by Casey Lane
She had a sinking feeling that this good news was just as creepy as it sounded.
Lyra opened her eyes wide. "What do you mean?"
The lizard smiled as if he could tell the balance of power in the room was shifting. "My master and his associates have placed bombs throughout the city. But they won't hurt you and your human friends. They’ll simply cleanse Chicago of all its supernatural population."
Lyra felt her throat tighten. "Where are the bombs? Who is your master?"
Spencer was chained at his chair, and yet he seemed to grow larger and more intimidating with every word. "You can join us, Lyra. This is how it was always meant to be. You are the hunter, and it is time to reclaim your legacy."
Lyra stood up, her heart pounding louder and louder within her. "Who is your master, Spencer? I– I– I need more information if I'm going to join."
The lizard's eyes burned with intensity. "Your hesitation makes the choice for you. It's a pity, I was looking forward to working with–"
In the blink of an eye, Lyra was on the other side of the table. It took mere moments for her to take the lizard's other arm and break it in the very same place.
The unhuman screamed in agony. "You can't stop what's coming!”
Lyra twisted the lizard's shoulder. "Give me a name!"
Spencer shook beneath her grip. "Coleridge. Coleridge."
Lyra felt some relief amidst the chaos of her emotions. "Coleridge."
"It's too bad you'll be dead before you can find him."
She braced herself for an attack, but none came. The lizard slumped in his chair, a peaceful look spreading across his face. In the calm, Lyra heard something she hadn't noticed before. It sounded almost mechanical, but it was extremely faint, as if it were very far away. But her first instinct was wrong. The sound wasn't from several rooms over or deep within the ground. The noise was coming from inside her suspect. The mechanical movement came to a stop, replaced by an almost imperceptible beeping noise.
Lyra's body tensed as she sprinted for the door.
His voice was like velvet. "Good bye, Hunter."
The moment the beeping ceased, a bomb within Spencer's chest exploded.
Chapter Eight
Lyra had just enough time to reach the other side of the door and scream a warning when the explosive device detonated. Her hand was still on the handle when the blast sent the door off its hinges and flying into her. The sound was deafening, especially for her superhuman senses. She felt the heat from the explosion as it sent her careening down the hall and in between two rows of desks.
While the impact from the door caused immense pain, it acted as a sort of shield preventing her from the worst of the damage. Her ears rang and her eyes watered as she looked up to see the havoc the lizard had caused. Smoke spread throughout the room, and screams of pain punctuated the cacophony of voices and cries for help. Lyra attempted to stand, but the shockwave of agony sent her back to the ground. She looked down at her right leg to see that several pieces of shrapnel had lodged themselves in her calf muscle. Blood trickled down her skin onto the white linoleum. As her eyes adjusted to the smoke, she saw several nearby officers who had likewise been struck with the painful metal.
When a familiar voice coughed loudly a few feet away, Lyra shifted her weight and crawled through the pain toward the sound. Her massive gorilla of a partner had only been hit once in the arm, but the contents of the weapon didn't seem to be agreeing with him.
"Lyra, what the hell happened?"
She patted his chest. "That bastard had a bomb inside his chest. This whole thing is ridic–"
Her partner started convulsing wildly, sending his massive injured arm back and forth. Lyra gritted her teeth and shifted the hulking partner's upper torso onto her lap.
"Carl, are you okay?"
Her partner continued shaking as if he were having a seizure, but she knew he had no such history to speak of.
Confusion spread through Lyra's mind. "Carl! Carl!"
As the man continued seizing, she noticed something strange about his face. He no longer looked like himself. In fact, his large features appeared to shrink beneath her. He seemed to go from 300 pounds to half that in a matter of seconds.
She glanced wildly at the other victims to see if they were experiencing the same thing. But Carl was the only one. That's when she realized the truth. The lizard wasn't kidding about these bombs affecting unhumans, and her partner of four years apparently wasn't human. The secret shapeshifter ceased his movement and went limp in Lyra's arms. Even with the ringing of her ears still present, she could've heard if he had a heartbeat. Her partner was dead.
Lyra swung her fist so hard into the desk beside her, she punched a whole straight through to the other side. "Damn it! That son of a bitch." Lyra tried once again to stand up on her injured leg, but the pain was too great. "Son of a bitch!"
As she listened to the groans of her coworkers, a stray thought entered Lyra's mind.
Mace. Mace was nearby.
She looked around for the vampire prince, but all she could see was the spreading smoke and then the source of that smoke. The bomb had begun a fire that was headed in her direction.
She began crawling on her good leg as fast as she could. It felt like knives slicing through her body with every inch she moved. The heat from the approaching fire made her wonder if this was the encounter that would finally end her life. She didn't expect it when the powerful creature hoisted her up in the air behind her.
Mace's mouth was covered, but she could tell exactly who he was from his piercing green eyes. "Are you okay?"
"Don't ask stupid questions." Lyra’s pain was almost unbearable. "The boiler room is just below us, so we better get the fuck out."
The vampire didn't have to be told twice. He moved way too swiftly for someone who was carrying dead weight; his incredible strength took the both of them through the smoke and into the building's front hallway. She imagined he could hear it just as much as she when the fire had finally reached the major source of kindling below.
The explosion was even louder and larger than the bomb had been. Fortunately for them, Mace was several feet out the front door when the blast of fire shot through the building. Her savior didn't stumble as he continued running away from the precinct. She looked back to the place that she’d called work for the last half a decade, and saw the flames rise high into the air. Once they'd reached a safe distance, Mace lowered her gently to the ground.
Lyra tried to ignore the pain as she ripped off her button-down uniform, revealing the tank top below. "I should’ve heard the bomb earlier. I am so stupid. What’s the point of being a freak if I can't use it to save people?"
Mace didn't say anything for a second, and she realized that the vampire prince was staring down at her now slightly-uncovered chest.
She rolled her eyes. "Ahem." She ripped her former uniform in half.
The sound of the tear took Mace out of his stupor. "Sorry, I–"
"Had to check out the goods? I understand. Very important in the midst of all this."
Mace looked into her eyes. "None of this was your fault."
Lyra growled. "Not very convincing." She handed him half of the shirt. "Hold this."
"What are you doing?"
When Mace took the offering, Lyra stuffed the other half of the shirt in her mouth. She bit her teeth down hard, and yanked out the first piece of shrapnel.
She was extremely close to passing out from the pain, but heavy breaths through her nose seemed to give her enough oxygen to stay awake. She watched the blood trickle out of the first wound as she pulled out the second. It wasn't any easier than the first, but enough endorphins had worked their way through her system that, by the time the third and final piece of metal was out, it felt less like a knife and more like a screwdriver.
Mace marveled at her show of pain tolerance. "Jesus."
Lyra spit out the shirt and held out her hand. "Thought you guys had your own religion."
/> Mace handed her the other half of her shirt, which she promptly used to tie a tourniquet on her injured leg.
"Some of my relatives claim they met Jesus back in the day."
"Vampires, always name dropping." She watched the wounds on her leg start to ooze out less and less blood. "Do you think anyone's still alive in there?"
Before Mace could say a word, a group of seven gunmen surrounding the building took out their weapons and began opening fire on the devastated precinct. The street erupted in a sound reminiscent of a war movie.
Chapter Nine
Lyra felt herself being pulled to safety once more as she and Mace ducked behind a parked car and watched the gunmen unload on the precinct. She wasn’t sure who exactly Spencer’s boss was, but the bastard certainly didn’t mind overkill.
Lyra shook her head. "They’re kind of adding insult to injury."
Mace's eyes looked like they could barely believe the carnage in front of them. "My partner was in there."
"Mine too."
Lyra wondered if all of this had somehow been inevitable. It was impossible to think that nobody would ever find out her true identity. She’d put a lot of vampires back into the grave, and that meant she had a whole lot of enemies. She supposed her day of reckoning had finally come, and those who had trusted her were the ones paying the price.
Lyra took a step away from Mace and tested her bloodstained leg. It still hurt like hell, but she’d survived much worse.
Mace rushed to prop her up. "What are you doing? They’ll see you."
Lyra gave him the side-eye. "Well, considering that I’m about to go kill all of them, they’re probably about to see me a lot closer up."
Before Mace could grab her, Lyra ducked around the side of the car and headed straight for the first gunman. The blast from the earlier explosion had numbed her eardrums enough that the sound of the gunfire hardly seemed noteworthy at all.
About ten feet away from the attacker, Lyra leapt off her good leg and lifted herself into the air. She plowed through a pillar of smoke and landed with all her momentum on the gunman’s back. She heard his ribs crack satisfyingly underneath her as she quickly rolled the injured man on top of her. When another member of his crew saw Lyra, he turned and fired, but he only propelled his gunfire into the unfortunate human shield. The bloodied corpse on top of her let out his dying breath as the other attacker approached. He didn’t make it very far: Mace easily disposed of the human with one quick snap of his neck.
The vampire stared her down. "You shouldn’t be fighting. You’re injured."
Lyra rolled the dead body off of her and ignored the blood soaking through her tank top. "Mace, would you please be a gentleman and get the fuck out of my way?"
Before he could respond, Lyra was off again. She slid low underneath the next attacker’s weapon and slammed the butt of it up against his unprotected chin. As he released the weapon, she used it like a sledgehammer on the side of his face. He fell to the ground unconscious. Over her shoulder, she heard Mace take down another attacker. He then dodged a point-blank shot from a man behind him before a punch to the chest sent the gunman halfway across the street. The flying attacker landed hard on a parked car; glass and metal shattered beneath him.
She sensed the sixth attacker creeping behind her and moved at just the right moment to avoid the shot. The sound of the bullet sent her ears ringing again as she grabbed the nearest thing she could find. With one hand, Lyra gripped the front wheel of a police motorcycle and lifted it off the ground. In the blink of an eye, she threw the vehicle straight into the attacker. Despite his best efforts to stop the motorcycle-turned-blunt-object, it slammed into him hard and landed on him with a crash. Any sense of satisfaction Lyra had from her feat of strength evaporated when a bullet pierced her side.
While adrenaline had certainly helped in her battle, sometimes there are only so many shots a person can take. Cradling her wound and crouching on one knee, Lyra tried to fight back against the suffering that told every cell in her body to stay down. The gunman was about to take another shot when Mace came out of nowhere. With a rapid series of punches and kicks, the vampire didn’t just knock the attacker unconscious. He most definitely shattered several bones in the man’s body. When the last man standing went down hard, a sort of quiet settled over the street and the smell of gunfire loomed large.
Lyra looked around at the victory, though her precinct was now a fiery bullet-riddled mess. She doubted more than half of the people inside had survived. When she tried to stand up, dizziness took over and sent her tumbling to the ground. Looking through squinted eyes at her wounds, she noticed that her tourniquet had come undone, sending just as much blood out of her shrapnel wounds as the liquid gushing from the gunshot wound in her side. Blackness surrounded the edge of her vision. As she reached up toward the angelic vampire before her, unconsciousness finally took hold.
Chapter Ten
Lyra awoke on a far too comfortable bed. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she saw she was in a sparse bedroom with a modern flare. The slate-colored walls fit with the dark dresser and matching wardrobe beside it. This was not the dwelling of someone who cared about accessorizing. It was cold and calculated.
Her voice was raspy. "I think all vampires have the same interior designer."
With a great deal of effort, she sat up and was surprised not to be met with relentless pain. She noticed the wound on her side and the matching holes on her leg had been expertly bandaged. She also realized, somewhat embarrassingly, that she was wearing a new shirt. Somebody who lived in this condo had seen her naked, and the thought was annoyingly sexy.
Without a window to the outside world, Lyra attempted to use her keen sense of smell to determine the location. Her handler had helped her use nearby bodies of water, like the Chicago River and Lake Michigan, to determine where she was in the city to a fairly strong degree of accuracy. Unfortunately, she could pick up neither and realized she’d need to use context clues to determine where the hell she was.
Mace broke her investigation and her train of thought by walking into the room shirtless. He was more tanned than most in a city with eight months of winter. He looked just as perfectly proportional with his shirt off as he did with it on. She took in everything: his toned pectorals, his muscular eight-pack, and the cryptic tattoos that covered half his back. He also sported more than his fair share of scars, the longest of which ran down his right shoulder blade. She realized her mouth was hanging open at just the same moment he noticed that she was awake.
He took a surprised step back. "Lyra. You’ve been out for days. I didn’t realize you’d be—"
"You’ve obviously seen me shirtless at this point. Seems fair enough for us to trade."
Mace blushed, which was way cuter than Lyra would ever admit. He pulled a shirt from the black set of drawers. "It was for practical purposes only. Not entertainment."
Lyra laughed, even though it hurt to do so. "Uh-huh. You may have saved my life a couple of times, but that doesn’t mean I trust you to not look at my breasts."
The vampire’s face continued to redden as he pulled the shirt over his head. Before it covered his upper torso, she noticed a bullet hole that seemed close to healed on his lower back.
He let out a puff of air. "It’s probably time to re-dress those wounds. Is that okay?"
"You’ve been doing it with me knocked out the last few days, so I say go for it."
She pulled back the sheets and saw less blood than anticipated. "Not bad. Wouldn’t have taken you for much of a nurse."
Mace smiled. "Things were pretty bad before we became public. After my parents died, I more or less had to fend for myself. Sometimes that meant patching up bullet holes." He continued to speak gently, matching the care he used with her leg. "When the law came out, a few wealthy businessmen funded a program to get vamps off the streets. Turned me from a nurse for a South Side gang, to an up-and-coming FBI agent."
As Mace removed the old bandage and place
d on the new one, his hand rested against her thigh.
She suppressed her instinct to guide his fingers higher. "That’s a nice story, but it doesn’t explain the weird gun you pointed at Mr. Lizard earlier today."
He raised an eyebrow. "You tell me how you became a police officer, and I’ll tell you everything about the gun."
He gestured for her to raise her shirt to attend to the gun wound.
"Quid pro quo. I like it." She may have lifted her clothing a bit higher than necessary, allowing the bottom of her bra to come into view. "Not much to tell really. I couldn’t stay where I was, after all, my rep would get me put away for the rest of my life. Maybe a couple of lifetimes."
The old bandage was off, and Mace slowly applied the new one. His face was inches from hers as he moved a bit closer on the bed.
She shivered ever so slightly. “Used some of my contacts to get a fake ID and Social Security number. Finished school elsewhere, went to community college, and ended up here. I figured protecting and serving was a good use of my skill set."
Mace finished applying the bandage, but his hands remained on her body. "So you’re saying we’re more or less the same."
She tilted her face towards his. "Other than you being immortal and me being destined to kill you, I would say you’re right."
He smiled. "I can tell you’ve been with a vampire before. Even if it was a long time ago, I still smell him on you."
Lyra took in a deep breath. "As long as you realize you aren’t that special."
Mace moved his lips to Lyra’s neck. The five o’clock shadow she admired earlier brushed against her skin. She closed her eyes.
Lyra placed her hand on the back of his neck and let her fingers brush one of his scars. "I want to know who you are. Before we go any further, tell me your clan."
Mace lifted his head slowly as he turned to stare into her eyes. "Are you sure you want to know?"
Of course she wasn’t sure. A large part of her wanted to stop anything having to do with talking, and let them do what came most naturally.