by Gary Jonas
I golf-clapped. “Bravo. She’s cured.”
Brand laughed.
Ramona and Grandma kept their thoughts to themselves. So did Jessica.
Amanda shook her head and stood up. She motioned for Nadine to stand and walk ahead of her. “We’ll take care of Proctor and Janice. Do you have any specific wishes for their—”
Nadine lunged for my throat.
Silly vampire. In went the tonfa. I took her head off with one of the blades I keep on my walls for just such an emergency. Three little dead vampires, courtesy of this big bad wolf.
Amanda fumed at me. “You could have quit at the tonfa.”
I wiped off the blade. “Don’t be such a bleeding heart. I did what she wanted. Suicide by Sekutar.
Chapter 23
It bothered me that Amanda was pissed. Back in the old days, she wouldn’t have batted an eye at what I did to the bloodsucker. Now she had to write a report on what happened and why she failed to bring in a potential vampire ally.
“You make my job suck worse than any vampire,” she said. She pulled out her phone and walked away, presumably calling her boss.
I didn’t have time to follow her. Two figures stepped out of a shadow in the dojo. I had company.
Jessica greeted them first. She threw her arms around the first one, who hugged her back.
“Kess! It’s so good to see you. Thanks for coming.”
The pretty Kin kissed Jessica’s cheek. “Anything for you.” She caught sight of the dead vampires desecrating my clean dojo floor. “Oh, refreshments! Lovely. How thoughtful.”
The second Kin, a much bigger guy who didn’t bother to cover his naturally gray skin with make-up the way Kess did, dropped to the floor. His mouth expanded way past the legal limit and he went to work cleaning up the mess. Kess soon joined him. My floor sparkled in no time.
“Oh, that was good,” Kess said, patting her belly. “Those three were chock full of fear. That’s unheard of in vampires. If they’d been whole, I would’ve saved one for little Jiggs.”
“How is the baby?” Jessica asked. She’d slipped discretely into my office while the Kin snacked. Bad memories for her.
“Hardly a baby anymore,” Kess laughed. “They grow up so fast. I’ll have you over for tea to see for yourself. Really, it’s been too long.”
Kess turned her attention to me. “And it’s good to see you too, Kelly.” Her eyes passed quickly over me, no doubt studying the amount of fear lodged in my soul. I hoped it wasn’t much. “What made those vampires so terrified? Was it you?”
I smiled at the compliment. “I wish. It was the things we’re going after, the same ones that transformed the humans into cicadas. They actually enslaved the vampires.”
Kess’ eyes widened and she covered her heart. Her companion looked equally shocked. “I’ll be damned,” he said.
“Sorry,” Kess looked from me to him, “This is my cousin, Mikk.” No surprise – most Kin are, well, kin.
“Nice to meet you.” Mikk extended his hand.
Kess batted his hand down and mumbled, “No, remember?”
Mikk ducked his head in apology. I don’t like shaking hands. ”We’re your rides to the hospital and then the ballroom. Are you ready to go?”
“Oh.” I’d planned on driving to Saint Joe’s, then meeting up with the Kin there, avoiding an extra trip by shadow. I hated shadow-traveling and did everything I could to avoid it.
Jessica frowned. “I’m sorry, Kel. I forgot when I made the arrangements.”
“We’ll meet you there.” Brand put his arm around my shoulders. “Pretty lady can drive pretty fast, and it’s not that far.”
“I can handle it.” I started to pull away but he squeezed me tight.
“I want to talk to you about something anyway.” He glanced up at the others. “Privately.”
“You didn’t waste a trip, though.” Jessica loved to smooth things over. “You got a good free meal, and Ramona and her Grandma need a ride to the ballroom before you go bug-collecting with Kelly and Brand. So does Amanda.”
“Nope. I’m headed back to the office.” Amanda came around the corner, still clutching her phone. “Big meeting with the vamps already underway. This has them flat freaked out. Would’ve been nice if I could’ve brought in at least one of their missing people, but no. Should’ve been a nice bonus in it for me.”
I moved out from under Brand’s loving arm. “Woulda, coulda, shoulda. They attacked us. Then Nadine committed suicide.”
Amanda looked up at the ceiling, a pained expression on her face. “You’re the reason I can’t have nice things.” She dropped her phone into her purse and pulled out her keys. She didn’t need them with Cecil, but they gave her something to play with. “Victor’s heading up the meeting. Want I should say hi for you?”
“Tell him to go fuck himself.”
“I’ll say you fantasize about him committing impossible sexual acts for your amusement.”
I rolled my eyes and crossed my arms. “Look, I’m sorry about the vampire, okay?”
“You owe me a day at the spa.” She pointed at me, her keys hanging off her finger. “And I’m not talking about the bath house down the way. I mean a nice one. Like up in Boulder where they’ll rub me down with cruelty-free quinoa harvested by handsome virgins.” The corner of her mouth turned up. “Dressed up like Captain America. Oh, captain, my captain.”
I tried not to laugh. “Done. Now get out of here. But I expect a report right back from you. We’ve done all of DGI’s heavy lifting so far. They owe us.”
Amanda smiled and blew me a kiss, then headed out the door. Nothing ever came between us for long.
I reviewed the plan with Kess and Mikk one more time. After grabbing the patients all at the same time, they and the other Kin would have to make several shadow jumps before getting to the ballroom. If any of the transforming patients woke up en route, the endangered Kin would leave the big bug underground and get to safety first, then we’d worry about tracking the sucker down. I didn’t want any of those good people’s blood on my hands. Well, not any more than what already stained them.
“We’ve got this, Kelly,” Kess reassured me. “We’ve been in tougher situations. We know how to handle ourselves. And besides, the Kin have each other’s backs again. Thanks to you.”
She leaned in quick and kissed me on the cheek. “Gotcha!” she said, then smiled and disappeared into her shadow before I could respond. She reappeared out of Ramona’s shadow.
“Oh!” Ramona managed before Kess pulled her back in. Mikk disappeared with Grandma, who vanished with a laugh.
“Ghouls remind me of the time I watched a school of dolphins suddenly jump out of the ocean and then back in,” Brand said. “They’re even the same color.”
I turned around. “When have you watched dolphins?”
Brand smiled, but it didn’t touch his eyes. “I haven’t told you all my stories, Kel. Not by a long shot.” He gestured toward the door. “But if you drive tonight, I’ll tell you one.”
Something in his voice sounded so tired that I stood up on tiptoes and kissed Brand’s forehead before I even knew I was going to do it.
That made his eyes smile.
We left Jessica to close up shop. She was staying at my place that night, safe behind half a dozen magical wards, courtesy of Amanda. Knowing she was safe made me feel safer, too. Funny how that happens, how people sneak into your life so gradually you don’t notice how important they are, until one day you realize they’re a part of you.
Chapter 24
I unlocked the truck with my key fob and Brand opened my door for me before going around to his side. I watched his face in the rearview mirror, how he flinched as he looked at the damage, feeling it like my truck was his.
Brand got in on the passenger’s side and I started the engine. We sat through two red lights before he spoke.
“So, I told you already that we met at a class.”
“You and Daphne.”
&nb
sp; Brand nodded. “Right after I got back from Afghanistan. I wasn’t sleeping. I was out walking the streets, drinking, looking for trouble. It’s hard, you know? One day you’re trying to put bodies back together – guys you know, guys you can’t even recognize anymore. And then they tell you ‘that’s it!’ and you’re on a plane and a few hours later you’re at the airport and someone screams and you hit the floor and it’s just someone’s kid happy to see grandpa. People are looking at you like you’re crazy. And then the best part – they register the military gear, and they take a few steps back. Like you’re gonna go off on them. When really, you’re just scared as hell.”
“Scared that one of them is going to call security?”
Brand laughed. There was no humor in it. “Scared that you are gonna go off on them.” He looked out the window. “Scared that it’s always gonna be like that.”
I reached over and squeezed his hand. “So the class?”
“Yeah. I got picked up one night, but the cop was a Marine. Instead of taking me in, he told me about this class. For fucked-up people like me. Like Daphne. People who couldn’t forget what they’d been through.”
Brand laughed again, the same humorless way. “Bunch of us just trying to find ways to get over it. Talking, MDMR therapy, behavior modification. Those were the official ways.”
“And the unofficial?”
“Drugs. Pot, ecstasy, LSD. Worked for some. Worked for Daphne. So she took me out a few times to the raves where it was easy to get. Like I said, I tried X, but it didn’t help. Just made me crash all the harder after.”
Brand let go of my hand and rolled down the window. Warm night air drifted in. “What did help me were the raves themselves. The release that came from the energy, the people, the music, even the lights. I could feel something again. Something besides a panic attack.” Brand looked away from the window and back at me. “That’s why I wanted to take you.” He stroked the side of my face. His voice grew husky. “After what you went through this winter.”
Right. The time I lost everything that made me a Sekutar. The time he saw me weak.
“Why? You don’t think I’m fine now? Because I am.”
“I’m not saying that.” He pulled his hand away.
“I’ve fought gods. I can kill one. I don’t need a…a crutch.”
Brand sighed. “I have no doubt in your abilities. In you.”
Shit. What did I just do? Brand opened up to me, to make me feel better about his relationship with Daphne…no. No. This had very little to do with her. He hadn’t talked about Daphne before, not because he was trying to hide his feelings for her. But to hide something about himself. What he felt was his own weakness.
But just now he was brave enough to show me something about himself. His desire to connect with me in yet another way, through a shared period of weakness. To show me we’re the same kind. And I shut him out once more. To prove what?
I reached for Brand’s hand again. “Babe, I’m sorry. I’m making this about me and it’s not.”
He rubbed his thumb over the backs of my knuckles. “It’s why I became what I am. A Sekutar warrior, like you. They promised me the night terrors would go away. They said they could fix it. But I think it’s still there, only I can’t feel it, like you can’t feel fear.”
Oh, but I did now, ever since I’d lost my powers. I got them back, mostly. But the fearlessness I enjoyed never came back. Not quite. I did everything I could to hide that fact.
Brand went on. “So I’d train at DGI, go up against another Sekutar knowing I might be killed, and I wasn’t afraid. But that night in my bunk? The sweat would just pour off my body while I shook.” He barked out a laugh. “But hey, I felt no fear, right?”
“DGI wizards lied to you. Big surprise there.”
“They did and they didn’t. Anyway, that’s why I went looking for your Sekutar training videos. To see how you managed to lose your fear. To imitate you.”
He’d been open with me. I couldn’t lie to him.
“I do feel fear sometimes. Ever since last winter.” We came to another red light and I looked at Brand. “I didn’t want you to know.”
He looked back at me, nearly expressionless. “All these months together and you didn’t let me in on that. You are one difficult woman to love, Kelly Chan.”
It was the first time he’d said the word. And he was absolutely right. I didn’t make it easy for someone to love me.
So I gave him back what I could. “I was afraid when I thought you’d been electrocuted.”
He grinned. “What? You don’t want a little extra sizzle in our sex life?”
The light changed and I turned my head before he could catch the little smile on my face. “You are such a dork.”
“Well, this dork was worried about you, when that bloodsucker bit you. Especially since you’d been stabbed with the tonfa.” Brand ran his finger over the place on my neck where the fangs sank in. His touch was more clinical than sensual. “Not a mark, though.”
I moved my head so he wouldn’t feel me shiver. The thought of becoming a vampire, of tuning into something I wasn’t…well, I couldn’t think about something like that for long. I had places to go and things to kill.
“I’m fine. As you can see. It takes more to make a vampire than a little bit of blood.” Of course, that rule is for mundanes.
Brand didn’t take the hint. “But the blood affected you. You heard the music like they do. I lost you there for a sec.”
“I said. I’m fine.”
“You are now, but doesn’t the transformation take a day or two?”
I slammed on the brakes. “I don’t know how it works for Sekutar. But goddammit, if I turn you can do me the favor of taking my head off, okay?”
Brand put his hands up. “Whoa. Okay, I’m sorry. Still getting used to you being afraid of things.”
I sighed, shook my head, flipped off the asshole honking his horn behind me, and drove the last block to Saint Joe’s.
What did it matter if I turned? I’d already changed, and I didn’t like it.
I drove a block past the hospital and parked on the street instead of in the lot. Less conspicuous that way. We waited for Kess and Mikk to appear after they took Ramona and Grandma to the ballroom, and bring us straight in to the hospital rooms through a shadow. Ugh.
But what if the trip didn’t disorient me the way it usually did? Would that be a sign that I was infected? Great. I hoped that the Kachina rain washed away the vampire taint. I did feel better after. Maybe another Kachina could cure the Children of Kokopelli? I’d ask Ramona and her Grandma when we got to the ballroom.
Brand seemed lost in his own thoughts, too. And no wonder. I was being an asshole. “Thanks for telling me what happened.”
“Whatever.” He didn’t look at me.
Ouch. New tactic. “Maybe a Kachina can cure Daphne.”
He looked sideways at me. “Maybe, but I doubt it. Ramona would have said something. Or her Grandma. Seems she knows more about them.”
“It’s worth a try. We didn’t exactly get time to ask her.”
Brand finally turned to me. “Let me be the one to escort Daphne, okay? With Mikk.”
I’d planned on doing it myself, in case she changed. Brand shouldn’t have to kill a friend. But he looked determined. I didn’t want to piss him off further. “Sure. Fine.”
“Thanks.” His expression softened. He stroked my arm with the back of his hand before his fingers found mine. “Thanks for letting me handle things my way. For understanding why I’m doing this.”
“I’m not jealous. Not anymore, I guess.”
His lips quirked up for a second.
“It was just the vape fumes affecting me anyway. Brand, we’re gonna be fine after this. Whatever happens.”
He squeezed my hand, then let go. “Yeah.”
I almost said the words then, but couldn’t. Love still felt like weakness.
Brand glanced in the rearview mirror. “Here they come.”
“You ready?”
He nodded and got out of the truck. I grabbed our katanas from the back. Kess and Mikk walked up to us from a nearby shadow. I explained the change in plan, that I would go with Kess, and Brand with Mikk. We walked back to the shadow. Kess took my arm, I took a deep breath, and for the first time ever, I hoped I was in for a rough ride.
Chapter 25
We moved through three separate shadows to get to the hospital room. Each leg left me feeling dizzy and disoriented, thank goodness. The Kachina healed me from the vampire blood. Maybe one could heal Daphne and the others, too.
The second shadow spit us out into an unused hallway. Someone had covered the security cam. Other Kin waited there to coordinate our attack when Kess gave the signal.
“One more shadow,” Kess said. She patted my arm.
I quickly kissed Brand just before we all disappeared into separate hospital rooms, remembering what he’d said about the dolphins. I’d ask him to tell me more when this was over. It was time I got to know him better.
Kess and I stepped (okay – she stepped, I staggered) out of a shadow cast by a curtain surrounding a hospital bed. Kess gasped at the thing lying there. Even I had to catch my breath.
The bed lay flat, the way they do when a patient’s code blue and the rapid response team needs a level surface for compressions. Only, compressions would be impossible in this situation. The bed was horizontal to accommodate the thick, stiff cocoon enveloping what had once been someone who’d gone out expecting a fun night with friends. Or maybe on a date with someone new, anticipation dancing in their chest for what would come after the music. One vape, maybe two, just to chill, just to share an experience. And then, this.
I touched the cocoon. Dark brown, opaque, smooth and hard as a glass coffin. And the craziest thing? The tubes and wires. When this…woman? Man? “Kess, is there a chart or something with a name on it?”
“Sabrina Ferguson. They cut off her wristband and taped it to the end of the bed.”
