I squeezed the trigger. She spun backwards as the bullet connected at the clavicle. She screamed again. Shouting like a madwoman.
My neighbors would’ve already called the police. I wasn’t going to cover for her. If I didn’t have to kill her, she could serve time. Cool off.
Then I realized what I was thinking. Or wasn’t thinking. That’s how tired I was. She was a vampire. Preternaturals didn’t get simple sentences for attempted murder. It was the death penalty. No chance to appeal. If I didn’t kill her, the State would.
“Rhoda, if the police come, it’s death for you. You keep coming at me, I’ll stop aiming for the areas around your heart and target it exclusively. Also death. I’m giving you one last chance.” I’d been giving a lot of people one last chance lately. One of these days I was going to regret it.
“Doesn’t matter! You came too late.”
I didn’t lower my gun. But I hesitated. “What does that mean?”
“The sun’s rising. I can feel it in my blood. I can’t go home. The light will kill me.”
“Did you intend on this being a suicide mission all along?”
“No. I wanted you dead.” She sobbed. Defeated. Then her resolved returned. “It’s still not too late for that.”
She moved toward me. Keening like a demon. Didn’t matter that vampires weren’t superfast. I couldn’t see her. Couldn’t track her with my eyes. So I used my power. Felt her emptiness like a shadow in my mind and squeezed the rest of the rounds into its center.
She landed on top of me. Her dead weight knocking me backwards. I let the gun go. I was out of ammo anyway.
The flashes from the muzzle had told me all I needed to know. She was dead. No. I hadn’t killed her. Daylight had worked it’s magic. Even behind the heavy curtains and in the dark, the first rays of daylight had turned her once more into a corpse.
My bullets had taken out most of her belly. Intestines were splattered like bits of gooey plastic on the carpeting behind her. Neater than a human kill. Definitely less deadly.
I heard sirens. Shouting in the hallway. Someone banged on my door. An Asian accent. Not one of my neighbors.
I opened the door. Enough that the Amperdyne guard could see my face. “First, how’d she get past you?”
“Who?”
“The vampire.” I stopped myself from saying ‘the woman.’ Yes, she was a woman. But that wasn’t relevant. Man or woman, she would’ve killed an ordinary person.
“We were told to stop werewolves.”
I sighed. How had Amperdyne become an industry standard if the agents took their protective duties so literally? “So you thought a vampire coming up unannounced is okay?”
He frowned. Annoyed. Angry. A little afraid. The fear intrigued me. What had his screwup cost him? Would he be fired? “Infrared scanners showed you alone up here. We were contracted to keep out werewolves.”
“Why didn’t you come in when you heard the first gunshots?”
“We weren’t allowed to bug your apartment. The noise could’ve come from any of the rooms.”
I stared at him. “Tell the police someone had their TV on too loudly. One of the older residents mistook it for gunfire.”
He nodded. No hesitation. Relieved even. I shut the door and tried to figure out how she’d cut off my electricity. Finally, I scrambled around in the dark to find my landline. Autodialed maintenance.
“Maxine? Bianca here. Yes, I know what time it is. I think my breaker got flipped. Can you see about getting my power back on? Thanks.”
Maxine Odessa lived in a first floor apartment with her younger siblings. Their parents had died in a car accident. No life insurance to speak of.
She’d come to me about investigating the accident. Find out why she hadn’t been offered a settlement. Turned out that her father had been drinking. The other party survived mostly intact. Didn’t want to destroy the children’s lives. So he’d asked for the matter to be dropped.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her. Instead, I explained that due to mistakes on both drivers’ parts, there would be no damages. She’d believed me. But the way she’d stared at her two little brothers and baby sister was miserable. Broke my heart.
Maybe I couldn’t save everyone but I’d help where I could. I set up a trust fund and made her a deal. She kept going to school. Made sure the kids went to school. Working in the complex as needed. In exchange, they’d get free rent and enough for food and basic clothing until the last one was eighteen. She was good with her hands. And the siblings didn’t mind scrubbing the garage once a month top to bottom.
She’d been grateful at first. Still worked hard to keep her family together. But somewhere along the way she’d figured out that I’d lied. She wasn’t sure what I’d lied about. But someone had said something.
She kept her word and accepted my help. But I almost never saw any of the family. None of the other tenants talked about Maxine either. Shame or anger, I’d become the enemy. The rest of the tenants tried to protect me. Took my side. I’d asked them not to treat her badly for it. As far as I knew, they hadn’t.
The lights came on while I was thinking about the children. I could see Rhoda sprawled awkwardly on the ground. In a pose only possible with the dead. Or the sleeping undead I supposed.
“What to do with you?”
I called the Atlantic Street Revenant hotline. The man who answered sounded pleasant but cautious. With the vampires out-cold for the day, it had to be a human employee. Unhappy enough with vampires to be paranoid. But a job was a job. Especially in this economy.
“Are you just a messenger service or can you actually help me?”
He hesitated. “Depends. I guess I’m mostly a messenger service.”
“What happens if one of your clients gets stuck someplace away from home when dawn breaks?”
“That fool girl! You talking about Rhoda, aren’t you?”
“Nailed that. How’d you guess?”
“We do bed checks. Chilton was pissed. She with you? Or did it happen?”
“Happen?”
“The flame and burst? Was she caught outdoors?”
I grinned ruefully at the expression. “No. She was visiting me when she collapsed.”
“I can send someone to get her, if that’s what you meant by can I help.”
“It is.”
“Give me the address. We’ll send a windowless van around. And a spare coffin.”
I raised my brows. “Vampires really sleep in coffins?”
“Naw. It’s what we call their pods. They have to be light-proof and hold a human body. Close enough to a coffin for me.”
“I suppose so.” I gave him my address and the parking instructions. I didn’t mention the bullet wounds that had taken out her guts. Figured no sense in stirring the pot before I had to. “You coming personally? Or who should I expect?”
“Pickup crew’ll do it. I gotta stay by the phones.”
“Alrighty then. Thanks for your help—?”
“Gabe.”
“Thanks Gabe. I’m Bianca.”
“The one Dusty’s got it bad for?”
“You sure know a lot for just the messenger service.”
“Me and Dusty are pals. From before he, you know.”
“Dusty didn’t strike me as being from LA.”
“He was a runaway. Like me. When he decided to become a vamp, he got me this gig. Better than selling myself on the streets.” He tried to sound playful but there was pain in that last comment.
“Did Dusty?”
“Him? That boy’s so tightly wound he’d probably punch the first person that touched his knee, much less his wee willie winkie.”
“Wee willie—never mind. Thanks Gabe. I’ll wait up until they arrive.”
“Kinda have to don’t you?”
I laughed and hung up. He was right. What else could I do?
Chapter Thirty-Nine
“What happened?”
I studied the young man’s gang tattoos. Most of his neck and
arms were covered in ink. Some of it done in prison. We didn’t exchange names. For obvious reasons. “She had a beef with me. Wouldn’t stop.”
“You know guns won’t kill a bloodsucker, right?”
“Wood-tipped bullets to the heart will.”
His gaze jerked up to my lips. “For reals?”
“But I didn’t take out her heart.”
“Sure made a mess of her guts though. Why’d you spare her?”
“I’d never kill a woman over a man. Especially a man I didn’t have eyes on.”
“Wish my old lady felt that way. She’s serving eight in Lompoc.”
“That’s rough.”
His expression softened. Somber with responsibility and love. “Yeah. I gotta look out for my twins. At least she wasn’t using when she had them this time.”
I nodded, sagely keeping my mouth shut.
“Need us to clean up the bits?” He motioned to the carpet.
I didn’t want them around any longer than necessary. I wasn’t hungry, but I couldn’t recall being this tired. “I think I can manage that. If you’ll take her back to Chilton.”
“That’s what we get paid for.” He motioned to his crew the same way he’d motioned to the carpet. They brought the pod to my doorway. “No windows in the hall. We can load her up out there.”
“Thanks.” I watched quietly as they picked her up. Limp. No sign of rigor as they put her in what looked like a human-sized Easter-egg. Black lacquered glass or something similar. An opaque plastic seal dropped into place once the top was closed. She’d be safe from the sun as long as they didn’t crack it open. And no one would suspect it of containing a corpse of any flavor.
“You can, you know, leave a review on Yelp if you want.” He looked at me hopefully.
“For vampire retrieval?”
He grinned. “No, Woman! We do all sorts of pickup and delivery. Discrete, you know? Here’s our card if you ever need anything.”
I took the card. Neat. Professional. Just the business name, website and phone number. Gabe was clearly the brains behind the business. Or one of the brains. “I’ll see about leaving a review.”
“Great. We, you know, work hard on personal communication skills. A happy customer, they come back, see?”
He was being sincere. I tried not to mock him. “If I need something discretely disposed of, I will definitely think of you first.”
He grinned and started ordering his people to take the pod down to the stairwell. I watched as they picked Rhoda up with relative ease. Strong backs and muscular arms. Nice tight butts. I sighed. A little time around Paul Chandler and I was thinking of men as potential sex partners. I was far too old to start puberty now.
I went back inside and shut the door, staring at the gooey bits. I wished I’d let them clean up after all. Not because it bothered me. I was worried Martini might take an interest in it. The thought of her eating undead flesh made me shiver.
“Martini?” I went to the bedroom and peered underneath the mattress. I saw her eyes reflect the light. She didn’t come when I tried to coax her out. Unlike me, gunshots scared her badly.
“It’s all right, Little One.” She hissed and I frowned. “Bad kitty. But I get your point. Give you your space.”
I stood and went back into the kitchen. Alcohol didn’t get me drunk. But surprisingly, valerian root put me to sleep. I popped two capsules with water and curled up on the couch. I realized that Martini wasn’t the only one who wanted her space. I dozed off, forgetting all about bits of vampire entrails and attractive male parts. Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry about dreams on either subject.
.
Chapter Forty
I woke up on my side. Opened my eyes without moving. The clock said it was mid-afternoon. Shit. Most of the day was already gone. Then I saw the dried bits of vampire. Dark spots on the light carpet.
I cursed aloud and reluctantly got up. I poked the nearest glob with a fingertip. It exploded into dust. Not solid or stuck to the carpet like I’d feared. Martini would definitely not be tempted by that.
I hunted her down. She was still under the bed. Still unhappy. I left her alone and showered.
The hot water relaxed my aching neck and shoulders. I’d slept deeply but not comfortably. My stomach was warm. It tingled with a release of heat that emulated the water. Still feeding on the werewolf energy. Processing it.
Maybe I could find a way to make access to werewolves a regular thing. No more killing innocent critters. Janet would be grateful.
The heat in my belly spiked and became an agonizing pain. It shot up along my nerves. I fell, grabbing at the shower stall walls. Slipping down to the floor. Scratching a line through the tiles with one horn.
I couldn’t stand. The pain was that great. Like my nerves were being pulled out of my flesh. My muscles stretched. Ripped from the bones.
The phone rang but I ignored it. Not that I had much choice. I was curled into a ball. My tail wrapped forward between my thighs. Bunched up against my belly. Water pouring down into my face.
I couldn’t do anything as wave after wave of agony pulsed through me. Into the nerves of my womb. My groin. Burning inside my womanhood. Something my tail couldn’t protect me from.
I gasped. Trying not to make a noise. Seconds passed. The pain briefly ebbed. Like it was over. Then it pulsed again. Deceptively. Repeatedly. Stronger. And stronger still. My flesh burned. The nerves in my fingertips felt raw at any slight contact with the shower. The pain pounded behind my closed eyes as I wept. Trying to hold it back.
Finally I cried out, mouth muffled against my shoulder. Screamed in combined rage and pain. I didn’t want to scare my neighbors again. Didn’t want the cops to break down my door and find me like this.
Time seemed to slow down, every second of pain more like minutes. Then the agony eased. Abruptly. My skin grew cool and clammy. Except where the hot water continued to spray me.
I tried to stand. Using my hands for leverage. My legs worked. My muscles weak. Wobbly. But they held me upright.
I ran a finger along the damaged tile. My horns were sharp. I hadn’t realized they could cut through ceramic. Good to know I supposed.
“What the fuck was that?” I spoke aloud. Needing to hear my voice. Something to mask a sudden fear of my own body.
I stood under the stream of hot water. Rotating slowly until my skin felt clean again. The clamminess washed away. I kept one hand against the wall. In case. Ignoring the steam building up along the glass and mirrors. Filled my lungs.
I felt my heartbeat beneath the rush of water. Racing. My pulse in my throat. I counted to three, fighting fear this time. Not anger. My stomach grew cooler than the water. Like I’d used up most of Killian’s energy in that unexpected fit of pain.
The phone rang again. Not the temporary disposable I’d opened for dealing with Amperdyne’s spyware. My regular phone. Sitting on the vanity.
I reached for the towel. Shutting off the shower and cursing. I grabbed the phone, held it up. Avoiding the water dripping from my arms.
“Hello?”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?”
I recognized Henry Gibraltar’s voice. If not the emotion in it. “Pardon?”
My mind was spinning. Blake? Anton? I refused to believe he was asking about Vincent. I couldn’t have failed the teenager. Not yet.
“He’s dead and no one has the balls to tell me to my face.”
I nodded, dripping naked. Distracted by the call. The towel slipped down to dangle from one hand. The steamy bathroom was too warm anyway. “No, Mr. Gibraltar. I believe Vincent is still alive. Until tonight.”
His breath caught. A gasp of hope. Or something else. “Why? Why tonight? How do you know?”
“I believe that this entire thing is about the full moon.”
“What the hell are you going on about? What would the full moon have to do with Vincent?”
An idea finally settled into my head. I almost didn’t answer the man. Could it be t
hat simple? Machiavellian. But simple. “I think whoever has Vincent wants him dead. But they can’t do it themselves.”
“What? Why would anyone want Vincent dead?”
“Because it would hurt you more than anything else could.”
“Then why not kill him and get it over with? Or is making me wait part of the torture?”
“Because they don’t have the heart for it. Not really.” I didn’t explain. Didn’t tell him the mad idea that had gelled into my mind in that second. That I believed it was someone who knew Vincent. Who cared enough that they couldn’t do it themselves. Not even ordering it done the way that the two guards were killed.
“You’re being intentionally cryptic! What does this have to do with the full moon?”
“There’s no time for this, Mr. Gibraltar. You said you trust me. Do you, still? I can find him. Save him.”
He was silent for several long heartbeats. The water puddled at my feet. Martini appeared and lapped at the warm liquid. I frowned. It was almost like she was tasting me.
She raised her feline head. Glanced into my eyes and meowed inquisitively. No longer scared or angry. Atypically fickle with her moods. That disturbed me on some level I couldn’t name.
“Yes, Miss Savage. I have no one else. What can I give you to bring my boy home safely?”
He’d never called Vincent ‘his boy’ before. Maureen had said he was an awful guardian. Maybe that was simply because he didn’t know how to be anything else. I heard the love in his voice. It made me dislike the man just a smidgen less.
“For now, let me get off the phone. I’ll call you the moment I know anything. Anything at all.”
“Thank you.”
His gratitude sounded almost sincere. But it lacked hope. I was his only chance at finding Vincent alive. And he honestly didn’t think I’d do it. This was one of those times I really hoped I could prove someone wrong.
Chapter Forty-One
“Two hours to dark.” Paul Chandler sat on the edge of my desk. Closer to me than I’d like. Only because we weren’t alone.
“What are we waiting on?” demanded Olivia Wisniewski.
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