“I said”—I elbowed her in the nose, hearing bone snap—“get”—I used the side of my hand to chop at her wrist—“off!” And then I dropped, pulling her off balance so that she stumbled. I used the momentum of a roll to toss her over. I managed to stretch just enough to reach the stake. I blocked Belinda’s second attack, mostly by happy accident. I twisted the stake and shoved it as hard as I could. She went to ash and drifted over the dirty pavement.
Matthew howled. He reared up furiously, slashing at Quinn with a penknife. I threw a rock at his head and kicked back to trip Paul before he could make a grab for me. Quinn leaned so far back his hair brushed the ground. He went into the turn completely and landed beside me.
“Back-to-back,” he ordered, but I was already pressing my shoulder blades against his. Standard hand-to-hand combat stance.
He was grinning.
I rolled my eyes. “How is this fun for you?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Not ash yet.”
“I can fix that,” Matthew hissed.
“You’re right,” Quinn said conversationally to me, as if we weren’t currently outnumbered and fighting for our lives. “This one just won’t shut up.” Quinn’s punch was so fast I heard the crack of one of Matthew’s fangs against Quinn’s knuckle. I didn’t see it but the sound was unique. “Let me help you with that.”
“You broke my tooth!” Matthew spat blood, the whites of his eyes going red with rage. It was just distracting enough that I missed Paul’s fist, until it caught my cheekbone. Pain bloomed over my face. I’d have a wicked bruise by morning. I stumbled back, bumping Quinn’s arm. He flicked a glance over his shoulder.
“Shit,” he said.”Your face.”
“Ow.” I agreed.
“Where the hell are your friends?”
“I don’t know.” But at least all the vampires were attacking us, not Chloe. Right now I wanted to kill her myself. I fumbled for the silver whistle around my neck, hanging next to the Drake coronation medallion. I only wore it on bait-nights. It looked like a little silver pendant but it was much more useful. I blew into it and the shrill whistle pierced the night.
“I don’t even want to know,” Quinn muttered, moving so fast he was a dark shadowy blur like ink spilled in the shape of a man. He was fighting off all three vampires as best he could, circling me protectively like dark fog.
“Let me help,” I shouted.
“You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine.” I insisted. The day one little punch, vampiric or not, took me out of an entire fight was the night I was no longer a Wild. “Let me in,” I adjusted the hold on my stake, slippery with Matthew’s blood. My throat hurt from being strangled, my face hurt from being punched, and we were surrounded.
And I was kind of having fun.
Probably not a good sign.
Chapter 14
•
Hunter
“On your right,” Quinn barked, materializing on my other side. I jabbed the stake to my right and caught flesh and bone, but not heart. Still, Paul stumbled and slowed down enough that I could see him clearly now, even in the dim light of a single faded streetlight. I jabbed again, hit closer to the heart.
And then everyone else was there in answer to my whistle. Jenna’s wicked aim took out Sam with a crossbow arrow. Jason stood back, holding Chloe, who clutched her side. I saw Spencer pop his vial of Hypnos and knew what he was about to do.
I took a deep breath, whirled, and grabbed Quinn, jerking him toward me. His eyes widened. My mouth closed over his just as Spencer tossed the Hypnos. It was everywhere, like confectioners’ sugar on a cupcake.
“Vampires stop!” he yelled.
I kissed Quinn harder, making sure he wasn’t inhaling any of the powder. He kissed me back, returning the favor.
His mouth was just as delicious as I’d imagined it would be. Not that I’d been thinking clearly about it. Not that I was capable of thinking right at that moment anyway.
His lips were cool, as if he’d been eating ice cream. His hands gripped my arms, holding me tight against his chest. His tongue touched mine, lightly, then deeper, until even my knees felt weak. I kissed him back. I wasn’t going to pull away and be the only one feeling soft as water. He made a sound in the back of his throat, like a groan or a purr.
It made me feel stronger than if I’d been fully armed.
His eyes opened, the pupils wide and very black. It was a long hot moment before I realized the sounds of battle had faded altogether, and not just because of the kiss. I pulled away, taking a deep breath. I knew I was blushing, knew Quinn could feel the warmth of my blood rushing to the surface of my skin. I took another breath.
Everyone was staring at us.
“Dude,” Spencer said.
I cleared my throat, taking a big step away from Quinn. I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t want to know yet if he was smirking. Matthew and Paul, the only two remaining vampires were slumped at our feet, glaring at us with furious pale eyes. Jenna stood over them, crossbow at the ready.
“Hypnos is going to wear off soon,” she warned.
I pushed my hair off my face. “We need to tie them up.” My voice was only a little squeaky.
“What for?” Quinn asked. “Stake them.”
We all stared at him. “They’re prisoners of war,” I said.
“They’re vampires.”
“So are you.”
“So I know what I’m talking about.”
I shook my head. “You can’t be serious.”
“You haven’t seen your face, Hunter,” he said coldly.
No, but I could feel it. The bruise was already throbbing under my eye and across my left cheekbone.
“We can’t just kill them in cold blood,” I insisted as the heat of battle faded. “We’re not assassins.”
“Then I’ll do it.”
I stepped between him and the vampires. “Don’t.”
“He has a point,” Jason said quietly.
“Hello? Killing a prisoner of war? Do you know how much detention that would be?” I swung around to stare at him. And now that they were immobilized, we’d have to stake them when they couldn’t fight back. Maybe I was being stupid, but it felt wrong this way. It was different in battle.
“Whatever we do, we have to do it fast,” Jenna interrupted us. “Like in the next three minutes.”
“We have enough rope to tie them up and call the mobile unit. They’ll come get them and lock them up.”
“Your puny knots won’t hold them,” Quinn said as I flipped open my cell phone and hit speed dial.
“Then your vampire ones will.” I gave him a dry glance, waiting for the call to go through. “So get tying.”
Jenna handed him the rope hanging from her belt. Quinn sighed after a moment and took it. “This is a bad idea,” he muttered, yanking hard on the rope.
“I’m with you,” Jason muttered back.
“Chloe needs a medic,” I said after I’d given our coordinates to the agent on the other line. I slipped the phone back in my purse. “So why don’t you guys take her back and I’ll stay here and wait for the unit.”
“It’s just a flesh wound,” she tried to joke. “Ow. Stupid vampire speed. Used my own knife against me.”
“You shouldn’t have snuck off on us,” Spencer said flatly to Chloe. “And you’re not staying here alone,” he told me firmly.
“I’ll stay,” Quinn said quietly.
I turned back to him, surprised. “You don’t have to. This is what we’re trained for, remember?”
“I’m staying.” He raised an eyebrow. “You need me.”
I opened my mouth to argue, just on principle, but Spencer cut in. “He’s right.” He tossed me an extra vial of Hypnos from his belt. “Just in case.”
“Chloe’s starting to bleed on my new shoes,” Jenna interjected. “So let’s go already.”
I bit my lip. “Should I go with you?” I asked her. “Are you okay?”
She was a little
pale but she looked more mad than in pain. “I’m fine. I’m sure I just need a couple of stitches.”
“And a smack on the head,” Jenna told her. “You knew the plan.”
“Can you yell at me later?”
“Count on it. We were in position. We almost didn’t get here in time.”
They hurried off, still bickering. The night was silent and a hundred shades of blue and gray. The streetlight made the shattered glass look as if some of the stars had fallen from the sky, littering the pavement. It was almost pretty.
You know, except for the two vampires currently tied up and wanting to kill me, the other vampire scowling at me, and the throbbing of my face.
I shook my head. “Grandpa would just love this.”
Quinn looked at me quizzically.
“The fact that a vampire is helping me babysit two other vampires,” I explained.
“Not a fan of the alliance?” he mocked.
“Um, no.”
“This bunch was hunting tourists all summer,” he said. “The papers were full of animal attacks on hikers, but animals don’t bite throats and drink blood. And now they’ve moved on to high school girls and college students. Not all bad vampires are conveniently blue,” he added, referring to the Hel-Blar.
“I didn’t say I wanted to buy them cake,” I defended myself. “I just don’t want to murder them either.”
“They’d have murdered you.”
“All the more reason to not do what they’d do.”
His grin was crooked. “You must drive your grandfather crazy.”
I half grinned back. “Probably. And, ironically, he’d agree with you. He’d want me to stake them as well.”
“I like him already.”
“He’d want me to stake you too.”
“That’s just because he’s never met me. I can be very charming.”
“I bet you can. The girls at the cafe seemed to think so anyway.” Now why had I said that? He gave me his usual insufferable smirk. I was spared his reply when he tilted his head.
“Two cars, from the north.”
“That’d be the unit. Maybe you should go.”
“I’m not leaving you here.”
“I just meant the League might have questions, might … you know. Vampire. Car full of vampire hunters. You do the math.”
“You’re worried about me,” he said softly, stepping closer. I was suddenly very aware of my short sundress and my bare shoulders.
“It’s only polite,” I replied. “And I want something from you.”
“That sounds promising.” He dipped his head toward mine. “And that kiss wasn’t polite.”
I swallowed. “I was saving you from the Hypnos.”
“Remind me to thank you later.”
There was the sound of engines approaching, loudly enough that I even could hear them. “Please just go.”
“Let me take you home,” he murmured. “I’ll hide if you tell them you’ve got a way home already.”
I met his eyes, could see the glitter of them even in the darkness. “Why?”
His mouth brushed my ear, sending shivers over my scalp and down my neck.
“Because you want to.”
The worst of it was, Quinn was right.
I did want to be alone with him.
Luckily the two vehicles stuffed with stern Helios-Ra agents screeching around the corner were rather distracting. Quinn was somewhere in the dark shadows of the warehouse district and I was standing alone with two bound vampires at my feet. I probably looked fairly impressive, especially for a student.
I just felt confused.
“Hunter Wild?” the extremely competent-looking woman asked as she slid out of the passenger seat of the first SUV. She had nose plugs loose around her neck and a phone earpiece wrapped around her left ear.
I nodded. “Yes, that’s me.”
“Your call came in,” her companion added. He was very tall, with incredibly white teeth and a nose that had clearly been broken repeatedly and tilted drastically to the left. He would have looked scary to anyone else, especially with the scar tissue on his neck. To me, he just looked like family.
“Brandon.” I grinned. “Nice to see you.”
He grinned back and nodded to the vampires. “Nice job, kid.”
“I had help,” I hastened to explain. “There were five or six of us. The rest took Chloe back to school for stitches. I’m just the last on cleanup.”
“That would be us, actually,” the woman said, waving the others out to grab the vampires. “Good work, Wild. I see your family reputation isn’t just hype.”
“Thanks.” I shrugged one shoulder. I wanted to tell them Quinn had helped us but I wasn’t sure if that would just make everything more complicated. They’d definitely take me back to school themselves if they knew he was still lurking around. It was best to pass on the info to Kieran to pass on to Hart. “So what’s going to happen to them?” I asked as the vampires were tossed into the back of the van.
“Don’t worry about that,” she said grimly. “We know Matthew. We’ve been trying to find his nest for weeks now.”
I swallowed. I really hoped I hadn’t just handed prisoners of war over to an execution squad. “Brandon?”
“Don’t worry about it, kid. It’ll be fine.” Which wasn’t exactly an answer. He held the door open. “Hop in, we’ll take you home.”
“That’s okay,” I said, lying through my teeth. “We took one of the bikes and I should get it back. It’s just on Honeychurch Street.” Which was around the corner, near the cafe. I really hoped Quinn hadn’t been lying when he said he’d get me back. I didn’t have enough cash to call a taxi and I wasn’t looking forward to the hour-and-a-half walk in the dark back to school.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded, trying to smile like everything was normal. He gave me a friendly salute.
“All right, get gone then. We’ll keep an eye on you until you reach the corner. Movie theater’ll be letting out the late show. You should be fine.” He winked. “Anyway, you got the bad guys already.”
“I guess so.” I walked away, casting glances out of the corner of my eye to see if I could spot Quinn. There were only squat gray buildings with broken windows and tall weeds growing between the cracks in the pavement. A raccoon waddled behind a garbage can.
The Helios-Ra SUV and the van idled until I reached the corner and waved, before turning onto Blitt Street. Sure enough, there were loads of people coming out of the theater and out of Conspiracy, which was closing its doors. I eased back into the mouth of the alley between a bookstore and an occult shop with crystals glimmering in the display window. Even closed down for the night it smelled strongly of Nag Champa incense. Spencer hung out here all the time, digging through herbs and stones and bronze statues, all in the pursuit of secret spells and magic amulets. I wondered, not for the first time, if the proprietor had any idea how many of her customers were undercover vampire hunters.
I also wondered where Quinn had gone off to.
I flicked my hair back and tapped my foot impatiently. Five more minutes and then I’d have to find my own way. I couldn’t wait all night. Not when it was Quinn we were talking about. He might have seen some cute girl and would spend the next hour flirting with her and forget all about me.
“In case I haven’t mentioned it yet, you clean up good, Wild.”
Or not.
I turned to see him drop down off a fire escape behind me. It was at least three floors up but he landed as gracefully as a cat, looking just as smug as one.
“Show off,” I said blandly.
He shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t believe in hiding who I am.”
“Um, isn’t that kind of a requirement when you’re a vampire?”
“In general, yes. But you already know I’m a vampire, so why pretend otherwise? I won’t lie to you, Hunter.”
Damn, he was good at that smoldering thing.
My insides quivered a little, despi
te myself. Maybe I’d been reading too many romance novels lately.
“Come on,” he said softly. “I’ll take you home.”
It felt weirdly normal to cross the street with him, like all the other couples heading for their cars. We must have looked like we’d been on a date, especially when he led me to his black convertible Mustang and opened the passenger door for me. The seats were soft leather and all the chrome shone as if it had been recently polished. There wasn’t a speck of dust or a single piece of trash on the floor mats.
“Nice car,” I said, mostly to fill the sudden silence.
“Yeah, it was my aunt’s car back in the day. She’s a pack rat, thank God.”
I had to laugh. “Only a Drake would pack-rat a car, like a memento.”
“You should see some of the stuff she keeps.” He shuddered. I couldn’t help but be curious.
“Like what?”
“Finger bones.”
“Um … ew.”
“You want ew? She keeps them in an old Cadbury box. Try being seven years old and thinking you found the jackpot secret stash of chocolate. Talk about a rude awakening.” He shook his head, throwing his car into reverse and backing away from the curb. “Put me off chocolate for a good year and a half.”
The wind was warm on my face and lifted my hair every which way. It’d be a mess of tangles by the end of the ride but I didn’t care. It felt nice to sit in a car with a boy. I could almost pretend it was that simple.
“Did you ever find out whose fingers they were?”
He shot me an incredulous look. “You don’t ask Aunt Ruby questions.”
“Why, is she mean or something?”
“No, just insane.” He said it nonchalantly, without judgment. It was just fact.
“Oh.”
“Hunters killed her family.”
“Vampires killed mine,” I pointed out defensively.
His voice softened. “I wasn’t accusing you, Hunter.”
I winced. He had saved my life tonight. I shouldn’t be snapping at him. “Sorry.”
He shrugged. “No big deal. It’s weird, isn’t it?”
“What is?”
“Treaties and all that. It’s like we woke up one morning and we weren’t supposed to be enemies anymore. It’ll take some getting used to.”
Drake Chronicles 03 - Out for Blood Page 11
