by Lisa Ladew
He handed it to Shiloh and whispered, “Scratch that out and put something acceptable on it.”
When she put it back in his hand it read
Manager: Five Hills Sleep Study Clinic
Shit. But Carick was watching them. Mr. Bunn, too. He handed the card over to the human. “You call that number, any time, day or night, Mr. Bunn. We’ll be here.”
Mr. Bunn nodded gratefully. Jameson addressed Carick. “You and he should talk. We’ll have a look around.”
Carick nodded and Jameson gestured to Shiloh and Dario, sending them both around opposite sides of the house to check the yard in back.
He stared out at the dark neighborhood as he walked down the driveway. The vampires could be anywhere.
(cora) the Instinct whispered. (go to her. or lose her)
Jameson half-shivered, the shiver stopping as he realized he was denying the Instinct. Shutting it down before it had a chance to speak. Denying it. (as you have for years)
He stopped and stared at the ground, all of his attention focused inside his body. Was that really true? (true)
Jameson’s muscles rippled helplessly, the feel-good strength of surrendering fully to what came from inside filling him for the first time that he could remember. He let it come, wanting to howl to the sky with joy that it was back.
His folly, his mistake, all of it slammed him right in the face. He’d been wrong to ever deny Cora anything she wanted, especially him. He’d been more wrong for protecting her. For not taking her to the vampire. He could be scared for her and still do right by her.
He whipped out his phone and texted her quickly.
I was wrong. So wrong. Next time, I will take you to the vampire. And the time after that, and that. I WILL be there for your first prowl. I’ll be there for all of them, if you’ll have me. I’m yours, Cora.
He hit send just as a message popped up on the screen. Aven.
Limos. Three of them. Stink of pine and bitter herbs.
The vampires had returned.
Chapter 31
“You want another deep-fried squash blossom?” Bryce held the cheese-stuffed, beer-battered flower towards Cora’s mouth.
They were at the squash fair, in a food tent, surrounded by talking, laughing people. Bryce and Flint had waylaid Cora in the BBOC after she changed out of her training gear, talking her into a night out to celebrate her first successful day. They wouldn’t take no for an answer.
At first she’d been peeved, but now she was glad. It would keep her mind off… him. She refused to think his name.
Cora held one hand over her mouth, the other placed gently on her belly. “No more food, Bryce. If you put one more thing in my face I’m stabbing it with my vampire knife.” It was an hour till fair closing time, and the humans were thinning.
Bryce snatched the treat into his mouth. “You don’t have to make it personal just because you’re a lightweight.”
On Cora’s other side, Flint snickered, but his mind was obviously far away. He was just dialing it in, barely paying attention to her or his brother, barely eating any of the delicious food on offer. He kept looking at his phone, although Cora hadn’t once heard it make noise. He spoke softly to his brother, an undercurrent of anxiety in his voice. “Not everyone goes through life doubling as a garbage disposal, Bryce. Give the girl a break.”
Cora’s phone buzzed in her purse, a text message that rang as the chorus to Concrete Blonde’s ‘Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)’. She’d changed it only an hour ago, kind of as a joke, but now that she heard it, she liked it.
She wasn’t gonna answer it, though. Wasn’t even gonna check it. If it was from Jameson, she wouldn’t be able to help herself from reading it. And if his message was sweet, she would give in to him, guaranteed. But she didn’t want to give in. What she wanted was to kill a vampire in front of him, without his help, show him she could do it. Then, maybe, they could talk. Not a scenario that’s going to happen any time soon, girl.
They finished eating, then the brothers pulled her to the games, each taking turns at playing when she didn’t want to. She frowned when she realized that one of them always stood right next to her as she watched. If she wandered off, they stopped their game to run after her. Stuck to her? Babysitting? The thought burned her somewhere deep, but she shoved it down.
Flint and Bryce hit a duck-racing game, plopping down to sit in front of matching water-shooting rifles. Cora stood to the side, just next to Flint, and cheered as the bell rang and the brothers each aimed their streams of water at the target.
Raw hatred shot through her, sharpening her focus. She turned her head slowly, looking for the source, her eyes watering with the intensity of the emotion. Vampire. Somewhere close. It manacled her, pulled at her. She followed the pull, reaching in her purse for her weapon, her resonant.
Flint, then Bryce called her name. She darted behind a booth and scooted to its edge, peeking around the canvas flap to spy on them. She realized she didn’t even know what kind of animals they shifted into. Something big. They would be like Jameson, would try to carry her away from the vampire, not toward it. No way. The hunt was on.
The Undoing, some soft voice whispered in her mind.
She struck off toward the vampire, not knowing where he was, but feeling when she was heading away or toward him. A deadly game of hotter or colder. With someone’s life the prize.
Cora’s hand clutched the hilt of her knife, her arm elbow-deep deep inside her purse. Some part of her knew that when she was closer to him, she would no longer care about keeping the knife hidden. She’d be under the control of the Undoing, of her purpose, much like a woman at the moment of birth who no longer cares who sees her naked because she is too focused on getting the damn baby out of her! Energy flowed through her muscles, pulsing like blood, hardening her bones. She would find him. Soon.
“I am the weapon,” she whispered. “The weapon comes for you, vampire. You die tonight.”
The rage intensified, propelling Cora’s body forward until she was jogging through the tiny dark alleys behind the vendors and carnies, passing a long line of empty port-o-johns, her eyes peeled for the vampire. Any vampire.
She saw him at a picnic table. Garner. Her own personal vampire. Kill. Eradicate. Rational thought failed her, but a primal instinct flared to life as she circled the covered area he was in, skirting it, noting his lack of goons. Although she couldn’t possibly think of why he wouldn’t have bodyguards, she was glad he didn’t. He was hers.
A wall of violent bloodlust overtook Cora, stronger than anything she’d felt before, pushing all else from her mind. Except her Prowl. She’d given Flint and Bryce the slip, the ones who were supposed to keep her from killing innocents. Maybe that was good, since she couldn’t imagine fucking either one of them. She would have to do something else. Run, maybe. Something told her it could work, if she could control herself enough to choose. Of course she could.
The vampire. He was right there. Cora crept in for the kill, the rage sweeping down on her the second her decision to move forward was made. She tightened her hold on her weapon and let her purse fall to the ground, her keys making a muffled jingle as it hit.
She wanted the element of surprise, mentally willing the energy that thrummed inside her to help her move with stealth, eyeing the spot on the vampire’s back where she would plunge her knife.
Strong arms snagged her from behind, gripping tight and lifting her clean off the ground, running with her the other way. Cora struggled madly, trying to stab behind her with her knife, maybe connecting with something, throwing her head backwards, meeting with solid chest.
“Cora, it’s me. Jesus, it’s Bryce. Ouch! Fuck! Stop kicking!”
Cora heard every word but could not heed them. She kicked and fought Bryce, but couldn’t get away. The vampire turned and made eye contact with her, dark eyes going steely. She had to get back to him! She turned her head and snapped her teeth near Bryce’s cheek like an animal, trying to reach flesh and
bone. “Let go of me,” she snarled.
Bryce snatched his head away from hers with a look of horrified disbelief. “What the fuck, Cora! Hell naw, I don’t do this kind of crazy.” He surged to the left, headed straight for the port-o-johns.
He ripped open a door and stuffed her into an empty plastic box, then shoved the door closed and held tight, yelling for Flint, his jock’s voice carrying far.
Cora’s body blazed with agony. Her vision clouded until all she could see was the image of the vampire, the green walls of her tiny prison gone. She beat against them, not seeing them, as her bloodlust stung her like a thousand wasps. She could feel him, Garner. He was up, moving! She would lose him! He would live on! The monster, the bloodthief!
She beat on the door and walls with her fists, then slashed her knife at the thick plastic, seeking to convince the one who kept her inside to let her out. His name? She fumbled for it and found it in the red haze of her rage. “Bryce! Open the door! You can’t keep me from him! This is betrayal!”
Bryce’s panicked voice came back to her. “Hang on, Cora, hang on.”
Thousands of needles pricked her skin, her muscles, her organs, her bones, and she screamed in anguish and anger, stabbing with her knife again, making a hole. She yanked at it with her fingers, widening it, as the jagged edges opened wounds in her fingers. Her own blood smeared the plastic, spattered in her face.
From outside, Bryce yelled to someone, “She’s freaking out! I got her trapped in the port-a-potty!”
There was a pause, then Bryce exhaled a curse. On his phone. “Get here now! We gotta get her out of here. The cops are gonna come. Or the vampire. Someone’s gonna see us. Or she’ll kill me! My pants! She stabbed my fucking pants! ”
Cora’s panting breaths reverberated in the small space, the echo searing through her overcharged brain. Her conscious mind shrank into her pain, her primal brain urging her to fight, to defend herself against the assault. She couldn’t. There was no way to protect herself. Could the agony of her own bloodlust kill her? Cora howled out her pain.
Bryce swore from outside. “Jesus, Cora!”
She twisted in agony and anguish, clutching her resonant, to her chest, blade out. She took the deepest breath possible and screamed with every bit of girl-power she had, “SOMEONE GET ME OUT OF THIS SHITBOX!”
Chapter 32
Jameson sprinted for his truck. He saw the limos first, his team approaching them, pulling the drivers out so the vampires couldn’t be driven away.
Aven, Shiloh, and Ryder all were hauling open limo doors or going in through the windows, rooting around inside for the vampires within. Five of them threaten a human in Five Hills! That shit wasn’t happening again.
His blood went cold. A back window in the lead limousine rolling down, a cruel face looking out. A skunk-stripe of white in dark hair flashing under the streetlamps.
Images flashed. Mother. The young. The vampires exiting his back door. William. Dying. Jameson’s fault. Them all dying. He was the last one left for so long.
Jameson’s running speed doubled. He slammed into the side of the limousine, smashing the partially open window as he thrust his hands inside and grabbed the male there. He dug his hands into flesh, holding tight, feeling the pull as the big ugly vamp tried to phaze away. “I got you, fucker. We’re gonna have a little party.”
Dario ran up from behind. “Send him an e-vite J, we got a situation.”
Indignant yells and growls filled the night air. Bloodblades. Were they even being careful for bloodblades? Had Jameson ever told any of his team about them? And he’d told Carick he was making bad decisions. Fuck!
“Help me, Dar- I can’t hold him-.” The vampire was twisting in his grip, biting and hissing and slashing at him. No knives yet. Jameson hauled hard, slamming the vamp’s face against the inside of the car, trying to pull him out the window.
Dario wasn’t helping. He got in close so only Jameson could hear him, and what he said made Jameson drop the vampire. “Cora is hunting a vampire at the fairgrounds right now. Flint and Bryce are trying to stop her, but they say she’s out of her mind. Bryce got his pants stabbed.”
Jameson stopped cold and relaxed his grip. The vampire phazed away at once, but Jameson couldn’t be bothered. He stuck his nose in the air, seeing the miles to the fairground in his mind. It would take him almost twenty minutes to get there in his truck, but one wolf-cut through the forest would shave ten off that.
Decision made, he skirted the limo, yelling over his shoulder to Dario. “You’re in charge. See that everyone gets out of here safe. And don’t go mountain man on any you manage to keep, unless you have to. We need intel!”
Without waiting to see if Dario had gotten the message Jameson broke into a sprint, until he was in the back of someone’s yard. As soon as no glow from street lights or side windows reached him he shifted, dropping purposefully to the ground, big claws tearing into the grass, propelling him forward.
The running white wolf could top a speed of fifty miles per hour and sustain that for hours. I’m coming, Cora, he tried to project, with no idea if she could hear him or not.
He would make it. He had to.
Green lights flashed in his mind, color where shades of gray naturally reigned. He could feel her hunting, could almost hear her. Jameson pushed harder, taxing his massive lupine body to its limit.
* * *
Flint stalked across the fairgrounds, moving east to rendezvous with Bryce, who had Cora locked in a port-o-john on the edge of the festival.
Fucking FUBAR. She’d found a vampire and they were all fucked, because no one and nothing could keep her from getting back to it. Bryce said she’d already carved a hole in the back wall of the port-o-john big enough to fit her entire hand through. Bryce was scared, and Bryce was never scared. He and Bryce both saw visions of the first Undoing in a hundred years going drastically wrong. Humans dead. Switch in jail. Vampire gotten clean away. On their watch. Fuck that! They were gonna handle their shit. Bryce was strong and did what he was told, and Flint would figure a way out of this shit.
We need Jameson.
Fuck yeah, they did. But they weren’t gonna get him. Fint had to be the star of this show until the calvary rolled up, and he needed to rock it. For Cora’s sake, and Jameson’s. That had been some pure fucking pain Flint had seen on Jameson’s face. Imagine if Cora went to jail? Or died?
He searched, ears pricked, muscles tense, eyes alert. He found the line of port-o-johns, but not one vampire. He knew Cora wasn’t imagining things, but where was the guy? Unless he left the area altogether, the only way to get Cora to stop her fucking slicing and dicing was to toss a vampire in there with her. (then what?) Right? Then what, indeed. Flint knew one thing, and one thing only. He wasn’t fucking Jameson’s woman. How did the switches deal with that shit in the past?
Another lap around the field gave him no scent of vampire. He wasn’t giving up, but he would check on his brother. He lost a bit of composure and ran for Bryce at an all out sprint. The port-o-john was rocking, and his brother’s heels were sunk halfway in the dirt as he pressed his entire body against the door. Two giggling teen-age girls went by him. He nodded to them. “I caught a bear. Animal control is on its way. Nothing to see here.”
People were everywhere. Someone had to have called the cops already. They had to go.
But if they tried to haul Coralie out while she wanted to kill a vampire, fighting and cursing them, they were gonna be arrested. All of them. Maybe fucking shot for their troubles. A bad scene, no matter how you played it.
Pine and bitter herbs coming in from the south. The vampire. Heading back from an exit at a brisk walk, like he’d forgotten something. Flint turned and ran, ignoring stares, until he saw the guy. He jogged to the left and grabbed the well-dressed fucker around the throat with his elbow. He couldn’t kill the bastard, but he knew who could. Flint pulled him into a bear hug, propelling him toward the woods, yelling for his brother. Get it done and GTFO, get t
he fuck out. The cops had to be on their way. “Bryce! Get ready!”
Bryce only gaped for a second. Flint saw the exact moment his brother figured out what the plan was. Bryce nodded and steadied himself.
Garner struggled, dug in his heels, bit and clawed like an animal. Flint moved faster, yanking Garner into the woods by his neck. Away from witnesses, from crowds. When they reached the edge of the woods he hollered over his shoulder. “Now!”
He had to trust that Bryce had heard him. Flint shoved the councilman away from him, hard, the vampire falling to his feet and scrabbling to get back up. An emerald blur came in fast.
Flint settled in to watch the energetic carnage with an anticipation born of bitter experience.
***
The second she was released, Cora ran, hard and swift and deadly. The vampire had been brought close to her and she could sense it even now, was drawn to it like a moth to a security light.
The vampire saw her coming and turned to greet her. Cora had her knife. He would not win. She’d been born to do this. The vampire bent his knees slightly and put his hands out, like he would grapple with her, then surprised her by speaking. “Cora, is it?” he said, his voice like a snake’s. Rage flared inside her, whipping her bold. “I can get you your job back.”
Job? She frowned as images of a brightly-lit classroom and young people she cared about came to her. Students. Yes. Job. No. She didn’t want it back. He was lying, anyway. That was what vampires did. Lie. Kill. Steal Blood. But she would play with him, if he wanted to play. She loved all words, even the ones that were lies. “I don’t think I can wait that long to kill you,” she said pleasantly, like he’d offered her a breath mint.
He snarled. “You’ll go to jail, you know. Or back to the looney bin. Shock treatments this time. I’ve already talked to Dr. Momeyer and he agrees it’s the only way to help you.” They faced each other between the trees, pacing their own small circle while Bryce and Flint moved around them. He spoke again. “Put down your weapon and I’ll get you your job back. I’ll cancel my order to your doctor.”
