by Jackie May
The ’85 Chevy 4x4—faded blue with a white cab—sits high above large tires. I haul myself in and crank the engine. After three failed starts, she finally turns over with a grumble, as though reminding me that I don’t got to be in no damn hurry. In the cold dark, I talk back to it: “Yeah, I know Nick’s text said to await further instructions, but he knows I don’t ‘await’ shit. I go, and fast.” When I stomp the gas, the truck mocks me with a sputtering crawl.
“You’re a disgrace to your year,” I complain. “Do you have any idea what songs came out in 1985? ‘Rhythm of the Night,’ ‘Freeway of Love.’ Fast songs. ‘Neutron Dance,’ for crying out loud. Oh, here’s one I know you’ve never heard: ‘The Heat Is On.’” I slap the air vents. They belch a cold stink at me.
I’m halfway to the office when Nick calls. “Bagley Street in Corktown,” he barks over loud background chatter.
“What about it?”
“I need you there ten minutes ago.”
“But I’m past Corktown. I’m almost to the office.”
“The office! Did I tell you to come to the damn office?” Nick’s using his big-boy voice. This is definitely major.
“What the hell’s going on?”
“A runaway vamp with major blood fever. You’re up.”
“No, but I mean at the office. It sounds like a zoo.”
“Forget the office, Shayne! Listen to me. I got a rampaging vamp with a human hostage in Corktown. I’ve told police the FBI negotiator is en route. They’re expecting you.”
“Negotiator? You expect a vamp with blood lust to talk?”
Nick’s voice goes away from the phone, shouting angry commands at some other poor soul. Then back to me: “Run that bloodsucker down and drag his corpse back here, dead or alive. We’re all-hands-on-deck over here, or you better believe I’d send somebody else.”
“Gee, I’m overwhelmed by your confidence.”
“Make me eat my words when you haul his staked ass in.”
“With no backup? Don’t you usually send a small army after rogue vamps?”
“Not rogue. He’s clan, but his sire bond was just severed. He’ll be weak.”
A severed bond? That could only mean a dead master. “Which clan?” I blurt, trying to sound natural. I already know it must be Henry Stadther. This is a nightmare. We’re talking top-five biggest bombshells of all time in the Detroit underworld. All-hands-on-deck is a major understatement. “Don’t tell me it’s Henry Stadther.”
“I can’t give shit for answers until you get here, but we’re on total lockdown, Shayne, and I’ve already told the guards that the only way your bony ass gets through the door is with that fanger in a headlock. Without him, you might as well crawl on back to bed.” He hangs up.
“Crawl, are you kidding?” I snap at the phone. “I’d run across broken glass to get back to my bed right now and curl up next to that warm, beautiful man who surely must love himself some bony ass, ’cause damn.”
I flip a hard U-turn, the back end of the truck whipping sideways across the icy road. Corktown isn’t far from here. Bagley’s a long street, though. How am I supposed to know where to find—oh. I guess I can follow that glow of police lights in the distance.
Every patrol car in Detroit must be here. They’re parked two deep in the street and on sidewalks and front lawns, and down alleys between apartment buildings. A SWAT truck deploys men built like tanks, covered in tactical gear and assault rifles. Bleary-eyed residents in pajamas gather on front porches and apartment balconies to watch the show.
I only have to flash my badge a dozen times before Detroit PD finally accepts that this redhead in a Tigers jacket is the FBI negotiator and sends me up to the front line. Across the street from us, shielding his eyes from a harsh spotlight, is the star of the show: a tall, lanky man in a crisp suit. He hugs a terrified woman to his chest as a shield against the sea of police rifles aimed at him.
A high-ranking gray moustache shouts into a bullhorn. “We’ve complied with all your demands. We’re staying back. We’ve cleared the alley behind you.”
“What? Why?” I ask.
After a double take at me, the gray moustache lowers the bullhorn. “Who the hell are you?”
“I asked you first. Why’d you clear the alley?”
“He’ll feel safer in there, out of the open.”
“Safer? Should we get him some milk and cookies?”
“It’s a bargaining chip. He’s using the woman as cover. He lets her go, we let him take cover in the alley to continue negotiations.”
“And by negotiations, do you mean a sniper blasts him in the kneecap?”
“We have a sniper in place, but only as a last resort.”
“Perfect. I live at that resort.” I gesture to the bullhorn. Reluctantly, he hands it over. My voice blares through the neighborhood. “Now look, everybody’s tired and stressed out, I get it. It’s been a long night. A very long night. In fact”—for emphasis, I move the megaphone closer to my mouth—“it’s almost the next day. Soon—very soon—the big, bright sun will rise, and won’t we all be feeling better then?”
The woman screams as the vamp shakes her with rage. “Hey! Hey, what is this? Who’s that?”
“Concierge,” I answer. “I’ve come to take the coffee order. Tide us over while we wait for daylight.”
“Not a chance!” he shrieks, his voice pitching high. “I walk now, or she’s dead! I’ll open her up!”
“Stop that,” I say, annoyed. “That doesn’t even make sense. Look, to be honest, I never understood the whole hostage thing.” I point the bullhorn at the gray moustache, even though he’s only three feet away. He covers his ears. “Like, isn’t that lady the only thing keeping us from lighting him up?” Back to the vamp: “She’s the only leverage you got. If she goes, we take you out without a second thought. So here’s what’s going to happen. I’m coming over there, and we’re gonna have us a talk about some Nick Gorgeous.”
With a shudder, the vamp groans.
Gray Moustache snatches the bullhorn away. “Are you insane? You just undid the last hour of progress we made with this maniac.”
“He’s a crackhead, is all. Out of his mind on a bad trip. You saw how he reacted to the mention of sunshine? Asshole thinks he’s a nightwalker.”
“A what, now?”
I lower my voice. “A vampire. Look, you can’t make this shit up. You got officers that were attacked?”
“Two.”
“With what? A gun? A knife?”
“No, he…” A light dawns in his eyes. “He tried to bite them.”
“See? He’s a loony. I’ve dealt with these guys, and I’m telling you, he does not respond to kid gloves. The only way to get through to him is with fierce aggression. Total dominance, got it?”
He still seems unsure. “Who’s Nick Gorgeous?”
“Not a who. A what. Nick Gorgeous is code for this guy’s particular cocktail of drugs. Nasty shit, too. Straight-up hairy-ass gutter ball, take you to the moon and back. Know what I’m saying?”
Clearly not. He closes his mouth, at a loss for words. Mission accomplished.
Striding across the street, I summon every ounce of alpha dominance I can muster, which isn’t much, but I sure as hell know how to fake it from all those years running with the Cody boys. Shocked whispers follow me from the ranks of cops. The vamp tenses. He jerks the woman’s head back, exposing her neck to his bared fangs. Her mouth gapes open, but no sound comes out. Sheer terror has taken her voice away.
“Do it, already,” I bluff. “How on earth are you holding back? By now the fever must be burning a whole in your black, undead heart.”
“You’re FUA,” he hisses.
“I’m every damn letter of the alphabet. That’s why Nick sent me, and not an army.”
“His army is busy cleaning up the mess they made of my clan.” He makes an anguished whining sound, like an injured puppy. “My master.”
Here we go. Suck it, Gorgeous, I can get
my own damn answers. “Henry Stadther?”
His face crumbles. I’m close enough now to see that he’s definitely Henry’s type. A strong but sensible look. Well-dressed. An accountant, or business strategist, something soft like that. “Henry only wanted to help. To offer her protection. He had already formed a connection with her. How could she embrace all those other men, but reject one so much their superior?”
“Ah. So that’s what happened. Nora Jacobs.”
His lips pull tight with a sneer. “We should have torn her apart the first time he brought her home, but the damage was already done. She had bewitched him. She…” He squeezes his eyes shut, as though fending off a pounding headache. “Do you have any idea how it feels? To be connected to somebody, your guardian and king, your very life force, your everything…and then to have that connection severed? To have your life taken, only you’re not dead?”
His words strike me right between the eyes. My mind flashes to a beautiful naked man asleep in a bed that was his, but is now ours. Needing to stay aggressive, I shove that thought away. “Sounds exactly like how it must have felt when Henry first turned you. I bet you weren’t so fond of him then.”
“That was two hundred years ago. Two centuries. The twenty years I lived before that is but a blink.”
“Give me a break. It’s not even Henry you’re missing; it’s the sire bond you crave. The second you lay eyes on another master, you’ll be like, ‘Henry who?’ You guys are as loyal as a knife in the back.”
Proving my point, his eyes glitter with desire. “Is there another master?”
“There’s always another master, but look, the last thing you want to hear after a nasty breakup is that there’s plenty of fish in the sea, so let’s get back to the part where you tell me if you do or do not want your body attached to your head when I take it into the Agency. And stop hiding behind that meat shield. You know full well I’m authorized to disregard collateral damage. In fact, now that she heard all this, it’s better if she dies.” Turning to the police, I motion for them to move in. A handful of SWAT men creep toward us with rifles raised, fingers on triggers.
The vamp steps back. The woman whimpers.
“Last chance,” I say. “What’ll it be? The firing squad, or…this?” Extending my open palm, I show him the thin metal cylinder I’ve been holding. He’ll know what it is. All FUA agents carry them. The bloodsucker snarls, but not at the cylinder. He’s looking at my fingertips. With all my senses on high alert, my claws have extended.
“A shifter.” Peering at my face, his eyes light up. “A fox shifter. I know you.”
Shit, and a sigh. This can’t be good. I roll with my final bluff. “The firing squad, then? Firing squad it is. Won’t kill you, but it’ll hurt like hell.”
He flashes eyeteeth in a sinister grin. “I don’t think so. You’re Shayne Davies.” He spits out the next words with utter contempt. “The traitor. Everybody knows you side with the filthy human scourge over your own kind. And you lecture me about loyalty?” To my horror, his hand moves, swift as a bullet, to the woman’s neck. His fingernails dig into her throat, drawing blood. She flails, making desperate cries, half scream, half gurgle.
I jump back, raising my hands. “Okay, okay, you win. Stop!”
“To them!” he bellows.
I turn to the SWAT team. “Back! Go back, dammit. Stand down. Shit!” As the men backpedal, a frustrated murmur ripples through the crowd. The high-ranking moustache throws the bullhorn down and kicks it.
“Such a foolish weakness, Agent Davies.” Dragging the woman toward the dark alley, the vamp licks the blood off her neck. He shudders with ecstasy. “To love a human is to love a dandelion in a hurricane.”
His words stoke the fire of anxiety in my chest. I stamp at the flames, forcing them back, snuffing them out. I’m strong enough, I’m fast enough. And I’ll prove it. “I need to get back to the Agency,” I hiss through clenched teeth, my face red with both embarrassment and fury. “And you’re my key.”
We stare each other down for an electric moment, before he snatches the woman off her feet and rushes for the alley. I hurry back to the moustache. “Your sniper. Where?”
“Last door down, third floor overlooking the alley.”
Taking off like a shot, I sprint down the front of the apartment building, passing porch after porch until I reach the final door, bash through that, jump stairs three at a time, crash through the door of a back apartment, and lean over the railing of a balcony overlooking the alley. A SWAT sniper looks through his scope, tracing the movement of the vampire’s dark shape below.
I state the obvious. “You won’t get a clear shot.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. They’re still too far, she’s still too close to him, and they’re moving.”
“You’re going to have to take it anyway.”
“The hell I am.”
“Dammit, if he goes for her neck, you pull that trigger.”
“That’s an impossible shot.”
“If you don’t, she’ll be dead anyway, trust me.”
“If he goes for her neck? With what?”
“His teeth.” The sniper starts to turn toward me, but I slap him on the shoulder. “This is it. He’s pulling her behind the Dumpster.”
The sniper aims.
“Take it.”
He tightens his grip on the stock. The vampire presses the screaming woman against the wall.
“Take it!”
The vamp leans into her neck. The woman unleashes all her panic, kicking and flailing wildly, forcing the vamp away just as the sniper rifle jumps with a bang. The shot misses, throwing sparks with a ricochet off the Dumpster. Abandoning the woman, the vamp streaks up the alley toward us.
“Again!” I order. “Take the shot!”
The sniper’s head shakes. “Too fast. Damn, he’s fast!” He fires again, missing by a mile.
“Shit, move!” I command, throwing one leg over the railing.
“What the hell are you doing? That’s a thirty-foot drop!”
No time to think about that. Taking a half second to calculate speed, angle, and trajectory, I pounce from the railing. The plunge sends my stomach flying up into my lungs. The alley rushes up at me as the dark shape of the vampire closes in. I land with one foot on each of his shoulders, a perfect tackle. With an explosion of painful thumps, we crash to the wet pavement, tumbling and slapping against each other. My back slams into the wall of the opposite apartment building.
Several areas of my body scream in protest, raising alarms of injury, but I’ve got to push through that. The vamp is on hands and knees, crawling away. I throw myself on top of him. After pinning his arms, I raise a fist, wielding the thin metal cylinder.
“No!” he screams.
Flicking my thumb, I extend the razor-sharp splinter of ash wood from the cylinder. We call them toothpicks, because that’s about how big they are. Plunging the splinter into his shoulder, I twist, breaking it off under his skin. He howls in pain, kicking at the ground, rolling left and right. Without hitting a major artery, a toothpick is not enough to kill him, but it’ll sure take the bite out of him for a while.
Gripping him by the lapels, I jerk his agonized face close to mine. His eyes roll with fear. Mine dance with triumph. “Bloodsucker, I am the hurricane.”
Dropping him, I leap to my feet with a giddy grin, looking around frantically. “Did anybody hear that? Did you hear what I just said? So badass! Bam! Just came right out!”
But there’s no response from onlookers. They simply gape at me from their balconies. “Shit,” I grumble, and I drag his ass away.
Two enormous silhouettes stand guard in front of the Agency door. As I march toward them with the woozy vamp in a headlock, the giants are wise enough to step aside. With necks the size of tree trunks, they’ve got to be trolls, but that wouldn’t stop me from verbally thrashing them if they tried to keep me out. Instead of snuggling a warm body in bed, I’m soaking wet, covered in grime fr
om the alley, and bleeding from a cut over my eye. Anyone so much as looks at me sideways, I’m gonna lose it.
Using the vamp’s head as a battering ram, I barge through the door. It’s loud and chaotic inside. FUA agents work the phones. More trolls help wrangle a combative vampire woman with mascara running down her cheeks. Several fey enforcers brandish swords over a group of vamps slumped against a wall. Like mine, these vamps are sullen and groggy. A few of them tremble uncontrollably, like junkies run dry. I toss my vamp in with the others.
Nick Gorgeous cuts through the office with his best ball-swinging strut. “Hell, yeah, that’s what I’m talking about, Davies.” He gives an approving shove to my shoulder. “That’s the last of ’em. Now we lock this down tight.”
Ho, boy. Nick’s playing nice with me? High stress has finally cracked him. Either that, or he’s giddy with relief, which could only mean one thing. “Nora’s okay, then?”
Falling into a chair, he crosses his boots over the corner of a desk and pushes his cowboy hat back on his head. “What do you think? Henry’s out of the picture for good, the fey treat her like royalty, and right this very second she’s snug in bed with at least three men. I’d say Nora’s never been better. You, on the other hand”—he seems to notice my appearance for the first time—“look like a Dumpster fire.”
Summoning every ounce of restraint, I stab him only with a flat look, instead of my razor claws. I have to wonder if he can literally see the steam coming out of my ears.
I slide a glance at Ren, peeking out from behind his computer monitor. He winces. Gives a little wave of the fingers.
I glare at my office nemesis, Darla, who—I freaking shit you not—opens a desk drawer, pulls out a tub of popcorn, and begins stuffing her smug, grinning mouth as she watches us.
