“Upstairs,” he grunted, fighting the vamp beneath him. Glancing up, I discovered the banisters at the top of the stairs had split in the middle and I cast a glance back in Alex’s direction.
“You got this?”
He nodded, tugging another stake from behind his back and I watched with grim satisfaction as the vampire’s eyes widened.
Wheeling around, I raced for the stairs, my karambit blades gripped tightly in my fists. On the landing of the first floor, I found the doors standing open. The bloody smear across the cream carpet led to the bathroom and the only door that was half closed.
Toeing it open, I stepped inside, my heart leaping into my mouth as my eyes met the panicked stare of Officer Bhatt in the arms of a vampire.
She lay half in the shower tray, the lower half of her body spilled out onto the floor. The vampire sat behind her in the shower, cradling her in what could have been described as a tender embrace. The upper portion of her uniform had been ripped away, leaving one shoulder and most of her neck clear of obstruction. Bruising trailed across her throat, the skin puckered and ripped where she’d been bitten repeatedly and blood ran in thin rivulets across her chest. One trouser leg was ripped up as far as the inside of her thigh and blood trickled over her skin and dripped onto the black and white tiles with a rhythmic tic-tic noise that was perfectly synced with the frantic beat of her heart.
Her mouth opened and she emitted a high pitched gurgling noise, her eyes impossibly wide as she focussed on something behind me.
A strong arm fastened around my neck, a band of steel that squeezed so tight I was sure my head would pop off and float away. The vamp’s chest pressed to my back, the solid muscle felt more like a brick wall. I tried to throw myself backwards, to knock him off balance but I only succeeded in giving him a firmer grip on me, his headlock an ever tightening vice grip. Darkness frayed the edges of my vision as I brought the karambits up and sliced at the corded muscles of his arms.
I contemplated pretending to fall unconscious but my heart was hammering in my chest and I knew it would give me away in an instant.
A meaty hand pressed into the back of my head, shoving my neck closer still to the beefy arm and my lungs screamed for oxygen.
Passing out was not an option. Unconsciousness meant I would be at their mercy.
The vampire behind Officer Bhatt tugged her head to the side, his fingers entwined in her hair. With his flat green eyes glued to mine, he trailed his long purple tongue across the wound in her neck, teasing and probing, drawing small bleats of anguish from her each time he touched her.
Revulsion rolled through me as rage blossomed in my chest. He was taunting me, drawing my anger to the surface.
Planting my feet on the ground I tried to rock backwards once more, drawing a small grunt from the vamp holding me. In response, he lifted me from the floor, holding me in the headlock as my feet bicycled in the air.
Letting go of one of my karambits, I grabbed the whip from my belt, feeling the familiar tingle of its magic slide up my arm. The space was small, too small to get a good shot at the vamp behind me, but, then, I didn’t need to do that to beat him. Looping the whip, I flipped it over my shoulder, feeling it slide easily around his neck, power flooding up through my body in response to my call.
Jerking the whip, I felt the noose tighten around his throat, the silver tooth at the tip sinking into his flesh.
The beast behind me roared, the sound reverberating through my body and he flung me from him. I twisted in the air, an awkward pirouette, barely managing to keep a hold on the whip as fresh oxygen flooded my body and stars exploded in my vision.
Landing in a crouch in the hall, the sudden slack on the whip told me I needed to move and I glanced up to find the vampire bearing down on me, face puce, his eyes ablaze with rage. Spinning off to the side, I kicked one leg out and he sprawled over the top of my booted foot. Without a moment to waste, I jerked the whip tight, letting his momentum carry us both across the carpet, and I scooped up one of the broken wooden banisters as I went after him.
When I caught up to him he was already on his knees, scrabbling at the whip that continued to tighten on his throat. Dark rivulets of blood trickled from his neck where the whip was splitting his flesh. His mouth twisted in a half snarl as I drove the makeshift stake through his back. The vibrations travelled up through my arm as the wood grated against his spine sending tingles of disgust rolling through me. The vamp went to the carpet and I thrust the stake home with all the preternatural strength I could muster. He twitched, his movements slowing before they came to a complete halt. The rattling sigh of his breath leaving his lungs left me cold.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Move, move, move, goddamnit! the voice in the back of my mind screamed. I spun around, my movements seamless. The whip slid free of the vamp on the ground and with a flick of my wrist it cracked the air. In the confined space of the house, the sound was thunderous.
The vamp from the shower stall caught the whip with his left hand, a grimace crossing his face as the silver tooth bit into his flesh.
He was fast, much faster than his fallen comrade and he moved in toward me, twisting the whip over and back in his hand. He was a blur of movement as his right fist struck out, catching a glancing blow across my jaw. I tried to hop backwards but he yanked the whip toward his body, pulling me with it as he landed a kick square to my stomach, forcing the air out of my lungs. I doubled over in pain.
“She will be pleased with you,” he said, grabbing a fistful of my hair.
“No…” My voice was deliberately quiet. He was a vampire; he would hear me even if I whispered.
I released the whip and let him jerk my head back. There was a moment when his fangs were fully exposed and I could see the animalistic desire in his wild eyes. It was easy to imagine how I must have appeared to him. Bloodied and beaten, caught in his unrelenting grip, throat exposed. A victim ripe for the plucking. I could see it play out in my mind, felt his strike, the warm flow of my blood as he fed. The euphoric pain of his bite.
“No…” I repeated before I surged to my feet. Time moved slowly, I watched from outside my body as I clamped my hand around his throat, cutting off the small grunt of surprise as I squeezed down on his larynx, feeling how easy it would be to crush it completely.
Power gathered inside me and I saw the look of terror in his eyes as his skin began to harden under my touch. I could destroy him… When I was through with him, he wouldn’t ever hurt another being, wouldn’t ever derive pleasure from their anguish. It would be so easy. My fingers tightened and his eyes bulged.
“Jenna!”
I turned to find Alex standing a few feet away, his hands raised defensively. The expression in his eyes wasn’t alien to me and yet seeing it on his face made me pause.
Fear.
Something gurgled and I jerked around. I held the vampire aloft, his skin stony beneath my fingers and it was spreading, creeping up his neck and down onto his chest.
“We need to question him,” Alex said, his voice stronger. “We need to know what he knows…”
Rage thrummed in my veins. It would be so easy to end it now. The power I’d called forth demanded release and I wanted to give into it. Staring up into the eyes of the vampire above me, his skin continued to harden, the panic in his eyes giving way to sheer terror.
“Jenna, you’re not a monster, you’re not like them… If you do this, we’ll lose our chance at getting Carmine.”
He was right.
Releasing my hold, I let the vamp drop to the ground with a dull thud. He gurgled but it sounded wrong.
“Officer Bhatt,” I said, raising a shaky hand toward the bathroom.
Alex disappeared inside and I listened as he called the ambulance from his cell phone.
The cold fingers of dread slid down my spine as I crouched in front of the vampire. His eyes were wide and frightened and something hardened in my gut to know I had done that to him.
“Wh
— what— did you do to me?” His voice grated, the words dry and rasping as they struggled from his throat.
Tipping his chin back, I traced my fingers across the smooth marbled section of his throat where I’d been holding him. It was healing, albeit slowly, but there was no denying what I’d done to him. Even now, if I pressed hard enough I knew it would break up, crumbling to dust beneath the pressure of my fingers.
“Count yourself lucky,” I said softly, leaning in toward the vampire. “I could have done so much worse.”
Sirens broke the silence that stretched out between us. His eyes were filled with hatred and I knew given half an opportunity he would have gutted me on the spot.
“I could tell them about you,” he said in that softly rasping voice.
“Be my guest.”
Pushing up onto my feet, I moved away from him and down the hall to the window that looked out over the street. The urge to finish what I’d started was much too strong and I knew that if I had to keep looking into his mocking gaze any longer, I wouldn’t be fit to keep my temper in check. It wasn’t that I was particularly worried about him outing my secret. Nobody would believe him anyway, not after everything he’d done… What bothered me more was knowing that he would get to live to see another day. And after everything I’d seen him do, that knowledge didn’t sit right with me.
Chapter 18
The red and blue illumination from the emergency vehicles cast a strange glow up along the houses that lined the streets. From the corner of my eye, I spotted the curtains twitching on the house across the road, the flickering red and blue lights making the occupants ghostly pallor appear even more translucent. The officers that had arrived on the scene were going door to door, looking for anyone who could shed light on the situation that had unfolded within Ms. Rowanberry’s house.
“Where is she?” Shane Cassidy’s voice carried over the general murmur of voices gathered outside. I didn’t look up from my study of the pavement but I felt his gaze laser in on me, his rage boiling over my skin, leaving me feeling even more raw and vulnerable than I had been.
“You let this happen,” Cassidy said, striding over to me and jabbing his finger into my chest.
I stared down at it. I could snap it in half, break his hand, his wrist, his arm, before he’d even have a chance to realise what I was doing. He was fragile. They all were… Humans lived such short lives, there and gone in nothing more than the blink of an eye. Despite knowing this, despite knowing I wasn’t human, he still had the nerve to jab me again, hard enough this time that it drew a growl from between my lips. Perhaps he was stupid?
I looked up at him, his tawny eyes widening a little as he saw whatever lurked in my gaze, but unlike the other humans surrounding us, he didn’t take a step back. He didn’t move at all, just held my gaze with his.
Pain.
His eyes were filled with it. As emotions went, pain wasn’t something I was unfamiliar with. I’d experienced plenty of it at Kypherous’ sadistic hands, but what I could see in Detective Cassidy’s eyes had nothing to do with the kind inflicted by another.
“She was a good officer,” he said, his voice choked. “Young and naive, but a damn fine officer…”
“She could still pull through,” I said softly, swallowing back my anger. “There’s a lot they can do for vampire victims nowadays. She could be fine.”
The lies slipped easily from my tongue and shame welled in my chest, constricting my heart. He turned away, staring down at the path. We both knew she wasn’t going to be all right.
“She’ll never work again as a police officer,” he said bitterly.
“Division 6 are always looking for new recruits.” I regretted the words as soon as they left my mouth. Cassidy’s head snapped up, his attention riveted on my face once more.
“We don’t need more of the goon squad,” he said. “What we need is to cage your sort up and throw away the key… Leave you all to rot.”
I couldn’t blame him for the sentiment. As far as I was concerned, there were plenty of preternatural creeps that I would have happily seen locked away for the rest of their unnatural lives. More yet that I would cheerfully see dead.
“You really think that would work?” I kept my tone soft and unthreatening.
He stared at me for a moment, the confusion in his eyes unmistakable before he let go a bark of laughter. He shoved his hand back through his hair, causing it to stand askew on his head. It made him look younger, more vulnerable, which should have been impossible.
“You’re a weird one, Ms. Faith,” he said, shaking his head.
“You can call me Jenna,” I said with a shrug. “Everyone else does and Ms. Faith sounds a little too formal.”
He met my eyes for a second. “If we’re going to do the first name thing, then you can call me Shane.” A slight inclination of my head was all the answer I gave before his eyes slid away from my face and toward the truck parked a couple of cars down. From the outside it looked like any ordinary police van but I knew differently. Division 6 had their own special containment trucks for transporting preternaturals. The one parked behind Officer Bhatt’s abandoned police car was one equipped to deal with vampires and other undead nasties.
“Can I talk to him?” Shane asked, unable to hide the hope in his voice.
“Not likely,” I said. “He’s probably already gone night-night in there.”
He grimaced. “When will you get something from him? You can’t just sit on him until more bodies start washing up?”
“If I had my way, I’d already be in there throttling the information out of him, but that doesn’t follow protocol,” I said acerbically as I flexed my fingers.
My face ached and the pain was beginning to spread from my jaw into my head. I could only imagine the black eye I’d be sporting by morning. If I didn’t get my hands on some form of painkiller soon, I was going to become downright grumpy.
“You don’t agree with the way they handle things, then?” The question was intended to sound nonchalant but there was an eagerness to Shane’s voice that made me instantly wary. What kind of game was he playing? I already knew his stance on the preternaturals and yet for some reason, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d intrigued him somehow, that despite knowing I wasn’t human the way he was, that I was one of the bad-guys as he saw it, he wanted something from me. And if I’d learned anything, when someone wanted something from you, it made them dangerous.
I shrugged and pushed up from where I sat on the hood of the car. “Doesn’t matter what I think,” I said, “I’ll do my job, same as you.”
Slipping past him, I froze as his hand closed around my upper arm, pulling me to a halt.
“I want in on the interrogation,” he said softly.
“Not my call.”
“But you know whose it is,” he said, before he sighed. “I need this… They hurt one of my own, I can’t let the bastards off with this.”
“And they won’t get away with it,” I said softly, “but that’s our job, not yours… If Division 6 makes a nuisance of itself, we can handle it. If the human police paint a target on themselves, no matter how well intentioned, it’ll end in a bloodbath.”
“I can take care of myself,” he said.
“And the others?”
“Others?”
“Your friends, family, other police officers you happen to know? Can they take care of themselves, too?”
“I’m not asking them to do—”
“But that’s just it, you are.” Closing my eyes, I sighed letting my shoulders drop. “I get it, you want to do something, anything, but trust me on this, Shane…involving yourself with the preternaturals like this,” I said gesturing to the truck parked on the street, “it’s tantamount to suicide for a human. Not just for you but for everyone around you.”
He stared at the back door of the truck and I could see him swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat hard enough that I winced.
“How do you do this?” he as
ked.
“It’s my job.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said gently chiding.
I waited for him to continue but he stared down the street, the silence stretching uncomfortably between us.
“How am I supposed to just walk away, knowing what that thing has done?”
“Because to do anything else wouldn’t benefit you, Officer Bhatt, or the others you work with.”
The red and blue lights flashed rhythmically across his face. He hadn’t even been here, hadn’t seen what I had, and yet his desire to protect, to hurt those who’d hurt one of his own… It was admirable. It would also get him killed if it wasn’t checked.
“You ready to go?” Alex called to me from across the street. One of us would have to ride with the vampire and I’d already pulled the short straw on that one.
“You going to be all right?” I asked, my hand hovering just inches from Shane’s black coat sleeve. He glanced down at my fingers and then lifted his face, his smile bright and unaffected despite everything we’d been discussing.
“Yeah, just peachy,” he said, his smile cold. Whatever he saw in my face had him twisting away to stare at the ground once more. “I’ll go check on Officer Bhatt— Sita,” he said, “check in with her family see if they need anything.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
He turned and started down the pavement toward the car he’d arrived in. Pausing, he kept his back to me and I waited for him to speak.
“Don’t let him off lightly,” he said.
“I don’t plan to.”
“And if they try and stop you?”
I knew who he was talking about. “Accidents happen,” I said.
His shoulder’s stiffened before visibly relaxing. “That they do,” he said quietly before he continued on his way.
I let him go without another word. I hadn’t lied to him, not really anyway but I couldn’t help but doubt my ability to put the vampire down. Division 6 already looked on me as a loose cannon, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell that they were going to let me get close enough to the vamp to ask him anything, let alone finish the job I’d started. But that was a problem I could worry about later. For now at least, I got to ride with the sleeping beauty, make sure he made it to headquarters without a scratch.
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