by Kim Harrison
But Quen was well aware of them, the tips of his curling hair floating as he tapped a line and let it course through him. Trisk tapped the line as well. It slipped in with a startling quickness, and she staggered at the strength and surety that she’d been missing the last few years.
They were vampires, and it was obvious they were not happy as they ringed her truck, arms crossed over their middles or hands in their pockets. There was no expression on their hard faces, but the hint of bloodlust was enough to scare her. Some were tall and elegant, fair with youth and eager to hurt. Others were older, heavier and short with hard muscle held in check by an anticipation of dealing out pain. But they all stared at them in hunger. Mobs like this were not legal. It was too easy to lose control and potentially reveal themselves to the human race.
But she wasn’t sure there were any humans left in this town.
Together, Trisk, Quen, and Daniel faced them, her truck behind them. Her skin prickled with the force running through Quen’s aura, and she subtly shifted her strength so they would be more in tune. Her clenched jaw eased, but she still jumped when the door to a new, smaller car slammed. Her eyes darted to the narrow, thin man standing beside it at the outskirts. “We got them, Mr. Niles,” one of the men said, and the small man tugged his suit coat straight and came forward.
Mr. Niles looked almost invisible in the flickering streetlight, a part of the shadows even as he moved closer, telling the ring of men to back off with a soft hand motion. His feet scuffed as he halted before them, his mood ambiguous on his long face as he checked an old-fashioned pocket watch and dropped it into his pocket. Exhaling a breath he hadn’t needed to take, he assessed them.
Trisk’s heart pounded. This was a true undead, and she glanced inside the garage, hoping the young witch was hiding. The Weres were still in their parked car across the road. There were no humans apart from Daniel, and it felt wrong and unreal. There were always humans. They were like the trees and the air—keeping Inderlanders alive, keeping them in check.
“The pumps are working, but the attendant is gone,” Quen said, his low voice heavy with threat. “If you get back in your cars, I’ll pump your gas and you can go.”
The surrounding vampires laughed, and Trisk saw Daniel stiffen as he noticed the dead vampire’s longer canines when he smiled. Niles’s expression had no warmth, utterly devoid of emotion other than anger. “We are not here for petrol,” Niles said, his voice carrying a faint Irish accent. “We are here for answers.”
“Then ask,” Quen said, and Trisk tightened her grip on her line, ready for anything.
A flicker of pain crossed the undead’s face, making him almost human for an instant. It was a lie, though, a well-practiced act to lull them into thinking he might have compassion and understanding. The undead remembered love, but they didn’t feel it anymore, or understand it.
“Rick was my child, my scion, my favorite,” Niles said. “I sent him to watch you. Now he’s horribly dead before his time.”
“That wasn’t our doing,” Trisk said, then blanched when he turned his hatred to her.
“Yet he’s unprepared and dead,” he said. “Restitution must be made.”
“If you’re looking for restitution—” Daniel’s voice cut off when the man shifted his gaze to him. “Holy shit,” he whispered, suddenly ashen in the flickering overhead light. Quen scuffed his foot, and the vampire turned away, freeing Daniel before he could be enthralled.
“Look elsewhere for restitution,” Quen said, and Trisk realized he had scratched a half circle in the packed, oil-soaked dirt. Foot moving slow, she scratched another segment. It was a start. She and Quen were good, but there had to be at least ten vampires here. “We didn’t kill him,” Quen finished boldly, and the undead vampire’s fingers twitched.
“We didn’t set the fire,” Trisk said, drawing the man’s attention so Quen could finish the circle. “We weren’t even in the building at the time. I lost my research. So did Dr. Plank. What would we have to gain from killing Rick?” she added, but it sounded hollow. They weren’t listening, just prolonging the anticipation.
“Humans are dying in my city,” the vampire said, and Trisk’s pulse quickened. His city? He was the freaking head vampire of Sacramento? No wonder Rick was so confident—had been confident. “My child suffered. Saladan seeks restitution as well, but all he wants is money. My child’s needs take precedence over his greed. Someone is responsible. I blame you.”
“Humans?” Daniel whispered, then louder, “There was an accident.”
“Shut up,” Trisk hissed as the vampires circling them began to inch closer.
The master vampire looked again at his watch. “An accident,” he echoed. “Yes. Good idea.” He flicked his fingers, and that fast, his men sprang at them. “Take them. Alive.”
“Down!” Trisk shouted, simultaneously throwing a ball of unfocused energy at the vampire leaping for her and pushing Daniel to the pavement. Quen dove into a roll, rising up before them and shoving a ball of force at the nearest attacker. “Quen!” she exclaimed, eyes widening at the three vampires coming at them. “Get back in the circle. Quen!”
“Invoke it!” Quen dove clear of an attacker and flicked a tiny ball of light that exploded in the vampire’s face. The incensed man fell back screaming.
Stupid male ego, she thought, pulling heavily on the line. “Septiens!” she shouted to invoke the circle, and it sprang up.
“Hey!” she yelped, cowering as three vampires suddenly hammered at her and Daniel, held off by the strength of her barrier. Daniel looked up, his foot pressed into the base of the circle. If she touched it, her aura would cause it to fall. If she threw a spell through it, her aura holding the charm together would break it as well. As long as she made no contact, it would be like clear steel.
“My God,” Daniel whispered, touching the barrier to find it give slightly under his fingers, then he jerked, shocked at the three men circling them, slavering almost. “A shield?” he guessed, eyes wide. “How did you do that? Who are you?”
Trisk grimaced. You should have stayed in the circle, Quen. “I’m the same person I was yesterday,” she said. “Just as dumb and foolish.” She jerked when one of the vampires punched at her, the strike ending inches from her head. He smiled at her, teeth wet with saliva. “Just like that stupid Quen!” she shouted, frustrated. If she’d known he was going to take them all on himself, she never would have even helped draw the circle.
But Quen was still standing, flicking orbs of raw energy between spelled ones that blew the attacking vampires back. Trisk tensed, wanting to help but pinned down by her need to protect Daniel, even as he stared, his odd expression making her wonder if he was remembering watching Quen do the same thing a week ago.
“Finish this!” their master shouted. “I have to be home by sunrise!”
“Quen!” she called, frantic as they all fell on him at once. Three men in suits were thrown back, and then Quen was gone again, hidden by a pile of bodies.
“Get off,” Niles said gruffly, picking his men off one by one and flinging them to the side. “Let him up. Let him breathe. I want to see him. I want him alive.”
Daniel got to his feet, awkwardly hunched to keep from hitting his head on the top of her circle. “Who are these people?” he asked, and Trisk felt heartsick. Regardless, if they survived this, Daniel, and even herself, likely, would end up dead at the hands of the enclave. Letting a human know they weren’t alone on the earth was not a forgivable mistake.
“My guess?” she said, giving up on fixing this. “Rick’s family.”
“Rick was in the mob?” Daniel said, getting it utterly wrong and utterly right at the same time.
“Let him up,” Niles said, head cocking when three of his thugs wrestled Quen upright. He was bleeding from his lip, and his once-white shirt was filthy, but his eyes were bright with unspent fight. Eyebrows high, the master vampire turned to her. “Come out. Or he dies. Right here.”
“You wouldn’t
dare,” she said, hands shaking. “Not in front of witnesses.”
The master vampire scoffed, looking at his men leaning against their car and tending their sundry hurts. “Humanity is dying, Dr. Cambri. Soon, there won’t be any witnesses.” His lip twitched as her breath caught. It couldn’t be that bad. “Get out!” he shouted, gesturing at her as if she were a reluctant child. “We need to make an accident.”
Quen gasped, his struggles surging into a frantic motion that cut off with a pop of his shoulder. Trisk reached at his sudden cry of pain, stifled in a groan. “Stay in there,” he ground out through his clenched teeth, head down as he knelt before them, his arm twisted at an unnatural angle. “I’m going to die anyway.”
But letting that happen wasn’t an option, and pulse fast, Trisk touched her bubble, breaking it. “You stay off—” Then she shrieked as someone grabbed her bicep and yanked her from Daniel. Quen looked up, his jaw tight in pain, but behind it was regret. Daniel was silent in the grip of a third vampire.
The master vampire before them grinned, liking Daniel’s shocked reaction when he showed him his long canines. “You really should let the professionals do their job,” he said, nose wrinkling when he motioned to his men, and they enthusiastically began sloshing gas on, in, and over her truck. “Accidents can happen.”
Again he smiled, and Trisk’s anger mixed with fear in an unreal slurry. He was going to burn them alive as Rick had been burned. Son of a bitch . . .
“No,” she whispered, channeling a wad of unfocused energy into the hand holding her.
The vampire gripping her arm jerked. She was free. For one glorious instant, she was free.
“Trisk!” Daniel shouted, and then he gasped.
Trisk spun, the unfocused energy balled in her hand sizzling. Daniel was in Niles’s grip, his head pulled back, his pulse pounding just under his skin, inches from the vampire’s teeth.
“You are going to die,” the vampire said. “I want you to burn, but this one, I could make an exception for. He could take years to die with my children, a decade with me. You choose.”
Daniel was terrified, his eyes wide as his world was rearranged with a savage suddenness and he knew he was no longer the apex predator. Daniel was prey.
“Let him go,” she whispered, hand aching as she reabsorbed the freed energy. “Let him go!” she shouted when Niles hesitated, and he flung Daniel at the truck with an angry petulance.
“Daniel!” she exclaimed, lurching forward, but he hit with a thunk and fell, out cold.
One of the vampires yanked him up, bundling him into Trisk’s truck and gesturing with a macabre graciousness for her to follow.
Jaw clenched, she got in, her hands tingling from her charged aura sparking against the spilled fuel. Quen was shoved into the other side, and the door slammed shut. The handles were twisted off, locking them in.
“Shame to waste you,” Niles said as he checked his watch. “It’s going to become hard to find a way to satisfy everyone, soon. But this holds satisfaction. You burn my child, I burn you.”
“We didn’t start the fire!” Trisk exclaimed, but he turned his back on them and gestured for his men to get on with it.
Daniel slumped between them, still unconscious. It would be more merciful to let him stay that way. “We filled both tanks,” Quen said, eyes pinched in pain. The keys were gone. They couldn’t move, even when the cars blocking them backed up. “It’s going to make one hell of a bang.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” Trisk whispered as the vampire standing in front of them took a long drag on his cigarette and dropped it into a puddle. The fumes caught, and a yellow glow spread out and under her truck.
“Got any ideas?” Quen said, his nose wrinkling at the smell of half-burned fuel.
“Circle?” she said, pulling more strength into her.
Quen winced, his arm cradled in his lap. “We’d have to sit here with the truck burning around us until it was done. I don’t think we can last that long. The air is going to get hot, not to mention the fire will use up the oxygen.”
“Two circles,” she said, breathless. “Us in the center, and a larger one around the truck to contain the blast. It burns up the oxygen in one swoop. Like a backfire putting out a forest fire.”
Quen’s eyebrows rose, his attention flicking back to her from the flashing lights coming down the road. They were too far away. “I’ll take the outer circle.”
“I’ll take the outer one,” she said, imagining it in her mind. “I’ve got more practice.”
“I know how to make a circle,” Quen said dryly, dabbing at his lip.
“The size of a truck?” Trisk turned, watching the vampires run to their cars. “One strong enough to hold a demon? I take the outer circle.”
Between them, Daniel stirred, his head down. “One of you better do something,” he slurred. “I think I heard the tank just catch.”
“Septiens!” Trisk shouted, the energy streaming through her prickling as she felt Quen’s protection spring up tight around them.
And then her ears exploded as the hand of God reached down and slapped her.
Too fast to cry out, she was shoved forward. She hit twice, hardly noticing the twin bumps of first Quen’s circle, and then the hard dash, before she was flung through the front window, the harmless shards hitting her like snowflakes as she tumbled through, over the hood, and onto the hard-packed dirt.
She gasped for breath as she rolled, feeling as if she were drowning, and then she hit her own, larger bubble. It fell. Behind her, the fire whooshed up, making a second flash of heat to crisp her hair.
“Quen!” she shouted, her ears numb and her skin hot. Hip aching, she sat up, turning to look at her truck, engulfed in flames. “Daniel! Quen!” Oh God, were they thrown clear?
“Ow,” Daniel said, and her head whipped around. He was behind her, flat on his back and holding his head as he stared at the floating ash of her burnt books drifting down.
“That didn’t work as well as I thought it would,” Quen said, and she looked to see him standing over her, his hand extended to help her up.
Thank you, God. She shook her head, trying to clear it. “We’re alive, though.” His hand fitting into hers was warm and calloused, and she felt the prick of tears as he hauled her up. “How is your shoulder?”
Pain creasing his brow, he shifted it. “Slamming into your circle popped it back in place,” he said, turning to the four cop cars now racing up, lights and sirens going. “We have to go.”
“How?” She gestured at her burning truck, her long hair swinging. “We’ll just explain what happened. I’m sure they’ll understand.”
“What they’ll understand is that you’re wanted for questioning in a murder,” Quen said, but she hadn’t done it, and for some stupid reason, she thought that mattered.
Both Trisk and Quen turned when the door to the garage was flung open and the kid came out, his eyes wide and round. “Are you okay? I called the cops!”
Quen pinched the bridge of his nose, but worried about Daniel, Trisk held one hand against her sore hip and limped to him. He’d managed to sit up but was still blinking as if in a daze. “Maybe they won’t recognize us,” she said as the thump of a car door echoed. Men were getting out, their hands at their hips as they crept closer, skirting the burning truck.
“Dr. Trisk Cambri?” the biggest officer said, and she winced.
“Or not,” she whispered. Giving Daniel a pat on the shoulder, she rose up beside him. “That’s me,” she said louder, determined to see it through. “And this is Dr. Plank, and Quen Hanson. Did you see those yahoos? They set my truck on fire.”
The cop came closer, weapon unsnapped. “Thanks for the call, Casey,” the gruff man said to the kid. “Go on home now. You know you’re not supposed to be working here alone.”
“Okay, Officer Bob. My mom wants to know if you’re coming over Sunday for dinner.”
Officer Bob grimaced, motioning to his men to check out the building. “You ju
st get home now. I’ll call your mom later.” Putting his hands on his knees, he peered at Daniel as he sat on the ground, head down. “You okay, son? You know where you are? What day it is?”
“I’m okay,” Daniel rasped, squinting through one eye up at them.
“Good, good,” Officer Bob said, and one of his men reached down and helped Daniel to his feet. “If everyone is okay, cuff ’em and stuff ’em.”
“What!” Trisk spun, immediately regretting it as everything began to hurt. “They attacked us! Ask Casey. Hey!” she yelped as someone jerked her arms behind her and cuffed her. “We didn’t do anything!”
There were humans here. A show of magic would be disastrous, and she watched Quen go from tense to pliable as he realized it, too. His face twisted in frustration as they shoved him into one car and Daniel into another. The man propelling Trisk to a third car had a rash, and one of the men at the outskirts was vomiting. They were all human. Every last one. “They attacked us!” Trisk exclaimed as she was pushed into a car. “Why are you arresting us?”
Officer Bob stood beside her open door, making sure her foot was safely inside. “You and Dr. Plank are wanted for arson and questioning in the murder of Rick Rales. We’re arresting your friend until we know who he is.”
“We didn’t start the fire.” Damn it, I hate it when Quen is right. “I was at home packing my stuff. Look, it’s in the truck,” she said, then jumped when the cop car’s door slammed shut.
“Let’s go!” Officer Bob shouted, voice muffled. “José, stay here with the fire trucks.”
Trisk sat forward on the edge of the seat, the need to do something filling her. Her stuff in the truck was still burning, ignored. Slowly she sat back. Being arrested for Rick’s murder was going to put a real crimp in her travel plans, even though if the police hadn’t shown up, the vampires would have killed them.
But as she watched the ailing officers and recognized the earmarks of Daniel’s virus in their flushed faces and lethargic motions, the idea crossed her mind that being stuck in a cell might not be any better.