Bite the Bullet

by L. A. Banks

  “Now this is très interessant,” Etienne said with cool reserve and held up his hand to tell his bats to forestall their attack.

  “Oui,” Francois murmured as the bats scuttled along the ceilings and the two Vampires watched Dexter tear through the house toward the cellar.

  In hot pursuit, Hunter and Sasha were on his heels. Dexter fired up the basement steps as it slowly dawned upon him that Crow Shadow was gone and the basement had been breached. Spinning around wildly, trapped, he saw the half-filled bag of pure blood and greedily opened it, guzzling the contents, while holding off Hunter’s and Sasha’s return fire.

  Hunter motioned with two fingers toward the floorboards. Sasha nodded, pointing her M-16 toward the wood. Before she could squeeze off a round, the floor exploded beneath them, sending Hunter flying backward out the kitchen window and her up and through the ceiling, shells flying, bats screeching and scattering. Out of the void came a ridiculous beast.

  She was dazed, her legs dangling through the splintered floorboards, and for a second she couldn’t move—that is until glowing eyes peered up at her through the hole in the floor above. She moved her legs into a tight pull against her body, and in a backward somersault avoided the snatch that took half the floor with it. Glock gunfire and Hunter’s footfalls distracted the monster long enough for her to rim the room firing shells down into the hole. But she had to dive out the window as the thing punched through what remained of the floor.

  It moved so fucking fast that it was dodging bullets. Shadows were all over the house and it was expertly maneuvering between them and the demon doors, making it a near-impossible target to hit. She sensed a presence behind her and spun to shoot it, but the thing she couldn’t see pushed her through the hole in the floor right into the path of a backhanded blow.

  She ended up sprawled on the back lawn and with no gun in her hand. A strong pull yanked her out of the path of a refrigerator.

  “Fucking Vampires are in there playing games!” Sasha shouted.

  “I know,” Hunter yelled, throwing her his nine. “Got something in the trunk for their asses, too.”

  She covered him as a mass of bats ejected from the house following Hunter, who rounded the building and opened the trunk. He came away from the vehicle with liter bottles of water that Bradley had packed and flung them into the swarm as high as he could. Sasha was on his flank, dropped her left hand under her right, took dead aim, and exploded the bottles in the air. Screams and bat shrieks echoed in the night as flaming rodents littered the lawn and verandas.

  Neighbors closed shutters, lights went off in houses. Vampires materialized on the front porch with a snarl. A hurdling beast wiped them out like bowling pins. Francois was in Dexter’s jaws one moment, and in the next his head was missing from his body. Etienne disappeared. Sasha was over the side of the BMW, Hunter right behind her.

  “We’re outta ammo!” he yelled.

  “Gas, almost, too!” She looked at him, then they both looked over their shoulders, forgetting the rearview mirror as something larger than a pickup truck skidded into the streets behind them, roaring.

  “Cell phone?” Hunter shouted, still looking back as she drove like a maniac.

  “Dropped in the firefight!”

  “To the bayou to get it away from human pop or the hospital where there’ll be heavy collateral damage, but where we’ve got our squad and more weapons?”

  “You know the answer to that,” he said.

  “Call in allies?”

  “No!” Hunter shouted. “You see what’s chasing us? I don’t want their blood on an I.O.U. any more than I want to bury another Shadow from our pack. Let them guard the hospital—keep anything from that blood and antitoxin Doc is working on.”

  “Just checking,” Sasha yelled, as she spun the vehicle around, avoiding a streetcar and several cars, and headed for the bayou. “It’s almost midnight—how in the hell do we get this evidence to the Conference?”

  “I know what she said,” Woods shouted, “but I know what I’m feeling!”

  “Me, too!” Fisher said, grabbing more shells.

  “It is always wise to follow one’s first mind,” Silver Hawk said, slowly walking around the lab, causing the doctors to follow him with their eyes. He stared out at the moon. “We are not finished here yet.”

  “You guys have good gut instincts,” Winters said, pointing at the radar. “They were headed here, made a hard reverse, and are heading for the bayou. Look at Trudeau’s beacon. It’s going crazy!”

  “Hell, more than her beacon, what’s the big blob behind her tiny blip?” Clarissa looked around at the others and quickly handed Woods, Fisher, and Silver Hawk fistfuls of the lethal cocktail shells she’d made.

  “Get the rest of the team, especially those guys in the truck with the MLRS, on sat-phone,” Bradley said quickly. “If Trudeau and Hunter hard reversed away from a populated area, then that, more than the radar, tells me something crazy big is on their asses.”

  “Damn it,” Sasha said, bouncing the vehicle to a stop. Mud sucked at their wheels, and they’d hit a point where even four-wheel drive would have been laughable.

  Over the doors, it was a flat-out run. A small dock was their beacon as trees crashed down behind them. An airboat became the destination—two steps, a twenty-foot joint leap, and they were on the aluminum contraption, Hunter firing up the engine while she untied it and shoved the boat away from its moorings.

  Deep water would have been helpful, rather than the night-blackened water filled with gators, tree stumps, swamp bog, and the unknown. A raging creature kept pace with them along the ragged shoreline as moss and gnats stung their faces and low tree limbs threatened to take off their heads. More than once the beast lunged into the water, making them swerve. In the distance on the wrong side of the shore they heard their squad. Trees were becoming denser, and their men couldn’t get in close to assist.

  If the Shadows fired to help them, they stood an equal chance of hitting them, and then what would be the point? Running couldn’t work as a permanent strategy, but for now it was the only option. That is, until the trees narrowed too much ahead. Hunter had nowhere to go to maneuver the boat. It hit a stump hidden by the water, sending them airborne, the boat flipping, just as the beast plunged into the shallow water behind them.

  Wedged between two centuries-old, thick trees, the aluminum bottom sheared off from the fan, sending it hurtling back toward Dexter. Everything happened in milliseconds. Hunter and Sasha hit muddy water. The fan tumbled like a flipping top to capture Dexter’s snout and cut it from his face. The momentum of his body was still hurling forward, right into the flat aluminum boat bottom that took his head off like a guillotine blade. Hungry gators left the banks, not as interested in Hunter and Sasha as they would have been, going toward the bloody carnage behind them that was easier and larger pickings.

  Sasha and Hunter looked at each other.

  “I didn’t want to become that,” he said, staring at the feeding gators as they moved slowly out of the water.

  She nodded and slid her hand into his. “You were never that,” she murmured. “Not even close.”

  Silver Hawk sat quietly loading cocktail shells into an automatic and watching the window. He didn’t cheer or shout as word came over the sat-phone that mission was accomplished. He just brought Clarissa’s lethal cocktails to his lips, kissing each as he loaded them and then brought the gun up to his shoulder.

  A single shot rang out. The team jerked their attention to the old man and then the smoldering body that appeared out of nowhere on the floor. Silver Hawk delivered another shot that began to incinerate the immaculately dressed dead man.

  “Vampire that cried wolf one time too many,” Silver Hawk said simply. “A very old one after Shadow blood.”

  Epilogue

  One hour later: A minute before midnight . . .

  She didn’t know what to expect, but as she stepped out of the Shadow lands beside Hunter, she had to admit that they’d
both cleaned up pretty good. He stood proudly, eyes forward, wearing the clothing of the indigenous peoples of North America—elaborately embroidered doeskin suede. His long, black braids were immaculate and twisted with silver and eagle feathers at the ends. He looked so fantastic that she had to find a point in the dense foliage to stare at. The thick, white mist lit by moonlight was a good place to affix her sight line as they waited for the secret meeting mansion to rise out of the bayou.

  Given that this was her first UCE Conference and introduction as an enforcer, she’d gone along with the protocol of the North American clan, donning a meticulously beaded suede gown that was encrusted with turquoise, amber, red coral, and amethyst stones, although she would have preferred her military blues. The opulent feathered headdress required concentration to balance, too. But curiosity and anticipation was what made her stomach clench, not fear of losing the Vegas-like structure to the mud just beyond the marble courtyard.

  This time her medal would be the amber and silver medallion, and she was proud to be included along with Silver Shadow and Bear Shadow on Hunter’s flank.

  Shogun and his retinue cleaned up extremely well, too, for that matter. He gave her a discreet, respectful nod as his clan was announced. The red silk, native robes that he wore were thoroughly regal and his very angry sister was a queenly knockout, despite her bad vibes.

  Sasha silently surveyed the groupings in awe. Werewolves from every continent, seven in all, gathered in a small section of the open, manicured courtyard that heralded forth like something one would imagine in ancient Greece. Were-beings from the collective Big Cat families, Bear families, and other interesting phyla that she hadn’t realized existed in the Were-community, separated the Werewolves from the seven Shadow Wolf clans. The Fae gathered in small, elegant clusters, their particular ethnicities and regions denoted by size, body type, and their familial use of color auras. Phantoms gracefully slid between the hedges and marble columns, never seeming to stay in any one location for very long.

  But it was hard not to gape at the treetops laden with gorgeous, streaming feathered beings in iridescent hues that showed themselves as half human on top and half bird on the bottom, their eyes a fantastic, endless pit of flames. She tried hard not to stare at the Phoenixes, but they—like the opalescent unicorns—were simply marvelous.

  Trying to catch a glimpse of the Yeti and some of the more exotic Mythics, she kept her face forward but strained her peripheral vision as far as she could. Even though Hunter had warned her that they absolutely hated being spotted and often didn’t even show up at Conferences, she still wanted to see one just once—like she supposed everyone else did.

  Her only regret was that she couldn’t bring Doc. He would have been in a researcher’s paradise. She couldn’t even get Woods or Fisher a pass, but she’d catalogue everything in her mind to share with them over a beer when she got back.

  Thundering motors made everyone turn around, even the stoic Vampires, who were dressed to the nines in black tuxedos and tails, each with two voluptuous women or more on their flanks. They turned with great disdain, their dark eyes burning black, and peered at the source of the disruption.

  “Oh, the Order of the Dragon has graced us and will be on time this year,” a Vampire voice crooned with contempt.

  Sasha almost broke rank and smiled. It was so like them. If she’d been back home at Ronnie’s Road Hawg she would have shouted out, Haters! But this was neither the time nor place for barroom antics. Besides, she loved the bikers. Apparently so did a lot of the Fae, who made no bones about cheering their late arrival.

  It was a spectacular display, and probably what pissed off the Vampires most—being upstaged. Each gleaming chrome bike had a humongous rider on it, each with spiked chrome gloves, spikes coming out of their shoulder epaulets, boots, and helmets. They wore heavy, thick, scaled leather pants in shimmering, opalescent hues, and every helmet blocked one’s sight into it with a reflective, mirror shield.

  “Ohhh . . . that’s what the Vamps hate,” Sasha murmured to herself, watching the female Vampires hiss and look away from the helmets.

  But the female riders that clung to the drivers’ backs were no less spectacular. Their skintight, colorful getups ranged from barely-there minis to full catsuits, and they unfurled from the riders’ bikes with liquid grace the moment each male driver kicked down his kickstand.

  “Watch this,” Hunter whispered. “Phenomenal.”

  The motors were still rumbling, anticipation wafted through the crowd with palpable tension, then in a lithe, fluid move, the motor sections of each bike fused to the drivers’ chests. Chrome handlebars grew longer and entered the drivers’ bodies, fusing man with his bike in exoskeletons that were each as unique as the bike he’d ridden in on. Scaled leather pants became skin to stretch over spiked Dragon armor.

  “Wow!” Sasha said with utter appreciation, not caring that she sounded like a newbie. Impressed was impressed.

  Hunter chuckled, despite himself.

  “You got that right,” a friendly, boisterous Gnome called from the Fae Parliamentary contingent. “Wait till ya see the ladies do it.”

  Huge, fire-breathing Dragons had absorbed the bikes, and then nuzzled what now seemed like very fragile human females beside them, by comparison. But in a flash, the ladies’ helmets got absorbed into their skulls to show gorgeous, exotic glowing eyes, and their skins became radiantly hued, glistening versions of the leather they’d rode in on.

  The crowd clapped as the serpent-bodied she-Dragons slid over the males’ backs, sensually threading themselves through their wide spikes like brightly colored silk ribbons. The joining almost seemed too intimate to watch, especially when each she-Dragon’s actions produced a low groan from her mate, and then the ladies anchored themselves into place with a deep, passionate fang strike that made even the most off-put Vampires shudder.

  Sasha shook her head. “Just . . . damn . . .”

  Hunter swallowed hard. “Yep.”

  She fought a smile as the ground began to vibrate. The Order of the Dragon had made it just in time for the mansion-raising by the elders. To miss that was the height of disrespect. Everyone went down on one knee as the dark, glistening black marble rose out of the misty abyss.

  “Can you tell Vampires have been heavily influencing this Conference for centuries?” Hunter said sarcastically under his breath, just low enough for Sasha to hear.

  She didn’t dare answer him as she peeked up at the ominous structure and then quickly lowered her eyes. If the Conference hall looked like a huge black marble mausoleum, à la Vampire style, then what frickin’ chance for justice did they have? Two fairly top-level Vamps had been executed tonight, and no doubt that would be brought up as a breach of supernatural conduct, since there was really no true evidence. The Fae probably wouldn’t step forward, Hunter had said, and if it came to a vote, she and Hunter had to pray that there’d be no dissension in the wolf ranks.

  Sasha stood when everyone else stood and, waiting for cues to be sure she didn’t create some political faux pas, followed Hunter’s lead to the letter when entering the building.

  To her amazement, the interior was much larger than the grand mansion appeared to be on the outside and was sectioned off by dignitary groupings just like the courtyard—but in what she could only compare to large opera boxes. Each one was retrofitted with a small speaker system and earplugs so that the language could be selected by human region and supernatural species. She also noted that no natural enemies were seated near each other, and each box section only had members of the same species at each others’ backs. Interesting.

  Instead of finding hard, cold surfaces inside like she’d imagined, there were lushly cushioned, extremely comfortable, high-backed leather barrister’s chairs facing the elders’ bench.

  The bench, as it was called, was actually a long, gleaming, ornately carved semicircle ebony table that was accompanied by high-backed, red velvet-ensconced chairs. Each chair held a very old b
eing for each order, and their grim expressions alone seemed to defy anything but the utmost civility among species.

  What seemed like carved confessional screens in front of almost totally closed-in boxes made her crane her neck and give Hunter a puzzled glance.

  “Some species are shy,” he told her in a quiet murmur. “They don’t like to be seen and those privacy screens are for the Yeti, Unicorns . . . Lochness . . . mostly Mythics.”

  What could she do but nod as though it all made sense?

  Above the main nave was balconied seating that allowed for airborne species to take comfortable perches among the rafters. Sasha glanced up at the Gargoyle population that elbowed and fidgeted with each other like nervous pigeons while the Flying Dragons wound themselves around cornices designed for their bulk.

  Pixies casting pixie dust and translucent fireflylike Fairies made the prettiest light displays hovering around the huge crystal chandeliers in their miniature crystal boxes. As they settled in, they caused the chandeliers to give off bursts of pastel hues that reminded her of the aurora borealis. Just below them the phantoms created a beautiful, misting miasma that caught the colors as though living clouds.

  Notably absent were demons. She would have to ask Hunter about that later, and could only assume their absence had something to do with the whole bad-blood thing that had gone down eons ago with the Werewolf clans.

  Sasha sat back in her box chair for a moment and simply took it all in. “Wow,” she whispered.

  “It is magnificent. . . . There’s nothing like the first time,” Hunter said in a quiet rumble.

  He covered her hand with his and gave it a gentle squeeze. There was pride in his touch, but also ownership that she wasn’t sure she liked. From the corner of her eye she caught Shogun’s glimpse, and saw the muscle in his jaw pulse as he subtly lifted his chin and sent his gaze straight ahead. But as civil as everyone seemed, there was also tension in the air. She was monitoring it in Hunter’s posture and could feel it raising the hair on her neck, not exactly sure why.