Circle of the Moon (Soulwood #4)

by Faith Hunter

  I nodded. Lying. I wasn’t panicky now, but I wasn’t okay. Occam had to be able to smell my sweat but didn’t say anything as he progressed along the road, one hand on the wheel. His weapon was on the edge of the open window, ready to fire with his maimed left hand. It would be an awkward shot, but better than nothing. “Northern staging area just ahead. Slowing,” Occam said. “No sign of vehicles. Turning in. Tell SWAT we have an acceptable staging area, but there are three occupied homes between us and the target.”

  “Copy,” Rick said.

  Yummy whispered, “I hear footsteps. Too soft to be human. I count two Mithrans coming up the stairs.”

  “We can’t wait,” I said.

  “Ingram and Occam. Stay put,” FireWind said.

  I wanted to scream. “Respectfully, sir, we just found a dead body,” I said, hearing the fury and disagreement and fear in my words, “indicating imminent danger to human inhabitants.” A thought hit me. “Send a unit by with lights and sirens. Maybe it’ll startle them away.”

  “Negative,” Rick said to me. “I will not endanger my team. Or the local LEOs.”

  “No time,” Yummy whispered. I heard the cell placed down with a soft clatter. “Passing the southern perimeter,” T. Laine said. “No live or undead bodies at the panel vans per seeing working, but psy-meter shows presence of Mithran energies. Permission to disable the vans?”

  “Arcane or mundane means?” FireWind asked.

  “Either.”

  “Come on, come on, come on,” I whispered to the night and to Yummy.

  “If you can disable the vehicles without danger to yourselves, yes,” Rick said.

  “Okay, boss. Going in,” Lainie said.

  Over my cell I heard two shots fired, close up. The particular but distant ululation of a vamp dying. Thumping sounds. Shots fired from farther away. Then a final shot, Yummy’s last round. Then nothing. I wanted to scream or throw things. We were right here. We could have done something.

  A full minute later, her voice rasping from physical activity, T. Laine said, “Vans can still drive, but they won’t track properly with multiple tires slashed in the sidewalls.” Her car door closed softly in the background. “Drive,” she finished.

  Over the cell came a peculiar sound like a titter of drunken laughter. “Day-am. I’m a better shot than I thought,” Yummy whispered.

  Relief shook me like a child’s rattle. Tears filled my eyes. Thank you, I mouthed to the night and to God. I was pretty sure I had been praying—for a vampire, of all the strange things in my life.

  Yummy said, “I took their weapons and the last of their blood. I now have a total of six rounds and a measure of healing, but it’s not enough. I’m leaking and we have more troubles coming. Humans on the way. And they are not friendlies.” I heard shots in the distance over the cell, staccato. And the sound of voices pleading, barely heard. “They have our humans hostage. I’m going in.”

  Rick said, “Tell her no. SWAT is nearly there.”

  “I heard,” Yummy whispered. “Rick LaFleur, if you can hear me, I’m not one of yours, but you can call this fanghead recon. I’m at the top of the stairs. I count ten human heartbeats and smell two enemy fangheads. Can’t get any closer without them catching my scent or sound. Backing back to my sniper hole.”

  Rick cursed softly. Occam’s hands tightened on the wheel. This passivity was probably making his cat crazy.

  “Can you get out?” I asked. Occam’s headlights illuminated a raccoon waddling in front of the car. Three juveniles gamboled behind the mother. They all disappeared.

  “Not without walking through the hostages.”

  “Can you punch your way through the floor into the garage?” I asked.

  There was a sharp silence on the cell. Then, “That, Maggot, is brilliant. It’ll ruin my manicure, though.”

  “We all make sacrifices,” I said. My sarcasm seemed to help because Yummy laughed.

  Two cars and a SWAT van sped in behind us. Over the cell came the sounds of splintering wood. Shots fired as Yummy laid down cover fire. Then more splintering wood.

  “I’m in the garage,” she whispered. “I have two rounds left. Ming will kill me, but I’m taking her Mercedes limo. The armor will let me punch through the garage door. Tell your people I’m heading out.”

  “Copy that,” Rick said over the earbud. “One nonhostile escaping.” He gave details.

  I heard a half dozen shots. Yummy grunted in pain. An engine roared to life, followed by a crash. And the sound of Yummy’s laughter, a little more crazy than I might have hoped. “Hey, Maggot,” she shouted. “I need blood. I got a couple more holes in me than just a minute past. Feed me, woman!”

  “I’ll stake you first,” I said.

  Yummy kept laughing. Her limo whipped into the small partially empty lot and up to Occam’s car. “Hello, cat. Maggot,” she said through her open window. There was blood on her clothing and in her pale hair, visible in the low glow created by multiple sets of headlights. Her skin was paper white and bloodless and she was vamped out. “I’m dying of thirst, but you can offer to be my hero later. What’ll it take to get SWAT to breach now?”

  “They would have to be killing the human hostages,” Rick said into my earbud.

  “I smelled dead and wounded humans,” Yummy said. Vampire hearing had let her overhear Occam’s and my comms. I’d have to remember that. “Two shot dead that I can account for. A lot … of human … blood,” she added. She was breathing fast and sounded a little crazy. Or a lot hungry.

  Rick said, over the para frequency, “Gonzales. We have reliable inside intel that the attacking vampires and their humans are killing the local humans. Do we have a go?”

  “We have a go,” FireWind said. Yummy laughed, a sound so far from human amusement that it made my hair stand up.

  Gonzales said, “Douglas and Montgomery, take the back. Josephs and Avery, in through the garage door. I understand there’s a car-sized hole in it now. Smith and Flint, you have perimeter. Matthews and I have the front. On my mark.”

  Yummy opened the limo door. Swiveled her body around until her feet were able to drop to the ground. Her blood splattered the earth only inches from Occam’s car. Only inches from me. The soil soaked up the vampire blood. Bloodlust stirred. I forced my shoulders down and breathed through my nose, watching the blood trickle down Yummy’s legs onto the ground, crimson in the headlights. “Hungry,” she whispered, echoing the need of my land.

  Seconds later I heard each of the teams report they were in position. Then the SWAT leader said, “On go. One. Two. Three. Gogogogogogo.”

  My heart leaped into my throat.

  Yummy growled and leaned out of the limo. The sclera of her eyes was scarlet, her pupils dilated far wider than a human’s. A wet breeze off the Tennessee River blew through, pressing the blood-wet dress against Yummy’s body. She was naked beneath scarlet-soaked fabric. Her blood trickled onto the ground in a thin stream.

  Over the earbud came the sound of crashing, splintering wood. Three shots. Then a lot of shots. People shouting. Cops shouting, “Down. Down on the ground.” “Put the weapon down. Slowly.” “Down. Hands behind your head.” Then gunfire. And SWAT returning gunfire. “Multiple civilians down,” Gonzales shouted. “Get me medic!”

  “Clear the house,” FireWind said.

  Gonzales cursed. Sweat slimed down my back, sticking my clothes to the Kevlar vest. I blinked sweat out of my eyes. Yummy was watching Occam, her hunger with a target.

  Seconds ticked away as his men cleared the house. “Clear.” “Clear.” “Clear.” “Clear.” The voices ran together in my brain, none of them familiar, none of them real to me. And all of them out of sight in a firefight.

  Yummy grabbed the limo door. Her talons were pointed and sharp as knives in the faint illumination from inside the limo. My hands clenched into fists. I checked my weapon. Again. Silver-lead ammo. One in the chamber. Ready to fire.

  “We got a runner,” a SWAT team member said,
then shouted, “Stop! Police!”

  The sound of gunfire in measured bursts.

  Yummy laughed. If Death himself could laugh, that would be the sound. “Huuuungry.”

  “One down,” the same voice said. “Female vampire. Not true-dead. Took two torso rounds and staked in the abdomen.”

  “Give her to me,” Yummy said, her voice a low snarl.

  “Not happening,” Occam said casually. His weapon was at ready. My cat-man wasn’t casual at all.

  “I am injured. Feed me, werecat.”

  “Not happening,” Occam said.

  “Clearing the southern side of the house,” Gonzales said. Seconds later he said, “Main room. Clear. Multiple bodies, human and vamp. Some alive.” His tone changed. “Son of a bitch!” Three shots fired. “Get medic in here now! And blood donors for the fangheads.” He fired three more shots. And three more.

  “Copy that,” FireWind said. “LaFleur—” His voice disappeared beneath gunshots from the house.

  Yummy stood slowly, dragging herself to her feet. Her dress had been gray. Or maybe green. There was so much blood on it the original color was hard to discern in the poor light. “Huuuungry,” she whispered. Her blood formed a small pool on the soil. Soulwood opened inside of me. Wanting.

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  Occam raised his weapon and placed it on the window opening. “Nah-ah-ah,” he said, almost playfully. “Keep it together, fanghead. I have silver-lead ammo.”

  “You would kill me?” she asked, a soft accent on the last word.

  I raised a hand to my mic and shifted to a private channel. I whispered, “Jo. Yummy’s hurt. Vamped. Get me a donor.”

  “Roger that,” Jo said.

  I switched back to para freq in time to hear Rick say, “Local LEOs have three limos full of Mithrans under gunpoint. Tennessee plates. Get someone to make sure it’s Shaddock and convince the locals to let him and his people through. He has humans and vamps who can feed our wounded.”

  T. Laine said, “Kent here. Dyson and I can handle that.” Their car spun out of the lot, throwing gravel in the glare of the headlights.

  I hadn’t even noticed that my teammates were onsite. Yummy didn’t notice that they had left. Her black and scarlet eyes were focused solely on Occam. “Feed me and I will heal you,” she whispered.

  “Not. Happening.”

  In the earbud, Margot said, “If you need backup to get Shaddock free, let me know.”

  Gonzales shouted, “Where’s medic? We have multiple injured. Two bodies in the shrubbery, condition unknown. More in the back bedroom. We need uniforms deployed to keep the house secure so we can expand our perimeter.”

  Rick said, “Officers on the way. Local LEOs are moving in to your location and encircling the location of the disabled panel vans in case the vamps show there.”

  More cars and vans began to pour in, both here and on the site of the shooting. News vans were being stopped at the perimeter. Yummy’s talons were slowly piercing the steel of the limo door. She stepped from the limo, exposing her torso and abdomen. Occam swore.

  Yummy had been shot multiple times, open wounds dripping. Her clothing was drenched scarlet in the glancing lights from the cars all around. She was staring at Occam and … smiling. It was enough to make me wither inside, even as I licked my lips in need. Occam said, “We need humans to feed an injured vampire, at my twenty, now!”

  I focused on her neck wounds. Blood dribbled out, looking fresh, though I knew it was cold and watery. My body reacted to the blood on her clothes, the blood splattering on the ground. Bloodlust that been a low, slow need rose and thrummed through me. It moved the way sound waves move along a stringed instrument, humming, a prolonged and varying noise of need.

  I wanted to feed the earth. Soulwood was awake and needing.

  “Huuunger,” Yummy said.

  Huuuunger, I thought.

  “Shaddock’s on the way,” Rick said. “He’s dropping off his people at the house and coming directly to your twenty. How badly is she injured?”

  I swallowed down my hunger. “Bloody with open wounds. And vamped out.”

  “Feed me,” she whispered, leaning toward Occam. Reaching.

  “Can you contain her,” Rick said. It wasn’t exactly a question. Contain. Not kill.

  I drew a stake. I had never staked a vampire. I’d been taught how at Spook School, but training and combat are very different things. I placed the stake in Occam’s lap and opened my car door. Shoved the low-light/IR headgear off. Raced around Occam’s car, knees bent, my service weapon at the ready. It was loaded with silver rounds. Yummy wasn’t very old. Silver rounds might kill her. But regular rounds would only make her mad. Yummy was a friend. I might have to kill her.

  She was focused on Occam, her pupils black and wide, the whites the color of blood. “Cat,” she whispered. “I have missed the taste of your blood.”

  My hunger focused on the bloody vampire. “Hey, Yummy,” I shouted. Her head whipped to me. Need ached through me. “You control yourself or you’ll wish you had,” I whispered.

  “Maggot,” she hissed.

  “Yeah. I’ll consume your dead flesh,” I whispered, barely a breath of sound.

  Yummy laughed, the laughter the devil might make while he tortured lost souls. She leaped. At Occam.

  ELEVEN

  My finger began to squeeze the trigger.

  She was illuminated, leaping through the air. A pop of displaced air sounded. And she was gone. Just disappeared. Something thumped on the ground to my side in the dark.

  The shock stole my need away. I released the trigger and whipped around, spotting a rolling, hissing, moaning something in the darkness. “What just happened?” I asked the empty space in front of us.

  “Lincoln Shaddock happened,” Occam said. “He tackled Yummy into the weeds. Saved our butts.”

  I sat down on the ground hard. And just breathed. Mosquitoes buzzed around me. If they had been here before, I hadn’t noticed. I finally holstered my weapon, fighting tears and bloodlust. Occam squatted near me, his knees spread, his hands dangling between them. I could see officers in the dark staring at his scars, but he just looked like Occam to me. He handed me my stake and tapped off his mic. “Good move, Nell, sugar. You okay?”

  “I’m just fine and dandy,” I said. The dregs of my bloodlust wriggled deep inside.

  “Liar.”

  “I am. I totally am.” And I could deal with the comment about Yummy missing the taste of Occam’s blood later. “We need to get into the house and render assistance.”

  “Yes, we do.” He offered me a hand and I let him raise me to my feet. “Before I met you,” Occam said to me. “Not since.”

  A mishmash of relief and happiness filled my chest and I grinned at my cat-man, who had read my mind. “Good.” Together, we got in his car and sped up the street to Ming’s battleground. Weapons ready to fire, held in two-hand grips, we jogged into the well-lit yard and drive at Ming’s.

  There were two pale humans lying, unmoving, on Ming’s lawn. I provided cover while Occam checked pulse points on both victims. They were bloody and maimed, their throats and wrists and upper arms showing holes from multiple feedings. Naturaleza vampires drank from any pulse point on their cattle and I didn’t want to know what other sites had been bitten as the humans were drained.

  I started shaking, my fingers tingling. I was hyperventilating. I fought to slow my breathing, wishing I could touch the ground with a single fingertip. Wishing I could call on Soulwood, reaching through the earth to find calm. But the blood on the ground would be construed as sacrifice. I couldn’t claim the victims and the earth for my own. Secrets. I had secrets to protect.

  “Nell?” Occam asked.

  “I’m good. Probie nerves,” I lied and Occam knew it.

  The front door was open, throwing a wedge of light into the darker yard. A familiar form stood there, slight, Asian. Composed as if he had gunfights on his property all the time. Cai, Ming’s pri
mo. He was wearing a headset and he bowed to us. It was a slight bow, but it was there just the same. I faltered, and followed Occam’s return bow, my head not dipping quite as low as Cai’s had.

  “The council chambers of Ming of Glass, Master of the City of Knoxville, are secured,” Cai said. “We have taken two living enemy Mithrans captive to learn what they know, but the human SWAT team will not allow us to interrogate the parasites.”

  “Not a problem,” Occam said. “Does PsyLED have permission from the Master of the City to enter and to parley with the SWAT team? This must not construed as opening diplomatic relations, as I don’t have the authority for that.”

  Cai tilted his head slightly. “Your words negate permanent contact and communication between sovereign countries, parley that your Congress has not agreed upon between the United States of America and Mithrans. This is parley for emergency circumstances. Is this correct?”

  “Correct,” Rick said into my earbud.

  Into the same earbud, FireWind said, “Let me speak to him.”

  “Call me on my cell,” I said to my up-line bosses. To Cai, I said, “Ayatas FireWind, PsyLED special agent in charge of the eastern seaboard, is calling you on my cell phone. He is able to parley with you.” My cell rang and I answered, “Ingram here.”

  “No,” Cai said. “We will not speak to this wind of fire. Ming will parley at this time only with humans and creatures we know.”

  I felt Occam stiffen. In my earbud, Rick muttered. I figured he was talking to FireWind on a private channel. Silence stretched and I was pretty sure that Cai’s face tightened, as if he was ready to hit us or to bolt. We needed him. And we couldn’t wait on an off-site political decision.

  “Fine,” I said, speaking into my mic. “Everything is unofficial, then, to be handled only on a local level, with nothing of national or international consequence.”

  FireWind said, “Ingram!” He didn’t sound happy. But he wasn’t here, watching Cai.

  “Such is acceptable to Ming of Glass and those who serve her,” Cai said instantly.