by Jamie Davis
“Thank you, Celeste. I couldn’t have made it without your help and advice.” Brynne got up and crossed to her examiner. She’d done it.
“Oh, think nothing of it, honey. It was the least I could do.”
The older vampire never broke eye contact as she spoke. Her hand swung down and slashed open the goat’s entire throat. A splash of fresh arterial blood from the animal’s deep carotid arteries sprayed across Brynne’s chest and face. Before she was fully aware of what happened, the new vampire was on her knees with her mouth latched onto the broad gash in the struggling goat’s neck. Brynne buried her fangs in the hairy flesh, and her tongue worked to suck the life-giving fluid pumping out of the creature’s failing heart. She couldn’t stop herself no matter how she tried to regain control.
Brynne felt Celeste looking down at her pupil, the pupil who knelt at her feet in a pool of goat’s blood. The red locks of hair swayed as she shook her head.
“So close, honey. So close.”
Chapter 5
Dean checked his watch at the end of his shift as he restocked the ambulance’s drug bag with fresh medications to replace those he’d used on the runs that day. Barry was emptying the trash and wiping down the interior before Brook and Tammy’s arrival to take over for the night shift. It had been a long week since the first zombie attack. There had been one or two new zombie attack calls each night requiring their rapid response and a health department quarantine until all those affected could be inoculated with the Sodium Benzoate solution.
The police were still no closer to discovering who was creating the new zombies or how it was being done. O’Malley had been at the scene today for their call. This one was different in that it took place in the daytime; though it was likely the zombie was turned sometime the night before. Someone had killed and then transformed the night watchman at the local library branch overnight. No one found him until they opened up the branch for the toddler story hour the next morning. That had been chaos. The security guard-turned-zombie bit many mothers and young children.
Officer O’Malley had it right when he asked, “What kind of creep targets little kids and their moms?”
Dean agreed with the portly officer. This one was pretty scary. He never wanted to treat a child zombie, but they had come too close to that today. The whole Unusual community was upset about it. If the zombie threat became widespread and word about the rest of the Unusuals living among them got out to the general public, it would be pandemonium and possibly the start of a new race war between humans and their Unusual neighbors. That couldn’t happen.
Their shift was almost finished, and then he was supposed to pick up Jaz at her new offices downtown at police headquarters. She was his almost girlfriend though they still hadn’t gone on a real date. They’d been forced together when their future teenaged daughter returned to the past to help them on a quest. Now the daughter was back where she belonged, and the two of them were trying to see if their destined romance was going to happen.
Jaz was at the police headquarters because she’d been doing consulting work for the Elk City Police Department on the attacks. Her family had a specialty in tracking this sort of thing down, Dean admitted. She was the last in a long line of Hunters, and the Errington clan was very well known in the Unusual community. He hoped she didn’t have to go on some hunter rampage when all was said and done. His few Unusual friends had almost gotten used to having her around with him on a regular basis. Maybe they’d forgotten she was the leader of a Hunter Clan. That would all change if an open war between humans and Unusuals started.
If nothing else, that was reason enough to work hard to find a way to stop it from happening. Things were progressing on that front. James had called a briefing for all his various resources in the Unusual community for later that evening, and he had invited Dean. He had been surprised when the Elk City vampire lord extended his invitation to Jaz.
“Bring the Errington woman if she’ll come along. I’d appreciate her input on this, as well,” James had said.
Just as surprising to Dean was Jaz’s answer when he told her about it over the phone.
“Of course I’ll come along. This is serious business, and we all have to work together to figure out the source of the problem before it’s too late for all of us.”
This was kind of like dogs and cats living and playing together in his eyes, but he was glad to see his two groups of friends willing to get along for the greater good. Still, it wasn’t likely to go too far. He pictured James and Jaz playing a round of poker together and laughed aloud. Barry poked his head from the back of the ambulance.
“What’s so funny, Dean?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking about how weird the proposed partnership between Jaz and my friends at the Nightwing building is going to be. They are starting off surprisingly well.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“I guess so,” Dean concluded. “We’ll see what happens if things escalate with the zombie attacks. How’s the restocking coming in there?”
“Almost finished,” Barry answered.
“Good.” Dean checked his watch. “I’m going into the break room. Put this bag away for me.” He handed up the drug bag, now fully stocked with another shift’s worth of supplies.
Dean got into the break room just in time to see Tammy walk in. Brook had already arrived and was logging into the computer system to check her inbox for the beginning of their shift.
“We had another attack today. This one was at the public library branch on Elm downtown,” Dean told the two of them. He relayed the story of what happened while he gathered up his belongings.
“Wow, that must have been a mess. I hate having to treat kids,” Tammy said. “It reminds me of my own kids too much.”
“I don’t have children yet, and I don’t like it either,” Dean replied.
“What about that teenage daughter of yours? Doesn’t she count?” Brook asked.
“She doesn’t count because she is from the future so technically she hasn’t been born yet. I think I’ll feel a lot differently about it when I have little ones like Tammy does.”
Dean slid on his coat and shouldered his backpack. “I’m going to scoot. Barry is finishing up things in the ambulance.”
“Ooo, gotta hot date tonight?” Brook jeered.
“More work is more like it, Brook. James wants a full report on everything we all know. He even invited Jaz to come by and lend her advice.”
“Wow,” Tammy said. “He must be worried about the current situation to invite the Errington heir in for this planning session. I know he’s more comfortable with her since the two of you connected but the rest of his management team must be pretty wary of her.”
Dean nodded. “They are. I don’t think they’d come into the same room with her at all if James didn’t order them to do it. I keep hoping they’ll get over it. Jaz has promised not to go after anyone without James’ say so while the zombie thing is happening. That should be good enough.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I do, though I get your meaning. I guess there’s a lot of cultural bias and history to overcome before everyone plays nice together,” Dean said.
“Well go and pick up your date for the big summit tonight,” Tammy ordered. “Make sure you fill us in on what you learn in the morning when you come back for work tomorrow.”
“Will do,” Dean replied. He headed out into the parking lot to get his truck and go pick up Jaz.
He pulled up in front of the police headquarters building downtown about an hour later. He had gone home and showered and changed before going to get Jaz. He saw her standing on the steps of the station talking to a few officers. Her long blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail and threaded through the back of her black Errington baseball cap. She was wearing a pair of black jeans and a white t-shirt with the Errington Security logo on the chest. Over that, she wore a black leather jacket that surely hid her Glock and extra magazines she always c
arried with her in a shoulder holster. Given the nature of the current attacks, he was surprised she didn’t have her Katana with her. She must have guessed a sword across her back would draw too much attention when she walked in and out of the police building and past the reporters gathered for the daily press briefings.
She looked over as he pulled up and smiled at him across the plaza before she waved goodbye to the group of officers. Jaz jogged down the steps and across the broad pavement to where Dean was pulled up. He watched her every move, appreciating how beautiful she was in a girl-next-door kind of way. They had agreed to go slow with their budding relationship despite the fact that they found out they were destined to be together. Having contact with an unknown daughter from the future did that to a couple. He shook his head and gave a wry chuckle. Nothing like a little pressure about having children early in a couple’s courtship to make things awkward.
Jaz jumped in the passenger side of Dean’s pickup truck and gave a sigh of relief.
“I’m glad to be out of there.”
“Rough day at the office, Jaz?” Dean asked shooting her a smile as he drove across town towards the Nightwing building.
“The police chief and all his senior commanders kept looking at me as if I had some sort of magic bullet to fix everything. I have tried to tell them from the beginning that actual police investigative work was going to be essential to getting to the bottom of this zombie crisis. They all think it’s just a matter of me giving them the mythical answer to their problems.”
“You do remember we are heading over to James’ penthouse to have a dinner meeting about all those same questions, right?”
Jaz waved a hand, dismissing his question. “That’s different. James and Rudy know my capabilities and don’t expect me to solve this thing overnight. Heck, they don’t necessarily want me in the middle of this at all.”
“That’s not true. James extended a personal invite for you to attend,” Dean explained. “I didn’t ask for you to come along.”
“You’re right. I should relax,” Jaz said. She blew out a long breath. “James has been surprisingly understanding. He has invited me, a Hunter Clan leader, into his home. That’s a level of trust that means something, I guess.”
“I think so, too, for what it’s worth. Besides, you’re not the same hunter who showed up here six months ago. I like that.”
Dean reached over and gave her hand a squeeze where it rested on the seat next to him. She returned the squeeze, and he got a sudden warm feeling inside. He liked Jaz a lot, and he was hoping to start going on some regular dates for a change rather than attending war-room sessions and demon-hunting raids with her.
“There’s good news. I’m done with physical therapy. I might have a slight hitch in my step for a while longer, but if I keep doing my exercises, the therapist said I should be back to normal.”
“That’s excellent news,” Dean agreed.
Jaz had been recovering from a long convalescence after she was nearly killed by a demon lord in human form. The demon-possessed man broke her leg in several places in the process of incapacitating her while they were trying to rescue their kidnapped daughter. Only Dean’s surprise discovery that he had the power to command demons had ended up saving them at all. He still didn’t know why he had those powers or from where they came.
“Yeah, I’m glad to be rid of the wheelchair, the walker, the cane, and all the doctor’s visits,” Jaz said with relief. “I’m not used to having to stay on the sidelines like that.”
“The good news is, you used the extra time on your hands to restart your family’s security business and start rebuilding your headquarters. I know you were thinking of hiring some new operatives. How’s that going?”
“Better. The family has always had good connections with the Feds and the Marshal’s Service in particular. We always have a few from their Unusual investigations and apprehension division that want to come work for us after their twenty years of government service. In fact, I just hired the soon-to-be former assistant director from that division to be the Errington chief operating officer. He starts in a few weeks when his retirement is official.”
“That’s excellent news. Is he being brought in on this case?” Dean asked. Having that level of former deputy marshal working on the situation would bring some big time national attention to the problem here in Elk City. He wasn’t sure James would like that, though.
“No, I’ve already got him focused on building up our international operations to the level they were when my dad and mom were running things. Our contracts fell through soon after they died. I just couldn’t manage things as well as they did after it all fell apart. I’ve always been a field operative, so it’s better to have him run the day-to-day operations and let me focus on CEO stuff.”
“Oh, like our little problem here in Elk City?”
“Hey, it’s my home now, too. Call it my civic duty.”
They both laughed at the irony of that as he drove up to the gate to the underground garage beneath the Nightwing building. A quick swipe of his keycard on the panel and they drove beneath the raised gate and headed inside to park. The rest of the gang was waiting for them upstairs.
Chapter 6
Dean and Jaz stepped off the elevator on the penthouse level and almost bumped into Celeste as she was stepping on. She seemed preoccupied with something on her phone.
“Oh, sorry, guys,” she said, stepping back to let them exit first.
“No worries, Celeste,” Dean answered. “Hey, is everything alright? You look concerned about something.”
“I’m good,” the redheaded vampire replied. “Just something came up that I need to take care of. I’m sorry I’m going to miss the meeting. James will fill me in when I get back.”
Dean and Jaz stepped aside as she jumped on the elevator just as the doors were closing. He had never seen her distracted like that before. Celeste always seemed so composed and on top of things here at Nightwing Enterprises. He shrugged and went over to ring the bell at the double doors to the penthouse apartment. They swung open to reveal Rudy, James’ head of security and the werewolf pack leader in the Elk City region.
“Hey, Dean. Hello, Ms. Errington. Please come in.”
“Please, Rudy. Call me Jaz. We have to have a good working relationship. We’re on the same side here,” Jaz said as she and Dean walked into the apartment’s foyer.
“Uh, yes,” Rudy stammered. “I guess that’s true, Ms - uh - Jaz.” Rudy gave half a smile. “I guess I need to work on that.”
Dean shrugged and looked at Jaz. He supposed that was the best it was going to get for now.
“Where’s dinner. I’m famished,” Dean stepped in to relieve some tension as he walked into the large open floor plan that was James and Brynne’s apartment. It sat high atop the Elk City skyline, looking out over the city below when the sun went down. The sun had already started setting so soon the blackout shutters would be opened, and they would have a spectacular view of the city’s lights around them. He saw the dining area table set up for six, but only James was in sight.
“It’s on its way up from the restaurant kitchens downstairs,” James said as he came over to shake Dean’s hand. “I’m afraid it’s just the four of us for dinner. Brynne had a setback today in her training and won’t be joining us. She is downstairs working on something else according to Celeste.”
Dean wondered what that was all about. He knew something about Brynne’s training to overcome her bloodlust, but he thought she was past the point where she couldn’t be around humans unrestrained. He pondered it a bit while James took Jaz’ extended hand and bowed low over it, brushing the back of her hand with his lips. Dean quirked an eyebrow at that greeting.
“Ms. Errington. I’m very glad you were able to join us tonight,” James said in a formal greeting. “I am very interested in seeing what you have to say about the matters we are currently dealing with here in Elk City.”
“She prefers to be called ‘Jaz,’ boss
,” Rudy corrected. “I mean, it’s not like she’s the head of an entire clan trying to kill us all.”
James shot Rudy a stern glance. “That will be enough of that, Rudy. She is a guest in my home, and I’ll not have any insult perpetrated against her.” He returned his attention to his special guest. “I apologize for the conduct of my friend. If you prefer to be called Jaz, then Jaz it is, as long as you call me James in return.”
“Agreed, James,” Jaz said as she looked around. “You have a lovely home here. It’s surprisingly modern. I would have expected …”
“What? You thought I’d have old-world style antiques and creepy relics and weapons everywhere?” the vampire lord replied.
“Well, yes. That has been my experience with, the other ancients I have, uh, encountered,” Jaz responded.
“I came to the new world a long time ago to get away from all that. I pride myself on staying up with the times, as well as current fashions and trends.”
“It shows. I like it,” Jaz complimented, nodding as she looked around the professionally decorated home.
Dean was curious about what everyone had discovered about the problem they faced with the zombies. He wanted to get down to business, but he understood the need to observe the pleasantries, as superficial as they were. This session was to share that information so everyone could be on the same page about how they responded to the threat.
The doors behind him opened and a team of waiters and waitresses came in rolling carts with covered serving dishes. James pointed to the table.
“I’m hungry, how about we sit down and start our meeting while the food is brought up,” he suggested.