by Skye Knizley
Drakulia swung again, this time catching Raven’s sword hard enough to spin it out of her hand and send it crashing into the wall. Levac almost groaned in dismay and stood, looking for anything he could use to help. He grabbed a planter that held a wilting rubber plant and threw it with all his strength. Drakulia deflected it with his sword giving Raven the opening she needed. Her uppercut shattered Drakulia’s jaw and pushed him backwards into the window. The glass cracked under his weight and he staggered, trying to pull himself back up.
Levac saw his own opening and charged. He grabbed Drakulia around the waist and pushed. Both men tumbled through the window. Levac felt Drakulia’s sword swish by over his head, then a sudden stop. But it wasn’t the one he was expecting with the ground five stories below. He looked up to see Raven holding him by the back of his coat, her eyes glowing in the dark.
“Nice catch,” he said.
Below, Drakulia lay on an iron spire, black blood dripping onto the snow.
IT WAS TWENTY MINUTES LATER. Raven and Levac pushed through the remnants of the emergency room doors followed by the survivors and Sloan. A SWAT team crouched in the shadows and Raven waved her badge at them until they went away. She wasn’t in the mood to answer any stupid questions about what had happened inside.
She was almost to a waiting ambulance when Aspen grabbed her.
“They wouldn’t let me in,” she said. “Are you okay? All of you?”
“We’re fine, Asp,” Raven said. “I feel like I could sleep for a week and Rupert needs a couple bandaids, but we’ll be fine. We’re just a little banged up.”
Aspen raised Raven’s hand and looked at the shredded palm and remnants of bandage.
“Just a little banged up, huh?”
“Not my fault,” Raven said. “Levac got his head in the way of a really big sword. All I had to block it with was my hand.”
Aspen frowned and noticed Raven’s empty scabbards. “What happened to your knives? And the Automag?”
Levac pulled the twisted Automag from his pocket. “The sisters bent this beyond recognition.”
“And I lost my knives in a fire. Silver alloy blades seem to have a low melting point. I’ll get some more knives from Thad, but I don’t know what I’ll be using for a pistol,” Raven said.
Aspen opened her coat and pulled out a fabric-wrapped bundle. “There, at least, I can help. I got your backup piece out of the Shelby’s glovebox. And since I didn’t have anything else to do, I asked Selene to have it towed back to your family garage. Thad is probably tinkering with it already.”
Raven took the bundle and unwrapped the pistol inside. Like the Automag, it had belonged to her father. She’d found it in the glovebox of the Shelby after he died. It was a black longslide forty-five automatic with a seven round clip loaded with Thad’s specials. It also had three spare magazines. She slipped the pistol into her holster and pocketed the ammunition.
“Thank you, love. We missed you in there.”
“Damn right we did,” Levac said. “Raven got her ass kicked by a prehistoric vampire. We could have used a little magikal mojo.”
He looked at Raven and smiled. “How did you survive, by the way? I’m not complaining, but inquiring minds want to know.”
Raven pulled an empty blood bank bag out of her pocket. “The hospital president is one of mom’s contacts. Tall dark and gruesome threw me into her office and I could smell the blood in her desk.”
They sat in the back of a waiting ambulance and Raven told Aspen the rest of the story while a paramedic bandaged her hand and tended to Levac’s broken cheekbone. When Raven was finished Aspen kissed her cheek and sat back.
“I can’t believe you ran into Dracula. You have all the fun.”
“Not Dracula,” Raven said. “Drakulia, something else. Something far more primal.”
“But just as dead,” Levac added. “If I heard right, King had something to do with that.”
King trundled up, out of breath and leaning heavily on his cane. “Where is he?”
“Excuse me, sir,” the paramedic said. “I have to take them to the hospital. Family only.”
Raven propped the ambulance door open with her foot. “Where is who?”
“Him. Drakulia,” King said. “Where is he?”
“We left him in the courtyard,” Levac said. “Bleeding all over the snow.”
“Detective Storm, we have to go,” the paramedic said. “I think you might both have some head trauma—”
“Shut up,” Raven interrupted. “What do you mean he’s not there?”
“Precisely what I said, Agent Storm. He’s gone.”
“Doesn’t he always come back in the movies?” Levac asked.
“That’s the other guy,” Aspen said.
“I’m glad you are finding this funny,” King said. “It is him. All of the legends and tales are based on him, Vlad Dracul was just a patsy. We must find Drakulia before he escapes again.”
Raven looked at Levac. “The coffin.”
“If the legends are based on Drakulia then he needs his coffin, right?” Levac asked.
“He does. Did you find it?” King asked.
“Yeah, it’s at Black Mast,” Aspen said.
“Or was.”
Raven slid out of the back of the ambulance and pulled on her jacket.
“Where are you going, Detective?” the paramedic asked. “You have third degree burns, multiple contusions and a broken wrist. You need treatment.”
“I need to do my job,” Raven said.
“I’m coming too,” Levac said.
Raven turned and looked at him. “Oh no you don’t. You’re broken. You did your part, and Sloan is going to be waiting for you up town. You go get some rest.”
“But—”
“But nothing, Rupe. Go.”
She helped the paramedic close the door. When the ambulance was gone she turned to King. “I need a car. Truck. Anything.”
Aspen shook the keys to her Jeep, making them rattle. “Gotcha covered, Raven, let’s roll.”
“You’re not going,” Raven said.
“Am too.”
“Aspen, you’re not. This thing is dangerous, it almost killed me once already.”
Aspen folded her arms over her chest. “Even more reason for me to go with you. Magikal backup is better than no backup. Right, Agent King?”
“Indeed it is,” King replied. “I have backup on the way, but we are wasting time. Agent Ravenel, take her with you.”
“I do things my way, King,” Raven said.
King frowned and his bushy eyebrows knit over his sunken eyes. “Which is why I want you. But sometimes you will do things my way and this is one of them. Take her and go.”
“Dammit.”
Raven snatched the keys from Aspen’s hand and ran for the Jeep. Aspen joined her and they roared into the night trailing plumes of white snow.
“Did he call you Agent?” Aspen asked.
Raven nodded. “Yeah. The vote is still out if its genuine, but he seems to be the real deal.”
“I didn’t know you applied to the Bureau,” Aspen said.
“A while ago, before the incident with Xavier. I never heard anything and was too busy to follow up on it. I guess it ended up on King’s desk,” Raven said.
“That seems unusual,” Aspen said. “They do interviews and background checks and look for snakes in your underwear drawer.”
“Yeah, I know,” Raven said. “But whoever he is, he knew my father and he’s over two-hundred years old. I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt until I know more.”
She slowed the Jeep and peered out through the drifting snow at a wrecked automobile on the side of the road. The roof was crushed as if something heavy had fallen on it and all the windows were broken out. Something that looked like chocolate in the SUV’s lights dripped from the driver’s side.
“Stay here.”
“Yeah, right.”
Both women got out of the Jeep and hurried through the k
nee-deep snow to the side of the car. The driver was slumped over the steering wheel, her eyes wide and staring. A circular wound in her neck still wept blood onto her cream-colored blouse.
“Shit,” Aspen said. “Looks like we’re on the right track.”
Raven checked for a pulse out of habit then pulled one of the woman’s oriental-style hair sticks from her hair and rammed it through the woman’s heart. The woman’s body shivered and she slowly ignited, burning from the inside out.
“He turned her?” Aspen asked. “That was fast.”
“I don’t think he does it on purpose,” Raven said. “I think he passes on HVT every time he feeds. The hospital was full of brainless newdead vamps.”
“Then there is no way to tell how many he’s Embraced since you tossed him out the window.”
Raven turned back toward the Jeep. “I didn’t throw him out the window, Rupert did. I was planning to, but he beat me to it.”
“Same thing,” Aspen said. “The point is he could have fifty new pets by now.”
Raven slammed the Jeep’s door. “I don’t think so. This was out of necessity, he needs blood more than I do, but give Thad a call and ask if he can send a team out to the hospital just in case. We don’t want to wake up in the morning ass-deep in Drakulia fanatics.”
Aspen was dialing before Raven had even finished speaking. A second later she lowered the phone.
“Thad says one of Bathory’s people wants to come on the team. He doesn’t trust her, but she’s your mother’s newest pet project. He wants to know what you think.”
“I think he should dust her at the earliest opportunity,” Raven said. “But since I know he won’t do that, tell him to bring her, just have Selene keep a close eye on her. If she gets a hair out of line bury her.”
Aspen relayed the message and put her phone away just as they entered the parking lot of Black Mast shipping. The lights were out and the security fence was torn. Sparks danced along the fence where the falling snow was falling on the exposed metal.
“I think we can say he’s been here,” Aspen said.
“I hope he’s still here,” Raven replied. “Come on.”
They fought their way through the snow to the fence. They stepped through the gap one at a time and ran across the taxiway to the warehouse. In the distance Raven could see dozens of commuter flights grounded by the storm and Raven felt her stomach sink. Drakulia might be hiding on any of them, waiting for the storm to abate. There was no way to ground all of them without explaining what was going on and that would just get her a one way ticket to the nearest funny farm. She prayed he wasn’t that far ahead of them.
The cargo door to the warehouse was open and Raven could see the red emergency lights glowing from the catwalks above. She drew her pistol and motioned for Aspen to stay back. Aspen drew her own Walther PPK-s and nodded her agreement. Raven glanced at the pistol and made sure the question was plain on her face. Aspen simply winked and motioned for her to get going.
Raven shrugged and stepped into the warehouse where at least it was dry, if not exactly warm. Ahead of her was the Lamborghini she had seen earlier, along with the World War II airplane. In the space where Drakulia's precious coffin had been was the body of Benjamin Briggs. Raven knelt next to him and found a regular vampire bite rather than Drakulia’s.
“This was one of Drak’s minions. Not Drak.”
“How very astute of you, Ravenel,” Bathory said.
Raven straightened and turned to look at Bathory standing in the shadows of the warehouse shelves.
“I figured I’d be running into you sooner or later. Your smell was all over this place when I was here before. I’d like to say it’s nice to see you, but I’d be lying.”
Bathory stepped into the light and Raven could see she was dressed in yet another leather suit, this one slashed in geometric patterns that matched the ones on Drakulia’s coffin. She looked different, but it was hard to put her finger on the change.
“The feeling is mutual, dhampyr. When I kill you, I will take my place as Drakulia’s newest bride.”
“It figures. You’re already ugly, you may as well take everything that comes with it.”
“I meet the most interesting people when I hang out with you, Ray,” Aspen said. “Even if it is briefly. Elizabeth Bathory, I presume? I saw your bathtub in Kryptorium and all I can say is I know a good therapist. If Raven doesn’t blow your head all over the wall.”
Bathory smiled, her blood-covered lips glistening even in the dim light. “A new familiar, Ravenel? She smells better than the last one, though I do miss him. What was his name, Codumbo? He always smells of chocolate. You see, I’ve been following you both for some time.”
Raven smiled. “I know. It was you working with Church, blackmailing Frost into doing your dirty work. See, I’ve known Chris since I was a kid. Not much scares him, it would take a psychopath like you who thinks blood is bathwater to frighten him into trying to set me up. Your mistake was coming out of the shadows and challenging Mother.”
“I had to win her trust, Ravenel. I needed access to the house,” Bathory said. “Winning would have been icing on the cake, but I got what I wanted. I even managed to get one of my death squad on your brother’s team. He should be choking on his own blood by now.”
“I doubt that,” Aspen said. “Raven was already on to you. So was Thad.”
“We shall see, little familiar, we shall see.”
“Can I shoot her?” Aspen asked. “She’s getting on my nerves.”
“Not yet,” Raven replied.
Bathory raised her voice and said, “Boys, you can come out now.”
Raven shook her head as six blood starved vampires crawled out of the shadows, their wings flapping against their naked backs. Each was handled by an Embraced wielding a Heckler and Koch submachine gun leveled at the two women. Raven wasn’t sure what was more disgusting, the hideously deformed blood starved, stuck somewhere between vampire and giant bat or the pale Embraced Bathory had created in Drakulia’s image.
“I would dearly love to see how this ends, Ravenel, but I must catch my new husband on his way out of the city. He’s resting comfortably on his way to Denver.”
“Don’t worry,” Raven said. “You’ll see me again.”
“Count on it,” Aspen added.
“You two are just precious,” Bathory said. “Farewell.”
Bathory started walking toward the exit, but there was no way she was going to just let her leave. She winked at Aspen and pushed her sideways then dove in the opposite direction. She came up on one knee behind the Pagani and started firing, a split second before Aspen joined in from behind the Lamborghini. Her first three shots turned one of the blood starved vampires into a spot on the floor and her fourth caught it’s handler in the face. She saw his skull ignite somewhere deep inside, making it glow with inner fire and she turned away. At the start of the fight, Bathory had started to run and she was getting away. Time was precious.
Bullets riddled the Pagani leaving the tires flat and the carbon fiber chassis a wreck. Raven rolled to the side and came out from behind it, her pistol spitting fire. Another blood starved exploded as it tried to take flight and she saw Aspen raise her hand and deflect a third with her shield. It spun out of control into a steel girder, ripping its own head off in a cloud of blood and ash.
Raven reloaded, and sprang to her feet as one of the Embraced turned toward her. She knocked the H&K out of his hands and spun into a kick that caught him in the side of the head. He staggered and she spun again, this time wrapping her leg behind his head and dragging him to the floor with her on top. She fired a single shot into his skull and stood as he exploded, firing another shot at Bathory. The bullet went wide and another vamp was on her before she could adjust her aim. She wrestled with the newcomer, both trying to dislodge the other’s weapon. The Embraced unloaded a hail of bullets next to her head that made her ears ring and she head-butted him, breaking his nose. He screamed in surprise and she put
two bullets through his chest. As he dissolved, she caught his falling submachine gun and unleashed it on a blood starved that was beating against Aspen’s shield. He staggered and danced in the stream of death and fell onto his back. A beat later he rolled onto all fours and hissed at Raven, his fangs bared like an angry feral cat.
“I never realized how much I love Thad’s ammunition,” Raven muttered.
She tossed the weapon aside and switched back to her pistol only to see Aspen spin and put two rounds into the back of the bloodstarved’s head. He collapsed into an inferno and Raven switched to another target, the last man standing.
Seeing he was alone, the vampire dropped his weapon and raised his hands in surrender. But Raven would give no quarter. She shot him through the heart without hesitation and moved to join Aspen.
“Nice shooting,” Raven said.
“Thank you, I’ve been practicing,” Aspen said. “Thad helped me find something I could handle and loaded it up special for me.”
“Keep it handy, this isn’t over.”
Raven ducked back out the door and looked for Bathory who couldn’t have gotten far. Her tracks in the snow led to the fence and out to the street. Raven jogged after them, searching the darkness outside for where she might of gone. There was no sign of her.
“That was fast,” Aspen said.
“She’s got to be around here somewhere. She said they were going to Denver, what’s the fastest way out of Chicago?”
Aspen pulled her tablet out of her coat and ran her fingers over the surface.
“From here it looks like head south to the 88 and follow it out to Moline,” she said.
Raven wasted no time. She took Aspen’s hand and ran, not slowing until they’d reached the Jeep. In a blink, she was behind the wheel and racing toward the airport exit. She could only hope they weren’t too far ahead.
NORTH CLARK STREET
CHICAGO, 1999
MASON STORM STOOD OUTSIDE OF a dark, bleak tower north of Old Town. It had been made from some kind of grey stone and decorated with hundreds of gargoyles, gothic arches and strange architecture he didn’t recognize. It sat by itself in the middle of Clark Street surrounded by an antique iron fence with but a single gate. It was one of those buildings that horror writers liked to call ‘foreboding,’ and Storm wasn’t surprised that Church could be found inside.
