by SM Reine
Howell returned, holding a small metal Thermos. “Here you go.”
“Great.” Dana yanked it from his hands, untwisted the lid. Lethe glowed a dull blue at the bottom. “Let’s go, Tormid. It’s time to kill some vampires.”
17
Dana slammed into the Hunting Lodge. Chris leaped to his feet, spilling coffee across his not-secretary’s desk. “Ow!” he hissed. He stepped back as hot coffee drizzled to the floor. “You okay? What’s wrong?”
She didn’t even pause. She blew right past his desk, carrying the thermos to the workroom in back.
Brianna was in the midst of a frenetic energy storm in the workroom, buzzing from computer to computer, table to shelf, trash-filled corner to Bunsen burners.
“Did Lincoln’s delivery get here?” Dana asked, sweeping all the papers off of one table.
“Hey! I was using those!” Brianna started scooping them off the floor immediately, moving so much faster than Dana had ever seen. “The box from Lincoln’s over there.” She pointed.
Dana grabbed it and began pulling together the chemistry equipment she’d need to formulate black-market Garlic Shots. “Get out of the room. I need this whole space.”
“You don’t tell me what to do, and I need the space too,” Brianna said. “I’m looking into community groups who can pull the city back together. And no, it’s not going to help you with Dickless, but someone has to do it, so don’t give me any guff!”
“No guff today,” Dana said. “You can stay. Keep out of my way.”
Brianna shot a suspicious look at her. “You’re not mad I’m not helping with Dickless?”
The fact Brianna wasn’t calling him by that absurd name the media had given him was endearing enough on its own. But after Dana had seen how so many citizens were living underneath the city, she wasn’t exactly going to tell Brianna not to help folks, either. She was right. Someone had to save the parts of the city that had nothing to do with vampires.
“No,” Dana said curtly.
A raven alighted on her workroom’s windowsill, ruffling its feathers. It was bigger than any mortal bird. Almost as big as a werewolf. The raven tapped his beak against the glass gently, like he was knocking.
“Oh holy Jesus,” Brianna said. “Who’s that?”
“Tormid,” Dana said. “He was out talking to contacts.”
She relaxed slightly. They’d worked with his shifter pack once, which meant he was as good as a friend of the Hunting Club. “I thought he was in prison.”
“He was.” Dana turned to the window to see that Tormid was still waiting. “Get a mouth and start talking.”
He began shifting back into his human form. His talons changed first, so he released the moonstone charm from the grip of his claws quickly. It bounced across the floor.
Feathers fell from his flesh, pooling around his feet. They exposed the naked body of a long and lean man with the build of a swimmer. A very tall swimmer. Dana wasn’t used to having to look up at people, even most men, but she had to look up at Tormid even once his pieces fell into human shape.
“Wow,” Brianna said. She wasn’t awed by the transformation.
“Pervert,” Dana said. She scooped Hunting Club-branded polo and sweats out of a box by the table and tossed them at Tormid’s half-bird body.
The beak retreated into a mouth, and he began talking. “The sewers have cleared out of all the vampires, right?” He yanked the polo over his head. When he popped out of the neck hole, his blond hair stuck straight up in the back. Its hem left his navel exposed like a midriff.
“Aside from Howell and Dickless, yeah, the vampires are gone from the city,” Dana said. “The smart ones, anyway.”
“Do you think stupid vampires would try to dig a tunnel to the basement of Vampire Vegas?”
She poured lethe into one vial, and set the rest of the ingredients for a Garlic Shot to boiling on a burner. “That’s pretty fucking stupid.”
“It would give them access to everything that Mohinder left behind,” Tormid said. “Don’t know why anyone but a vampire would do that, though.”
Dana’s hands slowed. “You’re saying you went looking for information, and instead you found someone digging a tunnel under Vampire Vegas. Next you’re gonna tell me they’re using spoons, prison-breakout style.”
“Whatever they’re operating is better than spoons. They’ve gotten all up under the plumbing for the nightclub. I don’t know if he got into the storage rooms. As soon as I realized where the tunnels led, I came back here.”
“Wonder what Dickless is doing with the pipes,” Dana said, dumping the lethe into the simmering Garlic Shot. “They can’t have any iron or silver.”
“I don’t think Dickless cares about killing shifters or sidhe. Our killer has only gone after human men so far,” Brianna said. She dumped the papers from the floor onto a separate table, giving Dana all the space she needed.
“But he must care about getting attention. Why else would he be creating fledglings and letting them run free? Not to mention his perverse tableaus are the biggest cry for attention I’ve ever heard of,” Tormid said.
“I’ll ask Dickless about motivations before I start stabbing.” She moved away from the table to let the Garlic Shots finish, and she grabbed Buffy from the shelf. There was still ash caking the exposed mechanisms on the side of the hydraulic staking machine. Mohinder’s ash. “You wanna come, Brianna?”
“No thanks,” she said. “I drank a bunch of that new coffee got and it gave me the jitters. I’d shoot myself in the foot on accident.”
“You’re scared,” Dana said.
“That too,” Brianna said.
The computer bleeped.
Even though Dana didn’t use the Hunting Lodge’s computers often, she recognized the sounds they made. There was an incoming message.
Dana was walking toward it when its monitor lit up. The icon for a video chat was blinking.
It was a private line—the video chat network that Dana and Penny only used personally, between the two of them.
Dana wasn’t stupid enough to hope.
“Get out of the room,” she said. “Both of you.”
Brianna heard the deathly seriousness in her voice and knew better than to argue this time. She dropped the binder she was still holding, grabbed her mug, and headed for the door.
Tormid scoffed. “You’re not the boss, you can’t—”
“Out,” Brianna said. She grabbed his arm and pulled him out.
The computer pinged again.
Dana clicked the icon.
Nissa’s face appeared in the chat window, lit so dimly that only her face hovered in the center of a field of velvety black.
“Hi Dana,” Nissa said.
She sank into the computer chair. “Where’s Penny? I swear to the gods, if you—“
“She’s here with me. Do you want to see her?” Nissa’s hand extended to fill the camera’s view, momentarily blotting it out. The speakers made strange shuffling noises from dry vampire skin rasping over the microphone.
Then her hand moved, and Dana could see another dim form in the darkness. A tall, rectangular shape of shiny glass.
A glass box.
Nissa shifted the camera until Dana could see through the glass. It was lit so dimly that she could barely make out the shape of a woman curled up in the back.
Penny wasn’t moving.
Before Dana could distinguish any detail, the camera swiveled again to reveal Nissa’s face. “She’s not dead, if you’re worried,” Nissa said.
Panic surged inside of Dana. “You want me dead? Fine. I will kill myself on camera if you let her go. Right now.”
“No way. I’m not making it that easy on either of you,” Nissa said. “Besides, you don’t want to die until Il Castrato Senesino is gone. Even if dying saves Penny. Isn’t that right?”
Dana clenched her jaw.
Her lack of response got Nissa smiling unpleasantly again.
The vampire rapped h
er fist on the glass of Penny’s cage. “Hear that? Dana should be swearing up and down that she’d die for you. But she still wants to kill vampires more than she wants to be with you.” Nissa swung the camera around so Dana could see Penny again.
Penny’s eyes caught the light from the camera, flashing briefly. She looked like she was crying.
“Penny!” Dana shouted.
Nissa had already swung the camera back around. “I’ve been plumbing the depths of Penny’s mind. Did you know she thinks that you don’t love her? I’ve been in your mind too, so I know the truth. Should I tell Penny?”
“I know where the serial killer’s hiding,” Dana said through gritted teeth. It felt like her molars were going to crack into pieces. “I’m going to go kill him. Tonight.”
“If you kill him without me, then it doesn’t count for anything,” Nissa said. “Tell me where to meet you. We’ll do this together.”
“And what, leave Penny alone in her worst nightmare?”
“Somehow I don’t think I’m offering her any comfort by being here,” Nissa said.
Dana’s jaw was going to break. Her whole body was going to break and explode into a thousand pieces.
She was going to kill Nissa Royal.
“Meet me in the sewers underneath Vampire Vegas,” Dana said. “We’ll find the killer in the tunnels together.”
“It’s a date,” Nissa said.
Dana didn’t have time for worship while Penny was still missing. But there was nothing else she could do while the Garlic Shot was brewing. Her only alternative to prayer was going mindless with worry.
Luckily, the Holy Nights Cathedral had reappeared at the end of the Strip.
She must have been kneeling in one of the pews at Holy Nights Cathedral for a good fifteen minutes before someone settled next to her, the cotton of his robes sighing as they folded around him. Brother Marshall propped his elbows on the bar, bowed his head to his knuckles.
“Hey McIntyre,” Lincoln said. It was weirdly reassuring to see him back in his robes again. That mixed accent and the faint smile didn’t sit right without the monk regalia.
“Took you long enough.” Fifteen minutes of quiet prayer had made the time pass, but she was grateful to be distracted. “I figured you’d be on me the instant I walked through your doors.”
“I’ve got a life,” he said.
“Considering how long you’ve been squatting in Las Vegas, I didn’t think you did.”
He shrugged. “All us believers, we make promises to the big guys. The pantheon. You’ve got your promises to them, and I’ve got mine.”
“You saying you promised the gods to keep an eye on me?”
“I’d be surprised if I was the only one who did,” Lincoln said.
“Fuck that. I don’t need babysitters.” But hearing that the gods were looking after Dana was even more reassuring than seeing Lincoln in his triadist monk garb. This was right. This faith, this community, this holy site. When Dana knelt before the mural of her gods, she could believe that Penny might be okay. “Thanks for the apotropaics. The Garlic Shots are brewing, and Dickless dies tonight.”
“Good. Then why are you here? I heard what happened to Penny. I’d expect you to be out there punching people.”
“The punching’s next. I need help before that. The monks, you guys all do meditation. It helps you block the sidhe from your minds.” The brothers who lived at the cathedral paid many visits to the Middle Worlds. They were mostly mundanes, so they’d developed mental discipline to protect themselves from the aura. “I need you to teach me how to keep someone out of my head. Nissa Royal can read emotions and minds and memories, so there’s no way for me to surprise her if she crawls into my skull.”
“I can’t teach you protective meditation unless you’ve got a few free months,” Lincoln said.
“But there’s gotta be a way,” she said.
“Surrender to the gods. That’s all I’ve got for you.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Have faith,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. He had a way of saying those words like having faith was the simplest, easiest thing a person could do. But it wasn’t. For fuck’s sake, it was the hardest thing Dana had ever done. Trying to follow the path the gods had laid out sometimes felt like getting lost in a forest on a pitch-black night.
“How can I have faith when they let Penny get taken?” Dana asked.
“Do you trust them?” Lincoln asked.
Dana glared up at the mural, the triadist charm hot between the palms of her hands.
She remembered the white fingers of God stroking through her hair. The light of death she had approached. The feeling of being held in someone’s arms, warm and safe and loved.
“Yes,” she said. “I trust them. But this is Penny, Linc. I can handle whatever they throw at me. Penny—”
“She’s strong. If you can’t have faith the gods will keep her safe, then you should have faith in Penny. Have faith in the process. Have faith in your instincts.”
Dana swallowed hard around the lump in her throat. “I’m scared, Linc.” Words that she tried to never say. Her father had never been scared.
Lincoln’s face softened. He rested a hand on Dana’s shoulder. “I’m going to leave now.”
“Now? Why?”
“You don’t need me here anymore. You’re not a vampire so you don’t need the crypt. You’re past whatever I can offer you in training. And you don’t need these hallowed walls or fonts of holy water or group prayer to connect with the gods.”
Now that Dana had uncorked her feelings, the fear was only climbing. “I don’t have Penny back yet. You can’t go.”
“You’re going to find her and tell her what you just told me, and everything’s gonna be fine.” He patted her back once, let his hand fall away.
“I need your faith,” Dana said.
“Faith isn’t faith unless you keep reaching for it when it’s nowhere to be found,” Lincoln said. His smile was easy and good-natured. “I’m not going anywhere right this second. I’ve got a few more hours before I have to run. So do you.”
“I don’t even have a few minutes,” Dana said.
“The gods will make time. Pray with me.” He folded his hands, bowed his head over his knuckles.
Dana wanted to rage at him. Fear so quickly careened into anger, like tumbling off the peak of a mountain into some dark valley.
But Lincoln’s face was so calm, and the gods were watching them from that mural.
He had faith.
She needed to find hers.
Dana folded her hands. “Listen to me, you jack fucks,” she said, glaring up through her grown-too-long mohawk at the mural. “If anything happens to Penny, I’m blaming you. I’m going to follow you into the Infinite and stab you both.”
Lincoln shook beside her. It took Dana a moment to realize he was laughing.
“I’m not joking,” she said.
“I know, kid,” he said. “I know.”
The doors to Holy Nights Cathedral opened and Charmaine entered with Tormid. The chief always looked more cop than preternatural, but with a raven shifter at her side, Dana could see the beast in Charmaine for once. Even wearing a ballistic jacket. Even carrying a police sidearm.
She stopped at the end of the pew. “Cèsar’s approved of your plan to go after Il Castrato Senesino with Nissa,” Charmaine said. “He’s moving teams in to support the operation. They’ll stay a half-kilometer radius from the meeting point so that they’re never in thrall range.”
It also meant that the OPA wasn’t actually going to be backing Dana up. They wouldn’t be able to move fast enough to save her if and when things went wrong.
“That’s a lot of trust he’s putting in me,” Dana said, hauling herself to her feet.
“I told him to give you that trust,” Charmaine said. “I’m staking every last bit of professional clout I’ve got on your ability to take these vampires down.”
Dana thrust
her hand out. “Thanks.”
Charmaine shook it. “I know you won’t make me regret this.” She pulled Dana closer, grip tightening on her knuckles. “Tormid told me that you somehow made a Garlic Shot.”
“I can’t confirm or deny that,” Dana said. She literally couldn’t. She’d used lethe, which had barely any traces of unobtainium in the best-case scenario. She had no clue if it would actually kill a hybrid like Dickless.
“I’m not out to get you. Don’t want to confiscate it or anything. But if you have it…” Charmaine’s grip was starting to hurt. “Promise you’ll offer it to Freddie Bloom. If she agrees to be cured, then I’ll make sure the DA offers some leniency. Psych care instead of OPA detention.”
“It’ll kill her. I survived the Garlic Shot because the gods helped me.”
“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe. It’s a risk. But Jeffreys was a monster as a child, and he hurt her. Bloom deserves a chance.”
Dana surprised herself by saying, “I agree.”
“I keep thinking that I should have known that Jeffreys was lying all along, and I didn’t. If we’d done something about him years ago, then maybe Bloom wouldn’t be killing now. So if Bloom agrees to attempt a cure…” The chief finally released Dana’s hand. “I don’t know. Then maybe it’s a sign I’m not as bad at this life as I fear.”
“You’re not.” Dana reflexively reached out to hug Charmaine. She’d never hugged Charmaine before, and the chief seemed so shocked that she went stiff all over.
Then Charmaine patted her back. That was more like it. An awkward bro-hug.
When Dana stepped back, Charmaine squeezed her hand. “I’ll offer,” Dana said. “No guarantees past that.”
She left the Holy Nights Cathedral with Tormid. He wasn’t going to come with her to face Dickless—nobody was getting that close to Nissa Royal. The last thing Dana needed was to fight against an enthralled Tormid. But he was going to guide her to the juncture.
Dana paused by the car, hands on the roof, and tipped her face back to absorb the fading sunlight.
Four hours until daylighting.
This might have been the last time Dana felt non-magical sun for the next six months.
