Bat-man decides he wants to finish what he started and comes after me. I swing the katana like I’m trying to chop his aluminum bat in half. The tactic works, deflecting his attack. He tries again and again, our weapons clashing in a series of loud sparking clanks. Alas, I have a normal katana, not some overblown Hollywood super weapon. It doesn’t cut the baseball bat in half. While we keep trading swings, various curses and groans come from everywhere. Dalton and Glim fighting are a disorienting blur since my attention is entirely focused on this guy with the bat.
A few pained screams make me smile, since they didn’t come from either of my friends.
The guy swings for my head; this time when I block, my blade scrapes down the bat and shears most of his fingers off. Bats don’t have hand guards. He shrieks as the metal club goes flying, falling silent as soon as I stab him in the face, a good nine inches of katana sticking out the back of his head.
Before I can pull it out of him, a shrieking female vampire with gang tats jumps at me from behind and left, raking her claws down my back as I fail to twist away in time. Imagine getting sliced by red hot razor blades covered in petulant wasps. Yeah. This hurts so much I invent new curse words to yell while staggering forward and tossing the unconscious vamp off my sword. The bitch rakes at my stomach when I spin to face her, but I’m angry enough not to care. Taking the hit gives me the perfect opening to cut her head in half with a diagonal downward swing. The one eye she has left blinks at me before she collapses.
My everything hurts. Claw marks on my back and stomach burn like the wounds had salted alcohol in them. Only concentrating on using flight to keep myself upright prevents me from landing in a heap, and even doing that is starting to feel exhausting.
Glim disappears in puffs of illusory black smoke only to reappear behind or near other vampires and give them a nice up-close look at his massive claws. Dalton, now in possession of a proper sword rather than a knife, disarms and head-stabs six vampires one after the next. He’s still using a knife in his left hand as a defense tool, and it’s mesmerizing to watch him so effortlessly deal with these idiots. The remaining four are too freaked out by Glim ‘teleporting’ around that they run off in a panic.
“Sarah?” Dalton, cutlass held high, turns in place, surveying the area for any more threats. Seeing none, he lowers the weapon and looks at me. “I’d ask if you’re okay, but that’s a stupid question.”
I glance down at myself. My clothes are a bloody, shredded ruin. There’s not much left of my top except for a scrap of fabric draped over my shoulder and the former collar. No idea where my bra went. Claw bitch ripped my jeans so bad they’ve fallen around my knees, but hey at least my panties survived, even if they are completely blood-drenched.
Dalton’s outfit didn’t fare much better. Wow. He’s wearing tan silk boxers covered in small blue teacups.
“My apologies for taking so long to get here.” Glim retracts his astoundingly long claws back to their usual merely epic length and walks over to us. “Information traverses the shadow realm much more slowly from this far away.”
I raise my arms to hug him, but stop. No, it’s not that I’m topless. Strangely, that doesn’t bother me as much as it should. After everything that’s happened since my Transference, standing here boobs-out barely registers as awkward. I’d even hug him like that. But no, it’s more than my wardrobe malfunction. I’m a bloody mess. Touching him would cover him in gore, plus sting like hell. “No problem at all. Late help is still awesome. Don’t think we were going to make it that time otherwise.”
He pats me on the cheek. “I hate seeing you like this.”
“Thanks. Yeah, I hate seeing me like this, too. Not your fault I got my ass kicked. Still kinda new at this.”
Dalton shows little reaction to my exposed chest. He spent eighty some years among the unseemly characters of London’s night life. He’s seen so many prostitutes traipsing about topless in lounges or brothels that the sight of boobs has become boring to him. That, plus he still thinks of me as too young.
“Okay, now what?” I ask, finally lowering myself to sit. “How long is it going to take my leg to knit?”
Dalton’s presence in my mind tingles, probably examining my injury somehow. “An hour or so. Maybe two.”
“Great.”
Sigh. I get into a claw fight and end up basically limping away naked. Of course. Every damn time.
24
The Moon Pond Motel
Dalton grasps my left arm and helps me up.
“What?” I glance at him. “We’re not waiting an hour?”
“No. I’ve got another idea of a place we can go to clean up. This lot will wake eventually. Though… hang on, luv.”
Dalton, wearing the shredded remains of a tweed blazer and shiny silk boxers, drags Armand’s head and body across the room to the door. Guess someone’s going to have a date with the sun after all.
Glim stands near me, arms folded, watching the inert vampires.
“So glad you found us,” I say, still resisting the urge to smear blood all over him with a hug. “So it took a couple hours for you to feel this happening from Seattle?”
He flashes a jagged smile. “Not exactly. The farther off it is, the longer it takes to propagate across the shadow. It’s not a linear thing. News from a hundred miles might take a few hours. Two hundred miles, a day or so.”
“Uhh…” I stare up at him. “We’re over a thousand miles away. You wouldn’t have heard anything from the whispers.”
“I didn’t. At least nothing beyond Dalton’s original involvement with these vampires. Your father found me on the roof and asked me to help.”
“Wait. What?” I gawk. “Dad? He found you? On your roof? How the heck did he even know where to go?”
Glim chuckles. “I knew he was looking for me, so I allowed him to find me. He drove without knowing exactly where he was going, but found me nonetheless.”
“Nice. You’re more of a friend than anyone deserves.”
“Don’t belittle yourself, Sarah.” He crouches to examine my wounds. “You should recover without any scarring. Though, you will need a good deal of blood, and soon.”
“Yeah. Pretty sure I’d feel damn hungry right now if I wasn’t in so much pain.” My attempt to laugh stops short at a feeling like a hundred needles in my stomach. “Ow. Guess I should feel lucky that only a few of these guys had claws.”
Glim looks around at the carnage. “Yes. Scions are the least likely to have some of the Old World abilities. Their bloodline relies more on modern technology, sort of an evolutionary abandonment of vestigial traits. Why use claws when swords and guns are much more effective? Why fly when cars exist? Less developed night vision because of electricity. That sort of thing.”
“Right… Is that also why they’re stronger and faster than me?”
“Somewhat. Though you are still quite young.”
“Don’t remind me.” I chuckle. “Ow. Hey, can you take us back home the easy way?”
He mulls for a moment, then cringes. “The length of the trip might have unintended consequences on one who is not a Shadow.”
“Ugh. Really? Like what?”
“I am perhaps being overly protective of you.” He pats me on the head as if to make fun of his treating me like a kid. “Our energies are about as opposite as possible.”
“Right. Life and death.” I frown. “But I don’t care about that.”
“It would pain me to see you start to inherit some of my curse. That much time spent in the realm of shadow could affect your appearance.”
I lean against his leg, trying not to get too much blood on him. My numerous wounds from metal blades have already closed and stopped bleeding, but the claw marks continue seeping. “I don’t think you’re cursed.”
“That is kind of you to say. Kinder of you to sincerely believe, but it does not escape me how most regard our appearance.”
“Yeah, well, they’re buttheads,” I mutter.
Glim c
huckles.
“We can fly home tomorrow,” says Dalton while walking back over to us.
The sight of him wearing boxer briefs, dress socks, expensive shoes, and little else while carrying a sword sets me off laughing.
“Aye, amusing. We’re both in our knickers, luv.”
“It’s the sword, the accent, and the blood all over. You look like you walked right out of a Guy Ritchie movie.”
He examines himself for a moment, shrugs, then points the cutlass at the guy who had the bat. “We should relocate ourselves before Frankie two-thumbs wakes up.”
“Eww.” I grimace at the guy’s mangled hands, every finger except his thumbs cut off close to the knuckle. “Weird to think that’s all going to grow back.”
“Aye. T’will. Even the lass you gave a melonectomy to.” Dalton wanders over to that woman, grabs the upper third of her head and sets it back on top of the rest of her. “There.”
He really does have a soft spot for women, even if that bitch tried to kill us. Putting the pieces back together like that will probably let her wake up in mere hours instead of weeks to regenerate the missing portion of her head. So weird. He planted a giant firebomb that nearly killed her weeks ago, yet now he’s doing that for her.
“Without Armand”—Dalton chuckles—“that was brilliant by the way.”
“What?” I ask.
“Teasing him about his name like that. Rather annoyed him.”
I float up to stand on my intact leg. The break is itching like a bastard, which means the bone is starting to knit, but I’m still not going to put weight on it yet. “Well, it is such a stereotypical name for a ‘head vampire,’ isn’t it?”
“Precisely why it annoyed him so much. How many ‘Armands’ do you think grow up in South Central LA?”
“Not many.”
Dalton grins. “That’s why it ticked him off so much. Bloke probably saw a movie, thought it sounded all sorts of scary and impressive… and you made a mockery of it.”
“We still got our asses handed to us.” I limp over to him.
“T’was a bit of a rough punch-up, but those blokes got their arses handed to them.” Dalton points the cutlass at the inert vampires. “We’re still standing.”
“On one leg, but okay. I’ll accept that.”
“C’mon, luv.” Dalton takes my hand, then faces Glim. “I am in your debt, again, good sir.”
Glim’s yellow glowing eyes sparkle. “Among our kind, a favor owed is the most valuable commodity.”
“Are you seriously suggesting we go outside like this?” I ask.
“Briefly,” says Dalton.
“Bad.” I sigh at his boxers. “Must we?”
“I’ve got some replacement clothing stashed at a motel nearby.”
“What about them?” I point at the vampires on the floor. “Bloody beats nothing.”
“Bloody clothes will still attract the wrong kind of attention. And we’ll be stuck having to dispose of them. Someone finds a wad of bloody kit somewhere, they’re going to call the cops.”
“Kit?” I ask.
“Clothes.” He guides me to the door.
Glim follows. “No one will see either of you.”
“Thanks.” I smile at him.
The three of us head outside and take flight. Dalton leads us most of the way across the swath of glaringly bright city to the northern end. We come down in sight of mountains, near a decent-sized lake that’s kinda shaped a bit too square to be natural. Probably a human-made reservoir.
Glim accompanies us all the way to an old motel that doesn’t look like it’s had a paying guest since the late 1970s. An old-school sign stands atop a metal pole at the outer corner of the lot. Hollow metal letters filled with smashed neon tubes read, ‘Moon Pond Motel.’ The large L-shaped building, half the rooms missing their doors, wraps around a modest parking lot. I think there’s a bullet hole or six in the sign as well. Dalton heads toward a room on the left side, about midway down the longer wing. While Glim and I wait by the door, he pops up to the roof for a moment, returning with a key he’d evidently stashed up there.
The key still works, and we step into a reasonably-intact room for an abandoned motel. It doesn’t even stink too bad. No power, but we don’t need lights.
“Glim?” I ask. “Can you please go check on my brother and the other boys? I’m not completely confident in my ability to alter memories. Maybe make sure my attempt to get rid of all the gore and weirdness they saw sticks?”
“Of course. Will you two be okay?” Glim looks around at the room.
Dalton opens a drawer on the bureau and holds up a garbage bag. “Yep. Clothes are still here. Armand will be up in smoke, and the others likely won’t have the stones to do anything without him. Plus, we’re at the ass end of San Fernando now. Even if they try looking for us, we’ll be gone before they find us.” He drops the bag into the drawer. “Shower first.”
“What about that Academic using blood magic?” I ask.
“Armand.”
I gawk. “He was an Academic?”
“They’re not all ‘nerdy wizards in robes’ you know.” Dalton gestures at the bathroom. “Ladies first.”
Glim bows at us and disappears in a whorl of black smoke.
“Thanks.” I hurry into the bathroom, close the door, and shed the torn remains of my clothes. Of everything I had on, only my socks and sneakers escaped intact. Top is straight up gone as is the bra. My panties, though not physically damaged, have soaked up so much blood they look like I used them to clean the floor at a shotgun murder scene.
Eager to rinse the blood off my body, I hop in the tub and turn the water on—wow it works—and stand there in the spray. The initial shock of ice cold water fades to neutral temperature once my body adjusts to the freezing chill. That’s one of the paradoxes of being an Innocent. I feel cold initially, but if it persists—as with a morgue cooler—it shifts to feel like room temperature. Any vampire could rock a bikini in Antarctica and not mind. I’d feel cold for a minute or two first. On second thought, that might actually be too cold. Anywhere a body could legit freeze solid is probably not a good idea for even a vampire. But who knows? We’re magic… so maybe we won’t freeze.
Claw wounds hurt when they happen, and they burn pretty much continuously until they heal. Having shower jets pummeling at the gaping slits all over my back and stomach is a new level of ouch that I hadn’t been prepared for. Fortunately, the cuts are mostly shallow and only damaged the underlying muscle in a few spots.
They’re going to hurt for days, but at least none of the damage is anywhere not normally covered by clothes. The ’rents are going to notice I’m in pain, but at least they won’t see it. After rinsing off as much as possible without soap, I cut the water and step out of the tub to discover the room has no towels.
This shouldn’t surprise me as the place is abandoned. But it’s still annoying. Grr. I squeegee my hair with my hands over the sink, happy to see the runoff is blood-free. In a total ‘oh hell with it’ moment, I grab my bloody rags, clean socks, and sneakers, then walk into the outer room wearing only a crisscross of claw wounds and water… and nearly scream at the sight of five black gang members in the room.
None of them react to me at all, continuing to stare into space.
Dalton’s clamped onto one of the men, feeding. He shifts his gaze to me. Three for you. Two are mine.
I don’t even have time to be mortified before the idea of feeding drags some primordial monster out of the deepest recesses of my brain. Like Lilith herself, I pounce on the nearest guy in flagrant disregard of being stark naked, and feed. Hot blood surges into my mouth as soon as my fangs pierce him, tasting like awesome. The true extent of how hungry I’d become after that royal beating robs the blood of any real flavor. Fire scorches the lines of my claw wounds, making me squeeze the poor guy, snarling out my nose as I desperately pull the blood out of him as fast as possible.
I don’t even realize I’m literally sucking at
his neck until a mental poke from Dalton snaps me out of the feeding frenzy before I’ve consumed a fatal amount. Usually, the arterial spurting is enough and I don’t need to treat the person like a giant Capri Sun pouch.
“Oh, shit…” I seal the bite wound and step back from him, shivering. “Wow…”
“Aye. Little hungry. ’Tis why I brought three for ya. I had a nosh outside already before I found this lot.”
The second man I bite is far more normal in terms of feeding experience. In the absence of manic hunger, his blood tastes like a cheeseburger. After taking a safe amount from him, I move on to the third man who—bizarrely—tastes like that chicken and pasta casserole thing Mom makes.
Once finished feeding to the point of feeling slightly overfull, I stand there awkwardly dripping, not entirely sure how it’s possible for me to tolerate standing around like a wood nymph in front of a room full of strange men. Maybe it’s because the claw wounds hurt so damned much I’d rather be naked than let cloth touch them.
Or perhaps I’ve simply stopped caring. Nah. Can’t be that. I’m not centuries old yet. That level of blasé to nudity takes a while… or drugs. Or growing up somewhere like the Amazon rain forest.
“All set then?” Dalton smiles.
“Yeah. Thanks for the Five Guys.”
He tilts his head. “Pardon?”
“It’s a burger chain. Never mind.”
“Oh.” He taps his fingers to his forehead in an ‘I should’ve caught that’ sort of gesture, then programs the men to wander off somewhere and forget ever seeing him or being here.
After, he heads into the bathroom for a shower. I sit on the end of the bed, not entirely wanting to touch it, and air dry. With a recent blood meal in me, the claw wounds finally start closing. It hurts almost as much as suffering them in the first place, but I manage not to scream—though I do come close to crushing my knees from gripping them so hard. About twenty minutes later, open wounds have become red lines. They’re still way tender, but at least the air blowing over my skin doesn’t feel like a storm of razor blades.
Ordinary Problems of a College Vampire (Vampire Innocent Book 7) Page 27
