“Thanks.”
She approaches the bars. “Your mother will come around. I know you can’t see or hear what I do, but her heart was going crazy. And her scent—she’s confused and scared.”
“Of what?”
“Lots of people fear what they don’t know. Or change. With you arrested and your sister pregnant, it’s a big piece of news you dropped.”
“Not if she had accepted it when I was twelve.”
“Danika—”
“I don’t want to talk about this.” Another swig from the bottle.
“You prefer getting drunk?”
“Yeah, cheers, a great idea.”
“What about Vixen? We still need to—” She’s off again, back by the door and listening.
Whatever.
I return to the bed and sit with my back propped against the wall, legs up and folded at the ankle. I have enough sorrel to get me pleasantly sloshed, then maybe I can go back to sleep. Not much else to do.
“Something’s happening.” Rayne’s voice quivers. “There’s shouting.”
“Maybe the doughnuts and coffee have arrived.”
She casts me a bemused look. “I’m serious, there’s screaming and things breaking. I think there’s a fight.”
Glug. Burp. “Definitely doughnuts then.”
Rayne flinches, one hand slapped to her mouth. “Was that a gunshot?”
“Here? Unlikely.” I wave the bottle. “Check, if you’re so worried. But don’t think they’ll thank you for it.”
Rayne’s expression is one I’ve never seen on her, a terrible blend of anger, frustration, and…disappointment?
I look away.
“You’re better than this. Giving up? I didn’t think you knew how. All that stuff you said to your mother, was that a lie?”
“No, but—”
“Then pull yourself together while I check what’s happening.” She opens the door. “I’ll be right back.”
I stick out my tongue with a soft nyah-nyah sound.
Already my body is warm from the rum, and the spicy taste tingles on my tongue. The bottle is half empty, and I know it won’t take long to get through the rest, even for me. I don’t drink a lot, but when I do…
My mind drifts back to the first time I got drunk. Must have been thirteen, feeling sophisticated and grown up with alcopops and shandies. My first major crush and I sat on a park bench, swigging from bottles wrapped in plastic bags. She was fifteen and used to drinking, occasionally pausing to laugh at my slurred words and wobbly legs.
Our kiss on that bench was sweet and clumsy, wonderful, until my last shandy made a reappearance in her mouth.
The door opens hard enough to slam into the wall. Through it runs Sergeant Hozier, screaming and gibbering.
* * *
“Attack…blood everywhere…they’re dead—Vampires came…can’t get out.” The plain-clothes sergeant crashes into the table and topples over it, landing on his face in an untidy sprawl.
Ha, idiot.
“Agent Karson?” He crawls to my cell. “Help us.”
I show him the bottle. “Sorry, no agent here.”
“Stop mucking about—you have to help.” He fumbles for the keys to the door of my cell. It opens with a creak. “Please. There’s dozens of them, all fighting, too many. We can’t fight.”
A dark blur streaks through the door and skids to a stop near the table.
A woman. Redhead. Pretty.
“Oh. Shit.”
Fangs. Eyes gleaming silver and long nails dripping blood.
She snarls and Hozier whimpers like a child. He scrambles to get behind me, but there’s no space on the bed.
“Please. Do something. You have to.” The pleas turn to screams as the vampire grabs his ankle and drags him from the cell. He kicks and scrabbles at the ground, but there’s no way he’s escaping.
Calm settles on me.
So this is a vampire attack from the civilian side.
The screams grow louder, punctuated by sobs and frantic pleas. “Help me. Help, please. Why are you standing there? Help.”
The vampire smirks. “She can’t help. She’ll die, you’ll die, you’ll all die. Angbec is ours.”
Through the fog of sorrel, I realize I’m unhappy with the sound of that. We’ll all die? Like Quinn? Mikkleson? No loss there, but everyone? So Wendy? Noel? Mum? Pippa? Rayne?
I sit straight. The world rocks left and right, but a few hard blinks seem to steady things.
“Do something,” Hozier shrieks. “You’re a SPEAR.”
“Not any more.”
The vampire drops her prey and turns to me instead. Her smile is wide, her teeth glistening. “Idiot.” She steps into the cell. “SPEAR is for life. Until we kill you.”
She dives.
I push off the wall and slide down the bed to the floor.
The vampire crashes head first into the wall, growling and snarling. “I’ll kill you.”
“You’ll try.”
Another grab, this time at the top of my head. A roll saves me from the worst of it, but my locs catch on her fingers, igniting searing pain in my scalp. When I turn, two long strands of my hair hang from her grip.
“Bitch.” Even I can hear the slur in my voice, but it doesn’t stop me yelling. “Not my hair. Not my fucking hair.”
I make fists and run at her, meaning to crush the smirk off her slobbering lips.
Instead, a single shove sends me flying, through the cell door and into the table, which promptly collapses under my weight. Nails, fragments of wood, and bent screws fly out in all directions, and my head sings with its impact against the floor.
Hozier scrambles towards the door. He trips on a piece of table and lands on his face. Blood streams from his nose.
The vampire steps from the cell, nostrils flaring. “Mm. Dinner.”
I’m up again, splintered table leg in hand. As the creature approaches, I pull my arms back and swing it like a baseball bat.
The attempt flies wide, robbing my balance.
“You’re a SPEAR?” She laughs. “Pathetic.”
“Screw you, fanger.” I swing again.
Crack. Grunt.
Small chips of something white fly across the room.
She clutches her mouth. “Bitch.” Her snarl shows off the three gaps in her teeth.
I choke on a snort of laughter and wag my finger at her. “No more apples for you, young lady.”
She blurs at me. Hard hands close over my wrist and throat and squeeze.
The table leg falls. I gag. My legs kick uselessly, two feet off the ground.
“Think you’re funny? Think you’re so strong and clever? I don’t need those teeth to make a meal of you.”
My free hand flails, curving round to punch again and again at her grinning face. May well have hit a brick wall.
The fifth punch strikes her cheek and she jerks her head left. Pain spears through my palm and fingers as she bites.
Three of my fingers go numb.
“You taste good, little SPEAR.”
The pain makes me dizzy, but it clears the brain fug. I can think.
Her fingers dig into my throat, choking off my air.
Another thirty seconds and I’ll pass out.
What can I do? What do I have?
I pat down my ribs. Hips. Waist. My fingers brush the handle of a plastic fork.
Plastic, useless against vampires, unless…
I swing it round, hard and fast, aiming for her face.
“No. No you don’t.” She sways out of reach then lowers her mouth.
Fresh agony lances through my shoulder.
I scream. Try to.
Bright colours dart before my eyes. The world tips and dips.
But she’s not moving now. Distracted.
Again with the fork, angled high, driven hard.
The tines plunge into her right eye socket. Pop. Warm liquid spurts over my fingers.
More screams, not mine.
Th
e hand on my throat flexes and I’m free, stumbling, coughing, wheezing.
Can’t stop. Seconds to use. Maybe less.
I drop to the floor and fumble through the table shrapnel for another leg. My shoulder shrieks a complaint but I force myself on. On past the pain. On past the dizziness.
There.
My hand closes around it just as a steel-like grip surrounds my ankles.
It drags me back. My head bounces off the floor like a tennis ball.
The vampire stands above me, furious and bleeding, the fork still protruding from her eye. “I’ll kill you slow,” she whispers. “I’ll take you back to the nest and make it last for weeks. You’ll beg me to die.”
I throw the chair leg, but she bats it aside with a careless swipe of her hand.
“Please. I’m faster than you, stronger. You can’t beat me without all your little toys.”
Again she bends over me, straddling my waist. She forces my wrists to the ground above my head.
I’m pinned.
Trapped.
Pissed.
“How does it feel to lose?” She leans close. The end of the fork brushes my cheek. “How does it feel, knowing you’re about to die?”
I watch. Steady myself. Wait. “No idea.”
She hesitates. “You—”
I turn my head, mouth open, and catch the bobbing fork between my teeth. A jerk rips it free of her eye socket.
The vampire rears forward, elated and confused, and I turn again.
Gooey, bloodied fork tines sink into her left eye, driven deep by her momentum.
Another pop and slicks of clear gunge slide down the plastic.
I let go. So does she, throwing herself back while clutching at her face.
“Bitch,” she screams, rolling on the floor. “Bitch, bitch, bitch. I’ll kill you. I’ll skin you. I’ll snap off your fingers for crudités.”
I let her roll and pick through the debris for another shard of wood.
A long piece with a jagged end fits neatly in my hand.
By the time I turn back, she’s removed the fork and lies flat on her back. Her face is a sticky red ruin, but already her right eye seems to be healing.
“I see you,” she hisses. “I see you.”
“Good. How’s my hair?” I kick her in the face. Her fangs scrape hard against my bare sole, but that minor pain is nothing to the satisfaction of hearing several more bones crack.
She screams.
I lift the makeshift stake. Strike.
Black ooze spurts from the wound, a thick, sticky shower that coats my head and shoulders in stinking gunk.
The vampire thrashes left and right, her single working eye narrowed in fury. Then her hands and face begin to decay, more black ichor oozing from every available hole on her body, including the two fresh ones.
Seconds later, her body is a stinking puddle of ooze, atop a pile of clothes.
I drop to my knees beside the remains and lower my head. That was hard.
* * *
A hand grips my shoulder. I turn, fist raised, but it’s only Hozier, smiling, pale as snow, but alive.
“You saved me. She would have killed me—I was going to die.”
“Chill, you’re fine now.”
“Because of you. That was incredible. How did you know the fork would hurt her?”
“I didn’t, it—”
“You’re amazing. I’d be dead if not for you. You’re an incredible agent.”
“I’m a disgrace.”
His fingers tighten on my shoulder. “No, you’re the best and I owe you. SPEAR is lucky to have you.”
My back straightens. “I…thanks. I guess.” I pat his hand and heave a sigh as Rayne re-enters.
She takes one look at the carnage, then streaks across the small space. She slides to her knees in front of me and captures my cheeks between her hands. The kiss she offers me is long and desperate, mingled with the truly awful taste of vampire innards.
I pull back. “Hey, Rayne.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know—I would have been here, but they…and I followed, but they took—”
I touch her cheek. “I’m fine. I dealt with it.”
“I should have been with you.”
“Why? You think I can’t take care of myself?”
Her frantic apologies cut short. “No, I—” A moment later she spots my smile. “You can more than take care of yourself. I just don’t want you hurt.” Her lips part and a glimmer of silver flickers through her eyes. “You’re bleeding.”
“I’m okay.”
“You smell incredible.”
Slowly, I ease my hands away. “What’s going on up there?”
The dreamy look vanishes from Rayne’s eyes, replaced by her usual timid one. She stares at her hands. “I tried, please believe me. It’s why I wasn’t here. I tried so hard.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Vixen. She sent her vampires. They wanted you but didn’t expect so much resistance.”
“Civvie bashers held their own, did they?”
“I helped. But there’s lots injured. Even Mayor Mikkleson.”
Something about her tone tightens a noose around my lungs. “And who else? Who else got hurt?”
“Your sister.” Finally, she lifts her gaze to mine. “They took Pippa.”
Chapter Twenty-five
I’ve never been more relieved to have a shower. Never been happier to stand beneath a stream of water, even cold and drizzly like this one. I put my head back and wash away the muck and grime of the last twenty-four hours.
But it’s more than that.
Beneath the tepid spray, I’m washing away hate, fear, anger, and pain. The disgusted expression on my mother’s face sloshes down the drain at my feet. Quinn’s triumphant grin joins Mikkleson’s smug taunting, swirling into the plughole with a gulp and a gurgle.
I’m done with it. I’m clean. I’m fresh. I’m me.
A knock on the door draws my attention. Rayne enters without waiting and holds up a heavily stuffed carrier bag. “I borrowed some clothes.”
“Borrowed?”
Her smile is forced. “Would you prefer to put those back on?” She points to my old clothes, piled in a stinking heap beside the shower cubicle. The vampire’s dying ooze has already dried to a thick grey crust.
“Borrowed is fine.” I step out of the shower.
The towel provided is brown and coarse, barely wide enough to go around my hips. Doesn’t matter, I’ve no plans to sit and wait for my hair to dry.
As I pat myself down, Rayne watches me, her gaze hungry, lips slightly parted.
“You’re beautiful,” she whispers.
Heat flushes my body. My hands shake as I rub the towel across my stomach.
She steps closer. “I can hear your heartbeat.” Silver flickers in her eyes. “Your breathing is…shallow.”
“Can you blame me?”
Rayne plucks the towel from my hands and stalks around my body. I hold her gaze as far as possible, then close my eyes as she strokes the towel across my neck and shoulders. “We need to dress these bites.”
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not. But I’ll make sure you are.”
The towel shifts to lower back. Lower still.
I clear my throat. “Rayne?”
“Yes?” Her lips brush the back of my neck.
“I—”
The door opens again, admitting a female officer I don’t know. She frowns, then peers at me. “Agent Karson?”
“Yeah, that’s me.” I step away from Rayne and grab the carrier bag. “Kinda.”
“We got someone up here asking for you. Hurry up, will you?” She leaves.
By the time I look back, the spell is broken. Rayne has returned to her soft, timid self and is hurrying towards the door.
“I’ll wait for you out there. Maybe I can help them clean up.” She’s gone too.
I breathe deep and let it go slow. I know it’s not the
time, that I have things to do, but my skin tingles from the touch of that towel, knowing Rayne was the one to hold it. I dress quickly, jeans, boots, and a long shirt over a cropped T-shirt. The underwear doesn’t fit right, so I leave it and head out.
In the corridor, that same female officer waits with two sealed evidence bags. She hands them to me before gesturing that I should follow.
“You’re giving them back?”
She nods. “Right now we need you armed and ready to fight. We’ll sort the red tape and admin later.”
My utility belt feels great snugged around my hips again, as do the knives on my arms and legs. Sliding the stiletto back into my hair is like meeting a long-lost friend, but most important is my watch. I wrap the bulky piece of jewellery around my wrist, and only then do I feel dressed.
I make a fist, trying to ignore the tingle in my fingers. They move, but not as well as they should, and though the first aider assured me I’d eventually regain full feeling, he also insisted that I rest.
Oh, well.
The officer takes us back upstairs, along a short corridor and into a suite where the first aiders and paramedics have gathered to help those injured. In the middle of them, subdued and alone, sits my mother.
She leaps up when I enter. “Phillipa—they took her, just carried her away. What’s going to happen to my baby? My little girl? How could they—”
“Mum.” I grip her shoulders.
Tears stream down her face. “They took her. My girl. Why?”
I could tell her. The vindictive part of me wants to, but I can’t. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to get her back.”
“You can’t—”
“Yes, I can. I’m not a child any more. You don’t decide what I can and can’t do.”
“But—”
“Mum? No.”
She sniffs. “Phillipa is everything. I couldn’t bear if she got hurt.”
With effort, I ignore the pang in my chest. “She won’t.”
“Promise me.” Her hands close around my wrists, trembling and weak. “Promise me you’ll get my baby back.”
“On my locs and hope to trim. I’m a SPEAR. It’s what I do.”
Mum return to her seat and covers her face with her hands.
The female officer guides me to a free chair. “Let’s get that shoulder and hand bandaged.”
Both Ways Page 20
