Quick Bites: A Short Story Collection

by Jennifer Rardin

  And grand.

  He felt his lips quirk at the vision in his mind and slammed the trunk with a feeling he could not place at first it had been so long. Ah, yes, now he remembered. Jasmine Parks had reminded him once again of the joys of anticipation.

  He felt his heart lift, realized he had thrown his shoulders and head back like a werewolf preparing to howl at the moon. He heard himself laugh out loud as she raced past his vantage point, drawing the bodyguards away from their charge. If she had been his partner, Vayl would have eliminated Almont by now. Instead he waited for the last guard in the squad to separate himself from the crowd. He was a lumbering giant who, had he lived after the invention of basketball, might have spent his adult years guarding a net-hung hoop. Remembering well his bow’s idiosyncrasies, Vayl sighted high and to the left. The bolt speared Almont’s tallest bodyguard in the center of his back. He died silently, leaving behind no sign that Jasmine had beaten death once again.

  Since rearming the bow would take too long, Vayl slid it under the car and gave chase, holding his cane firmly (and yes, a little hopefully) in his right hand. Perhaps he could decapitate another goon before the remarkable woman running before him decided it was time to make her stand.

  * * *

  Jasmine ran with an economy of motion that reflected the track training she had received in college. Though she had competed in field events, Vayl knew she had often practiced with the relay teams. Never mind that her position as the alternate never won her any trophies, it stood her in good stead now.

  He watched with admiration as she lost only a step or two in the block she sprinted, her goal becoming clear when the brake lights of an oversized Chevrolet work van blinked on and the driver’s side door clicked open.

  Cries of outrage split the air as Almont’s bodyguards called to one another. Vayl eavesdropped as he rushed to catch up to them.

  Enormous Viking look-alike who kept shooting but could not seem to hit anything but asphalt: “That’s our van!”

  Square-headed man whose gun had jammed the moment he cleared the crowd: “She stole the family’s wheels!”

  A broad-shouldered woman whose sex everyone had to confirm by looking at her 38DD chest apparently wanted to beat Jasmine to death with her bare hands, because she had not bothered to put her AK-47 to use yet. “The family wouldn’t allow that! She’s killed them!”

  “Bitch!” screamed a woman with hair so orange it glowed. Vayl’s mouth actually fell open when her weapon jammed as well.

  Do these people never maintain their weapons?

  She pulled a Glock out of her thigh holster and, before he could stop her, shot Jasmine in the back.

  Vayl’s entire world went silent as the woman he had already begun to care for flew forward, the impact from the bullet shoving her onto the street as if she had been hit by a ninety-mile-an-hour fastball.

  Unable to watch her die, he twisted the jewel topping his cane and held the sheath tight with his left hand so the sword inside came out with a jerk. Speeding forward, he paused only long enough for a single, sweeping swing. A head with orange hair flew in the air—and then disintegrated. All that remained after a moment was a poof of smoke. Through it Vayl saw the Viking, Square Head, and 38DD, still ignorant of their comrade’s demise, pause to confer.

  The woman, 38DD, nodded her head. “I agree,” she said in response to the men’s mumbled suggestions. She gestured to the Viking. “Shoot her again, just to be sure.”

  At the same time, Vayl was raising his power, feeling a storm of ice well up from deep within. Just before he released it, he glanced at Jasmine one last time…and realized she was not bleeding. In fact, she was rolling to her feet!

  The scientist, his mind whispered. The man of the garlic bomb. He must have fashioned her a bulletproof vest that melds to her like a second skin and yet prevents certain death!

  Without looking back, Jasmine leaped into the van.

  The Viking peppered the back window with bullets, sending glass flying, but it did not deter the driver. She gunned the engine, and suddenly Vayl realized he was about to be left behind.

  So did Almont’s people.

  “Get to the car!” roared Square Head. He dug into the pocket of his trousers for the keys as he spun, heading for one of several vehicles that were parked down the street.

  Vayl fed all the power he had raised into convincing the vampires he was not there.

  Just another pothole or perhaps a construction cone to be avoided as they raced back to their vehicle.

  Now they realized they had lost people. He capitalized on their consternation, pushing their attention deeper into their confusion so that he could run as fast as his strength could push him, and all they would notice was a passing breeze.

  He chased down the speeding van and jumped onto the back bumper, maintaining his balance by holding hard to the handles of the doors and hoping to whatever powers moved him that they did not choose this moment to fly open.

  The precariousness of his position became clear when Jasmine screeched around a corner and both of his feet slipped off their perch. His legs flew into the air, and for a moment he felt like a diver, spread-eagle above the water just before the tuck and roll, except if he did not pull his legs in soon enough, they would hit a UPS van and break in multiple places. That decided him.

  He climbed onto the roof, where a rack had been attached to hold ladders, or perhaps well-disguised coffins. Moving quietly so as not to tip off the crazed driver careening through the streets of the city, jumping curbs to miss pedestrians, and turning left from the right-hand lane, Vayl found a somewhat-stable position on the front of the roof, where he could hold tight to the steel rods with both hands in front of him and still brace his legs against the side supports.

  He just began to suppose Jasmine had made her escape when the bodyguards’ blue Volvo turned onto the street behind them with a screech of tires that reminded Vayl of a parrot attempting to sing. And if it had, the words would sound something like, “You are so sca-rewed!”

  Jasmine seemed to feel differently. In fact, she welcomed the chase, laughing out loud at the following vehicle, even taking her hand off the wheel long enough to shove her arm out the window and show them her middle finger.

  This infuriated the driver, who laid on the horn, and the passenger, who let fly a barrage of bullets. Some of them actually hit the van’s back doors, which was somewhat of a surprise considering the erratic path Jasmine was taking. But it made Vayl even happier that he had chosen a higher position from which to view the proceedings.

  After fifteen blocks of chasing, Jasmine had led the vamps’ sedan into what seemed to be a warehouse district. Oh, wait, Vayl had heard of these places. They were storage units. What a shame they had not been around during World War II. He might still have that Mauser.

  “Now’s the time, boys!” Jasmine yelled out her window.

  Vayl wanted badly to tell her one of her opponents was female, but only to give himself an excuse to poke his head in the window and ask for an orchestra seat for the big event. He bit his lip as the van skidded and went into a spin.

  What is she doing? No. Surely she is not driving straight for that Volvo?

  Then he remembered. Jasmine was always wrecking cars. Pete said her record was the reason why only a couple of hairs remained on his head.

  Vayl tightened his grip. Then he realized if the autos collided head-on and he tried to maintain his hold, the force of the impact might tear his arms off. He would have to time it just right and leap off the van just before impact. His injuries would still be severe, but he should be able to keep all his parts.

  He watched as the Volvo closed in on them. He heard Jasmine laugh. It sounded almost…crazed.

  He saw Square Head’s eyes widen when he realized she did not intend to swerve. Beside him, 38DD screamed. At the last moment, Square Head jerked the wheel hard to the left. Tires squealed, and 38DD’s screams intensified, joined now by the shouts of her colleagues as
the sedan failed to right itself. It jumped the curb and slammed straight into an electric pole. Jasmine brought the van to a screeching halt.

  Vayl jumped clear and found a quiet spot between two of the storage buildings from which to observe.

  Jasmine exited the van, pulled out Grief, and switched it to crossbow mode. She took a moment to view what he could also see through the Volvo’s back window: A backseat full of glass and a humped figure on the floor. Two bodies in the front resting against their air bags.

  She went to the driver’s side, found she couldn’t wrench the door open, and decided to try the passenger side. That door obeyed her touch.

  Two shots later the front seat held only scraps of material and some fragments of what had been two very large threats to Jasmine’s well-being. She jerked open the back door and the last member of Almont’s guards stirred.

  “Get out,” she said.

  After a struggle that involved both of them, Jasmine dragged the Viking onto the faded concrete drive that led to one of the blank garage doors, behind which some random human had stored an entire home’s worth of precious belongings.

  Jasmine did not seem impressed by her surroundings, but the man’s face—that seemed to have struck a chord.

  “I know you.” But she sounded unsure, as if she wanted him to confirm her suspicions.

  His eyes had been half-closed against the pain of an injury that left his face covered in blood. Now he forced them open, stared into her eyes, and shied away.

  What? He is twice her size!

  Through broken teeth he murmured, “You. How can you be here?”

  Jasmine shoved the muzzle of her gun against his chest. “You haven’t always been with Almont, have you? Why did you leave Aidyn Strait’s nest?”

  His laugh was supposed to be bitter, but the wounds he had sustained forced it into a sigh.

  “Anyone who gets the chance to leave takes it.”

  She shoved her knee into his chest, grinding it between his ribs. “But you were happy to be part of his attack against my Helsingers, weren’t you? I saw you grinning when you tore into Thea’s throat.”

  He groaned. “Don’t kill me. Please! I’ll do anything!”

  Vayl could hardly contain his amazement. The Viking was hurt, but surely not that badly. Yet in this moment, he seemed to be paralyzed, and Jasmine had the strength of ten angels.

  She leaned over him and whispered, “How about you bring my crew back you murdering son of a bitch?”

  His eyes went wide as boiling pots. “But—but—but I saw you. I saw Aidyn…Who are you?”

  She spoke so softly Vayl had to strain to hear. “Just call me retribution.” She shoved Grief’s muzzle against the Viking’s chest, her pupils so large they seemed otherworldly.

  And then she fired.

  * * *

  Jasmine sat in the van she had stolen from Almont’s dead fledglings, staring straight ahead, gripping the wheel as if it were keeping her above water. She held that position for so long Vayl began to wonder if he had been wrong about her. Perhaps she was, from no fault of her own, too damaged for the plans he had made for her—in fact, not the woman he had been searching for after all.

  For a moment she put both of her hands over her ears, as if trying to elude a sound even Vayl could not hear. The intensity of her emotions felt like a wall of fire between his nook in the shadows and her seat, parked on the empty road beside the blank-faced storehouses. He could not believe it when he felt the heat build. It must be unbearable to try to contain such ravenous feelings within a frame so flammable. He could not imagine how she did it.

  She said, “Goddamn that hurt!”

  Vayl could have assumed she meant the Glock’s blow to her back. She would certainly be sore for days. But he knew she meant more when she rammed the steering wheel, hard, with the palm of her hand.

  He nodded. Yes, do it again. This is better than nothing. Much better than letting it burn you alive. As if she could hear him, she attacked the wheel with focused vengeance, delivering short, sharp jabs that shook it to its stem. And each time she yelled. Incoherent words that pierced the air like spears with their power, their rage. Suddenly the entire top half snapped off, leaving her with a driving apparatus similar to a pilot’s helm.

  She stared at what remained for a moment and then leaned forward, pulling the broken half off the dashboard. “What a cheap piece of crap.”

  She threw it on the seat next to her and started the van, her previous fit forgotten in a whirlwind of action that included reloading Grief’s bolts, checking her other weapons, and searching through the radio stations until she found one that was playing a song she liked, quite a lot if the volume at which she chose to listen to it was any clue. She began singing along from the start, which meant drivers three blocks over could hear her harmonizing with Molly Hatchet, tipping them off to her plans. “I’m travelin’ down the road, and I’m flirtin’ with disaster.”

  She peeled out of the parking space with a squeal of tires that left a haze of smoke in her wake, echoes of the carnage she would have left behind if vampires left any remains worth discussing.

  Vayl strode to the wrecked Volvo and tried the key Square Head had left in the ignition. It made a brave attempt to start but coughed itself to death shortly after. He sighed. Hopefully it would not be this difficult to keep up with Jasmine once they began working together.

  He began tearing open storage space doors, one after another, until at last he came to one that held a Buell Blast, complete with key and helmet. Four kicks of the starter later, he was roaring back the way he had come, his face securely hidden behind the tinted visor so that, if worst came to worst, Jasmine would only register a vampire riding a sturdy silver motorcycle. But he did not anticipate that issue arising again. If he knew that Almont would be waiting back at the Spit & Hiss for a report on his guards’ success, so did Jasmine. Which meant all her energies would now be directed on finishing her mission. He just hoped he got there in time to witness the finale.

  * * *

  Vayl located the van a block away from the nightclub. He parked across the street from it and walked the rest of the way, jamming his cane into the sidewalk as he pondered the new feelings competing with one another for dominance within his chest. He actually felt anxious! He was afraid he would be too late for the final showdown. It was not that he cared to see Almont vanish as so many vicious criminals had before him. He feared missing another chance to admire Jasmine in her element, even as he dreaded being seen or, worse, shot by her. He imagined trying to explain to Pete why he had sustained a crossbow wound from one of his own people and…laughed.

  Careful, Vayl. If you do not keep control of your emotions, when you finally do meet this woman, she may still take a shot at you.

  Vayl laughed again, already looking forward to Jasmine’s famously unpredictable reactions. He increased his speed to a late-to-my-meeting stride, rounded a corner, and passed a brightly lit deli and a closed bookstore before the neon of the Spit & Hiss came into view. He nearly grinned with relief when he spied Almont standing outside the door, greeting customers as if he were the owner, which he might as well be, because they could not enter the establishment until they had completed one of the ballots he handed them. His assistant kept one eye on the proceedings and another on traffic, which had been allowed to continue down the street once Almont’s speech concluded.

  Vayl slowed his pace, taking the chance to absorb his surroundings more fully so that, perhaps, he could anticipate Jasmine’s next move. The Spit & Hiss facade was built to resemble a tiger’s head, with its eyes glowing blue and its roaring mouth forming the entryway. It took up half the block, the bass of its prerecorded dance music thumping out to meet him as he passed by. Metal grated beneath his feet, and he looked down. Would Jasmine try the storm sewer approach? Surely not. It seemed so…stealthy.

  An enormous flowerpot containing masses of pink petunias and multihued vines marked the end of the block. The next one,
also sporting flowers at its corner, held a hotel. Across the street was a steady succession of restaurants and bars, most offering outdoor seating, the advantage of which Vayl failed to understand, given the mainly concrete-and-glass view and the constant smell of exhaust.

  Where are you, Jasmine? He lifted his nose to the air, as if he could pull in her scent the way she somehow found his. But as soon as he closed his eyes, he knew she would not allow herself to be tracked. Better to follow his original tactic. Wait. And watch.

  He posted himself at a diagonal from the club, sitting on the edge of a third flower container, disguising himself to passersby, and hoping enough vampires lingered among Almont’s crowd so that Jasmine would not find herself compelled to come after him again this evening. Or…perhaps that would be enjoyable. Ah, if only he had time. He could lure Almont to a less populated area, then get Jasmine to chase him to the beast’s position. Hmm, how could he arrange that without being see—

  Movement. A blur in the air as something flew toward Almont’s position. Screams when it landed and those closest to it realized it was burning at one end and liable to explode at the other.

  “Dynamite!”

  “Run!”

  “Get outta my way, dammit!”

  Vayl linked his hands in his lap expectantly.

  Almont shoved his way through the people like a stampeding bull, knocking his elbow into resisting flesh, toppling them like they were pieces on a chessboard. His assistant swam in his wake, squeaking desperately into his Bluetooth and then tapping on it as if it had developed an irritating squawk.

  The dynamite sat in the tiger’s mouth like a giant semidispensed Pez and did not explode. In fact, it popped, rather like a piece of movie butter–flavored corn, and from the resulting white rose of paper waved a small gold-handled flag.