The phone vibrated just as I was about to power it off. Ash, it’s getting pretty early…I trust you, but please be careful, okay?
I smiled into the dark. Of course. I’m always careful.
Stop that, she messaged back instantly. I know you too well, and I’m too sleepy for your BS.
My smile grew into a naked grin.
Did...something bad happen?
I paused, thinking over my reply.
That pause means yes, she followed up before I could compose a reply. Well, kick some monster ass for me too, then.
I snorted. Will do. Love you too, Lor. I powered down the phone and put it away for safety, but I couldn’t stop smiling.
It was fortunate that Mama Flora had stuck around as long as she did, because without her, the boys would never have found Kitty’s trail—a meager hint of blood, distinctive perfume, and a non-human scent carried on dry air across the road.
“Dirt and rust” had referred to the old Strider Materials strip mine, where dump trucks and heavy machinery crouched in the mud and dust, abandoned by their masters as soon as they failed to turn a profit. From the grassy ridge, we peered down into the exposed stretch of scarred earth at a tight cluster of administrative buildings: red brick and mortar, more like little houses than the typical flimsy tin sheds and small mobile homes I would have expected.
“She’s gotta be down there,” Rain whispered. “It’s the only hint we’ve caught wind of.” The young shifter made to push himself to his feet and slide down the ridge, but Jason caught the back of his shirt.
“Hold on, manito. We’re not the big guns here.” The older boy nodded to Charles and Tamara, then looked at me. “Right, mujer fuerte?”
I flexed one slender bicep, having picked up just enough of his native language to either figure out his meaning or embarrass myself. But the hint of light at the edges of the sky made me too nervous to joke around much. “Time’s a-wasting. I just wish we knew what we were getting ourselves into.”
Whoever was behind the sudden abduction, it didn’t take a genius to realize this setup was trouble. Dim lights glinted from a couple of windows in the otherwise isolated buildings like the lure of an anglerfish. A thick cluster of tall pines trimmed the rocky ledge to the North and West above the mine, isolating it from prying eyes and casting long shadows across the lot. A long, looping road cut this hidden section of the city off like a surgeon’s knife; fifteen hundred feet away, there was a Taco Bonanza, a darkened shopping center, an apartment complex, and about six churches—but down below, there was solitude. No witnesses, no questions asked.
I felt the invisible eyes on me once more.
Charles stood up. The dull, quiet ring of knuckles on metal drew our attention to the closest sun-faded “no trespassing” sign. “I think I might have an idea or two about the culprits,” he commented dryly. Beneath the Strider Materials logo, he indicated the fine print with distaste written across his otherwise impassive features.
“A subsidiary of Clarion Industries,” I growled the words aloud, naming the Sanguinarian-fronted business, one of the largest and oldest in the whole Southeast. And while the coal and oil that Clarion Coal, Oil, and Steel was founded on might be on its way into obscurity, CCOS itself was a zombie too dangerous to realize it was already dead.
We slid down the slope together, shoes raising dust in the dark. Inside the strip mine itself, it was still midnight. The pitch dark lingered past its prime almost unnaturally, and I could feel something in the air, as if Next Door were closer here than just one wall away. The hush that hung over the ruined strip of earth fell over us as well, and we were quiet until Charles stopped in the darker shadows of the outermost buildings.
“That one,” Rain pointed to the single building where we’d seen lights in the upper story. “They took her in there. I can smell her scent...and fear.” His amber-tinted eyes flickered, unable to settle on anger or nervous anxiety.
Charles nodded as if it were obvious. “Something’s wrong here,” he murmured as we huddled close, his bass voice pitched almost too low for me to hear. “Almost familiar, but…” He shook his head and trailed off. “My paranoia sense is going off. All of you go inside. I’m going to check the perimeter for trouble and act as rear guard.” I started to protest, but he put a hand over my mouth. “Don’t worry. If you get in over your head, I’ll come to the rescue.” He glanced between me and Tamara. “Not that I’ll ever get any appreciation for it.”
The throb of the magician’s pulse against my cool flesh was distracting, but I stifled the minor urge to immaturely lick his hand and nodded reluctantly. I didn’t know where that thing had been, anyway.
I glanced around one final time as we neared the building in question. I didn’t like the thought of Rain and Jason being in this kind of danger again, and the fact that this time it wasn’t my fault did little to make me feel better about it. Supernatural or no, they were still just kids, after all. But the look in Rain’s eyes said he wasn’t going anywhere, and this was neither the time nor place to argue it out.
I put my back to the wall and counted down from three on my fingers, then slammed my shoulder into the front door. This was an abandoned business, and no one’s home, so there was no threshold to stop me from busting the deadbolt with a dull thud and abrupt screeak of wrenching metal. I caught the door before it could slam into the interior wall and add to the noise, and Tamara shot in past me, the boys right behind her. Charles split off, quickly disappearing around the corner of the house, his beautiful, silver-etched staff gleaming in the dim light.
I pushed the door closed and scanned the interior. It didn’t look like any business office I’d ever seen, thought that wasn’t unusual for a place intended to cater to Sanguinarian overseers. Instead, it looked more like a small, comfortable house. Where a living room would have been, a bunch of dusty office chairs clustered around a long oval table as if still waiting for the ghosts of businessmen past to return. Rather ironically for a company owned by vampires, floor-to-ceiling windows were scattered around the room liberally. Attached to the meeting room was a well-appointed—if tiny and long unused—kitchen, and a set of stairs in between led to the upper level.
It didn’t take Rain and Jason’s pointing hands to tell me that way led to where Kitty was. The scream and hammering of a panicked heartbeat did that.
Rain looked like he wanted to dart for the stairs, but Tamara, Jason, and an obvious dose of common sense held him back. Tamara crept forward, motioning me to follow, but something made me hesitate. In the wake of Kitty’s pained cry came a pregnant near-silence. Watching eyes burned a hole in my back. Something familiar tried to catch my attention, buried under the frantic hammering of the heart upstairs. Tamara set foot on the lowest stair.
I sorted it out a moment too late.
“Get down!” I roared as the windows behind us exploded.
The muted roar of silenced gunfire swept the pair of rooms like a sudden storm as three black-garbed assailants burst through the thick, textured glass as if it didn’t exist.
I threw up my hands, reflexively covering my face just as several bullets smashed into my forearms and gut, only to clatter inertly to the tiled floor. Horrified, I glanced towards Rain and Jason, only to find them already gone in a puff of displaced air and the barest hint of static.
Fortunately, the two small coyotes they’d become were well beneath the line of fire.
A sharp hiss of pained breath from behind me heralded a faint whiff of Moroi blood. The unexpected barrage of bullets rocked me back on my heels, but Tamara didn’t let me fall, bracing me even as I shielded her from the bulk of the assault with my unyielding flesh.
Three pairs of booted feet hit the floor; three figures in loose-fitting dress suits, vests, and masks discarded their PDWs and drew melee weapons—long, needle-like dirks of silvery, polished metal—but my eyes recognized the sharp, bloody crescents of their claws as the real danger.
Sanguinarians.
A su
rge of static rolled through the house, originating from outside; I could only hope Charles had fared well against the initial ambush. The fact he was alive enough to draw power from Next Door was a good sign.
The three Sanguinarian ambushers spread out, flanking us, leaving no way out. Weapons at the ready, they approached slowly, sizing us up. “Ashes,” Tamara hissed in my ear, still leaning against my back. “Can you hold them off while I go after Kitty?”
“Three Bloodbags?” I rasped, cracking my knuckles. “Not very good odds.” I straightened my spine and squared my shoulders with a sound like breaking bone. “They should have brought more.”
With a snort, Tamara was gone, boots pounding the wood-paneled stairs at my back. The three dark-clad Sanguinarians swept forward, bursting into motion, and I surged to meet them.
Ruby red claws rent the air an inch from my face as I ducked the closest vampire’s swipe, too quick for them to hit. With a snarl, I lunged at the off-balance Sanguinarian, my own claws—eighteen inches of blood-rusted iron—ripping eagerly from my fingertips in an anemic spay of my own dark blood.
The second Sanguinarian stepped in, caught my arm before the metal could sink into inhuman flesh, then used my own momentum to spin me around and slam me face-first into the slender steel refrigerator.
I lost precious split-seconds as my mind tried to catch up to the abrupt reversal, and the first Sanguinarian planted a powerful back kick into my spine—he’d never actually been off balance in the first place. The front door of the stainless steel fridge crushed inward, and I braced myself lest I follow it. One of my attackers hit me hard across the back of my knees, trying to sweep my legs and bring me crashing down. I twisted, claws bursting free on my other hand as I swiped blindly, trying to back them off.
Spinning around, I was met by a solid set of triangular blood claws to the face—a blow I managed to deflect just as claw tips dug into flesh. I sunk my own claws into the deformed steel behind me, ripping the refrigerator door free and slinging it into the middle Sanguinarian with a dull clang of impact. They flew across the small room as if on strings, slamming into the reinforced front door and warping it in its frame.
The other two didn’t even blink at my display of force. A kick from one side dug into my gut and lifted me onto the tips of my toes, putting me off balance immediately. I got an arm up in time to intercept the long metal needle that arced in from the opposite side; the point dug into my flesh, trying to bury itself in my arm even as the tip blunted. As the weapon caught in tough Strigoi flesh, I managed to twist my arm and catch the assailant’s wrist, yanking them toward me and shattering their nose against my forehead.
Claws tore my clothes, raking across my stomach and etching their way across dead flesh. Too late to dodge, I stepped into the Sanguinarian instead, rocking them back as my shoulder connected with their torso. Desperate to even the odds against the pair of obviously superior combatants before the third rejoined the fight, I tightened my grip on the first Sanguinarian and swung him at his friend like a club, a tactic that had never failed me before.
As they say, there’s a first time for everything.
I took the blood vampire easily off his feet and swung him around, only to watch with wide-eyed astonishment as his partner dodged back and leaned away with the inhuman grace and precision normally reserved for CG movie fight scenes. While I was still gaping in that instant of surprise, the Sanguinarian I was swinging set his feet on the ground and grasped my arm instead, smoothly stealing my own momentum.
My tactic subverted, I felt for the first time what it was like to be on the receiving end of my own brute force strategy, and my feet left the ground as the skilled Sanguinarian utilized my own strength against me. The room spun for an instant, and my back hit the wall with tremendous force, splitting the fancy wood paneling with a resounding crack before I fully comprehended what was happening.
Too late, I registered the third Sanguinarian back on their feet. They flashed across the room in a flicker of fluid movement, the metal needle braced in both hands, poised perfectly even with the left side of my chest.
On each side, a vampire braced themselves against my arm, stifling my strength for the instant it took the third to ram the needle into my heart—
—Except for where it hit the metal plate hidden beneath my clothes, the thick piece of junk steel I’d specifically hand molded to fit there, just because assholes like this wouldn’t stop trying to stake me.
I vaguely felt the impact as the needle dug in, then snapped off, the pointy end spinning energetically away across the room in a flash of disappearing chrome.
Everyone froze, just for an instant.
Well, almost everyone.
“Ha, bitch!” I declared, stomping down indiscriminately on a Sanguinarian foot. Steel-toed combat boots crunched flat like the foot they failed to protect, and a feminine voice cried out in sudden pain and shock. At almost the same time, two coyotes burst out of a low kitchen cabinet at superhuman speeds; by the time I noticed the cord they held in their mouths, they’d already wound it around the legs of the stunned Sanguinarian with the broken needle.
I grinned with glee and took the female vampire off her feet as she instinctively leaned her weight against my arm, trying to spare her crushed foot. Broken Needle tried to dodge, but his legs were hopelessly tangled in helpful coyote cord. I slammed his battle-buddy into him like a rag doll with her crying out in panic the whole time. Broken Needle came crashing down, and as the remaining male Sanguinarian wisely released my arm and lunged back in with his own silvery stake, I simply swatted him aside with his own screaming companion.
Then I threw her out one of the windows.
Sideways.
As her body folded the wrong way to fit through the too-narrow space, coating the shattered glass with thick, cloying Sanguinarian blood, Rain and Jason pounced on poor, downed Broken Needle. The vampire rocked back and forth, trying to fend off two vicious-looking, wild animals as they took turns leaping on his chest and snapping at his vulnerable face and throat, barking loudly all the while. They knew better than to actually bite the blood vampire—that was a quick, one-way trip to addiction land. Fortunately, he didn’t seem to be thinking clearly enough to realize that fact as well.
Sanguinarian One flipped back onto his feet with a quick, practiced snap of tensed muscles. After an instant’s hesitation, he rushed me, smoothly scooping up his fallen stake as he closed the distance. I braced myself, but he ducked and came in low, aiming for the side of my chest instead of going for the front or back.
But now it was down to one-on-one, and I was faster than he was. I interposed a thigh and, as the stake dug in and came to a halt, I lashed out with a simple kick that caught him in the lower ribs. There was an audible snap of broken bone as I tossed him across the office, but the vampire spun mid-air, balancing out enough of the momentum to land on his feet and stagger to a halt, still upright and clutching his ribs.
I took a single, determined step toward him—my general intent was to grab the office table and hit him with it until one or the other broke—but a piercing, yip of pain diverted my attention sharply. I glanced down in time to see that Broken Needle had apparently remembered he was a vampire and swatted one of the two coyotes aside with frightening force, throwing the shifter back into the cabinets and eliciting another animal cry of pain. He swiped at the remaining coyote as well, but the remaining boy managed to dodge aside and darted into the cabinets after his friend.
Broken Needle rolled over, legs still tangled, and threw himself at the cabinets, jamming his arm in all the way to the shoulder and angrily fishing for a fistful of coyote. At least, until I stepped over. His eyes widened an instant before I stomped on his ankle, pulverizing his bones as I drug him away from the cabinets, his gritted teeth stifling a cry of agony.
A familiar click-click caught my attention. I looked up to see Sanguinarian One holding his ribs in one hand and one of the discarded SCARs in the other, grinning viciously
and leveling it at the small set of kitchen cabinets containing two high-school-students-turned-coyotes.
Kitchen cabinets wouldn't stop those bullets.
“Stand down,” he snapped, panting, his skin a sliver of pallid white above his crooked cloth mask.
Shit.
The front door blew completely off the hinges in a gust of air, careening drunkenly across the room and whacking me in the shoulder. In the doorway stood one utterly disheveled, grumpy-looking wizard, his staff leveled like the supernatural big brother of a combat shotgun.
Sanguinarian One fired off one wild, useless burst, unable to properly prioritize between wizard and coyote hostages before Charles flattened him with a dense burst of wind that visibly warped the air, his staff vibrating like a tuning fork. Office chairs and the heavy table flipped across the room like pieces of paper, caught by the edges of Charles’ condensed, weaponized cyclone. The blood vampire lost his firearm somewhere in the chaos as he struck the opposite wall and flattened against the cracking paneling.
I picked up Broken Needle and tossed him into the windstorm too.
Static danced along my hair and exposed skin with audible crackles as Charles stepped up the intensity even more. Even through the concentration and beads of sweat popping out all across his forehead, he turned and met my eyes.
“What the hell are you waiting for?” he snapped. “Go check on Tamara!”
Chapter Five
Upstairs throwdown
I cracked the first two steps as I thundered up the stairs.
I could still hear Tamara’s heartbeat, along with Kitty’s more frantic one, so I knew they were still alive. But why had I assumed the downstairs ambush would be the only one?
Hubris was kicking my ass today.
Breaching the top steps and stumbling to a halt, a loft office lit by a single blazing bulb was laid out before me. Beneath the naked light bulb was a metal office table, and behind it, a hard-backed, sturdy metal chair.
Shattered Ashes (Dying Ashes Book 3) Page 5