The fire ended, and she took a quick look over the low wall she had been using for cover. He was reloading. She fired twice the moment she recognised her chance. The first shot was centre of mass, dictated by her training, but she realised her mistake straight away. He was wearing a vest. The hit staggered him but he didn’t go down. She adjusted her aim.
Head shot, and that was all she wrote.
She had no doubt he was dead, but she kept her gun up and aimed as she advanced. There were others like him out here. She had seen Angel chasing some earlier. She kicked the rifle out of the corpse’s hand. Training again, but he was definitely dead. One of the reasons she had chosen the Sharpe’s Defender II was its stopping power. She had long since decided that if she ever had an oh shit moment that required the use of her backup weapon, she wasn’t going to sweat legalities. Better to face a board’s questions than die for want of a weapon worthy of the name.
She peered into the darkness, hoping to see some sign of Angel or one her gang, but although she was sure they were out there—she could hear gunfire and screams—she saw no sign of them. She hesitated, but decided not to venture further from the house. She was only human, and the night contained many who were not; they could see better in the dark. Allied or not, she didn’t trust monsters of any stripe.
She turned back.
She went through the house carefully and methodically. Most of the rooms were empty. Some were pristine while others contained signs of violence and decapitated corpses. How many vamps had died here? A dozen, two dozen? She didn’t know, but it was a lot. She hadn’t known this many were even in the city. She had always assumed that vamps preferred living alone. She was sure she’d heard that somewhere. Shifters were the opposite and lived in packs like the animals they could turn into. Sometimes she thought they weren’t really people at all; they didn’t act like it a lot of the time. Maybe they really were animals, but animals with a little something extra—the ability to turn human.
She shook her head, uncertain where her thoughts were leading her. It wasn’t as if there weren’t precedent for the idea. Dragons weren’t human and never pretended to be, but they could take human form when the need arose just like a shifter... but no, everyone knew shifters were created by infecting a human with a category one disease—lycanthropy.
Dragons were born of dragon, elves were born of elf, humans were born of human, and dwarves were born of dwarf. All of the races were different, but all of them were perfectly natural in their places. Shifters though were other. They were essentially a walking disease, a very dangerous and contagious disease, as were vamps, but vamps at least were less contagious. It took real effort to create a new vampire. Not so with shifters.
She went through all the rooms, but if there were any AML fighters left alive, they had bugged out. The wolves were having fun hunting them down on the estate’s grounds. She grimaced at the thought. None of them would become shifters. The vamps wouldn’t let any survive the night she was sure. If by some miracle one did survive but infected, AML would put him down if he didn’t suicide first. That was AML policy, and its members supposedly swore to die before turning furry. She didn’t much blame them. She couldn’t imagine the horror of becoming one of the monsters and didn’t know how anyone survived the shock of it, but they did or there wouldn’t be so many shifters in LA. It was common knowledge that shifters were crazy bastards, maybe that was why so many survived. The sane ones killed themselves.
Voices. She paused to listen. Allies not enemy she decided and made her way toward the sound.
Finally she found someone she knew, not that she was exactly pleased to find this particular group. The three vamps had finally turned up. They were standing in the centre of the room discussing things, accompanied only by the dead lying all around them. AML had lost big here, and she wondered just how many soldiers they had lost altogether. Enough to prevent any more atrocities for a while? She could hope, but doubted it. There was a seemingly endless supply of fools to recruit.
She eyed the dead as she made her way toward the huddle, wondering how many drained corpses she would find around the place. She grimaced in disgust at the thought and sighed. She had signed up for this, and that meant the entire package. This sort of thing was what came of stepping outside the law to consort with the monsters. She had known she would likely see some nasty stuff, and had thought she was ready for it, but this slaughter was more like a war zone than any crime scene she had investigated. She stepped over the bodies and around the pools of blood as she approached the vamps. She didn’t want to track blood all over the house, not that anyone else seemed to care. The place was already tracked up. It was a mess. It was a damn good job that forensics would never see this because they would have kittens if called out to a scene so screwed up.
“Where is he then?” Gavin was saying. “This makes no sense. He surely would not have left his guests to face these AML thugs alone. He prided himself on his hospitality. This violation of his House would send him into conniptions!”
Stephen laughed. “You are so right. When he sees the mess... ah here is our missing detective. You are well?”
She nodded and joined the group. “So, where is he?”
“That’s what we are discussing,” Rachelle said. “We seem to have mislaid him.”
“Mislaid, right. What in the nine hells are you trying to pull?”
Rachelle’s eyes flashed silver and she snarled, fangs out.
“Children!” Gavin chided. “None of that. We were discussing how Michael would not leave his guests in peril, and that narrows the possibilities.”
“And those would be?” she said, keeping an eye on those fangs. Rachelle hadn’t put them away yet.
Stephen chose to answer. “He might be dead, or taken, or perhaps he wasn’t present when the attack began. He could be attending to business in the city and not aware of the trouble here.”
Gavin nodded. “Those are the only options that I can see. We will search every room, every square foot of the grounds, but perhaps the easiest way to begin would be questioning Michael’s guests. They should know if he is here somewhere. That at least will furnish a starting point.”
Made sense to her. “Let’s get that started as soon as we can. Tell me you have a way to clean up the mess you’ve made.”
“Oh indeed we do,” Gavin said with a small smile that revealed just a hint of fang. “Lots of practise you understand. You have your link on you?”
Stephen retrieved his own. “I’ll call Jonas and take care of that side of things if you want to take Rachelle and the detective with you to begin the questioning. I’ll join you when I’m done.”
“That was my thought,” Gavin agreed.
Stephen nodded and made his call.
Chris stepped aside to allow Rachelle to lead the way out of the room. She wouldn’t let that psychopathic fang head get behind her, not now. She was too easily riled up, that one. Gavin and Stephen were models of gentlemanly decorum in comparison.
She wondered where the witch was, and doing what. Her imagination provided her with all kinds of nefarious possibilities and she shivered. Who knew what a black magic wielding necromance could find to do in such surroundings? Necromancy was all about death and the dead. Chris didn’t like contemplating what she might be doing to amuse herself here amongst so many corpses.
They found the surviving guests under guard in a large open room obviously used for a party most recently. The party balloons on the ceiling and the buffet tables along the walls crammed with food were a big clue. It looked obscene now, amidst the carnage. She tore her eyes away from the massacre that had taken place. Bodies and pieces of bodies lay upon the blood-coated floor. Some were decapitated. Vamps then, but others had once been human. Someone had taken them apart, something rather. Something with claws and teeth—big claws and teeth. The vampires with her were unfazed by the slaughter. Of course they were. They probably saw the like all the time. They might be responsible for worse things for
all she knew.
More and more she was regretting her decision to get involved in this. It was all Baxter’s fault. She scowled. If not for his damn envelope, she wouldn’t have been tempted to start colouring outside the lines. Now she couldn’t stop. She had to see this thing through, but carefully. When it was done she would go back to her life and never step back out of it into this madness.
“You told your friends to hold them?” she asked, eyeing the naked men stationed at the doors and around the room. They had the windows well covered, obviously to prevent anyone getting adventurous. She recognised Ronnie, the only woman among so many men, and naked like them—and what was it with these freaks and walking about in the buff? Ronnie seemed to be the one in charge of the others. “What will you do about them?”
Gavin glanced back. “As you heard. We question them.”
“And then?”
He cocked his head in puzzlement.
Rachelle obviously guessed her meaning and spoke up. “She thinks we plan to kill them.”
“Why would we do that?”
Chris noted he hadn’t protested the possibility of killing everyone; he had only questioned the need. She had no doubt that if he did see a need no one in the room would leave the estate alive.
“You would trust them not to talk about this, the humans too?”
Rachelle expression turned incredulous. “Of course not! None will talk.”
“How can you guarantee that?”
“They won’t remember anything to talk about.”
“Your witch again? Where is she?”
“Around, and no, there’s no need for her talents. Gavin and I will take care of it.”
Chris remembered eyes in her head, watching watching watching, and whispers telling her to remember words that had faded from awareness over time. Vampires had mojo of their own. It wasn’t magic such as the Council or the elves used, though she suspected it was probably related in some way. Her dad had always insisted that everything in nature was connected, but then he would. It was a tenet, one of many, that all shamen lived by and believed in. She did not involve herself in such things, but she believed in vampire and shifter mojo. She had seen some wacky stuff in her time on the streets of LA. The monsters had powers uniquely their own. It worked in her favour this time, because if the vamps could erase this night from memory, no one else needed to die.
She nodded and followed the vamps to begin the questioning.
* * *
30 ~ Michael
David groaned as his joints popped. By the goddess, he hurt. This rapid shifting back and forth was hell on the body. He shook his hands working his fingers free of phantom pain. Why did they call it that when the pain was real? It hurt, so it must be real. Maybe because there were no wounds to see, or maybe without blood to show it couldn’t be real. Whatever. Besides, he was covered in blood, though it was the blood of his enemies. He looked around the grounds, letting his eyes go wolf to help him against the darkness, but found nothing to fear. The only witnesses to his change were the glazed eyes of his victims.
Not victims, brother. Enemies.
He nodded. True. AML was the enemy as were those sympathising with its goals. They had been the enemy of all non-humans since the League’s inception many years ago, but he could foresee things becoming much worse soon. Stephen’s cold war with them would heat up when news of his own NSPCL became known. That would have to be soon, certainly within the month. He’d made the pack certain promises when they joined and accepted him as Alpha. He wanted to begin making good on them. AML would not sit idly by while he built his power-base here in LA, especially not when they realised what the N stood for in the Society’s name.
He frowned at the bodies but then shrugged. He could carry one back to the house, but not the other two. He decided there was no point. He could send someone back to collect them if necessary, but it was just as likely Jonas would tidy them up. He grimaced at the thought. He was becoming too blasé about this sort of thing. Mist had fought and killed them, not he. An easy and false way to exonerate himself of any guilt. It was false, because Mist was inseparable from him. They were pack, they were brothers, they were one, and he wouldn’t change that now even if he could. He didn’t want to be uncaring, and he certainly didn’t want to become someone who killed easily on a whim, but Stephen was right. Ronnie too. He had to live this new life, not keep looking back trying to live his old one. It was gone.
He walked away, and didn’t look back.
The night was quiet now that the fighting had ended. That was good. The estate was remote, but they couldn’t be sure that someone hadn’t noticed and reported a disturbance to the police. Stephen and the others could handle one or two police officers should they show up, but they wouldn’t want to do that. If SMT (Special Measures Teams) turned up with their riot gear and hexes loaded for monster, then things could go bad fast. Stephen would want them all out of here as soon as possible, and the estate cleaned of all the evidence that anything had ever happened here.
He was all for that idea.
The house looked the same. All the windows were still blazing with light, but the grounds close by seemed crowded. He picked out faces he knew, glad to find them unhurt. Most were naked having just changed back to their human forms. He found Lawrence directing things. He had the pack collecting bodies and weapons. That was good thinking; it would speed things for Jonas.
“Where’s Ronnie?”
Lawrence looked up and relief flashed upon his face. “Good to see you safe. She’s inside with Stephen. They’re fine.”
David relaxed a little more. “Okay. Have you called Jonas?”
“Stephen did.”
He nodded. “Did we lose anyone?”
“Nope. We’re all fine.”
“Injuries?”
“Nothing that changing back didn’t fix. Stop worrying, David, this sort of thing is normal for us. Well not normal exactly, but not that unusual. Just another fight, a bit bigger maybe, and a bit more intense, but nothing to get bent out of shape about. We’re fine.”
It had seemed more like outright war to him, not just another fight, but then he had never had to fight physically for anything before his encounter with Georgie and Ronnie. This chaos should never be normal. He was determined to give his people a life where this sort of thing was unnecessary.
“Keep doing what you’re doing. I left three more for you back that way.” He pointed back the way he’d come. “Send someone to collect them up will you?”
Lawrence nodded.
“I’m off to find Stephen and find out what he plans to do next.”
He hurried into the house.
He found Stephen and the others questioning the survivors. He sought out Ronnie the moment he entered the room, and found her safe as Lawrence had said. Feeling easier at the sight of her magnificent nakedness and her obviously uninjured state, he approached Stephen to ask what was happening. The cop was standing with him. She looked him over as he approached and muttered something about naked beefcake infesting the place, or some such thing. He ignored her.
Stephen was speaking, “...and you are certain that Michael was not taken?”
The human woman spoke dreamily, obviously under the vampire’s influence. “Michael isn’t here.”
“I did not ask that, my dear lady. You will answer only what I ask you. You want to answer. Answering me makes you feel wonderful, but not answering makes you feel guilty. It feels bad not to answer or lie to me. You don’t want to feel bad, do you?”
“No.”
Stephen kept his tone calm, and spoke almost in a singsong voice. “Very good. You are doing wonderfully well. Answer truthfully and feel good. Now, think hard. When was the last time you saw Michael?”
David was impressed. He could feel Stephen’s increasing frustration and rage, but his voice gave nothing of that away. By voice alone, anyone would think he was simply enquiring about the weather, not the fate of an ally and friend he had known for cen
turies.
“A week?” the woman said frowning. “What day is it?”
“It is Wednesday, my dear.”
“It was last Friday. He went into the city.”
“Oh, yes? Do you know why?”
She nodded, but didn’t explain.
The cop snickered. Stephen glared at her, and she made that silly zipping gesture across her lips. That was just too much, and even David laughed. He also received Stephen’s ire, but the vampire turned his attention back to business moments later.
“So you know why. Please tell me.”
“Stephen sent a message asking him to a meeting, but aren’t you Stephen?”
“I am indeed. I sent no message. You mustn’t lie to me. Where did Michael go?” The woman swayed as he brought the full weight of his power down upon her. “Answer!” he snapped, finally losing it.
She groaned and her eyes rolled in her head.
“Easy there,” the cop said. “Take it easy.”
“You’ll injure her,” David added. “To no purpose. Back it down a little. Let her up, Stephen!”
Stephen glared, but he did ease his grip, and the woman’s distress seemed to lessen. “There, there. You are calm, you feel at ease. Michael went to visit Stephen in the city you say?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know this?”
She smiled dreamily. “He told me.”
“Did he indeed?” his eyes sharpened at that. “You and he are close?”
“Oh yes! He feeds from me often.”
The cop muttered darkly.
David had expected something of the sort. Food was one of the reasons Michael hosted so many guests on his estate. Stephen did it too by feeding almost exclusively from the pack, though he kept things interesting by taking advantage of the club’s clientele for variety. As he often said, food came to him. He did not need to hunt. David supposed that if his diet consisted of a single thing, he would prize variety too.
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