I crossed to them and put a hand on Mary's arm. "We've got to move."
The woman looked up from Mary's breast "O...out there? With those things?"
I forced a smile. "I kinda have to. It's in the job description. Vampire hunter."
"I...I can't." Her shoulders started shaking as more sobs racked her body.
"Hush, child." Mary pulled her close again. "It'll be okay."
"I don't think you want to stay here." I waved at the immobilized vampires on the floor. Already the bullet wounds had closed.
The woman's eyes started flicking from side to side in panic.
I leaned down, trying to catch her eyes with mine. "It's okay. We'll put you in one of the other offices. You just sit tight. I'll be drawing their attention to me so none of them will be looking for any prey up here. You'll be as safe as I can make you."
"P...promise?"
"Cross my heart." I waved my finger in an X pattern over my chest.
"Okay." She turned her legs off the desk and rose shakily to her feet.
Mary and I got the woman settled into one of the adjacent offices, a small office with a second room off the back. Both doors locked. I heard the door lock click when the woman secreted herself in the back room. I could not lock the front door as it only locked with a deadbolt and required a key. After the noise I'd made, I kept expecting more vampires, or people Pushed by them, to show up, but the halls remained silent.
The lack of any further gunfire to indicate Tanner and Reid's progress disturbed me. I put thoughts of them aside. I could not worry about them while continuing my own search.
After five floors, I could see Mary was exhausted. Her breath came in short gasps and every time I paused, she would lean against the wall.
"This is not working," I said. "This building is just too big and who's to say one of the vampires doesn't zig while I zag."
Mary turned her head aside for a moment then said. "Judy wants to know if you got another plan."
I thought about it. The vampires had abandoned secrecy and gone for terror. They would want something splashy, something that would show the world that they were in control. We had managed to clamp down on news related to the children's hospital and the university, keeping at least those murders attributed to a cult. They'd want something we could not silence, something that would show that the police, that the government could not stop them. They would want the world to have a front row seat.
"Where does the city council, or whatever Indianapolis calls it, meet?"
"Second floor. Room two-sixty."
I blinked in surprise. I had been musing aloud, not expecting Mary to answer the question.
She must have seen the surprise in my face because she continued.
"I likes to sit in the back during public sessions and watch. If I clean up and wear, you know, normal-type clothes nobody bothers me. And I get to see how the high and mighty do things."
I gave her a smile, then I looked at the room number on the nearest office. Damn, that was a long way down.
"I'm gonna have to move fast, Mary. You can try to follow along or you can hole up here. Your choice."
"Not many people would give Crazy Mary a choice," she said.
I shrugged.
"If the necksuckers come back, what I do then?"
"I'll try to keep their attention on me. Whatever happens, I think the action is going be down there, in a room with cameras. You should be safe until it's all over."
"Can I...?" She waved in the direction of my duffle.
I considered for a moment. I still did not feel comfortable giving her a gun, especially one that was not mine to give. And nothing else would help her, not a human against vampires.
I handed her one of the stakes. If it made her feel better, that was good enough reason to give it to her.
"Stay safe," I said.
"You watch yo'r back."
"Will do."
I pushed open the fire door to the stairs and dashed through it.
I swore at myself as I dashed down the stairs. What I was doing was exactly the wrong thing from just about every perspective. What I should have been doing is continuing down the building, picking off vampires in ones and twos like I had been.
The problem was, if I did that a lot of people were going to die, and die on national news in living color. I didn't know if I could stop that but I had to try.
At each floor I stopped to catch my breath. Although I was stronger and faster than human, these endless stairs were pushing my limits. While pausing, I also listened for any sign of vampires on each floor. The need for speed meant I would have to risk leaving vampires active behind me but any vampire I could take out now would be one less vampire to face later.
Three floors down I heard a loud banging coming from the hallway outside the stairwell. I slammed open the door and spotted a vampire in the process of ripping a door off its hinges.
I barely slowed down. My right arm came up of its own accord, bringing the gun to bear. Sight picture. Squeeze. The bullet hit the vampire in the left temple, jerking its head to the side. As I continued forward, I reached the vampire before it had time to fall to the floor. I brought my left hand forward. I drove in with the stake, between the ribs and into the heart. The vampire crumpled, limp. Four down.
Something shot out of the room, whizzing past my head. I crouched and spun, peering into the room. Three women. One of them, an older woman, her hair almost a uniform silver, stood in front of the other two. She was in the process of picking up a metal office chair.
I holstered the gun and raised my hands.
"I'm human." I opened my mouth and ran my tongue along the edges of my teeth to show no fangs.
"No human moves like you did." There was fear in the woman's face, but her voice was strong. She held the chair up as though to fend me off with it.
I stepped back. "Really. One of the good guys."
Her eyes met mine for a moment then she nodded and lowered the chair. To be honest, I was surprised she'd managed to hold it that long. Those things were not light.
I lowered my hands. "You guys okay?"
Silver Hair looked back at the other two who were huddling behind a desk. "Think so."
"Okay. Sit tight. I'm heading down to try to take these guys out. I'll send word when it's safe."
"Take them out?" Silver Hair shook her head. "All by your lonesome? There's at least a dozen of those bastards."
"Well, there are some police and FBI working their way up from the bottom." I didn't want to tell her there was only one police officer and one FBI agent coming up the building. If they still were. "So stay here and stay calm and we'll get you out of this."
The look on her face suggested that she was seeing right through my evasion. After a moment she nodded. "You take care, Missy."
"Count on it." I turned and headed back to the stairwell.
I proceeded more slowly down the stairs, fatigue catching up to me. While I could have restored my energy and flushed all fatigue poisons by finding a vampire and drinking, I would be helpless while the blood burned through my system. The situation was not yet desperate enough for that.
My chest was heaving by the time I reached the floor containing the room where the city council met. I had not heard any further shots, which worried me. It was unlikely, a near impossibility, that Tanner and Reid had run into no more vampires. If they were down, that meant I was on my own.
I had to brush the thought aside. I could not take the time to worry about Tanner and Reid.
I paused at the stairwell door and holstered the gun. Gunshots telling the vampires that I was somewhere far above them in the building was one thing. Gunshots announcing my presence practically on their doorstep? That was something else entirely.
Instead, I drew the bone-handled dagger. I still did not know why it had worked against the vampires at Liz's grandmother's, but it did. It worked better than silver. I figured I'd need that edge.
I cracked open the do
or and peered out. Nothing.
I don't know what warned me, but I found myself springing out of the door and pivoting to face back the other direction.
Vampire. Closing fast. Mouth open to shout.
I charged toward the vampire, bringing my left hand up while keeping the dagger in my right, tucked at my side. I used my left to knock the vampire's left hand down, letting him get a grip on me with his right. The vampire's right hand grabbed me by the back of the neck, starting to pull me toward him. I let him, twisting against the force of his pull to keep myself facing him.
The vampire's mouth opened wider, no longer for shouting but seeking to bite. I had an instant to act. I hooked around with my right hand, driving the dagger into the side of the vampire's throat. The point emerged from the other side of the vampire's neck. The vampire gurgled, attempting to scream.
I pulled and sawed, drawing the knife edge out of the front of the vampire's throat. Blood spurted, showering me. Its grip on me released and it pulled both hands to its throat, trying to staunch the spray.
My left hand dove into the duffle and withdrew a stake. A moment later the vampire lay immobilized at my feet. Five. And at least one, maybe more, that Tanner and Reid had gotten. We were whittling them down.
My thoughts took but an instant. I pressed my back to the wall so I could see both directions in my peripheral vision.
A thump caught my attention back in the direction of the stairwell.
I eased another stake from the duffle.
The stairwell door opened. I took a slow step forward. The door stopped, half open. I crouched. The door started to swing shut. I saw Tanner come into view behind it, her left hand moving back from holding to door to where she held her own sidearm at low ready.
I let out the breath I had been half holding.
"Good hunting?" She asked.
I dropped the stake back into the duffle and held up an open hand, five fingers. She grinned and held up three fingers on her left hand.
"Reid?" I kept my breath to a bare whisper.
"Got too close to the last one. Hurled against a wall hard enough to break ribs. He's holed up in a supply closet."
I nodded. "I figure..."
Her eyes met mine. They narrowed. Her gun came up. I froze. The gun roared.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
At the sound of the gunshot, I pivoted. Of course she hadn't been aiming at me. A vampire stood swaying in the hallway, the top half of his head a red ruin. I charged it, my hand feeling in the duffle for the stake I had dropped back into it.
As I neared I saw that the wound was already closing. An old vampire then. I closed, driving the dagger down into the wound left by the silver tipped bullet. The vampire screamed. With my other hand, I drove upward with the stake, piercing the solar plexus and into the heart. The vampire had just enough time for its hands to close on the butt of the stake before it dropped limp to the floor. I licked my lips and then spat at the taste of blood. I was still half covered in the stuff.
I glanced back and saw that Tanner had pivoted, covering our rear. I checked front. Nothing.
Why was there nothing? That gunshot should have brought the remaining vampires howling for our blood. Literally for our blood.
"Clear," I said.
"Clear rear," Tanner said. "What's the plan?"
"I figure they're looking for the biggest audience they can get. Your computer guy, Tommy, has been in their pocket for I don't know how long."
"Tommy? Jesus, I liked that kid."
I held up a hand. "Probably not his own fault. I figure they Pushed."
Tanner nodded.
The ideas that had been building in the back of my head came spilling out. "Tommy would have told them that it's just us who know about vampires. They have nothing to fear from police. Even if the police open up on them, the bullets won't do anything. That may be part of their plan. The only ones they have any reason to be afraid of right now are you and me, and we are just two."
Tanner looked belligerent. "Looks like we've cut a pretty good swath through them already."
I nodded, "Picking them off one or two at a time. They'll be concentrated now, I think. It's why no one has come after us despite the racket. Also, they'll have the Pushed police with them. How anxious are you to shoot Detective Ware?"
"What? You bitch!"
I held up a hand again. "Push at this level will make a person ignore pain, ignore self-preservation. A person Pushed by an elder vampire will walk into a fire and let himself be slow-roasted to death. You can't break it without something stronger than that. It can be fear. It can be love. It can be curiosity, for that matter. But it has to be stronger than self-preservation to break through that kind of Push."
"Shit. I hate you, you know that, don't you?"
"And I love you too, but that's what we're dealing with. Can you do what needs to be done?"
"I'm not killing another cop. No way."
"Then just don't get in my way if I have to. We have to stop these vampires or it will be massacre after massacre until they have the entire nation too terrified to breath."
I stared her in the eye. Long seconds later she looked away.
"Fuck you." Tanner shook her head. "So? What now?"
"Council meeting room, I figure. A big place with cameras."
Tanner nodded down the hall. "This way then."
Tanner moved off at a trot and I followed her. She stopped at a set of double doors. I put a hand on her arm before she could pull one of the doors open.
"You start from the left." I drew the CZ75. "I'll start from the right. Double tap each vampire you see. Head shots if you can do it. Put them down fast. If we're fast enough, it will break the push before the vampires can give the people any orders." I met her eyes and she nodded. "I'll go around with stakes while you watch for any that start to rise and put them back down."
I smiled. "With any luck, we'll be done in time for dinner."
Tanner did not return my smile. "On three."
I nodded. "One."
I grasped the door handle. "Two."
I jerked. "Three." The door flew open.
I sprang through the door, pivoting to the right. I brought up the gun and...nothing. I let my eyes sweep the room. Empty. Scattered jackets and briefcases indicated that people had been here but now? No one.
Tanner snorted. "What now, genius?"
I allowed myself a bare moment to consider the empty room.
"Anything on the radio?"
Tanner shook her head.
"So they're still in the building."
"Where?" I wondered aloud. The vampires would want to make a show of it, to demonstrate their power to a wide audience and instill terror. My eyes flicked to a stand with a camera on it. This was where the cameras were. This was...
It hit me.
I ran across the room to the other pair of doors. Cameras. And reporters. And an area open for slaughter while the vampires prove that the police are helpless to stop them.
I barely noted Tanner following. I hit the door without slowing. I did not quite rip it from its hinges with the impact but I could feel the door flex. From the corner of my eye, I spotted movement to my right. I managed to skid to a stop and turn to see someone's trailing leg disappear into the stairwell on this side of the building.
I sprinted. I hit the crash bar on the stairwell door and burst through to see a crowd milling down the stairs. One of the vampires followed the crowd closely. Trailing about half a flight of stairs behind them was a lone figure, carrying a pump-action shotgun.
James.
The vampire turned looking back at me. He then turned to James.
"Kill her."
The shotgun came up.
I froze. I knew I needed to bring my gun up and shoot James. It was him or me. My arm refused to move.
I watched helpless in my unwillingness to shoot my partner, my friend, the man I...I shut that thought off immediately. James angled the shotgun up the stairs until it
pointed at my face. I looked right down the barrel, a black pit that seemed a gaping maw, before I could turn my attention past it to James.
Sweat beaded on James' forehead. A tremble shook the barrel of the shotgun. I saw his right hand tense and I flinched, expecting to feel my death in that moment.
James froze.
And then I realized what had happened. Vampire Push could make a person ignore pain, ignore self-preservation. But neither pain nor self-preservation were the strongest drives in Detective James Ware. His strongest instinct was to protect others, to protect the innocent. He would run through fire to protect another.
To protect his city.
To protect me.
"James," I said softly. "You don't want to do this. You know me. I'm not the threat to your city. It's the monster who has hold of you who's the threat. If we don't stop them, they'll kill your city council. They'll kill the police and newsmen outside. And then they'll go through the city and kill and kill and kill. You don't want that."
I had to be making an impression. He still did not pull the trigger. I felt Tanner approach behind me but she said nothing.
"Break free of this, James. You can do it. You're a Protector. And that's stronger than any Push. Tell him, Tanner. Tell him how strong he is."
Tanner put a hand on my shoulder as she leaned partway around me. "Dammit, James, you're better than this. You're the most dedicated cop I know. Cops put bad guys away. They don't fall under their spell."
While Tanner was talking, I spared a glance down the stairwell. The hostages had disappeared around the next turn of the stairs but the vampire had paused.
"What are you waiting for?" The vampire sneered. "Kill them. Kill them both."
James' eyes narrowed. He snugged the shotgun into his shoulder. I crouched, wondering if I could cross the space between us before he could fire.
James twisted at the waist. The shotgun swung around and down. He fired. A long tongue of flame licked out of the shotgun and enveloped the vampire. The vampire's clothes smoldered. James racked the slide of the shotgun and fired again. Another tongue of flame. The vampire began to burn.
With the second round, James screamed and dropped the shotgun. His hands clamped to his head as his legs folded.
The Unmasking (Dhampyre the Hunter Book 1) Page 22
