sounded nervous when he said, “You sure that wasn’t the FBI?”

  “We’ll dig the bullet out and do a forensic match at Aldric’s, how about that?” I tilted my head up at the ceiling, staring at the sparking fluorescent lights.

  The building groaned as the wind abated and the commander said, “Hold your fire.”

  “I’m sending him out first.” I locked eyes with Kai, and we came to an understanding. The broad-shouldered agent slipped the bloody knife into his back pocket before standing up.

  He took a step out, his hands raised high.

  The sigil’s blue light cut through the flickering, dusty darkness.

  “He looks pretty pissed,” Commander Scott said, apparently satisfied that this proved I had captured the agent.

  “Tell me about it.” I used the pistol for leverage to stand. “Walk.”

  Kai trotted forward two feet, then stopped.

  I limped behind him and scanned the large room for threats. It was hard to see rifle scopes or men in the seizure-inducing flickers.

  To sell the gambit, I pressed the gun into his back and growled, “Move, asshole.”

  He did so slowly, and we wound our way through the shredded cubicles. Papers and chunks of manila folders littered the concrete beneath our feet.

  I could see the ruined hallway, where Commander Scott had ordered his men to breach with C4.

  “Stop right there.” Scott’s voice came from behind a bullet-battered stack of filing cabinets.

  “Afraid I’ll shoot you instead?” I asked.

  “I’ll take the prisoner from here.” Two men materialized behind us, seemingly out of the fog.

  Commander Scott obviously didn’t trust me.

  I’d disappeared after the breach, after all.

  He had every reason to believe the truth: that’d I’d gone rogue to pursue my own agenda.

  I nudged Kai with the pistol and said, “Now.”

  I spun. My heightened reflexes told me to aim for the guy on the left. His rifle was dangling from his chest, totally unprepared to fire.

  I shot him twice at close range. He staggered back, clutching his chest.

  Kai’s arm swung toward the other soldier, the stainless steel blade flashing.

  It caught the man in the throat. He went down.

  The guy who I’d shot moments earlier fumbled for his rifle. Must’ve been wearing body armor.

  Kai ripped the pistol from my hands and shot him once in the chest. A blue, wispy trail filtered from behind the bullet, lingering in the air.

  The magic had cut through the armor like it’d been a cheap cotton sheet.

  “What the…” But I didn’t have time to process before his strong hand was dragging me into a nearby cubicle as shots peppered the area around us.

  “Don’t kill them,” Commander Scott yelled. “We only need to hold for seventeen more minutes.”

  Eyes half-closed, I spotted a grenade hanging off the throat-cut soldier’s vest. My elbows scraped against the concrete as I reached for it.

  Bullets warned me off.

  I didn’t listen, snatching it anyway.

  I tossed it to Kai, who pulled the pin, then hurled it in the direction of the gunfire. An orange explosion erupted, and the suppressing fire stopped.

  The walls of the cubicle wobbled like a street sign caught in a hurricane. Then the walls tore from the ground with a screeching groan.

  A green glow emanated from behind the cabinets.

  Rifles cocked from other cubicles, owned by unseen gunmen.

  Kai ducked and rolled beneath the swirling walls of the cubicle, firing as he popped to his feet. Like before, blue trails accompanied the bullets. Their impact even sounded different—like they were ripping straight through the cabinets.

  I saw a man pop up, a rocket-launcher-like contraption perched on his shoulder. The air visibly displaced as he pulled the trigger.

  The sudden burst of wind buffeted Kai backward, hurling him into the swirling mass of debris. Then he and the ruined cubicle collapsed on the ground in a heap. The wreckage covered him entirely.

  “Well, you’ll still useful with a few broken bones,” Commander Scott said, stepping out from the ruined cabinets.

  I rolled to the rifle.

  Before I could reach it, a burst of wind blew it away. The metal clacked off the concrete as the gun bounced out of reach.

  “Don’t do that, Eden.” Boots stomped across the ruined office as his men hurried to join him. I counted nine, which meant that another squad had linked up for reinforcements.

  They took defensive positions, all their rifles aimed at me and Kai.

  Commander Scott stopped by the pile of debris and kicked a fractured piece of plywood. “Time to get up, Agent Taylor.”

  Nothing moved beneath the twisted wood and plastic.

  An uneasy tension hung in the stormy air. I could almost sense the other men’s fingers hovering over the triggers.

  I struggled to stand, but couldn’t do it on my own.

  So I crawled forward, into the open. A soldier positioned in the scorched hallway raised his rifle as if to say, Don’t try anything.

  I collapsed face first. Into the concrete. I muttered, “Get Master Aldric down here.”

  “My instructions are—”

  I craned my neck just slightly to look at Commander Scott. “I’m going to die if he doesn’t come to me. That’s just the way it is.”

  Commander Scott ran his hand through his buzzed head, and terror ran through his eyes.

  Bring me to Aldric dead, and he’d soon be joining me.

  Get duped and bring Aldric into an ambush, and Scott would also stamp his own one-way ticket to the afterlife.

  That left him with no choice.

  He set down the Rainmaker near the debris and pulled out a phone.

  Stray gunfire still reverberated outside. The FBI was still standing, if a little worse for wear.

  That gave us a chance.

  Miniscule as it was.

  Scott coughed, and said, “Sir? Sorry to bother you, but the Reaper has taken a bullet.” He nodded. “Yes, we’re working on stabilizing her condition.” He snapped his fingers at the rest of the squadron. They sprung into action around me. “She’s requesting your presence down here. Says she won’t make it.”

  Two men flipped me over so that I was on my back.

  Scott glanced over and said to me, “He wants to know why he needs to come down here.”

  I said, “So he can still get the sword if I die. I can tell him.”

  Scott relayed that story, ending with, “Master Aldric, she did try to ambush my men.”

  A strong hand clasped my wounded leg, and I screamed. Damn that hurt.

  “I understand, sir. We’ll make sure the area is safe.”

  Antiseptic burned as it poured into the ragged hole. I kicked, but three soldiers kept me pinned down.

  I noticed Scott watching intently through the thicket of arms, so I screamed louder for his benefit.

  Fear poured through his eyes. “What are you doing to her?”

  “Standard procedure, commander,” one of the men replied.

  I unleashed a roiling groan that suggested otherwise.

  With his ass and career on the line, Commander Scott couldn’t maintain a hands-off approach. He rushed across the room and leaned over his men to check on me.

  I flashed my almost-formed fangs at him. “This isn’t going to end well for you.”

  “Can you give her something? Morphine or epinep
hrine?”

  “Epinephrine might stop her heart, sir.”

  “It’s liable to stop anyway,” Scott said, unwilling to be the man who stood by and did nothing while his employer’s most valuable asset bled out. “Get it from the kit.”

  Hands clattered through a first aid kit.

  A needle gleamed above me in the intermittent light.

  “You’re sure about this, sir?”

  “Do it,” Commander Scott said.

  It rocketed toward my chest.

  There was a scraping noise from the pile.

  I felt the pinch in my chest.

  A feeling of unhinged exhilaration. Warmth and pure energy flooding through my body.

  I snapped upright and sank my teeth into the soldier’s neck.

  And then a massive gust of wind sent us all flying across the room.

  62

  I popped up when the wind died down. The smell of wet concrete mingled with the smoke. The soldiers groaned on the floor, scattered around me like action figures.

  Commander Scott crawled along the floor, stunned from the blast.

  His fingers grasped for his rifle.

  “Don’t do that.” Kai strode through the wreckage, shirt missing, arm aglow, the Rainmaker propped over his shoulder. A breeze swirled around the strange launcher, rustling his hair like this was a shampoo commercial.

  The swath of destruction—broken vinyl cubicles, shattered glass, dangling wires—ruined that vibe, though.

  As he approached, I could taste the lingering remnants of Lucille’s soul channeled through the magical weapon.

  The ash.

  The cheap bourbon.

  I spat into the smoky dust, but the taste refused to go away.

  Commander Scott went for the rifle.

  Kai drew a pistol from his holster with his off hand and shot the commander square in the head.

  A blue trail lingered in the bullet’s wake. Little beads of light drifted to the ruined ground like dying fireflies.

  “Way to distract them, Eden.” He pointed the pistol at the other men. “Anyone else want to be a hero?”

  They all stayed face down on the concrete. Kai set the Rainmaker at my feet, then disarmed the surviving members of Scott’s squad. There were five. A couple hadn’t survived the Rainmaker’s blast, and the unfortunate man who I’d bitten had bled out.

  I limped to Kai, feeling oddly good given the circumstances. Must’ve been the shot. “How much time we got?”

  Kai handed me the pistol and checked a phone that he’d lifted from one of the men. “About thirteen minutes.”

  Cutting it close. The blood on my lips tasted good.

  Really good.

  The human part of my brain was pretty grossed out about that.

  “Call Rayna. I’ve got a plan.”

  “Didn’t you have a plan before?”

  I shrugged. “Allegedly.”

  Kai rolled his eyes, his sigil still glowing fiercely. “And what’s the plan this time?”

  “Give me that thing.” I pointed at the Rainmaker.

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “You’ll see,” I said with a smile. “Just make the call.”

  “Will do, Eden.” The darkness swirling around his soul receded as he looked into my eyes. “Will do.”

  63

  At seven minutes out, and still no sign of Aldric, that sense of euphoria had transformed into panicked, over-adrenalized dread.

  My fangs felt sharper.

  My skin looked paler.

  And I felt the urgent need to call the vampire.

  Not to ask where he was.

  But to warn him.

  Outside the Getaway, in the body-strewn and slightly smoldering street, SUVs moved into place around us. This was the best plan we could organize on short notice.

  After all, the vampire had to be alive when I took his soul and fangs.

  The other complicating factor? The FBI didn’t have silver bullets.

  Something about government contracts and new ammunition having to be tested and cleared.

  So, even if I had wanted to kill Aldric in a blaze of gunfire, I’d have been shit-outta-luck.

  The pistol felt heavy at my side, even though the tide had turned.

  The stragglers had surrendered after we’d announced, using their communications, that Commander Scott was dead. Despite their allegiance to Aldric, that had sapped the men of their will to fight.

  I suspected that most of them were mercenaries rather than loyal disciples of the vampire.

  One problem with being a warlord. Your cause rarely engenders the type of deep-set loyalty that will make people fight and grind until their bones are dust.

  Even a sociopathic thousand-year-old warlock would eventually have enough of your shit.

  Six minutes.

  My stomach turned over. The only one truly loyal would be me.

  Forever and ever, trapped within my own hellish prison.

  “The vampire wants the sword, Eden.” Kai’s arms were crossed over his bare torso. Maybe to keep warm or maybe because he was deep in thought. “He’ll come for us.”

  “And if we can’t stop him?” I glanced at the FBI technicians, who were working on a massive grid of lights as Magnus hammered at the Rainmaker.

  The cannon sat in scattered pieces at his large feet.

  The rest of the team had been stationed at the headquarters—the original plan being that I would kill Aldric, then Zoe would rush in to brew the antidote from the vampire’s fangs and soul. The others would be on hand for contingencies—should their specific skills be needed to improvise out of a jam.

  That’s what was happening now. They’d torn ass in Sierra’s car, closing the five-block gap in a couple minutes.

  But being here also put the rest of them in the crosshairs.

  Rayna Denton marched into the center of the road. Her normally perfect face was streaked with dirt, and she had a wild-eyed look that said, Don’t screw with me.

  “Units at the end of the street report no movement, Hunter.”

  “Great.” I swallowed my fear. “If he doesn’t show…

  “He’ll show,” Rayna’s blonde hair bounced as she nodded with vigor. “That bastard needs to be removed from the equation.”

  I cleared my throat to finish my thought. “And if he doesn’t show on time, I need you to shoot me.”

  Rayna blinked. “That’s not an option.”

  “Come on,” I said with a little smirk, “you know you’ve wanted to do it once or twice.”

  Rayna looked shockingly uncomfortable about the idea. With a scornful nod, she said, “You might not even make it five minutes.”

  Then she hurried away like she was fleeing from a swarm of bees.

  “Really thought she’d jump at that one,” I said.

  “If you die, what happens to me?” Kai asked.

  “Not sure what you mean.”

  “You know exactly what I mean.”

  I ran my tongue over the sharp fangs. “Guess you’re not getting laid then.”

  He snorted. “Did I miss when we slept together?”

  I turned to him. “Oh, trust me, buddy. You wouldn’t forget that.”

  We looked at one another. Our tender moment was interrupted by a sharp scream up the street.

  “Everyone disappear,” I yelled. “Aldric is coming.”

  The accumulated personnel scrambled to disappear.

  Thirty seconds later, Aldric strolled past one of the SUVs, holding a head.

  He flung it at my feet.

  The lights came on—street lights, headlights, high wattage crime scene lamps.

  I felt a tingling in my pale skin and discomfort.

  I said, “Master Aldric—”

  “A weak trap, even by your standards.” The vampire vanished from view. Then I heard, behind me, “Are all these cars supposed to blind me with their high beams?”

  I whirled around, but he was already gone. “It’s over
. Your men are dead.”

  “There are hundreds more,” Aldric said, holding yet another head. This one he hurled over his shoulder. “But I can kill all these pathetic humans without them.”

  Bullets rang out, muzzle flashes coming from windows and from behind trees.

  “Hey, you’re gonna kill me instead!” I yelled.

  This hadn’t been designed as a chokepoint to douse the vampire in gunfire.

  This was an ambush to incapacitate him.

  I needed him alive.

  “This was a poor plan, Eden.” Aldric almost smiled. Blood streaked his tailored suit. His emerald eyes were calm and controlled, despite the display of savagery.

  Looking into his eyes, I felt the magnetic pull.

  You want to follow him.

  Help him kill all the agents.

  Do it.

  I began walking to him.

  Kai grabbed my arm.

  “Don’t stop her from her true desires.” Aldric’s cold fingers yanked us apart, sending Kai to the ground.

  A thin trail of sweat trickled down Aldric’s bloodied face. His skin looked slightly flushed.

  Maybe the illumination was working.

  Another plus: I no longer felt compelled to be by his side.

  Okay, only a little.

  “Come on, Magnus,” I muttered, “get the searchlight working.”

  Nothing.

  My phone buzzed three times in my pocket.

  Three minutes left.

  Aldric stalked around Kai, paying him little heed. “I would have been disappointed if you had given in before the three days were up.”

  “Glad to oblige.”

  “It proves what I always saw in you.”

  “Which was?”

  “Resilience. Always finding a way.” He threw off his suit jacket. “That cannot be taught.”

  I raised the pistol.

  “You can’t kill me with that.”

  I pointed it at my own chest instead, hooking my finger deep over the trigger. “You’re right. I can’t.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Only a couple minutes before we find out.” I tried to keep my hand from shaking.

  I didn’t want to die.

  But I didn’t want to do unspeakable things for Aldric until the universe withered and died in a supernova at the end of time, either.