by brett hicks
The two massive SWAT vans rolled up and a half dozen men and women poured out of each of the vans. Each was carrying tactical assault rifles and full body armor. They were quickly pulling head gear over their faces. Jon walked over and began talking with the late thirties SWAT commander and he was pointing two houses down to Darla Cloud’s home.
He motioned me over and Sally, Dylan, MR. Early and my mom followed. The commander was bitching about a little girl in a trench coat. “I don’t care what your damn captain says Divichi I am not sending in a kid with my team. She is just a liability.”
“You might want to send us in, if you wish to remain breath at the end of the night.” My mother was not exactly subtle in her statements.
“You have a few were wolves and a few witches, since when has the NOPD become the fucking circus?” That was from the tall late twenties lady in full tactical gear next to the SWAT commander. I rolled my eyes and I looked back to the house and I felt the magic begin to rise quickly. I cursed to myself and looked back at Jon and said, “I am going in now, she is starting something new. I am sure she knows we are coming now dammit.”
Dylan tapped my shoulder and pointed to the ally way one house over from us and said, “I will cut around the side with Sally and try to cut around the back yard. It feels like the magic is building behind her house now.”
I nodded and said, “I am going to go through the front and make sure to draw all the focus on me. I will try to freeze as much as I can, but I am going to need to save some of my juice for Darla. If she is as strong as my mom, then she is going to be a bitch to bring down.”
“Are you fucking listening to me kid, I said no.”
I turned and looked at the SWAT commander and said, “I technically don’t have to follow your orders yet commander. I am still a civilian technically right now. Try not to get anyone killed with your narrow-mindedness please.”
My mom snorted laughter and followed me as I made for the front of the house. I saw a shimmer of darkness around the gateway and I looked at my mom.
“She has a barrier spell up doesn’t she?”
“Yeah no doubt about it and you might not want to actually touch it yet. No telling what kind of hexes she has put on the barrier, like how I did at home.”
I nodded and I stepped back a few feet. I opened my magic full and felt the air around me freeze over. I saw my mother’s aura go deep ocean blues and she raised her hand and began to chant. I saw the Mississippi waters roar overhead and a wall of water crashed into the barrier. The waters sizzled against the white hot barrier magic and warred for dominance.
I heard shocked sounds of surprise from the humans behind us. The waters were beginning to dissipate, when a second tsunami crashed into the barrier and shattered the dark spell.
The stench of rot hit me with a new level of sour tang and I drew my katana. I dashed through the gates and dead bodies exploded from the grounds around the front yard. I lopped a head off and the body of the zombie kept attacking me. I leapt back to the gate and swung my blade down on it. The blade bit into its chest giving me some distance from the threat, but the dead thing was still swinging its arms at me furiously.
I spun my blade and lopped off one arm then another, then hacked a foot off. I rendered it unable to attack any farther at that point. I reached into my magic and I froze the whole front yard over with a cold snap. I left the zombies I could see rooted in place for the moment, but it was enough for the humans to recover and open fire on the front of the house.
I heard my mom yelling for them to shoot the heads then the limbs, but I did not have time to keep listening. Vampires began to spill into the streets and the front yard, from every direction. I cursed and I swung to turn back around, but I heard Mr. Early roar and yell, “I’ve got this covered kid, go get that little bitch for me.”
I nodded and I heard more wolves howl, already in their wolf forms. The charged in from the streets behind the SWAT van, apparently the apex was never out of reach of some of his pack. The problem now was that we now had most of our people pinned down at the front. I could advance to the back yard, but I would not be able to count on any back up now. It was a good thing I was not use to counting on back up in the first place.
I broke into a full run for the side gate and I leap clear over it into the back yard. I saw Dylan and Sally already fighting off ghouls and zombies back here. I cursed to myself and I saw a blur of steel in my peripheral vision. I hit the ground in a forward roll and barely missed being cleaved in half by a broad sword.
I rotated and I parried in time to look at the tall bearded Scottish vampire. I cursed under my breath again at the annoyance added to my night. He kicked out at me and I hopped back out of reach, then I brought my blade into a ready stance.
“So happy I got to have a rematch with ye lass. Shame to spoil such a pretty little piece of ass like you, but job is a job eh?”
I snarled at his and I cross slashed at him, then spun my blade back for a second strike. He parried the attack away with easy of his hundreds of years of practice. His broadsword swung in a blur of speed and I side stepped the blade, before it bit the stone walkway where I was standing. I snap kicked him in the chest and he took one large step back.
I batted his next swing back and I palmed my left dagger into my hand and threw it with a blur of motion and it tore into his left arm. I heard him roar in pain and I lunged forward sweeping my blade at his neck level, but he parried my attack to the side and kicked me in my stomach. I groaned in pain. I transferred my katana to my left hand and I thrust as I palmed my right hand dagger. The tip of my blade bit into his wounded left shoulder, as my dagger blocked his massive broadsword, just short of impaling me.
“Ye are good lassie but ye cannot beat me yet little girl.”
I gave him a cheeky smile as I held his blade just short of my stomach and said, “We will see about that. I already beat the shit out of the apex of the wolves tonight, why not go two for two?”
I pushed him off my dagger and jumped three feet back and out of melee reach. He finally pulled my dagger from the smoking wound in his arm. I threw my right hand dagger at him, aiming for his chest, but he blocked it with his sword. I swept my katana across his legs and he yelled in agony as the sliver in my blade burned both of his thighs and dark blood poured forth from the wounds. Vampires are generally use to regenerating very fast at his age, so having open wounds slowing them down for this long was a great advantage for me.
He wildly swung at me and I rolled straight by him and I raked my blade wildly across his left calf on the way. He back handed me before I could completely collect myself and I flew into the back fence. I could taste my own blood on my lips now and I felt my eyes silver and my fangs decent now.
“I bloody hate dyamphyrs always got to be killing our own kind, you do.”
I snarled and said, “I am not your kind. I am not a dead thing you fuck.”
“Not yet, but I am about to kill you then fuck you good lassie, maybe I will fuck you while I kill you.”
I slashed horizontally and he parried and his blade came down on my hand. I suppressed a groan of pain and I tried to hold onto my blade, but it came free from my grip. I felt his knee connect with my stomach and I grunted in pain. I cursed and I reached into my coat and I pulled out a pair of daggers, one in each hand. I caught his down swing on my twin blades and I kicked him in the groin. He screamed in a pitch three octaves higher than before.
“You forgot one thing big boy.”
“Wha… is that … little bitch?”
I rolled to the side and chucked both daggers into his side and back. He screamed and as he brought his broad sword around to meet my small body, I drew my nine millimeters and I put three shots from each through his chest, and then unloaded the clips into his head quickly. His blade fell limp before he could attack me again.
“This is the 21st century big boy. We have guns too.”
I reloaded both my guns quickly as I jogged to the large g
arage. It was glowing with dark purple magic now. I aimed at the door and kicked it in. A tall dark haired girl was working over a pile of bones and I saw them beginning to grow flesh on them again. She was reanimating someone. I did not know how to stop the spell, so I fired a hollow point into the skull and it exploded.
She whipped her head around and her dark green eyes looked like the depths of hell. She hissed at me and I recognized her from the few classes I had shared with her.
“Darla stop or I will shoot.”
She looked at me and she seemed to distract herself from the magic for a moment. So far the skull bone had not regrown itself, but I was not going to assume that it meant she could not finish whatever she was doing. I looked and I saw one of the gris-gris was handing around her neck and another was on the breast bone of the corpse. Whatever or whoever this was, she wanted to control them after she raised them.
“You just had to be a fucking girl scout didn’t you Kayla.”
“Common Darla drop the spell or I am going to have to drop you. The police are here and there is nowhere to go. You would rather be arrested, then captured by the pack right? All of the pack alphas are outside, so I would highly recommend surrendering, before they eat your ass.”
She gave me a malicious look and began to chant again and I felt the magic building up. I let out a breath and I aimed up and away from her center mass a little. I pulled the trigger and her right shoulder had a large hole and her life blood poured form the wound. Before she could keep chanting I pistol whipped her with my gun and she went limp on the floor.
Chapter: 22
Jon sent me home after the raid on the voodoo lands to rest. When I woke up he was down stairs drinking a cup of coffee with my mom. I walked into the room and I saw the sour look on his face. I lifted my eyebrow and said, “Who died?”
He laughed mirthlessly and said, “Funny you should say that. Darla was gun down when we were loading her into the hospital.”
“What!?”
Jon scrubbed his hands through his short, dark hair and sighed.
“It was a damn vamp servant. We were able to trace him back to that James of Whales vampire, but he stopped talking after that. He is too scared of his master to tell us anymore. That James guy is who we like for being the vampire partner in the murders Darla helped with.”
I recovered enough to take the cup of coffee my mom was holding out for me and I sat down across from Jon. He looked like he had not slept at all yet and his shadowy eyes were void of their usual fire.
“So where does that leave the police on this case? Did you figure out what she was up to?”
“We found her mom chained up in cold iron inside the rundown house. She confirmed that Darla had been trying to revive the late voodoo priestess Hagna. We accounted for three of the four gris-gris, but the mom has no idea where the last one is. She said it was with the vampire. He came to pick it up for something of his own designs.”
“Shit!”
Jon nodded and looked me in my stormy eyes. “Shit indeed Kayla, so we are basically trying to figure out where this psycho vamp is right now, but we got nothing at the moment.”
“Well he might have left town?”
Jon gave me a look that said I knew better. I nodded and shrugged.
“Well at least we have a pause in the murder rate right? I mean we just have to take what we can get, until we find his ass. He is a psycho so he will surface again soon enough.”
My mom joined us at the table and said, “Kayla I talked to your principle and he is going to have your diploma ready on Monday. You already have the credits to graduate, so he is finalizing your grades now. You will be able to attend the graduation ceremony at the end of the year if you wish to. You can also start the fall academy class with the NOPD, since you turn eighteen this week. Classes are starting in two weeks, but are you sure you want to do this? You really don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. You could always go to college and then choose to join later.”
I gave her a small smile and shook my head. “No mom I would just be delaying the inevitable, besides how is Jon going to get any murder collars without my cute little butt solving the crimes for him.”
Jon rolled his eyes and said, “I was doing just fine on good collars before I met you Kayla. I will manage somehow. Your friend Sally is cutting out of school early too. She also had enough credits to graduate, why the hell were you two even bothering with high school, when you could graduate early?”
I smiled sheepishly and said, “Well we just wanted to have a little more time to enjoy hanging out with our friends I guess. We just kinda knew that our human friends would drift apart from us after we graduated. We don’t really have much tethering us to the human world as it is.”
He nodded and sipped his coffee. “So what is the plan for after the police academy Jon?”
“Well first you better get used to calling me Detective Divichi, when we are in uniform and second, you will be on patrol like any other new beat cop. You will spend most your shifts like any other rookie with a TO and I will barrow you the rest of the time. When you’re with me, you can wear plane cloths like I do. Too much a pain in my ass otherwise, so just be ready to go if I have supernatural stuff come up.”
I nodded and I must have looked as excited as I felt. Jon looked at me with amusement and just sipped his coffee.
“You will probably get to take your detectives exams earlier than most, not because you’re a special little snowflake, but because you already have the damn skill set. Much as that pains me to admit. But don’t get cocky Kayla being a cop is not fucking easy work.”
I nodded and grinned into my coffee mug and enjoyed the bitter caffeine.
“Guess I just might wanna avoid SWAT for a little while huh?”
He snorted a laugh and said, “Oh yeah, commander has a hard on for you and not the kind the high school boy do.”
My mom just laughed and said, “Please Kayla is the leading cause of cold showers in teenage boys around here.”
I gave her a look and I swept ice over her coffee and froze it solid. I smirked at her with a lot of sass. She twitched her index finger and my coffee shot into my face. I heard male laugher as I squeaked and got up to wash my face off.
“Never a dull moment around you two, but I am not really sure who the adult is between the two of you.”
“It’s a team effort at maturity detective.” He snorted and laughed again and I cleaned my face off.
Epilog
It was early May now and I stood with my friends among the police academy class mates. We were being paraded on a stage at our graduation ceremony and it was slightly less boring then all the lectures on traffic laws over the past seven months.
After a lengthy speech the police commissioner of New Orleans came down and pinned our badges on each of us. I felt molten butterflies in my stomach, when it was my turn and I was so happy. I had finally become a police officer and they were not going to fire me for being what I was, a dyamphyr.
I had received plenty of hate in the academy from some of the other cadets and I had little doubts about that changing on the job, but I was still excited to see where this job would take me. I hoped to be able to make some positive impact on our very violent city.
Sally got to give a small speech, because she beat me by a whole half a point on our exams! We competitive all the way through training, because we were the only thing we could compare each other to. Dylan said it was damn near boring for him, when they had us split up in to male, female groups. He said he could not really get any challenge out of the training, but we all had grown up training with a pack of were wolves so it was to be expected.
I saw my mom and a lot of the highest ranking pack members out in the crowd. I was walking to my mom with Sally, who was about to be my roommate in a new apartment by the way. Dylan was renting a single across the hall from us near the 8th precinct too. We were bright eyed about the future, a future full of looking into the darkest places for th
e worst people on the planet.
I waved to my mom and she ran up and hugged me and I blushed a little bit. She was chronically embarrassing to me.
“My baby is all grown up and giving out parking tickets now!”
I rolled my eyes and said, “I am not a meter maid dammit!”
She just laughed at me and I saw a tall dark haired young man walking up to me. I turned to see him full and I was looking at Jon. He had visited me plenty and helped me with my training. He helped me memorize the codes numbers for all the crimes. He came to pick my brain about supernatural murder cases as well.
I gave him a sassy smile and a crisp salute. I was in my deep blue dress uniform and my navy blue police officer cap. He returned my salute and extended his hand and I shook it.
“To think you are the same little girl I saw coming out of a High School just about eight months ago now. Congratulations Officer Kayla McQueen.”
“Thanks Detective Divichi and thanks for all the help studying. Damn Sally still beat my ass out of the top spot though.”
He shrugged and said, “They just don’t have tests on slaying vampires or stopping crazy magical beings yet Kayla. You will do a damn good job.”
His phone started buzzing and he answered it, holding up a finger at me.
He looked back to me and said, “We got a call of a crazy were-tiger down off Royal. Two dead so far, are you coming?”
I shrugged and said, “Only if you get me a damn burger on the way there.”
He rolled his eyes and I followed him to his car. I was already on the clock moments after graduation.
