by Faith Hunter
At the curb, Eli gestured to the front door and leaped to the porch. I put away my weapon and followed, stating what was bothering me. “I don’t understand it. I never have. Why kill and dump the humans?”
“Naturaleza like to kill.” For Eli, that was enough.
“I get that. When they first start out, there’s the high of a predator stalking and bringing down prey. But at some point there’s got to be a problem with diminishing returns, and someone in a vamp hierarchy has to consider the food supply. Once that’s dead, they can’t recuperate and make a new blood supply.”
Eli tried the door, and though it was locked, it was also made of rotten wood. Studying the door, its hinges, its construction, he said, “You bring this up now?”
“We’re getting ready to go kill sleeping vamps. We’ll be busy.” I pushed away my worries. “Are you shooting our way in?”
“Nah,” Eli said. He reared back and kicked, his heel hitting squarely an inch beside the old lock. The wood splintered, leaving a hole and a crack that traveled up from the kick site to the top of the door and down toward the floor. I heard screams from inside and figured humans were escaping out the back, into the sunlight, leaving behind their employers and masters. Good. They needed to get away. But their screams sounded into the street. Loud enough to wake the undead, let alone the neighbors.
“Witnesses?” I looked around, but no one was in sight and no one ran out of nearby buildings to look.
Eli had surely made certain no one was around before the kick, though I hadn’t seen him scan the area. He pulled a sleepy-time bomb—that wasn’t what the military officially called them, but the name worked fine by me—and tore off the grenade’s safety strip, snapped down on the handle, and tossed it inside. Then he taped over the hole he’d made in the door with duct tape, which he carried with him everywhere, looked at his watch, and sat on the porch with his feet hanging down, his body at an angle to see the door and the street out front. Basic security. “We got time to chat,” he said. “Too bad there’s no coffeehouse nearby.” His brow crinkled faintly. “You’re assuming a traditional vamp hierarchy with the killing-prey thing. Assuming someone is in charge to keep the rogues in line. Maybe they don’t have one now that de Allyon’s dead.”
“Anarchy?” I tried that puzzle piece in the map in my head. It fit, but it wasn’t a firm, solid thunk of info. “But why behead their own leader? Nothing makes sense.”
I dropped slowly to the porch, my angle allowing me to see down beside the house, where I got a glimpse of someone rushing away. Both cars started in back and peeled out. Thinking, I looked up at the sky. Sundown was in less than two hours. “Three days.” At his puzzled look, I explained. “Most vamps can be killed true-dead with a stake through the heart. But a small percentage will rise the third night as revenants, which is why I always behead my kills. These aren’t normal vamps, so what if the percentages of revenants rising are significantly higher?”
“Wait. Not all the vamps at the last place were beheaded. Only the one in the front room.”
“The cops didn’t behead them?” I asked.
“I got no idea, but I’ll text Sylvia to take the heads.” He pulled his phone, thumbs working, mumbling, “I don’t even know if the law allows LEOs to desecrate bodies. Here’s a new one for the politicians.
“You ever seen a revenant?” he asked, changing the subject, his eyes on the phone. When I shook my head, Eli said, “Well, let’s kill these, behead them, take pics so we get paid, and get to the county morgue. And you better call your jealous boy toy and tell him to contact PsyLED. They took a few of the bodies in Esther’s basement off with them.”
Until recently, Uncle Sam had never obtained the body of a vamp for a forensic autopsy. Vamps had policed their own and cleaned up their own messes. But then Lucas Vazquez de Allyon had challenged the status quo of the masters of the cities in this country and the numbers of dead vamps had risen substantially, clearly allowing some into the government’s clutches. A small part of me thought it would be cool to be the proverbial fly on the wall in PsyLED’s morgue when a revenant rose, but the rest of me knew better. Revenants would kill and eat humans.
“Yeah, no. No calls.” I had no intention of calling Rick. Actual discussions were not something I wanted right now. Big surprise. “I’ll text Rick about the potential problem and see if Big Brother had any difficulties with the last batch of true-dead. You text Sylvia. Let’s see that we avoid a real-life remake of Night of the Living Dead.” I pulled out my cell. Which was so not classic-hero motif. Once I texted Rick, I found a text from the Kid giving us more addresses. I copied them down on the little spiral notebook I carried. If I had to ditch the phone, I wouldn’t lose the info. Inside the house, where the sleepy-time bomb was spreading its knockout fog, I heard thumps, muted and soft, as if several large things fell to the floor.
“What if—” I stopped and put things together about the new vamps. “What if they’re all revenants? Francis too. What if the magic circle is powering them all to come back? And come back better and more powerful.”
Eli paused too, in the act of checking his messages, letting that thought percolate through his brain. “Huh,” he said, which pretty much summed it up. He went back to his replies, bent over his phone, thumbs working, texting like a college student—if that college student wore leather and guns. He finished and stood, stretching, drawing a vamp-killer. “We gonna do this?” he asked, and checked his watch. “’Cause we need to get it done before dusk and the vamps get energetic.”
I put away my cell and rolled my shoulders and my head on my neck as I drew my M4 and checked it, removed the safety, and unfolded the stock before sliding the strap over my head. I loosened the vamp-killer on my left thigh and shoved it back on the straps for a left-hand draw. “Got nothing better to do.” Which was the truth, sadly.
Silent, Eli drew in his right leg, pivoted on his left foot, and kicked out. His foot hit beside the taped hole and the door snapped in pieces. The top half fell inward, landing with two distinct clumps. The bottom was in a V, leaning inside. Eli ripped away the rest of the door, letting in light and fresh air, letting out the stink of rot. I could hear raspy breathing inside.
The scent of sleepy-time was still strong beneath the rot, and because Eli didn’t have the gas masks we had used in the past, we stood guard at the door and waited for the gas to clear, which seemed to take forever. When Eli gave the word, I rushed inside and slammed my back against the wall, with Eli on the other side of the door opening.
Instantly I moved left, the M4 in both hands, held close. The room took up the entire front half of the structure and was lit by low-wattage bulbs in wall sconces. It had once been a tavern, and a tarnished copper bar ran nearly the length of the back wall, with a blackened mirror over it. Someone had graffitied unimaginative erotica on it, mostly oversized sex organs and fangs. It looked like something I might see in a redneck vamp-biker bar.
The sunlight revealed abused hardwood floors; dark-painted walls, maybe navy; and broken furniture. There was a three-legged pool table propped up on a trash can, a sagging couch, a door laid out on sawhorses as a table, and a few chairs. And humans lay everywhere, some looking as if they’d fallen just now, others as if they’d been there quite a while. There were body fluids puddled under some of them and quivering movement over their flesh. Maggots. I hate maggots. I could hear the buzz of flies depositing more eggs, and as I crossed the room, they flew up, disturbed. Yuck.
I counted eight humans in the old bar, all dead except one, and she was nearly so. Eli pointed to the narrow hallway in back. It ran along the outside of the building, and the iron-covered windows had been boarded over, then painted a hideous shade of violet over the chair rail and an even more hideous shade of mustard below. I took point. Two doors opened into the hallway, and Eli positioned himself to cover me. If a sleeping vamp was using it as a lair, I’d be toast. If humans were hiding there, they probably wouldn’t have inhaled enough sleepy-tim
e to be out.
I opened the door. The room on the other side had once been the men’s toilet, but the plumbing had stopped working recently and no one had bothered to fix it. I made a face at the stink and the mess and closed the door. Quickly. Shuffling silently, I slid my back down to the next. It was the women’s toilet. And it was where the vamps kept their snacks.
Three naked women were handcuffed to the exposed pipes, and all showed crusted wounds at every major pulse point, blackened eyes, and bodies covered in pustules, evidence of the vamp plague. One cradled a broken arm. Her eyelids fluttered open and she started to whimper, stinking of pain sweat and fear pheromones. I wanted to curse, but I placed a finger over my lips to silence her. Her eyes went wide and she started to cry, realizing that help had arrived. Five minutes, I mouthed to her, showing her my open fingers.
She nodded hard and fast, and mouthed back, Don’t leave us.
I nodded and closed the door. Like I’d ever leave someone prisoner. I held up three fingers to Eli so he knew what I’d seen, and moved on down the hallway. The door at the end hung crazily by one hinge. I ducked my head out and back fast, letting my brain make sense of what I’d seen. Another large room, part storeroom, part kitchen, with a large walk-in refrigerator taking up one corner. Debris and busted furniture covered the floor, but no bodies. Eli joined me at the doorway, still covering our backs, and I moved into the room, checking to make sure I’d missed nothing, no hiding places for a blood-slave with a weapon, no vamp lying in wait for fresh food. I approached the refrigerator. Its door was open and it was empty except for a large white circle painted on the floor. I’d seen one once before and closed the door, making sure it wouldn’t open from the inside. Eli looked curious, but said nothing.
I pointed to the side of the fridge and waggled two crooked fingers, miming climbing stairs, before I stepped over parts of a chair and put my back against the wall. Air flow was moving slowly along the steps, with cooler air moving downstairs near the floor and warmer air near the ceiling rising to the second story, mixing and commingling right where I was breathing. I dropped to one knee and opened my mouth, drawing in air from above over my tongue and the roof of my mouth.
There was the usual herbal smell—sage, grass, and a faint undertang of pine—and there was the fermented smell, slightly beery, I’d come to associate with Naturaleza. But beneath it, like the odd bottom note of a really weird cologne, was a dry, musty, limy scent, like cement dust and roaches. I tried to remember if I’d smelled this particular stink when the vamps attacked Eli and me in the woods, but I hadn’t noticed it. The air had been open and moving there. Here the vamp reek was concentrated, and it smelled dry and scaly, like Francis in Esmee’s garage.
I stayed where I was, kneeling, parsing the scents until I was certain. Upstairs were at least two, maybe three vamps. I held up two fingers, made a waffling motion with my hand, and held up three fingers. Eli bent and looked up the stairs quickly, pulled back, and nodded. He pointed to the flashbangs on his belt. I hesitated and then shook my head. I couldn’t explain it, but the place felt open and large. Flashbangs worked best in enclosed spaces and small rooms.
He shrugged and gave me a thumbs-up. I rose, readied my shotgun, and peeked up the stairs into the pitch-dark. Eli didn’t have his low-light equipment with him. He would be blind. I pulled on Beast’s night vision and speed, taking the steps two at a time, not bothering with stealth, my boots pounding on the treads. My vision expanded into sharp focus, blues and greens and silvers. The upstairs was one large room, exposed rafters, wood floor, low furniture, the ceiling held up with columns. The first vamp charged as I cleared the stairs. I swiveled the M4, squeezed the trigger, and took off his head. He fell as the boom reverberated, and I lost hearing. I raced inside and felt the vamp more than saw her as she leaped at me. From across the room.
I missed the head shot, my round taking her in the shoulder, spinning her off course enough for me to drop the shotgun on its sling as I drew the vamp-killer. She landed with a bounce on her injured side, and screamed the high-pitched squeal of the dying or severely injured vamp. It was loud enough to hurt even above the shotgun-induced deafness. I raised the blade and brought it down with my weight behind it, grunting hard.
The strike cut through the side of her neck and buried the blade in the floor. She stopped moving on one side, so I’d done some spinal damage, but she clawed at me with her other hand. I glanced around, making sure I wasn’t under attack by the remaining vamp, and put a foot on her chest, yanking to free the blade. The fast healing of the Naturaleza half-sealed the cut. She was screaming and brought up her hand to grab the blade. I kicked her hand and brought down the blade again, taking her head with a whack that jarred my arm. Her head rolled free; blood gushed. The usual gore, but this time with the odd stink I’d noticed. Spidey-vamp stink.
I raced to the center of the room, hearing Eli shouting, “Lights!” I whirled, seeing nothing, then stopped and closed my eyes. Electric light flooded the place. And the last vamp rammed Eli, taking him to the ground. She was fleshy and powerful, dressed in what might have once been a white dress but was now covered with dried blood and filth. Her dark hair streamed out behind her like a whip as the two impacted.
With my left hand I pulled a silver stake, knowing that the silver wouldn’t be deadly even if I hit her heart but all the other weapons might injure Eli. The Ranger rolled, lifting her over his body, ramming her into the wall. I sprinted across the room, bringing my left arm over my head. She rebounded from the wall and landed on Eli before he could find his feet, her momentum bowling them both over. I timed my steps and brought my arm down, piercing her dress, back, and internal organs. Not feeling the heart give, knowing I’d missed. And made her mad.
She raised her head and hissed. I was pulling the M4 around to fire when she leaped. And landed on me.
Her fangs caught my elbow, biting deep, tearing flesh. I didn’t feel the pain yet, not with the adrenaline flooding my system. But she was too close to position the shotgun. She growled, and I felt the vibration through the flesh of my arm. She shook me like a wolf shakes prey, to break bones. I felt something inside snap and was instantly nauseous. I fell and rolled with her. Her taloned hands stabbed at me, hitting my jacket and catching on the thin, silvered mesh between the leather and me.
Her jaws ripped out of my arm and I felt it this time. Her fangs tore at my throat, raking at the silver-plated titanium collar, guttural growls coming from her throat. When she couldn’t bite through the mesh, she lifted my head and rammed it against the floor, her talons breaking the skin of my scalp. I saw stars for a moment, sparkles of white on a black surface. My vision cleared with a blink to see a metal bar that became the barrel of a shotgun.
The blast shredded the back of her head. She fell away from me. Leaving me gasping on the floor. A second blast took her through the throat, decapitating her. Eli stood over her, making sure she was dead. “Clear,” I whispered softly, knowing she was the last one.
He raised the gun and I wasn’t surprised to see the M4. I’d dropped it along the way to nearly being vamp bait. He hadn’t understood, or maybe hadn’t heard, my clear, and he walked the perimeter of the entire story, checking for other fangheads while I eased up into a sitting position, fished a tourniquet from a pocket, and clumsily tried to get it around my left arm. The bone was sticking through the leather. “Humerus,” I whispered, and laughed, because it wasn’t humorous at all. My stomach rebelled. I twisted to the side and threw up my lunch.
I was gasping, the room tilting at a ninety-degree angle. The blood spurting across my arm to the floor seemed important, but I couldn’t figure out what to do about it. There was a lot of blood. A lot.
The buzz in my ears went higher pitched, annoying. I shook my head to clear it, but all I did was sling my blood from the talon wounds across my face.
Eli pushed my fingers to the side and secured the tourniquet, his hands feeling hot on my chilled skin. I was going into shock. H
is lips were moving but I couldn’t hear anything except the roar in my head. My vision telescoped down into a single bright light, and then to the blood-spatter stains on the timbers over my head.
CHAPTER 17
I Know I’ll Have to Choose
My next coherent moment showed me Eli on the cell, his lips moving. He’d propped me against a center roof support. He closed the phone. I went dark again, and woke to see him taking off my boots. Which was just wrong. His fingers undid the Velcro and the ties beneath, pulling off the boot to expose my white cotton sock. I blinked and my eyes felt dry, like I had ground glass in them. I knew that was a bad sign, but couldn’t remember what kind of bad sign it was. “Eli? Whatcha doin’?”
He looked up for a moment and back to my feet. “Good. You’re back. Rick’s on the way. He says you have to shift to heal the arm.”
“You called Rick?” I realized I could hear, the annoying buzz had damped to little more than a high hum. “Why?”
“Boy Toy’s the closest thing to furry I know. You took a blow to the head. He says you might have trouble shifting.”
“Yeah?” That seemed off. “How’s he know that?”
“He’s Big Brother PsyLED. He knows his sh— his stuff.”
PsyLED knew about skinwalkers? How? Oh yeah. Rick would have told them about me. And they probably had lots of old papers and reports for intel, way more than in the woo-woo room in New Orleans cop central. I worried with that thought while Eli pulled off my other boot. PsyLED knowing all about me was info I didn’t know what to do with, so I concentrated on what I did know. Or did want to know. “So, why’re you taking off my boots?”
“And your pants.”
“You try”—I stopped to breathe and realized I was woozy—“to take off my pants”—more breaths—“and I’ll shoot you.”
