Hot Case

by Patricia Rosemoor

I didn’t know how this could be possible, but if by some miracle she’d been brought back to life…

  Even as I thought it, I knew it couldn’t be true, and yet I said, “Help me get my sister out of here, LaTonya, and I’ll take you back to your mother.” I wanted to believe that it was possible. “And you, Thora, I’ll take you anywhere you want.”

  “I know you will.”

  I started when Thora’s eyes began to glow and her incisors elongated. I tried to tell myself I was seeing things, but I knew I wasn’t.

  From the bed, Silke was messaging me: Vampire, run!

  I didn’t want to believe it, but what other explanation was there? Even so, when a high-pitched whine seared my ears and the two stepped toward me menacingly, I held out my very normal, sure-to-stopa-human gun.

  “Halt right there.”

  Thora and LaTonya looked at each other and laughed sardonically. As if giving her partner permission, LaTonya leaned back against a pillar and tilted her head at Thora, who licked her lips and smiled wider.

  When Thora attacked, I whipped her with the baton, but she easily pulled it out of my hand and tossed it behind me. I tried kicking her away, but she bounced back, and an eye blink later, she was on me. Literally. Her clawed nails dug into my neck, and I couldn’t budge her. When she opened her mouth and gave me a gander at those incisors, I knew where she was aiming them. I tried to keep her from sinking them into me, but I wasn’t strong enough. Sharp little knives cut into my throat, and I could hear Silke screaming in my head to stop her before she killed me.

  Without acknowledging what I had to do, I squeezed the trigger. Thora let go and jerked back, looked down at her bleeding thigh and touched the wound.

  I expected her to fall.

  Run! Silke screamed in my head. Though a little woozy, I wasn’t going anywhere without her.

  Her expression furious, Thora said, “That hurts!” and came at me again.

  I backhanded her with the gun, but steel on jaw didn’t faze her. She grabbed me by the throat again, and this time picked me up off the ground and shook me like a rag doll. I got off another couple of rounds. Didn’t miss her once. Holes and red blotches bloomed in her clothing, but she didn’t go down. Shit! Vampires bleed. The next thing I knew, she threw me to the ground and was on me, mouth smacking open, her fetid breath on my face, leaving me no choice but to trust what everyone had been telling me.

  That Thora was one of the undead.

  She clamped her mouth over my neck and began to suck. I felt the blood rush through me and into her. For a second, my eyes closed and I swayed into the sensation. Silke jerked me out of it telepathically, and I knew if I didn’t do something now, I would die.

  I dropped the gun and reached into my pocket to withdraw what had been, in my opinion, a questionable weapon. But the moment I touched the crucifix to the side of her face, Thora screeched and drew back, her cheek smoking and smelling of burned flesh.

  I fisted the crucifix and, as hard as I could, swung again. The wood plunged straight into her chest, and I prayed that whatever God she believed in could forgive her for what she’d become.

  Screaming, Thora rolled away from me, crawled a few paces and got to her feet. Arms flapping, chest smoking, she stumbled back into the boudoir until, with a choked cry, she fell face forward to the carpeted floor. She jerked once as the crucifix hopefully destroyed her heart, and then went still, smoke billowing out from under her.

  I was having trouble breathing now, both from the exertion and from the realization of what had just happened. Of what was certainly going to happen again with LaTonya, who lowered her head menacingly at me. I remembered the photograph of her I’d used when trying to find out what had happened after her body had disappeared. She’d looked so young and innocent. I mourned inside for that girl she had been.

  But she wasn’t that innocent girl anymore, and I had a sister to save.

  “Now you just made me mad!” LaTonya said in the whiny voice of the teenager she no longer was. “I’m not even hungry.”

  This wasn’t LaTonya, I told myself again. This was some kind of monster.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “For what?”

  “For making this easier.”

  I hadn’t wanted to believe, but how could I not?

  I reached into my other jacket pocket and wrapped my hand around the second object I’d picked up at the church. The vial of holy water popped out as she rushed me.

  Seeing it, LaTonya screeched, “Oh, no!” and grabbed my wrist.

  She squeezed until it went numb, but I held my arm stiff and kept my fingers locked by sheer will. I let her push at me and push at me until we were right up against the wall. Then I freed my arm muscles so my hand—and the glass vial—smacked into the concrete.

  The glass smashed into shards and the holy water doused her legs. Her scream echoed through the tunnels as her flesh began to smoke and dissolve before my eyes.

  Her face literally disappeared.

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

  I pulled my stun gun and shocked the body into dropping. LaTonya wasn’t there anymore—I knew that—but I still didn’t want to see whatever was left of her suffering as the flesh fell from her bones.

  Noise from the tunnel I left behind caught up to me. Other cops? How was I going to explain what had happened here? I wondered, driven to get Silke out and fast.

  “I’ll have you free in no time,” I promised her, pulling the knife as I rushed over to the bed and set down the duffel bag.

  Her eyes were wild and she was shaking her head at me.

  “I know it’s horrible, but it’ll be all right.”

  Vampire, she telegraphed.

  “I know. I think I finally believe you.”

  I used the knife to free one of her arms, and it fell limply to the bed. Silke was still rolling her eyes and making urgent sounds through the gag.

  “Oh, sorry.”

  I set the knife down on her chest long enough to pull the material from her mouth.

  “Behind you!” Silke croaked the warning.

  I whirled and gasped as a blur became a shape and I realized I was looking at the real master vampire, the only person other than Jake or Desiree whose power I had felt.

  “Very well done, my lovely. You don’t disappoint.”

  “You do, Blaise.”

  I guess it had been difficult for me to see the effeminate purveyor of personal decorative arts as a powerful killer. Then again, the decorative arts involved mutilation, if of a civilized kind. He wore his own work on his arms, now revealed fully to me for the first time, and I noted he’d used pigments that glowed in the dark that revealed images to match the ones he’d given to his victims.

  There was LaTonya’s winged gargoyle, Raven’s blackbird, Thora’s pin.

  “You took the lives of those young girls.”

  “No, Shelley, you did that.”

  I was aware of Silke’s having picked up my knife. I moved deeper into the chamber, drawing attention away from my twin so she could cut herself free. Movement from the section of tunnel where I’d left LaTonya’s body caught my eye, but I didn’t dare turn away from Blaise Allcock to check as to the source.

  I said, “I destroyed what you made of them—bottom feeders like yourself.”

  “I certainly hope you can curb your tongue once I turn you. I would be very disappointed if I heard such drivel from one with such potential.”

  “Turn me? Not in this lifetime.”

  “Well, that is the point, is it not?” Blaise stepped closer and caught my gaze. “To make you and your sister my companions for many lifetimes.”

  “How many women have you done that with—and where are they?”

  “A vampire needs variety in his life. And you destroyed my latest works of art.”

  “Art? You took a bright young woman with a future and destroyed her. I remember how horrified I was when I found her body—”

  “You found her?”

  �
�Surprise. I’m a cop. My informant, Junior Diaz, called me after you drained her blood. You killed him, didn’t you? But you used your strength to break his bones rather than suck his blood. Why?”

  “Naturally I didn’t want his death raising questions in the right direction.” Suddenly, he frowned at me. “Where are the earrings?”

  The ones with the little gargoyle faces, symbol of his projected control over me? “I decided I didn’t care for them, after all.”

  “They were my gift to you!”

  His gaze caught me and held me, and I felt some of the tension drain from me. He was trying to mesmerize me as he had while putting the earrings on me.

  “Stop that!”

  “I haven’t even started,” Blaise told me.

  I knew he thought he had me. He seemed to light from the inside out. And his eyes…they burned for me, literally.

  I was trying to fight him, but it became more difficult as he moved closer. One more step and I would have to draw a weapon…only which one? He took the step and reached out a hand, and I stared at his nails, long and sharp.

  A deep voice said, “Don’t touch her, Allcock!” breaking the vampire’s hold on me.

  “DeAtley,” Blaise said. “This is no concern of yours!”

  He slashed his hand toward my arm and ripped right through my jacket sleeve. If I hadn’t moved fast, he would have cut deep into my arm. I glanced down at the blood oozing from the inside of my elbow over the jacket sleeve, then back at Jake. My eyes widened as he locked gazes with me, his eyes glowing the same way Thora’s and LaTonya’s and Desiree’s had.

  The same way Blaise’s did now as he turned to meet his foe. “Go now. Leave the woman to me and I’ll spare you.”

  “Now that I’ve found you,” Jake said, “I’m going to send you to hell where you belong before you corrupt someone else I care about.”

  My heart thudded at the last. Jake cared about me?

  My arm was pulsing where Blaise had cut me, and blood was oozing from the wound. I ripped the torn sleeve and used it to press on the cut, then bent my elbow the way I did after having blood drawn.

  “It’s two against one,” I said, taking a quick look to see how Silke was doing. Both hands and one foot free.

  Blaise laughed. “Two mortals.”

  “One mortal,” Jake corrected. “And one son of a vampire that you made.”

  “I’m not your sire.”

  “No, you’re not. You turned my mother while I was in her womb. I’m sure you remember her.”

  “Which one was she?” Blaise asked, as if he’d turned many pregnant women into his blood-and-sex slaves.

  “Vampire!”

  Jake spit the word like the curse that it was and then moved so fast he was in the chamber opening one second and standing mere feet before Blaise the next. Vampire and half-breed sized each other up like two gunfighters in the Old West preparing for a duel. Jake had the advantage of size, but I feared Blaise was far more deadly. Suddenly, Jake flew at Blaise, and Blaise likewise leaped at him. The men locked bodies and whirled up to the ceiling, making ferocious, high-pitched sounds that threatened not only my ears but also my nerves.

  I gaped. What could I do?

  I gave Silke a quick look. She was working on the last of the bindings, which secured her left ankle.

  She would be free in a minute.

  It was Jake who needed my help if only I could figure out how.

  For a moment, all I could do was stare as Jake and Blaise fought blindingly fast and hard, their bodies settling back to the floor as they tore into each other at close range with everything they had. Then Blaise threw Jake across the room and went after him again.

  What if Jake couldn’t take Blaise?

  Still nursing my cut arm, I used the other hand to grab the throwing stars from my pocket. I sent them sailing at Blaise. One, two, three. The sharp weapons embedded themselves in the vampire’s neck and head, and droplets of blood rolled down his pale skin, but he barely gave me a glance. As if they were pesky mosquitoes, he ignored the pointy weapons and struck out with clawlike nails that left gashes in the side of Jake’s face.

  The scar—was that how he’d gotten it, I wondered, from fighting another vampire? I went over in my mind the ways to destroy one. No more holy water or crucifixes available, but I had one other weapon of vampire destruction.

  Hands shaking, ignoring the pain throbbing from the cut, I slid the weapon out of the duffel bag.

  Silke nearly fell from the bed as she attempted to stand. She wobbled and clung to the post.

  “Get out of here,” I told her. “Go now, while you can!”

  “Not without you.”

  Silke couldn’t defend herself. She was a liability. Part of me wanted to take her hand and run for it.

  No. I couldn’t. Not while Blaise was still walking.

  I couldn’t abandon Jake.

  This time it was Blaise who went flying. He crashed onto his back and seemed stunned from the force of his landing. Jake was right after him.

  Holding the tool firmly on the ground, the dangerous end pointing away from me, I tugged the cord with a quick, sharp motion. No luck. I tried again, then cursed the thing. Maybe three times would be the charm.

  Suddenly, Blaise flew from the floor and pinned Jake against the wall, and in his hand I saw one of the throwing stars slashing toward Jake’s jugular.

  This time, the motor started up with a racket and a kick that almost knocked me on my butt. I recovered fast and grabbed on with both hands. It took all my strength to lift the damn thing. I had to act before Blaise realized what I was up to. He started to turn and I lunged forward, putting the entire force of my body as I swung the chain saw toward him. His gaze connected with mine one last time, wide-eyed and disbelieving.

  The bar of the chain saw connected with his neck. Blood splattered me as it ripped Blaise’s head off.

  Another evil dead.

  Jake and I linked disbelieving gazes over the headless body that was still standing. Jake was spattered with blood and I guessed I was, too. Then I realized Blaise had gotten him—the throwing star was embedded in his neck.

  I killed the motor and dropped the chain saw. “Jake!” I toppled Blaise’s headless body and stepped on it to get to him.

  Calmly, he pulled the throwing star free of his flesh and staggered against me. I held his weight and tried not to panic when I heard a gurgling sound. I pressed my hand to his flesh hard to stop the bleeding, but my stomach sank and suddenly my heart felt as if a block of ice encased it.

  Then Silke screamed, “Shell, watch it!”

  Hanging on to Jake, keeping my hand pressed hard to the bleeder, I glanced over my shoulder to see what was left of LaTonya staggering toward me. I hadn’t destroyed her after all, and now she was out for revenge.

  There was nothing I could do without letting Jake die.

  Behind her, Silke stretched toward one of the torches but couldn’t quite reach it. With a screech of impatience, she called, “Fire!” and flattened her hand, palm up. “By my hand and heart, cleanse this room of evil!”

  The fire jumped from the torch to skim her hand before continuing on to its target. I gaped as flames engulfed the monster, who went berserk, blindly thrashing into the velvet draperies. The cloth went up like a torch, and I realized the fire would spread quickly.

  “Come on,” I said, half-dragging Jake toward the tunnel without letting go of his neck. I would get Silke to talk later. “We have to get you to a hospital.”

  “I’ll be okay,” he promised weakly. “I heal fast.”

  He had to be okay. “How fast?” I asked, holding my arm out to Silke, who, with a glance back at the spreading fire, got to Jake’s other side.

  Jake didn’t answer.

  Which meant he didn’t know if it would heal fast enough. The three of us limped out of there as rapidly as we could while the room went up in flames behind us. I was thinking ahead, wondering if I could call for paramedics with my ce
ll phone down here.

  Without thinking about it, I stopped and shoved my cut arm at Jake. “Drink!” I rasped, feeling sick at the thought of his doing so.

  Silke gasped and I knew she was freaked.

  I wouldn’t let him die. I shoved my arm at him harder.

  Jake’s eyes glowed again as he looked at me and I could see he was tempted.

  Then he shook his head. “No. That’s not who I am.”

  I would have argued, but the fire rumbled as if threatening to follow us. “Let’s get out now!”

  We’d made the turn when the fire must have penetrated a gas line somewhere. The explosion that followed shook the tunnel floor beneath our feet, and I knew I was hearing the ceiling and walls crashing down.

  “What was that?” I heard a familiar voice call from somewhere ahead.

  Walker.

  “Sounded like an explosion. But who the hell knows. I don’t even know where I’m at.”

  Norelli.

  Backup had finally arrived.

  Chapter 19

  By the time we got up to the street, everyone had turned out for the party. Uniforms. Detectives. SWAT team. Mom must have gotten my message.

  “An ambulance!” I said, trying to drag Jake toward one that just arrived on the scene.

  “I told you I would be okay,” he said, taking my hand from the wound that was no longer bleeding.

  Why wasn’t I shocked? And the slashes across his face weren’t looking so bad, either.

  “Still, you could use help,” I said.

  He shook his head. “Too much explaining. I’ll be okay.”

  We’d found Norelli and Walker and they were dragging Hung Chung, who was babbling, answering voices in his head, into a police car.

  As a uniformed officer pushed Chung’s head down to get him into the squad car, Norelli muttered to me, “You’re a dangerous woman to cross, Caldwell.”

  “Just remember that,” I said.

  “Silke…Shelley…”

  “Mom!” Silke cried.

  I turned to see Mom get out of her vehicle and come toward us. Her expression relieved, she held her arms out to us both. I glanced over my shoulder at Jake as I stepped toward her. Then I was enfolded in an emotion-filled embrace.