Blood Work

by L.J. Hayward

  Chapter 38

  Erin’s mysterious client. And from Erin’s voice, this wasn’t a willing part of their agreement, on Erin’s behalf at least. She hadn’t lied to me when she’d said she wouldn’t give my details to Veilchen. That left only one answer as to how she’d got my number… and Erin.

  “Who are you?” I asked, feeling the beast stir in the depths again.

  The woman laughed, though it was a brittle, sharp edged thing that cut the air between us. “You are very good at hiding, Mr Hawkins, but it works both ways. You hide from the world, and it hides from you. I am the thing you know nothing about.”

  But maybe I did. I’d been running behind the rest of the pack in the vampire race for a long time, but I was slowly gaining. Thanks to Aurum and his pesky Kenobi-complex.

  “Oh, I think I know what you are, Heather,” I said.

  “Do you? Then you understand how unwise it would be to deny me what I want.”

  Big Red and now this thing—one of Aurum’s Primals. Perhaps I had reached that saturation point he spoke of. That would explain why they were converging all at once.

  Why oh why hadn’t I listened to common sense two years ago? Why hadn’t I just left Mercy at the Mentis Institute where she would either have remained their problem or died sooner rather than later? In those early days, when the doubts had been a full force flood, it would have been easy to end her altered life. Later, when she’d started to emerge from the savage cocoon, it would have been harder, but still doable. Now?

  “Fuck you, bitch. I didn’t steal her from you. You abandoned her. You’re a bad mother.”

  A wordless cry damn near shattered my ear drum. I dropped the phone and could still hear it crystal clear from several feet away. An answering scream welled up through my chest and I hurled it right back at her. I snatched up the phone and yelled right into the mouthpiece, a senseless string of denial and threats that matched her utter fury. Somewhere along the way, I hit the end button. At the same time, I cut off my own voice with a choke almost as final.

  I was on my hands and knees on the floor, nearly crushing the phone under my hand. Sitting back sent a spear of pain through my leg, and I involuntarily threw myself onto my arse, legs stretching out. The phone rang again. I cut it off. It rang again. I cut it off. Two more times it happened before I felt able to answer it. When I did, my voice was deceptively calm.

  “Where?” I asked simply.

  “Mount Coot-tha.” Veilchen purred the words. “She dies at dawn.” The line went dead.

  Total white out for an indeterminate amount of time. When I came back to myself, the clock read just after five. Two appointments with death in one night and I had no idea how to handle either of them.

  Fuck me.

  I dialled Aurum’s number. He would probably want to know that one of his grandma vampires was in town. And maybe he would know how to handle her. Hah. Who was I kidding? He would probably advise running away in the strongest terms. Maybe he would even suggest driving by Mount Coot-tha and tossing Mercy out the window on the way. I had a sneaking suspicion he would chalk Erin up to collateral damage and move on with documenting the event. He wasn’t a warrior, he was a scholar. Fine in their place, and fucking useless out of it.

  I hung up before he could answer.

  The first thing I did was put in a call to my supplier, talked down his protests and set up a meeting. Then I dressed. It was vampire slaying de rigueur; black cargo pants and dark, long-sleeved, heavy duty work shirt to keep all but the most persistent teeth out. Oh, and the heftiest knee brace I had. The bastard wasn’t too bad after a day of rest, but I wasn’t going to take any chances.

  Then I loaded up my pockets with stink bombs and filled the rifle with ammunition. Unable to delay anymore, I returned to the en suite and took down the drug kit. One and a half ampoules. I sucked up the last of the broken vial and injected it. Wrapping up the last ampoule and a needle and syringe, I put them in a pocket on my camo jacket.

  Niggling the back of my mind was the fact the morphine had stopped me going berserk last night. Things might go better if I could ride the pain into a mind-numbing rage. Or they might not. That was fine against half a dozen vampires, even including one of Big Red’s power. Going against an army and then a Primal with the Devil knew how many of her own brood around? That probably required more wits than brute force. So the morphine it was.

  By the time that was done, it was almost full dark. With the blurring effect of the drug in my veins, I walked into Mercy’s room. She was a dark, unmoving lump in the bed. The complete stillness of the room unnerved me. She wasn’t done healing, wouldn’t be for a good while. And here I was, about to prod the sleeping tiger and force her to her feet. All so she could go against the biggest, baddest threat yet.

  Unlocking the cage, I went in and rummaged through her wardrobe first, picking out the most protective clothes I could. Her leather pants were torn to shreds, so I grabbed black jeans instead. A smaller version of the same heavy material, work shirt that I wore.

  It was hard, going to the bed to wake her up. She was sick. She should rest and recover. Drawing down the sheets showed me just how far away from fighting fit she was. The wounds on her arms had closed but they were nowhere near healed, marking her pale skin with thick, red welts and crusted scabs. The slashes across her belly were worse, still gaping here and there. That great slab of scalp had stuck closed but even a light brush over her hair revealed that it could fall free with a careless tug. Her pulse flickered weakly, her breathing shallow and painfully slow between breaths.

  God. I couldn’t do this to her. She would never survive it. I should leave her here and go it alone. Do the best I could and most likely die and then she would be left here to go insane with hunger and commit involuntary suicide throwing herself against the inside of the cage.

  The best chance either of us had was to get up and start moving.

  While she slept on, I bound her middle in tight bandages and then put a bandana around her head. She stirred throughout the ministrations, her voice weak and pleading for peace. I hushed her, guts twisting with disgust for myself as I did so. But I went on and dressed her. She woke up more fully as I was tugging up the jeans.

  “Matt?”

  “Shh. It’s okay. We just have to go somewhere.”

  She protested, which was about as effective as a day old kitten going up against a lion. Her utter weakness scared the hell out of me.

  “Do I have to go?”

  Fuck. I was such a bastard. “Yes, baby, you do. Don’t worry, I’ll be with you the entire time.”

  Mercy let me finish in silence, then she gamely tried to stand for me. That nearly did me in. I was ready to chuck it in right then. I had no right to do this to her. Human or vampire, this was cruelty in the worst measure. But I slipped an arm around her shoulders and led her out to the car.

  I got behind the wheel before I could lose my nerve and roared out into the new night.

  First port of call was the dark corner of the hospital car park. Not so many good memories, but a necessary stop. My guy from the lab was there, jumpy and ready to run out on me. I handed over the cash and took the esky without a word and got back into the car. Pulling out one of the four bags, I handed it to Mercy. It wasn’t that cold so Mercy chowed down immediately. I left the esky on the seat beside her. No rationing tonight.

  There was an accident on the Gateway and we sat in a used car yard on the motorway for half an hour before I could get us off and onto the smaller roads heading south. The entire time I kept a feeler out for a rampaging horde of Reds. Not a flicker, which made my guts twitch between relief and frustration. Come on, Big Red. You’re supposed to be coming for me. Where are you?

  Taking a circuitous route, it was close to eight p.m. when we turned onto Airport Drive. Like the Gateway, this was choked with traffic and our progress slowed. Mercy had chugged down three of the bags and had perked up. Nowhere near fight ready, but she could sit up on her own steam an
d look out the window. She didn’t ask any more questions. My bleak thoughts were pouring down the link and she knew what we were facing. Her only reaction was a terse agreement that my half-arsed plan was about as good as we would have.

  Which also meant my roaring fears of her ability to survive the night were battering her mind as they battered at mine. I wanted desperately to block that from her, but it was impossible. What she felt about that I had no idea. All that came back to me through the link was an echo of my grim determination. It tore at my already shredded conscience.

  Halfway along the drive, I wound the windows down. Chilly, late autumn night air rushed into the car. Mercy leaned into it, eyes closed, drinking in the flavours of the world. We went with the flow right up to the domestic terminal at the very end of the drive. Mercy made no indication she’d sensed anything, so I swung us around the parking area and back onto the road. We made it back to the Gateway overpass without a hint of the Reds I’d felt here earlier.

  Had they already moved out? But Big Red would concentrate on the places he’d encountered me before; the ’Cliffe and the Fringe. If he was determined to take me out and grab Mercy, he’d come in force and unless they moved in small groups, Mercy should have picked them up as we went south and they came north. Presumably, they were also on the alert for us and should have sensed us on the road.

  I slung the car around the roundabout and headed back to the airport. If this pass revealed nothing, we’d head into the Valley and swing by the Fringe.

  Nothing on the way in, and on the way out, I took a chance and turned off the main road just after the international terminal. We cruised into the international export park, filled with logistics and small airfreight companies. Trawling the side streets got us nothing, so we headed past the park and followed a long, winding road around to the back of the airport. A landing jet blew by overhead.

  The road continued on, past a giant maintenance hangar and around toward the river. Murky water dappled with moonlight flashed at us through a screen of trees and warehouses. We were passing a large ‘to let’ sign outside a warehouse when Mercy tensed. Her lips peeled back and air hissed between her teeth.

  “Mercy?” My voice was tight with expectation.

  “They’re here,” she whispered. Her breathing quickened. “So many.”

  “The mother lode,” I muttered. “You know what to do.”

  I felt it as a pressure against the inside of my head. I hoped the vampires in hiding around us felt it as a wash of our flavour through their bodies. I hoped it enraged them as their stale cab sav angered me. It must have worked because as I turned the car around to pass back by the building, that hot, peppery taste hit me like a sledgehammer. The car swerved as I lost my grip on the wheel for a moment. Mercy growled and heaved against the restraint of the seatbelt.

  Getting the car back on a straight run, I reached into the back seat and hauled out the paintball rifle. Mercy took it, checked the cartridge was full and levelled it out of the window. Seeing the closed down, narrowed expression on her little face did me some good. And she handled the rifle like a pro. That’s my girl. The thought hit her and she flashed me a tight, slightly manic smile.

  Then the Reds were there.

  They spilled from the doors and windows of the empty warehouse like a flock of big, ugly crows. Big Red must have had some great PR, I’ll grant him that. I’d never seen so many neo-gothic wannabes in matching long coats and dark clothing in one place ever. Fair enough, Mercy and I weren’t exactly summer bright, but come on.

  “Show time, Mercy.”

  She didn’t take her gaze off the stalking predators closing in on our slowly moving car. “Shut up and drive.”

  “As the lady desires.”

  I tramped down on the accelerator and spun the wheel, taking us off the bitumen and onto the gravelled side, right toward a big cluster of Reds. Gravel hit the car in a rapid fire staccato. Most of the Reds scattered, but some weren’t quick enough and we bowled on through them. Mercy fired into the tightly packed hordes and the stench of burning flesh and garlic rose through the night. To the chorus of angry screams, I put the car back on the road and lined up another group.

  This time, they met us head on.

  Reds threw themselves at the car, high speed battering rams of flesh that, while more resilient than that of humans, was still flesh. Bodies broke and blood splattered over the car. The bastards dinted the bonnet, scratched the paint and cracked the windshield and windows. One latched onto Mercy’s arm as she hung out of the window. She just calmly shoved the rifle barrel down its throat and pulled the trigger. Gore and paint exploded from the back of its neck and it tumbled away. Mercy ignored its death throes and kept firing.

  Something big landed on the roof of the car. It slewed the Monaro to one side as it lunged down to my window. I’d put it up at the first sign of the vampires, but a meaty fist smashed through it as if it were tissue paper. Leaning into the middle of the car, I took the nightstick from the seat beside my leg and cracked the hand across the knuckles. The skin singed where the blessed metal hit. Howling, the vampire withdrew the hand and then thrust the other one in. I repeated the move, but he was expecting it this time. His big hand twisted, caught the stick and wrenched it out of my grip. Shit! He tossed it away and it smacked into another vampire charging up. She took it in the face and went down screaming. Hah.

  Then the guy on the roof lunged head first through the window. Instinctively I pushed at his face with my hand. Two fingers slipped into his mouth and he clamped down. A fang stabbed through the very end of one finger. Holy crap! That hurt. He shook his head, ripping my hand from side to side, tearing the hole in my finger wider. I slammed on the breaks. The car skidded into a spin, but Monkey Boy held on like death, to the car and my hand. The fucker. Letting the car slide, I grabbed the next nearest weapon. Popping the lid on the bottle I tossed about half the contents into his face.

  Garlic salt bit into his skin and eyes. He screamed in panic and pain and released both my hand and his hold on the roof. Wrenching the steering wheel around, I floored the accelerator again and he tumbled off the back of the car, smoking and yowling. Some of the salt flew back through the car and hit Mercy, but she was mostly covered and had her face turned away from it.

  “Think we got their attention?” I asked Mercy as I rammed into another knot of freaks.

  Her answer was a level snarl in the affirmative.

  “Right.” I flicked on the iPod in its dock on the dashboard. The pre-programmed song, set to repeat, blared out through the speakers. “Let’s dance.”

  Spilling Grinspoon’s ‘Hard Act to Follow’ all the way, we roared on out of the back roads behind the airport. Vampires, faces twisted with fury and insane hunger, followed like rats after the Piped Piper.

  Phase one complete. And so far, we weren’t dead.

  Booyah.