Justice Is Calling

by Justin Sloan

  “No escape, just justice.” Sandra whispered, smiling as she realized that the shaking had stopped. Another ran and she shot again, dropping him in his tracks.

  As much as she wasn’t sure whether it was a good thing or not, Sandra was in a new zone, a quiet zone.

  A very deadly zone.

  ***

  Valerie lunged with her sword, side stepping a bullet in what almost felt like a pirouette. She laughed at the thought, then swiped an Enforcer’s head off as she moved with the dance of death and destruction. She hummed an old French song she pulled from deep in the recesses of her mind, from the days before she was changed.

  One of the vampires nearby looked at her like she was crazy, and maybe she was. But, she just laughed and took down another enforcer.

  When she looked back up at the vampire, he smiled and said, “Whatever works,” and then pounced on the fallen Enforcer to feed. With all of the feeding going on, the vampires were quickly regaining their strength. Several were already in the lead assault with her, a couple with rifles from the fallen, others with the electric rods that sent Enforcers flying when they hit.

  “Val!” Diego called out, pointing at two Enforcers running away.

  “We got ‘em on the run!” she shouted triumphantly.

  “No, that’s where Sandra is, right?”

  Her throat went dry at the thought—how many others might have already realized where the sniper was and gone after her? Was she even still alive?

  CRACK!

  A shot hit an Enforcer nearby who had been about to hit Valerie at point blank range with a pistol shot. So ... that meant Sandra was still there, but she was giving away her location. Too many shots.

  “I’m going after her,” Diego said, already on the run.

  Valerie couldn’t leave it up to him, so she ran too.

  “If you leave the vampires, they could all die!” he said. “Let me handle this!”

  She continued running at his side, but a glance back and she realized that he was right. Yet, her emotions pushed her on.

  “Cammie can handle it,” she said as they cleared the outer wall, dodging shots.

  And that’s when the ambush came in the form of Weres and hunters. The Enforcers had been joined by a new wave of support, and they were waiting just for this moment—for anyone to cross the wall in hopes of escape.

  Three Weres came at Valerie—two wolves and a bear, while others continued to shoot until the last second, when the Weres were on her. Focusing on dodging the bullets and protecting Diego, she hadn’t even noticed them until they were right on her—and now she tried to swing her sword, but she didn’t have the reach.

  And this bear was fast! He swatted the sword out of her hand as the wolves went for her legs.

  Caught off guard, she fell over.

  “You bastard!” She rolled with it, kicking one of the wolves so hard that his snout pushed back into his face in a spurt of blood. “I’m not some second-rate vampire or a mindless Nosferatu!” Her eyes glowed in her anger.

  The bear fell down on her, using his weight to crush her. But he underestimated her strength—she caught the bear with a knee to the chest and leveraged that to a kick that flipped it up and over her head. It went crashing into the windshield of a nearby pickup truck. The bear groaned in pain as it turned back to a human, stumbled away from the truck, and fled.

  The one surviving wolf saw this, whimpered, and tucked tail to run as well. Good, she thought—if they just all run away, this will be so much easier.

  BRRR-RRAT! A machine gun sent bullets pelting into nearby cars and the cement, narrowly missing Valerie as she threw herself sideways. She was able to grab her sword and get herself behind a car, coming face to face with a hunter. He was as surprised to see Valerie as she was to find him there. She slammed a fist into his forehead, causing his skull to crater and his eyes to roll up as his body fell to the side. A glance over the top of the car showed that Diego had worked free of the fighting and was making his way to Sandra’s hiding spot.

  “You better get there in time,” Valerie whispered to herself. “Or I swear to God I’ll….”

  More machine gun fire started, but was instantly choked off and replaced by a scream as Cammie or one of the others got to the shooter.

  Valerie was about to look back to Sandra’s area when a new pack of wolves came over the top of the car, one leaping for her while the others circled around.

  She ducked under the airborne wolf and got her sword up, managing to cut it from neck to tail, moving aside as it went sprawling to the pavement with guts trailing behind.

  “Stop. Getting. Me. Messy!” She yelled at the dead wolf.

  The other wolves didn’t like the latest result of attacking her, based on their growls that almost sounded like shrieking. Judging by the size of the one she’d taken out, it had been their Alpha, and some of these were his bitches.

  “Next one to try it ends up the same way,” Valerie ground out. She had been crouching, but stood, confidence growing as she saw that none were attacking. “Or you can turn on your so-called masters. The humans who control you, who enslaved you!” she damn near shrieked, her frustration mounting at the stupidity of their efforts to turn Were against Were.

  There was a moment’s hesitation, and then another wolf leapt up onto the car from over the wall and transformed into the crouching form of Cammie. The streetlights cast dark shadows across her nude form, but her eyes shone yellow in a way that gave her otherwise sensual appearance a horrifying visage.

  “You know me,” she growled to the group. “I am here to fight with this vampire, and so can you. She’s stronger of heart and strength than we’ve ever seen. If there’s a chance of beating those that abuse us,” Cammie pointed towards Valerie, “it’s her! So if you’re with us, follow me.” Cammie’s voice went guttural and deep as she got ready to change, “If not, stay here and meet your maker.”

  With that, Cammie turned and leaped, transforming back into a wolf before she landed. Then she raced towards the closest fight. A moment passed, during which Valerie felt her fingers gripping her sword hilt in anticipation, and then the wolves bowed their heads and turned to follow Cammie in her attack.

  “Holy shit,” Valerie murmured. She turned, watching as the Weres attacked the humans and the tide of the battle once again moved in their favor.

  The vampires had reached the wall now, and the hunters and Enforcers were quickly becoming nothing more than food.

  It almost grossed Valerie out, if not for that fact that she knew it was necessary. And they were trying to kill her and her crew, after all.

  She was about to go after Diego when she noticed a trio of cops pinned down near a building opposite the headquarters. They were holding their own against a team of hunters and Enforcers with at least two wolves on the attacking side, but wouldn’t last long.

  One of the cops looked familiar. She started racing in their direction, sword flashing, killing two wolves who tried to intercept her. She finished her attack by impaling one of the Enforcers, her sword erupting out of his chest, her head showing over the Enforcer’s shoulder as she pushed the dead man off of her sword.

  She saw recognition on the familiar cop’s face. It was the same man who’d given them directions when they’d first arrived in Old Manhattan. He hadn’t harassed them or tried anything sleazy at the time, and so she was trusting he was worth the effort.

  “You wanted me?” she screamed at the Enforcers, half of them turning their heads to her.

  “NOW YOU HAVE MY ATTENTION!”

  Her sword flashed in the night, clearing a path to the cops. Twice, Enforcers turned to face her, only to have the police behind them cut them down. As the last died, she walked forward and sheathed her sword.

  “Y—you?” the cop said. Only he and one other were still standing. Another two were wounded, lying on the ground behind protection. “You’re behind this?”

  “I’m on the good side,” she told him, looking around before
returning back to him. “And, I’d be willing to guess that so are you.”

  He glanced between her and the last three would-be attackers. “You with them?”

  She looked over her shoulder at three Enforcers who had been trying to sneak up the hill to get a shot. Seeing that Valerie was now paying attention, they turned and jumped to a lower level before running off into the night.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” he said, lowering his gun.

  “Do you mind?” she asked the other cop, and he too lowered his gun. “I have a friend who needs looking after, but when I get back, we need to have a little chat about your system here and the way this city’s going to work going forward.”

  The cop gulped, but holstered his pistol and nodded.

  “That doesn’t mean you should stop fighting,” she said with a tilt of her head.

  He smiled, in spite of the nervous look in his eyes, and gestured behind her. “There’s no need.” She turned back to look around.

  Sure enough, the enemy was either dead or running.

  “You want us to give chase?” Cammie asked, appearing in the shadows in her human, nude form.

  A glance at the cop's reaction to Cammie’s sudden appearance caused Valerie to laugh. “No. Find your clothes and rally everyone to get back to the hideout. These two are with me, but we need to get help for their wounded here.”

  “And you?”

  “I’ve got to find Sandra and Diego, and then we’ll meet you back there.”

  Her first step froze as a scream filled the night. Distant, high above them.

  Sandra!

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Sandra screamed again, hoping someone down below would hear her… or if nothing else, hoping to scare off the three Weres that had just found her hiding spot.

  They approached, leering. The closest one, a real tool in a black trench coat with hair oiled back to reveal his scarred baby face, pulled a blade.

  “Stupid to keep shooting from the same spot,” he said. “That’s a recipe for death.”

  “And we’re the cooks,” the stockier man beside him said, hand on a pistol that he slowly pulled from his waistband.

  Sandra looked to the third man, stifling a laugh. Was she terrified? Hell yes. But that little recipe-cooks comment was just too much.

  Her fear had vanished like air out of a balloon.

  When they stopped, tilting their heads in confusion at her smile, she said, “What, no follow up? I figured you three must’ve rehearsed that stupid bit.” She let out the laugh now. “I mean, come on. I’m waiting for a dance, or is this more like dinner theater,” and then she added in a mocking tone, “and I’m the dinner?”

  The three looked at each other, confused. Then trenchcoat man said, “Yes, that’s exactly it. You are the dinner.”

  She pursed her lips, then said, “I don’t think so.”

  Part of her was screaming at herself, saying what the hell are you doing? But the rest of her had been around Valerie too long to be super worried, and besides, she’d just taken out several of these bozos’ friends. She wasn’t about to tuck tail and cry just because these three had her cornered.

  And then there was the movement on the corner of the roof she’d just seen—a swooshing tail. One that very well could belong to a puma.

  “Fuck this,” the stocky man said, and lifted his pistol to shoot.

  A crash sounded as ventilation pipe fell over, and a moment later Diego was on him, sharp puma fangs tearing into the arm that had held the pistol before it went flying off the edge of the roof.

  Sandra sure as hell wasn’t going to sit by and let Diego face all of them at once. She brought her sniper rifle around to shoot, but the man with the knife was too fast and lunged for her while the third undressed while transforming into a wolf.

  The sniper rifle blocked the knife, but that meant her shot went wild and the man’s momentum brought him down on top of her. Her breath left under his weight, but not her senses. Her training under the Duke, while mostly on how to serve, had also been about helping the vampires if there was ever such a need. Though the Duke had always said it wasn’t likely, Sandra had found herself needing those skills a lot while serving Valerie, and just as much now that they were friends and not servant and mistress.

  She swiveled her hips to the side and kneed the man in his ribs, though she’d been aiming for the groin. He laughed at the attempt, but she let go of the gun to jam her fingers into his eyes. His scream became a howl as he transformed into a snarling wolf.

  Lucky for her, it’d been a while since she last cut her fingernails. The wolf’s eyes were red, a trickle of blood coming down from one of them. She rolled out of its path as it snapped at her and then circled as it sniffed the air.

  There was just enough time to catch a glimpse of Diego taking down the other wolf with a bite that tore out its neck before turning back to the other attacker.

  As long as he was still in the fight, so was she. Only, now she had this wolf coming at her. It leapt and she dove out of the way, then yelped in pain. Something sharp had hit her side, and when she rolled over, she saw the knife the man had dropped. It’d cut into her, but only slightly.

  She grabbed the knife handle and turned in time to see the wolf’s snout inches from her face. Its hot breath was on her, smelling of blood and meat, and she even felt the spittle hit her cheek as it opened wide to bite her face off.

  “Not today,” she said as she fell back, knife thrust forward so that it went into the wolf’s mouth and jammed up into the brain.

  With a whimper, the wolf twitched, and then stopped moving. Only problem was, its teeth had torn into her arm and that stung like a bitch. But she didn’t have time to think about that right now, because the other wolf had just pinned down Diego, and it wasn’t looking good.

  Sandra rolled for her sniper rifle and spun, just as Diego kicked the wolf into the air! Maybe he didn’t need her help after all, but she was going to enjoy this. She trailed the wolf mid-flight, then CRACK!

  “Eww!” she said as blood splattered across the rooftop and onto her clothes. She’d never shot a person or animal so close with a sniper rifle before, and hadn’t exactly considered the effect. But at least she was sure that the Were was dead. The one with the knife in its brain, she couldn’t be sure. They healed from damn near anything, unless the weapon was silver or their heads were in pieces like the one she’d just taken care of.

  So, since she was already covered in blood anyway, she stood, walked over to the other wolf, cocked the gun, and blew its head into smithereens too.

  A shooting pain ran up her arm and the roof seemed to shake, but she knew that it was just her, losing her balance. She dropped the rifle to reach out, but a moment later Diego was there, catching her. His smooth fingers caressed her face.

  “Are you okay?” he asked looking over her to see the damage.

  “Just a flesh wound,” she said, trying not to show how dizzy she felt.

  The door to the roof burst open and they both turned to see Valerie, who looked first at them in shock, and then to the bloody mess and mangled wolves.

  “Should I say ‘get a room,’ or would that be inappropriate?” Valerie asked as she walked over, her expression somewhere between impressed and amused. “At least I know I’m not needed.”

  “What?” Sandra asked, lifting her head, which Diego was cradling. “I—I’m fine.”

  “I think she’s referring to me,” Diego said. Was he blushing beneath the smeared blood? It was hard to tell.