Day Killer

by Clara Coulson

  He’s pissed off.

  “I have not had the best day,” he mutters to no one in particular, “and I will not have you, of all people, making it worse. Get out of my way.”

  “Not a chance,” Amy spits. “On the ground. You resist, you get a face full of lead.”

  Foley shifts toward her a single step, but he does it with his accelerated vampire speed, blurring his form in a manner that is extremely menacing. Amy, wound up like a tight coil about to spring free, assumes Foley is going to lunge and go for her throat, so she moves to pull the trigger of her gun, which will inevitably lead to everyone else firing their guns, which will either end with Foley on the ground full of holes or with my own colleagues ripped to shreds by a noble vampire.

  Spurred by a panic at what is seconds from becoming a catastrophe, I pitch forward and grab Amy’s arm with my bad hand, yanking her gun out of alignment. Her shot eats into the wall above Foley’s shoulder. But instead of firing again, she follows through on my tug to throw me off balance, shakes off the weak grip of my injured hand, and then brings her left fist around in a swift arc with the intention of ramming it into the side of my face. It is at this exact moment that my baseball cap, shaken loose by her previous blow, falls off my head, revealing my unmistakable face to the group of DSI agents who had assumed I wasn’t important enough to pay attention to.

  Amy recognizes me, but it’s too late. Her fist whacks my jaw, thrusting me sideways into the glass counter. My head strikes the glass, the glass shatters, and the thin metal frame collapses under my weight. When I hit the ground with a dull thud, a litany of horrified gasps crosses the room, ending with Amy. Who stares down at me in utter shock, her fist still held in the air like she isn’t sure she wants to own up to it.

  Thankfully, I don’t have to see her work through this conundrum. Because the second blow to my head cracked my skull and bruised by brain, and I pass out atop a pile of glass in the remains of a destroyed checkout counter in full sight of eight DSI agents who have no clue what the fuck is going on.

  This day just keeps getting better.

  Chapter Nine

  “He’s healing extraordinarily fast,” murmurs a faint female voice I don’t recognize. “He must have vampire blood in his system. There’s no other explanation. That wound would’ve left him with a serious concussion otherwise.”

  Ignoring the sharp throb deep in my skull, I lift my heavy eyelids to reveal the sight of the new DSI infirmary. Which looks suspiciously like the old one. Uncomfortable hospital mattress with thin sheets. Off-white ceiling. Gauzy blue curtains. Silhouettes of people on the other side of those curtains discussing my physical status.

  Amazing. Even when I’m doing everything in my power to stay off DSI’s radar, I still manage to end up in the infirmary in the middle of a case. It’s some kind of curse, I tell you.

  I sit up, but a brief rush of lightheadedness nearly topples me, and I have to grip the railing to keep steady. I let a soft groan slip past my lips. The two people outside my designated space stop talking and turn toward the curtain. A more familiar grizzled voice says, “I’ll take it from here. Go check on Desmond.”

  “Yes, Commissioner,” replies the woman, who must be a new doctor.

  We needed a lot of new doctors after Delos.

  Riker slips through the hole in the curtain and comes to tower over me. Instead of the usual black coat and shiny boots ensemble I’m expecting, he’s wearing most of a suit; all he’s missing is a blue jacket that’ll fit the width of his shoulders. For a second, I’m left speechless at the sight of Nick Riker, hardened elite detective captain, looking like a business executive, but I quickly shake myself out of the trance. Riker’s not a captain anymore. He’s the DSI commissioner. Technically, the interim commissioner. But there’s no one else qualified enough to take the permanent position, and the mayor doesn’t want another paper-pushing bureaucrat like Bollinger, considering what happened to him. The mayor wants a warrior leading DSI, and Riker is the chosen one.

  He’s also the pissed-off one, judging by his scowl. “You know, while it’s nice to see you back in town, Cal, I assumed we’d meet under circumstances that didn’t involve you aiding and abetting a fugitive of the Vampire Federation.”

  My stomach ties itself into a knot. “What’d you do with him?”

  Riker runs a hand through his dirty blond hair, confusion splashed across his face. “We put him in holding for about half an hour, while you were out. But some representatives of the Federation arrived a few minutes ago. They’re escorting him out of the building as we speak.” He shifts his weight onto the cane reinforcing his ruined leg. “You want to tell me what this is all about? Why were you helping him? And what, exactly, were you helping him do? I sent Delarosa over to your apartment, and he found it crawling with cops, reports of shots fired, blood all over the place. For some reason, the PD logging your address as an active crime scene didn’t raise our alarms, as it should have. So please, Cal, tell me what’s going on.”

  Well, Zhane’s going to be in big trouble.

  But I don’t have time to worry about that. Because Foley is about to die. As soon as the Knights drag him out of sight of the DSI building, they’re going to rip his head off and bury his corpse somewhere no one will ever find it. And once Foley is dead, Lizzie will be able to rule House Tepes uncontested, and the Knights will advance their schemes by years. Countless people will die. Countless more will suffer.

  I can’t let that happen. I have to act. Now. Fast.

  I make a split-second decision I know I’m going to regret for the rest of my life, and act on it. I haul myself over the bed railing, land in a crouch, and do the worst thing imaginable: I kick Riker’s cane out from underneath him. His injured leg buckles under the added weight, and he topples backward with a shout, falling through the curtain. Before he even hits the floor, I vault over him, slide to a stop on the other side, snatch the gun from the holster clipped to his belt—thank god he didn’t stop wearing one—and bolt for the door that appears to lead to the hallway.

  The doctor who must’ve been talking to Riker emerges from another curtained-off area, alerted by the racket, and cries out in alarm as I sprint past her, dropping her chart. A moment later, she calls for security, and I hear the sound of her low heels clicking rapidly as she rushes to check on Riker. I don’t look back. I know if I do, the guilt over injuring my own captain will make me falter, and I can’t afford to falter here. So I steel my resolve, stifle the faint dizziness lingering behind my eyes, and barrel out the infirmary door into a wide hallway.

  I have no idea what floor I’m on, but I do know there are only three, so I rush toward what looks to be a stairwell at the end of the hall. Halfway there, three men in black hurtle around the corner, guns out—the guards the doctor called. They start to raise their weapons, but then they recognize me. Because I’m a recognizable DSI agent, as Zhane so kindly informed me three months back. I’ve got some kind of weird celebrity status. And in this situation, it works in my favor.

  The time it takes the security guards to overcome their hesitation costs them a victory. I bound forward and slam my feet into the middle guy’s chest, and he flies back and takes out the other two standing behind him. I land in a rough somersault, immediately spring back to my feet, and make another long jump toward the stairwell door, just as two more guards rush out of a room at the end of the hallway on my right. My shoulder collides painfully with the push bar. The door swings open on freshly oiled hinges, too fast, and I stumble onto the stairwell landing, nearly falling down a whole flight of stairs. I have to grab the railing to stop. And that costs me time.

  Time I don’t have.

  I race down the stairs, feet pounding on the concrete. (I’m glad no one took off my shoes when they carried me into the infirmary; they must’ve noticed my head wound healing too fast and dropped me directly in front of the doctor for an initial assessment instead of stripping me naked, as per procedure. Thank god for small miracles, hu
h?) Two flights down, I pass a sign with a big numeral one on it, but the stairs keep descending, and I do a quick calculation. If I was designing a DSI building, wouldn’t it make sense to put a basement-level pathway between the main building and the garage for quicker access safe from the elements?

  Yes.

  Yes, it would.

  I continue down, and when I reach the bottom, I burst through another door to find myself in an empty hallway that ends with double doors on either side. One set of doors has an EXIT sign suspended above it, and the sign on the wall in front of me claims that set leads to the garage. Perfect. Only problem is that set of doors has a turnstile and a guard post, and the guard post is staffed by two guards who, going by the looks on their faces, have been alerted via coms of my flight from the infirmary.

  They maneuver in front of the turnstiles, one armed with a taser, the other a gun.

  The one with the taser says gruffly, “Stop right there, Kinsey.”

  The one with the gun says nicely, “We don’t want to hurt you. Just surrender, okay? I’m sure we can clear this up.”

  Vaguely, I recall taser guard’s face. I think he might’ve been one of the two people Erica and I knocked out when I had to sneak into the old DSI building during Delos’ reign of terror. Funny how these things always come back to bite me in the ass.

  You’re running out of time, I remind myself. Run. Run!

  I tighten the awkward, left-handed grip on my pilfered gun and dash straight at the guards. Taser guard throws up a smirk and trains the taser on me, because he really wants payback for our last encounter. He fires the taser, but I anticipate the shot, dodge to the right so hard I ram my already bruised shoulder against the wall, and push off the wall with my feet and arms, throwing myself forward at an angle. I hit taser guard like a bowling ball, and he flies sideways like a bowling pin and knocks his partner over before the poor guy can even think to point his gun at me.

  Taser guard, now missing his taser, which he dropped, makes a vain grab for my legs, trying to trip me. But I jump the turnstiles in a well-practiced move. A second later, I’m at the doors, but neither of them budge when I push. You must need to swipe a keycard to enter or exit this new building. Shit.

  Cursing my stupidity, I round back on the guard post and search for some buttons. There are only two on the desk, one red, the other green. I go out on a limb and assume the green one opens the doors and the red one initiates a lockdown.

  I smack the green one, and the doors open automatically. Bingo.

  Taser guard and his buddy are almost to their feet by this point, but I don’t give them the pleasure of my continued company. I run down the hall that connects the building to the garage as fast as my legs can take me, which isn’t nearly as fast as it used to be, thanks to my extended leave. Chest burning, lungs begging for air, I reach the end of the hall and burst through the doors leading to the lower level of the garage. My eyes dart left and right, searching for any signs of Foley or the Knights.

  There they are.

  Thirty feet away, two hulking goons are busy forcing a bound Foley into the back of an armored van. The ropes he’s bound with must be magically enhanced. He’s straining to break them, and the goons have no trouble holding him as one of them pulls him headfirst into the van and the other pushes his legs in. I have about five seconds to save Foley’s life, to save this whole goddamn city from disaster.

  No pressure.

  I raise Riker’s gun, wrap both my hands around the grip—I can’t miss, I can’t miss, I can’t miss—and inhale, remembering all the times in the police academy I failed to even hit the target in practice, remembering what it took to get better, what adjustments I had to make to my stance, the exact positions of my fingers, the way I aimed to get each shot just right. I apply these lessons now, attempt to compensate for the use of my left hand, the weakness in my right, and adjust the angle of the barrel until it’s lined up perfectly with the head of the goon still standing outside the van.

  I fire.

  The bullet hits the back of the man’s head and bursts out his face, taking a big chunk of his brain matter with it. He tips forward and collapses next to the back fender of the van. In response, the man inside, still holding a struggling Foley, leans forward to peer out. I shift my position by twenty degrees and fire again. The vampire dodges the shot, the bullet pinging off the open door of the armored van, but the danger distracts the man from his charge. Foley plants his feet against the guy’s chest and launches him from the vehicle. He crashes into the wall of the garage, cracking the concrete, and flops to the ground, half his bones shattered.

  Foley rolls out of the truck, landing on top of headshot guy with a thump, and strains with all his might as he pulls at the magical ropes. To my amazement, they actually start to break, his vampire strength overwhelming the poor excuse for a spell these mooks came up with. But they don’t break fast enough.

  After Foley frees his legs and stands up, still pulling on his wrist bindings, the three Knights in the front cabin of the truck clamber out—and one of them’s a born vampire. Foley can’t fight him while partially bound.

  “Run, Foley!” I yell across the garage, my voice echoing a dozen directions.

  Foley peers around the van’s door and freezes at the sight of the approaching noble.

  “Run!” I repeat.

  Foley’s head snaps toward me, a wordless rejection in his lips. He doesn’t want to leave me to die.

  I fire a round at the oncoming noble, who’s stalking toward Foley, but the man evades the bullet.

  I shout one last time, “For god’s sake, Foley, run! If you don’t, your sister wins!”

  This, the mention of Lizzie, is what snaps Foley out of his daze. With a pained expression, a silent apology, he turns tail and takes off at top vampire speed, heading up to the ground level of the garage as a flittering blur. The two non-noble goons pursue him, but they’re slower, and they’ll never catch up, even though Foley’s only got half a second lead time. He’ll run until they lose their bead on him, and then he’ll head back to Lassiter’s house. Because that’s what I told him to do in case this exact nightmare came to pass.

  The noble Knight stares at the incline leading to the next level, looking almost uninterested. Then, he slowly turns to face me, red eyes glinting dangerously in the fluorescent lighting. He says, “You really are an annoying rat, aren’t you?”

  The next thing I know, he’s moved thirty feet in the blink of an eye, his hand is around my neck, my gun is nowhere to be found, and I’m hanging in his grip six inches off the ground. He draws me close to his face, his eyes boring into my own. “It’s your lucky day, kid. For being such a pain in the ass, you get to meet the boss.”

  Chapter Ten

  While being stowed in the back of the armored van and then dragged into a building with a hood over my head isn’t quite as uncomfortable as being stuffed into the trunk of McKinney’s car and then driven out to a creepy cabin in the woods, I’m still less than thrilled when I end up tied to a chair, awaiting a violent interrogation. Again.

  Two goons, instructed by the noble guy who almost strangled me, bind me with the same charmed ropes they used on Foley. Which I take as a good sign. They still don’t know who I am or what I can do. It’s nice to keep people guessing.

  Although the ropes will make it way harder to escape. So that sucks.

  Once I’m secured to the chair, the noble goon clicks his tongue, and the other two retreat toward the door behind me, gazes cast at the floor. They got reamed out on the ride back here—wherever here is—because they failed to catch up to Foley. By this point, he’s back at Lassiter’s, lying low, and as long as he doesn’t move anywhere else in public, there’s no way Lizzie’s crew will find him. They can’t connect the dots to Lassiter. He’s a complete unknown in this game, thanks to his tenuous connections to me and DSI. At least I did one thing right, keeping Foley alive.

  The tradeoff is that I’m going to die in his stead.


  The noble Knight pads quietly around the chair and comes to stand in front of me, amusement flickering across his face. My neck throbs as I remember his nails biting into my skin, impossibly strong fingers cutting off my air supply, but I glare at him defiantly anyway. I’ve faced much scarier creatures than him, and much angrier interrogators.

  He bends closer to me, eying my neck with scrutiny. As if unsure of his observations, he grabs my chin and yanks my head to the side to get a better look at what should be a column of finger-shaped bruises. I assume by his reaction that there are no bruises anymore. “Ah,” he says, “you’ve got some vampire blood in you. The would-be lord’s, I assume?”

  “What’s it matter to you?”

  “Just curious to know how long you’ll live.” He grins, flashing a fang. “I like it when they linger. I like cleaning up the mess. Lady Banks is a right vicious bitch when she’s pissed.”

  A knot forms in my throat. “She’s going to be my interrogator?”

  “Oh, yes.” His grip on my chin tightens until my teeth threaten to pop out of place. “Sadly, she likes to work alone, so I won’t get to see you cry, little rat. But rest assured, I’ll be listening in, and I will enjoy every minute of your pain. You’ve caused a great deal of trouble today, protecting that pissant who dares to call himself a noble. And you’re going to get what you deserve for standing in our way.”

  He releases my chin and straightens up as a series of light footsteps come to a halt in the open doorway. I can’t turn my head far enough in the tall-backed chair to see through the doorway, so instead, I focus on a faint reflection in the dirty window behind the rickety desk I’ve been seated before.