by Jamie Davis
Pulling himself the rest of the way through the opening, Dean scrambled across the floor as fast as he could and reached out to grab Evie’s arm. She had raised it to strike at Lynn. With her superior strength, it could have been a deathblow. However, as soon as he touched her, she stopped struggling and looked around in confusion.
Dean stood up and pulled the vampire off of Lynn. The paramedic rolled to her feet and raced across the room to tend to Barry. Dean wanted to help her but he needed to attend to Evie and make sure she was back in control of herself. The woman was tall and was what he would term big-boned if he were told to describe her. She had brown hair and striking hazel eyes. They were currently gazing at him in wonder.
“How did you do that?” Evie asked him. “One minute I had another voice in my head trying to get me to do horrible things and then next, it’s gone.”
“It’s just a little trick I learned,” Dean said, avoiding the question. “How do you feel? Are you back in control of yourself?”
“I think so.” She turned to look at where Lynn was crouched over Barry. “Oh my God. Did I do that?” Her hand flew to her mouth and Dean saw tears in her eyes.
“You did, but it wasn’t your fault. There’s a person running around with a powerful artifact which is taking control of people like you to try and hurt humans.”
“Did I hurt anyone else? The last thing I remember was sitting at the movie with by boyfriend. The movie was just about to start.”
“I don’t think you hurt anyone other than Barry here. Gibbie said he held you back while the people ran out of the theater.”
“Gibbie?” Evie looked around. “Where is he?”
“He couldn’t fit through the access panel,” Dean pointed to his entry point. “He’s somewhere close by, though. First, we need to work on our friend. You stand here and wait while I help Lynn out.”
“Alright.”
Dean crossed over to where Lynn was working on the unconscious paramedic.
“How is he?”
“He’s lost a lot of blood. I’ve got an IV started and fluids running but he’s going to need a transfusion and a dose of garlic extract to remove the vampire virus from his system. We need to get him to the hospital.”
“Agreed,” Dean said. “I need to get Evie out of here and around the police cordon. If we can get her out of this room, then I can go back up the way I came and meet you from the other side.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Lynn said nodding. “Don’t take too long.”
“I won’t.”
Dean turned his attention back to Evie. She was pacing back and forth in the small space scrubbing her hands together.
“Evie, if I can get you out of here, can you change form into something smaller and get away? I know you have to be a certain age as a vampire to do that.”
“I can change into a bat if that’s what you mean. I hate it, though. I’m afraid of flying.”
Dean sighed. Of course, she was afraid of flying. Why would Gibbie have a girlfriend who was a normal vampire?
“Look, you don’t have to fly far, just far enough to hide up in the rafters of the building. If you can stay put for a while, the police will leave and then you can just walk out.”
“I guess I can do that,” Evie agreed.
“Good. You go through here.” He pointed to the access hole. “Hide up high and in the shadows in case the police search in there.”
She nodded and started to climb through. Dean turned back to Lynn.
“The police are going to come soon. Tell them you and Barry hid in here after the attack and you didn’t see the attacker. I’ll help Evie get away. This wasn’t her fault and I know Artur was behind it. Are you alright with that?”
“Yeah, just hurry up with getting the police here. I’ll cover for you.”
“Alright, I’ll be outside and can drive the ambulance once we get Barry loaded up.”
He turned to crawl back through the opening and pulled the door shut while Lynn continued to tend to her partner. There was no sign of Evie on the other side, so he returned to the ladder and climbed back to the projection room upstairs. Gibbie was gone and there was no sign of the police either. It was time to get back downstairs and help Lynn out once the police found them.
No one saw him as he returned to the lobby. The police had obviously cleared the upstairs access hall and didn’t expect anyone to come from there. This time he clipped his paramedic ID on his shirt and crossed to the command group.
“I’m Dean Flynn. I came to help the paramedics on scene,” Dean announced himself.
One of the police officers turned and looked at him, glancing at his ID.
“Good,” the officer said. “Your team was holed up in a utility closet. One of them is injured. We just found them. You can go help. They’re going to need a stretcher.”
“Got it,” Dean said.
He left to get the stretcher from the ambulance; happy his plan had come together. All that was left was to get Barry to the hospital and tell Gibbie where Evie was hiding. Dean let himself show a brief smile. All things considered, this had worked out about as well as he could have hoped.
Across the parking lot, inside a car with tinted windows, Artur watched Dean exit the building and walk to the ambulance. The vampire lord growled a curse under his breath then started the car and pulled from the parking lot, driving off into the night.
Chapter 17
Artur Torrence finished feeding on the woman in his arms and stepped away, letting her near-lifeless body slump to the bedroom floor. He muttered a curse as his mind turned to thinking about the meddling of the paramedic, Dean Flynn.
“God dammit, that bastard has crossed me one too many times.”
“I don’t know why you let him get to you,” Felicity said as she walked away from the man’s body in the corner. She stopped next to the groaning woman on the floor. “Are you gonna finish this?”
Artur waved his hand in dismissal and Felicity pounced down, sinking her fangs into the woman’s shoulder with a giggle of delight. Artur looked down at his protégé’s feeding and marveled again at how easy it was to change a human from their civilized ways back to their base nature as animals and predators. Felicity had been a nurse and healer before she was turned into the creature wantonly feeding on his leftovers. Look at her now. He snorted a short laugh and then looked away as an idea inserted itself into his mind.
He needed to rid himself of this Flynn character. Somehow the man was breaking into the connection between he and the undead he was controlling. It must be some artifact that was doing it. There was no way he had some innate power to interfere in this way. If Artur could get his hands on that artifact and separate Flynn from the tool he was using to defeat him, then the paramedic would not be a problem for him anymore. All he needed was some leverage against him, some way to convince Dean Flynn to give up the method of his interference.
Artur walked over to the bedroom window and looked out over the small townhouse community he had taken as the location of his lair. He was careful to keep from feeding too close to home, in case there was some way for the local authorities or James Lee’s security goons to track him down. As far as the neighbors were concerned, he and Felicity were a couple who both worked night shifts.
He was watching a young couple who lived a few doors down return from a late outing. The man doted on her and opened the door for her as they walked into their home. Watching the two of them, an idea began to form in his mind.
“Felicity, dear, when you’re done with that one, dispose of the bodies in the usual way and then come straight back here. I might want to have some fun when you return.”
The female vampire looked up from her meal with a bloody smile on her face. “You’re in a good mood all of a sudden. What changed in the last two minutes?”
“I think I finally have a way to convince our meddlesome paramedic to turn over his methods for breaking my controls over the undead. If it works, he’ll have to tell me how he
’s doing it.”
“Are you going to tell me or keep me in suspense?” Felicity asked.
“The best way to get to a man like Dean Flynn is to threaten someone he holds close. For me, it’s a doubly attractive option because it also offers the opportunity to rid myself of the Errington’s once and for all.”
“Oh, good. I want a chance to try my new strength on that hunter bitch. She can’t be as good as she thinks she is.”
“You’d never last more than a few minutes against her, my dear. You’ve never faced a trained hunter before, and this one is among the best,” Artur warned Felicity. “No, we’ll have to be careful and come up with a way to trap her and keep her alive but contained long enough to convince Mr. Flynn to come to her rescue and exchange whatever magical tool he’s using to win her back.”
“You mean you’re going to let her go once you capture her? That doesn’t make any sense, Artur.”
“No, of course not. I will not let the Errington woman go, no matter what Mr. Flynn does. We’ll only keep her alive long enough to force him to do what we want. Then we’ll finish off them both.”
Chapter 18
Dean slept in on the morning of his first real day off in two weeks. He rolled over in bed and looked at the clock. It read eleven AM. Dean sighed. He was exhausted from the continual running and overtime from the department plus the additional time spent running down leads with James, Jaz and the rest of them. They were still no closer to narrowing their search for Artur and catching him with the relic. James said if they could prove Artur was using the relic actively against James, it would be enough to convince the Unusual powers at the federal level to take action against the rogue vampire lord.
That was a great idea in the abstract, but it had proven difficult to do in reality. Artur was hiding well in plain sight, despite several sightings on surveillance cameras after the fact, they still had no clue where he was hiding out. James had Rudy and his pack out nightly searching the industrial parks and abandoned warehouses in and around the city as they were likely hiding places. They had turned up nothing.
Because Dean was their only sure-fire way of combatting the undead onslaught, he had been called time and again to scenes where an Unusual wasn’t acting normal. Most of the time, it wasn’t Artur at all and Dean could do nothing to help. Then he’d return to the station, or home if he was off duty, and try and go back to some sort of normal routine. Jaz had noticed how stressed he had become and made the executive decision that he needed some rest. She was taking him out to dinner that evening and had given both James and the local authorities strict instructions to leave him alone and let him rest for a few days. He was annoyed at having to be rescued from the workload but also glad to have the opportunity to stand down.
Jaz called it an operational decision. She said no one could stay on the front lines with no break for weeks on end without losing their edge. It was important for him to have a real break from the action in a way that kept him from focusing on work. Her idea was for the two of them to have a night out without any work-related discussion. They’d have to talk about other things. She said it would be good for them both to talk about things that didn’t involve hunters and undead running amok.
He had to admit; it would be nice to go out with Jaz and not worry about such things. The two of them needed to get to know each other outside of their work. It seemed like every time they would get close to a personal breakthrough, something would come up and pull them apart or force them to work together in their official capacities. He wanted to get to know the woman with whom he was destined to have a child and start a family. Up until now, Dean felt like they were taking one step forward in that direction then taking two steps backward. It was time to push things in the right direction despite the events that surrounded them.
Dean got up and went out to the kitchen in his apartment over the landlord’s garage. He poured himself a bowl of cereal and milk then sat down on one of the barstools at the counter to eat. He had some chores to do around the house today since he had fallen behind in helping the elderly couple from whom he’d rented the apartment. The Baxter’s were very nice and gave him a break on his rent in exchange for him helping them out around the property. He had a list of things he needed to attend to before he could go out with Jaz that night.
It was a good thing, he figured. The physical workout around the yard would keep his mind off of work problems and be a positive break for him. He finished his late breakfast, got dressed in a pair of old jeans and a T-shirt and headed downstairs to grab the tools he needed from the detached garage’s tool shed. He had a hedge to start pruning.
Dean had been right about the therapeutic nature of some work outdoors. He felt better as soon as he started and the mood altering work carried him through the rest of the afternoon. He finished up and went back to his apartment after putting his tools away to clean up. When he re-emerged, Dean felt refreshed and better than he’d felt in weeks.
Mrs. Baxter was out front, working in her flower garden when he walked to his pickup. He was wearing a pair of freshly pressed khaki pants and a blue button-down shirt under his jacket. She noticed his outfit right away and commented on it.
“You look nice, Dean. Off to a date with that pretty blonde girl I’ve seen you with lately?”
“Yes, Mrs. Baxter. Her name is Jaz.”
“That’s pretty. Is it short for Jasmine?”
“No, Jaswinder. I think it’s a family name of some sort.”
“Well, that’s a lovely name, too. I hope you both have a good time. You’ve been working so hard lately. I was telling my husband just the other day that we’ve hardly seen you at all.”
“I know, and I also know I’ve been slacking off on the chores. I’ll finish the rest of them soon, I promise.”
Mrs. Baxter waved him off. “Don’t you worry about all that. You’ll get to it in time. I know there’s a lot going on in the city lately that has you and your paramedic friends really busy. We’ll hold down the fort here.”
She pointed to his truck. “You should get going. You don’t want to explain that another pretty woman made you late for your date.”
Dean laughed at her joke and waved goodbye as he got in his truck and headed across town to pick up Jaz at her apartment. They planned on having dinner at the new Sabatani’s and then maybe catching a late movie. It would be fun to get away and, who knows, he thought. The two of them might be able to take their budding relationship further than just a friendship tonight. As far as he was concerned, it might be time for that next step.
He parked his truck out in front of Jaz’s apartment building and went upstairs to pick her up. She came to the door wearing a dress, which surprised Dean. His first thought was she looked fabulous. His second had him wondering where she was keeping her customary sidearm. He’d expected her to wear something a little more utilitarian. He was sure she was armed in some way.
Jaz noticed him looking her over and guessed at what he was thinking.
“Yes, I’m armed. You don’t have to search me, though. Maybe, if you’re lucky, I’ll show you where I keep my pistol.” She gave him a wink and walked past him to the elevator.
Dean followed her, his imagination racing even faster as he wondered both where her pistol was and, moreover, what she meant by her comment as she passed. He caught up with Jaz just as the door opened. He waited for her to enter and followed her on board.
“You look nice,” he said in an attempt at small talk.
“So do you,” she replied. “I figured we both needed something of a normal night out together. We’ve got to make up for lost ground, Dean. I feel like we don’t have a lot of time left to get together as a couple, so I went out today and bought this little black dress for our date tonight.”
“So, this is a date?”
“What would you call it?” She replied in kind.
“Oh, it’s a date,” Dean chuckled. “I mean, we both got dressed up and all. We’re catching dinner and a movi
e. It has all the hallmarks of a date.”
“Agreed. So, where are you taking me for dinner? I hope it’s somewhere where this outfit won’t be out of place.”
“I thought we’d hit Sabatani’s. Kristof has rebuilt the restaurant, and I hear it’s fabulous.”
“Perfect. I hope you’ll not stand on chauvinistic conventions and let me pick up the check. I know I make like four or five times what you pull in as a city employee.”
Dean smiled at her as they walked outside to his waiting pickup truck.
“I’m a fully liberated man of the new millennium. I’d be happy to let you spend your riches on me.”
Dean watched as she was about to give what he was sure was a snappy reply when a white panel van pulled up and parked behind his truck. The side door slid open, and a group of six men jumped out, rushing the two of them. Jaz gave a yell of surprise as two of them reached for her arms and started pulling her towards the van. She punched one of them in the throat and then reached under the hem of her skirt, pulling out a small semi-automatic pistol. She was about to bring it to bear on one of her attackers when another of the men jumped at her and opened his mouth to sink his fangs into her forearm. Great, Dean thought. They’re vampires.
Jaz yelped in pain and dropped the gun, yanking her bloody arm from the vampire’s mouth. She tried to swing a punch at his face, but two more attackers piled on grabbing at her arms. Dean tried to come to her rescue, but one of the first attackers turned and plowed into him, knocking him to the pavement hard. It was all happening so fast. He gave an awkward roundhouse punch to the side of his attacker’s head, and there was a flash of light that momentarily blinded him. The vampire’s dead weight fell on top of him, and for a moment he was unable to free himself. He twisted his head to look back and watched as the other five attackers pulled the struggling Jaz into the van. The door slid shut and they pulled away, driving away into the night.