It’s a bright pink scarf.
“We’ve got something,” Melody says in a breathy whisper over the line. “Pink scarf on the floor. Looks like there might have been a struggle. We’re in the last warehouse on the left closest to the parking lot.”
“On our way,” Charlie says.
I fishtail my flashlight over the floor to see if there’s anything else. Dark specks sit in contrast to the gray floor. I inch forward to get a better look. Blood. It looks like there was quite the fight in here. Gillian could have finally come to and faced her attackers. We must be on the right trail after all. My heart picks up its pace again and my fingers itch to grasp the familiar grip of my mother’s .45 even though it won’t do me a lot of good if we are, in fact, dealing with vampire kidnappers. Vampires can only be killed by a blade to the heart or a beheading. The machete tucked in my parka suddenly feels a hundred pounds heavier.
We keep our eyes sharp until the boys finally sneak in to join us. Charlie avoids eye contact with me and I give him the cold shoulder. Hawk turns his face so the others can’t see and then gives me an exaggerated grimace while jabbing his thumb in Charlie’s direction. That brings a small smile to the surface but I quickly wipe it away as Melody beckons us to come together.
“We’re going to spread out in a line to cover the main floor to see if we can find a trail. Then Charlie will take point and we follow in formation. I’ll take the rear. Cover each other.” Her eyes flicker over the darkness of the warehouse. “We don’t know how many we’re dealing with here.”
Without further ado, Charlie stalks forward with his flashlight and pulls a blade from his jacket. The rest of us spread out on either side and scan the floor of the massive central area of the warehouse that, for the moment, is completely empty. The trail from the scuffle around the pink scarf becomes muddled with a lot of other fresh footprints and it’s difficult to tell where they head in the building. Either there were a lot of people walking here or someone pacing back and forth on end.
We reach the back wall and come to a series of doors set with square windows in the center of each. Shining our flashlights in and peering through, we survey a loading dock area, a storage closet, a utility room filled with pipes and electrical equipment, and a dark hallway leading to a place we can’t make out. We try each door but they’re all locked.
“Wait a second,” Hawk says and holds out an arm to get our attention. “Did you hear that?”
“Hear what?” I ask.
He tilts his head to the side, picking up a noise the rest of us non-werewolves can’t hear. He moves silently around us to look down the dark hallway on the other side of the furthest door. Leaning forward until his ear is pressed up against the glass, he nods. “There’s someone through here. I can hear them.”
Charlie’s eyebrows rise but he doesn’t look impressed, just skeptical. It’s enough for Melody, however. She moves to the door and shines her flashlight into the endless dark of the locked hallway.
“Charlie,” is all she says.
“On it.” Charlie shrugs past us and stares through the glass. One second he’s there leaning forward like he could melt through the door and the next he’s gone. Literally. I let out a gasp and nearly drop my flashlight.
“What the—” Hawk says and his breath mists on the glass as his eyes grow wide. He turns to me and points dumbfounded through the glass.
The next second I hear the lock click and door swings open from the other side where Charlie stands rather self-satisfied.
“You coming or what?” he says.
“But you—you were . . .” I look to the empty space beside me and then back to him. “You can teleport?”
He holds the door open wide for us to enter the hallway. Melody doesn’t even flinch and strides on like she owns the place. Hawk follows swiftly after and I come grudgingly last. I’m a little peeved Charlie never told us he could teleport. Granted, it’s not like we Blessed—which he clearly is—go around telling everyone what we can do. But he can teleport? Wow, my powers are so lame right now.
“Can you do that through walls?” Hawk asks with an air of intense curiosity.
“I have to be able to see where I’m going,” Charlie whispers then glowers at him and me for good measure. I guess that explains why he needed to look through the window in the door. “Can we talk about this later? Or never? We’ve got a selkie to find.”
Ignoring me once again, Charlie moves light on his feet with his bio-mech gun raised as he moves on. Hawk stands beside me and mouths, Teleportation? Wow!
I know, right? I mouth in reply, and then keep at his side as we walk along in an offset group, Melody drifting back to cover the rear.
The hallway eventually opens up into a spacious break room and we come to more offices. It’s a lot cleaner back here in the managerial portion of the building so there aren’t any footprints to follow. We pause in the expansive room next to a selection of circular tables and listen. When I don’t hear anything, I look to Hawk and realize the others do the same. Hawk’s eyes are trained on the floor as he tilts his head this way then that trying to locate the sound he heard earlier. Eventually he meets my gaze with a frown and shakes his head.
We team back up on Charlie as he leads into the first of the offices lining the hallway past the break room. There’s nothing in it but a worn leather chair, an empty water cooler, and stack of leaflets about taconite shipping. We move through two more offices in similar condition. The place looks normal, harmless, but there’s a quality about the emptiness of it all that makes it ghostly. A wind outside rattles something in the vents over our heads and forms whispers under the closed doors.
As we near the end of the hallway I hear a soft sound like someone crying. Charlie holds up a fist, motioning us to halt before we silently group up around the door of the last office. As Hawk and I cover Charlie on either side, Charlie breaches through the door. The rest of us follow swiftly in his wake. Our flashlights rake the room and all come together to form a single spotlight on a girl tied to a chair against the far wall. Her blonde hair hangs in matted curtains around her thin face. Her sequined shirt is torn and splotched with what’s sure to be blood. Her arms are bound and her ankles are tied to the legs of the chair.
Her groggy, bloodshot eyes squint at us against our flashlights.
“Help me.”
Chapter 8
Even from a distance I can tell the girl’s in bad shape. She’s pale, slumped, and doesn’t even have the energy to lift her head when Charlie rushes forward to start cutting apart her bonds with his knife. Melody’s there a second later, dropping to her knees and slinging the medic pack off her shoulders. She whips around momentarily to point at me.
“Guard the door incase our kidnappers are nearby,” she orders.
I do as I’m told and swing the door halfway shut before planting myself as guard in the shadows of the frame. Hawk stands beside me but looks like he desperately wants to help our captured selkie instead.
“Gillian?” Charlie asks and the girl gives two very small nods. “We’re going to get you out of here, okay? Just hang on. We’ll get you some help.”
Charlie gently pulls back Gillian’s hair to reveal deep bite marks on her neck. Despite that, there’s only a small trail of blood that runs down her arm—a vampire wouldn’t have wanted to waste a drop. Melody produces a wad of gauze and starts patching up the bite mark on Gillian’s shoulder. Every movement she makes is methodical and controlled, precise and practiced. Gillian’s lower lip trembles and her fingers shake. I want to reach out and comfort her but I don’t know how. Her skin is so pale and her face sallow, it’s a miracle she hasn’t gone into shock yet. Her eyes slowly track up to find Charlie’s face.
“Can you tell us what happened?” he asks.
She works her jaw a few times and licks her lips. “I can’t, umm . . .”
Then she starts crying and Charlie freezes, clearly unsure what to do. I know because I feel the exact same way.
“It’s all right,” Melody says but her attention is fixed on the wounds and applying bandages.
Hawk strides forward and taps Charlie on the shoulder to get him to move out of the way. The boys exchange places and Hawk takes Gillian’s hand. I return my attention to the dark hallway and our only exit.
“Hey, you’re safe now,” Hawk murmurs with the soothing voice of a parent to a small child. “We’re going to get you out of here and to your sister. No one’s going to hurt you. I need you to believe that. Can you do that for me, Gillian?”
She nods once and seems to relax a little. He continues to offer her reassurances and lightly strokes the back of her hand. Every expression and gesture he makes is kind and gentle. Sincerity naturally oozes out of him. I’ve always envied that part of him—I care just as much and wish I could express my feelings the same way he can, but I can never find the right words. My first gut reaction is to act in order to show someone I care, which usually involves beating up someone on their behalf. That’s probably not a good thing, but I can paint better pictures with my fists than my words. I don’t know a thing about Gillian but I’m ready to pound whoever did this to a pulp. I can’t stand to see someone else in pain.
Charlie backtracks to give Hawk more space as if he might catch whatever weepiness Gillian has, until he’s shoulder to shoulder with me. His eyes travel over the walls and plain office, a furrow between his eyebrows. “I don’t get it. Where did the vampires go?”
“Oh, I didn’t realize we were admitting they’re vampires now,” I say under my breath.
He gives me a sharp look. “There wasn’t strong evidence before. Now there is. Those wounds on her neck are textbook vampire bites.”
“Well, shouldn’t you teleport her out of here? You know, before those vampires come back and corner us in here?”
Charlie doesn’t even blink. “Teleporting her would do more harm than good.”
“Why? Wouldn’t it be better than trying to walk out of here?”
“Are you going to sass me the whole time or can you just accept what I tell you about my own abilities?”
I roll my eyes. “Well, considering you’ve hardly told me anything—”
“I don’t know why I even bothered trying to talk to you.” He squeezes his eyes shut and pinches the bridge of his nose. He starts to walk away but then stops and spins around, just like he did in the nightclub, to tower over me. “Why is it all you ever do is argue?”
“Hey, I’m not the one that started our working relationship acting as rude as possible.”
“Well, you clearly got into the swing of it once we got going.”
“Charlie . . .” Melody says behind us with a weary weight like it’s a tried and tired old line she’s sick of repeating.
“You flaming pile of hydra crap,” I snarl, not relinquishing my fury. “Forgive me if I was upset about my friend being arrested.”
“Apology not accepted. And for the record, she was arrested with cause. Turning into a werewolf in the middle of Canal Park is kind of a big deal.”
A small voice from behind interrupts us. “Is she okay? That girl you’re talking about.”
We both spin around surprised. Gillian stares at us over Hawk’s shoulder.
“It went after her,” she continues. “The girl in the alley. I tried to help.”
“What happened in that alley?” Hawk asks.
Gillian swallows and clenches onto both of Hawk’s hands. “I was going to the Blue Comet when I saw him going after that girl, the werewolf. I knew what he was. Filthy vampire.” She shudders. “Then the girl changed and ran off. I should have taken the vampire down in an instant but I got hit from behind. There’s at least two. I don’t know if there are more.”
“Can you describe them?”
“Well, vampires obviously,” she says and runs the back of her hand under her nose. “Both skinny, pale . . . the boy was always wearing those stupid black pants and hoodie. Blonde, crooked nose. The girl was a brunette and . . . sorry, I never got a good look at her.”
“Do you know where they went?”
“No. I never saw the girl after they first brought me here, but I heard the boy yelling at someone somewhere in the building. I couldn’t make out the words. Then he just left.”
“How long ago was that?”
“A couple of hours maybe? I don’t know. I’ve been stuck here in this blasted chair.” She sucks in a sharp breath and it’s clear she’s fighting back tears. Hawk leans forward and gives her a hug. She basically falls apart in his arms so Charlie and I turn away. Melody stands beside them, tucking her supplies into the med kit, before tossing the keys of the SUV to Charlie.
“I need you two—” She points between the pair of us at the door, “—to get to the SUV and bring it in as far as you can, then carry the stretcher in. I don’t want to move Gillian more than I have to.”
Charlie and I exchange an uneasy look before we hustle down the hallway, eager to get away from Gillian’s sobs. Well, at least I am. Charlie and I move along quickly in a brooding silence to the deepening night outside. While he ports out into the parking lot and revs up the SUV, I open the fence gate and walk back to the loading bay door. The SUV rumbles up and waits as I work at yanking open the enormous metal door to the warehouse. It lets out a horrible screech and gets stuck on its track. I put my muscle into it—managing to not accidentally break anything—and push it open wide enough for Charlie to pull inside.
I wait by the open door and survey the snowy night. There are a couple of floodlights shining like eerie spotlights around some of the warehouses. Otherwise the rest have fallen into darkness and a few even into decay. The snow piles in drifts against the metal sidings and covers piles of things draped with blue tarp. In the distance cars roar on the interstate on the other side of Railroad Street.
It takes me a moment to realize I’m being watched. Just beyond the reach of the floodlights is a slim figure all in black. Whoever it is hasn’t moved an inch so I didn’t see him until now, tucked alongside the side of the fence opposite me near the edge of the parking lot. He’s wearing black pants and a hoodie as Gillian described and like we saw in the surveillance video.
“Hey!” I shout, my first instinct. My second is drawing my bio-mech gun.
The figure starts a mad dash across the parking lot towards the parked Mustang.
“Charlie! He’s running!” I shout as loud as I can and take off after what’s most likely one of our vampire kidnappers.
The start of my pursuit doesn’t exactly go according to plan. I slip on a patch of ice and then nearly trip over a log buried in the deep snow. Once I regain my footing, I drive my feet into the ground and race through the gate in the fence. There are voices yelling in my ear but I can’t even make out the words. I’m running as hard as I can, kicking up snow, but he’s already slipped into the Mustang and gunning the engine by the time my feet hit the lot.
The Mustang spins its tires and accelerates directly for me. I run sideways and leap for the chain link fence, lifting up my legs. The car glances off the fence but is already turning to escape instead of run me over. The Mustang squeals, fishtailing side to side before it finds traction, and then takes off out of the parking lot and onto Railroad Street.
Rage fills me. The monster that drained and tortured Gillian is not getting away. Crazy and idiotic as it may be, I hop off the fence and run after the Mustang’s taillights quickly vanishing down the road. My feet pound the salted pavement but there’s no way I’ll ever catch him on foot.
Just when I’m about to give up, Melody’s black SUV skids to a stop a foot away from me. Charlie throws open the passenger door.
“Get in!”
I don’t need telling twice. I dash around the front of the vehicle and practically throw myself inside before slamming the door shut. The second I’m in, Charlie floors the gas and we fly down the road.
“There!” I point through the windshield to the taillights shrinking into the distance.
He doesn’t say a word but his body language says it all—he stomps on the pedal, wrenches the wheel hard, and there’s fury blazing in his eyes. This isn’t the sarcastic nay-sayer anymore. This is a deadly agent on the hunt.
The voices through my headset finally filter into my brain and I hear Melody shouting, “Charlie, you’re going to get yourself killed! Phoenix, respond! Guys, talk to me!”
He doesn’t respond but makes the SUV go even faster.
“We’re okay,” I manage to say breathlessly into the headset. “The male vamp is fleeing and we’re in pursuit.”
“No, you’re not!” she shouts, causing reverb through the connection. “We’ll track him through surveillance video later. We need to get Gillian out of—”
“Is she stabilized?” Charlie interrupts.
“Yes, but—”
“Good.”
Then he rips his headset off and chucks it into the well at my feet. Honestly, he’s scary at the moment. Fury boils off him and infects me to. Melody keeps shouting at us to turn back and let the vampire go but I stop listening. I take off my own headset and add it to Charlie’s on the floor. His eyes flash to me for only a second, a single second where I see the first hint of respect he’s ever tossed my way, and then we blaze on.
I’m thankful that the IMS gives us suped-up vehicles. The SUV roars and gains on the Mustang. The vampire must realize it too because he makes a drastic move. He veers off the road to the left and jerks over a set of train tracks before trying to climb the hill into downtown Duluth. Where on earth is he trying to go?
“Hang on,” Charlie says and yanks the wheel. We plow through the Mustang’s tracks and wrench forward against our seat belts when we hit the train tracks. Charlie manages to keep control of the vehicle and we climb up through the snow until we hit pavement again. One-way signs blur past me and buildings rear up all around us. The Mustang fishtails across a grassy median but manages to even out, nearly hitting a couple of parked cars in its haste to escape. We follow right behind, Charlie expertly weaving around a little coupe in front of us.
The Bite of Winter (International Monster Slayers Book 2) Page 11