I tried to laugh it off, but hearing it summed up that way wasn’t very inspiring. “I was a cop just as long as you were Collins. I’ve had my fair share of death threats from people I’ve put away.”
“But this one isn’t put away,” he hissed, leaning in closer to me as he whisper-shouted. “And she’s a psychotic vampire who’s already sent her harem after you once.”
“And once we’re on Blood Vice, I’m going to request to be put on her case,” I said, daring him to challenge me. I was not some damsel prepared to run off and hide until the big boy vampires took care of the problem. Who knew how long that might take? And why should I wait around like a helpless sap anyway? I never would have before, when I was a human officer. It just wasn’t who I was.
Collins looked at me as if I’d gone mad. “What the hell have you gotten me into?”
I rolled my eyes. “What kind of bad guys did you think we’d be dealing with, Collins? Honestly?”
“Bad guys like the one you let get away at that DUI checkpoint! Yeah, don’t think I didn’t put two and two together after I found out about your…condition.” He waved a hand at me.
We all fell quiet as another cadet walked past on their way to the phone booth. I hadn’t used up my full allotment of time, but I couldn’t bring myself to call Roman again, and Vin hadn’t answered. I didn’t bother leaving a message on his voicemail. I had a bad feeling that he didn’t trust himself not to slip up and say something about his research that might result in me not coming home.
“I’m sorry,” I finally said to Collins. “If I’d know it was hot gossip, I would have said screw the rules and told you about the cases myself. And if it’s too much for you, I’ll understand. I can even find a new donor to replace you if that’s what you want. I have more connections now.”
He swallowed and looked down at his boots. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one dreaming up ways to walk away from this. We were four weeks in, with eight more to go. I didn’t expect to reach a cracking point so soon. I thought again of Vanessa and the fifty years she’d spent doing this. Did Roman admire that about her?
“I’ll stay for now,” Collins said. “But I make no promises. I have a husband to think of, and I don’t like the idea of putting him in danger over all this vampire Godfather bullshit.”
“Fair enough.” I sighed and reached out to squeeze his shoulder. “I meant it though. No hard feelings if you change your mind. Same to you,” I said, turning to Mandy.
She cracked a small grin. “Never thought I’d be the one in love with boot camp while you two fell apart. I’m almost sorry we’re not staying longer. We only have two moon camps left. I may have to find a local chapter with Blood Vice and see where they meet up every month.”
“Seriously, is there some rule that says you can’t bite me?” Collins asked her. “I mean, she might be too far gone to be saved”—he jerked his head in my direction—“but I’d take being able to lick my own nuts over the nonsense I’ve been dealing with in a heartbeat.”
Mandy and I groaned in unison.
“Boys are so gross.” She shook her head.
Collins poked her in the ribs as he stood. “Says the butt sniffer who brags about eating raw guts and sleeping in dogpiles.”
* * * * *
The days dragged on. Blair and Mic continued to taunt me, even though I’d stopped interrupting the law class. My library research resumed, and I shared another few illuminating conversations with Sonja.
My body also began to show real signs that the training was doing something. My muscles were hard as granite beneath my skin. My waist had narrowed, showing off the chords of muscles spanning above my hips, and I suddenly had abs. Where had those come from? My fatigue shirt also felt tighter-fitting across my shoulders and chest.
Near the end of week six, Sorano revealed the contents of another one of the mystery boxes we’d stashed in her office.
“Most of you already have some experience with firearms, so we’re going to skip over the beginner’s course and move right in to intermediate,” Sorano said, pacing before a table that held seven military rifles. “This is the Moba M4 semi-automatic, Blood Vice’s custom raid firearm. Once you’re assigned to a field office, you will be issued one of these along with the standard sidearms.” She paused to pick one up and ejected the magazine. “Each of these hold thirty rounds of SW 5.56, but we’ll be working with Peart marking rounds through training.”
I’d never heard of the rifle model or ammunitions before, but I was guessing the SW stood for Silver Wolfsbane. The practice rounds were likely a product of Sorano Munitions, too.
“We’ll be spending today and tomorrow’s sessions in the tunnel range. Once you’ve each passed the easy marksman test, we’ll move on to the tactical applications course. Three buildings in the southwest corner of the base have been staged to simulate real-world raid scenarios. Master all three, and you’ll earn your first night off. A limo will take you into Denver Saturday evening and return you to base early Sunday morning.” Sorano’s glare sharpened. “Unless you come in last place. Then you’ll be spending Saturday night at the library, assisting Alice with the records transition. I’m sure Skye can confirm how stimulating that work is.”
I cringed at the jab but kept my mouth shut. That had been a difficult lesson to learn, but a valuable one among the bloodsucking elite. I now knew to save my energy, because each day proved how badly I would need it.
The tunnel range was just that—a range inside a tunnel. It opened off the southern perimeter of the base and stretched almost twice the distance that I’d had to test out with a rifle to earn my certification at the police academy. The service rifle I’d been issued from my pervious precinct had never left the trunk of my patrol car.
I’d known there would be rifle training at some point, considering the firearms I’d seen Roman and Vanessa’s unit toting around at the barn raid and during the undercover sting at Bleeders. There just hadn’t been enough time to brush up on that particular skill before my sentence at the bat cave began. And finding a range that was open during my waking hours was no piece of cake either.
I was rusty, but I had this crazy idea that maybe it would be like riding a bike, especially now that I was a vampire. Of course, I’d also had the naivety to think that I’d be granted fancy vampy super powers at first, too. But there’d been no welcome party bearing a velvet cape. No eagle eye vision improvement or hypnotic abilities. Sure, I had the creepy blood vision—the Eye of Blood, as Roman had called it—that served as little more than a mood ring or one of those fancy lights that revealed invisible ink. I might as well have gotten it out of a cereal box.
Like with everything except the cave pool, I came in last. But, by the end of the session, I was at least improving. I just had to focus on competing with myself and not the others. If we’d been working with handguns, I would have given these arrogant vamps a run for their money.
The second session was even better—though, I was still the weakest link. There was no denying that. I was not ready for the raid scenarios, but Sorano would not be delaying the training schedule so the duke’s pet vampling could keep up. I hadn’t wanted to believe Collins when he shared the rumor, but overhearing Blair in the showers was all the confirmation I needed.
Early Saturday morning, we stood before Sergeant Sorano in full gear, the Moba M4s angled across our chests.
“In and out,” Sorano barked. “You’ll do this in pairs, each time with a new partner. Whatever squabbles you have amongst each other, put them on hold. Right now, you’re professionals doing a job. Act like it.”
Everything was set up to work in tight rotation. We were playing musical raids. For the first exercise, I was paired with Andre Freeman. The tall, dark, and annoyed vamp grimaced when he heard my name announced alongside his, but he nodded his acceptance without complaining.
“I’ll go in first and clear the upstairs. You take the rooms on the main level. We’ll finish faster that way,” he said as we ea
ch loaded a magazine of marker rounds laid out for us on a table.
I nodded without looking at him. “Yeah, sure.”
We were being timed on top of being evaluated for accuracy and efficiency. Someone would be watching us on each level, rewarding points for good work and docking points if we screwed up. I was already sweating under my fatigues, my nerves twitching anxiously.
The scenario Andre and I were walking into was a rogue nest raid. Sometimes, as I learned in Kai’s class, a vampire decided that they were above the law, and they went all willy-nilly with the siring, creating their own vampling army and plotting to overthrow House Lilith. As if.
Blood Vice was often tasked with dismantling these setups. Baby scions were given the opportunity to turn themselves in for judgement from the high council—which frequently resulted in execution, but occasionally saw them adopted by other vamps. If they resisted arrest, the Blood Vice agents were to fire at will. The use of deadly force wasn’t a hot button issue in the supernatural community the way it was for humans. Threats were black and white when dealing with our kind. A lengthy standoff meant more human casualties and risk of exposure, because human police response time was far superior that it had been before the invention of the automobile.
Andre and I took our places behind the white line that separated the cadets from the training buildings. The others were preparing to enter their own scenarios, Sonja and Emma at the second building and Blair and Mic at the third. In our black fatigues, our rifles at the ready, we looked like we could actually be a legitimate and foreboding unit. The buzzer sounded, and we moved.
I flanked the exterior door and waited for Andre to kick it in. Then I followed him inside the building. It was dark, but I heard the hiss of voices all around us. As my eyes adjusted, my blood vision tinged the room in soft shade of dusty red. I picked out Sergeant Carmichael in the corner, a clipboard tucked in the crook of her arm. She wore a pair of night vision goggles strapped around her head.
Andre’s elbow bumped my shoulder. “You got this?” he whispered, nodding toward the stairs he intended to take. I nodded back.
“Go.”
I headed for the first room off the lower level. Several mattresses were strewn around the floor, but I didn’t see any bodies. No vampires cutting across the blood haze in living color.
My fingers gripped my rifle tighter as I reached the door to the second room. I took a deep breath and shoved it open. A vampire in the corner greeted me with a savage hiss. I aimed, but I held steady. Don’t be impulsive, Jenna.
“Stand down,” I shouted. “Stand down!”
She held her hands up and dropped to her knees. The tip of my rifle dipped, but then movement caught the corner of my eye. I turned and aimed again, ready to fire, but my breath rushed out instead.
Mandy stood in the room, her hands lifted, fingers curled comically like a horror film monster. She made to jump at me again, her eyes bulging with unspoken frustration, and I realized I was expected to shoot her. I did, but it came too late. The marker round grazed her shoulder as I was pushed to the floor by the vamp I’d first encountered.
I rolled and used the forestock of my rifle to push the woman off of me, quickly twisting the firearm around to blast her in the stomach and chest with four shots. One missed her entirely and struck the ceiling of the room.
The vampire grunted as the marker rounds made impact. At this range, the practice ammunition was plenty uncomfortable. She glared at me, but she dropped to her knees again. Her eyes darted to Mandy who remained standing against the wall, the thin spatter of paint on her arm not nearly enough to take down a human, let alone a vamp or werewolf.
“What the hell are you waiting for?” the vampire snapped at her.
I didn’t give Mandy a chance to answer. I tagged her in the chest with a single round and hurried out of the room. Andre was waiting near the front door. His eyes narrowed when he spotted me.
“Come on,” he hissed.
We were the last team to finish. And Mandy’s hesitation had not gone unnoticed. She’d taken it easy on me. I’d been surprised to see her, but to be fair, raids were full of surprises. Carmichael docked a hefty number of points for the blunder.
I was relieved to hear Sonja’s name called out with mine when Sorano paired us up for the second scenario. Sonja looked less thrilled about the union, but she gave me a tight smile as we met up at the ammunition table before the building and loaded fresh magazines.
“I’ve been watching you at the range,” she said under her breath. “You need to keep both eyes open and get your rifle stock off your arm and into your shoulder.”
“You couldn’t have said something sooner?” I made a face at her, but she only shrugged.
“Didn’t know I’d be relying on you in order to score a night out on the town.”
I harrumphed and readjusted the stock of my rifle against my shoulder as we lined up.
The buzzer sounded again. I quickened my step this time, rushing up on the building as fast as my legs would carry me.
The second scenario was a rescue mission. We had to work together to separate the vampire from their victim. The vampire, depending on their household’s status, and depending on the status of the household their victim had been taken from, would either be executed or coffin-locked. So it was preferable that they be brought in rather than be killed on the spot. Any scions, half-sired scions, or harem donors who resisted were fair game.
We were working with the silver cuffs again. Without gloves. Though, the stand-in vampire villains were given protection. Sonja and I found them on the second floor after swiftly clearing the first. There were three of them, standing over an altar covered in…real blood?
The smell of it tickled my nose, and I heard Sonja’s sharp intake of breath, too. The human strapped to the altar, playing victim, was Collins. I was less surprised this time, now that I was looking for him.
“Stand down!” Sonja shouted at the vamp standing behind the altar, his head dipped over Collin’s throat.
Mine. Something triggered reflexively in my brain, and I stepped forward. If that vampire got any closer to my donor, I’d unload every last practice round into his face. And then I’d beat him to death with the stock.
Something flashed in the corner of my eye, and I jerked, turning to find another vampire charging at Sonja. My hyper stimulated nerves were full of wrath, and I fired before I could think twice about it.
Sonja fired next, taking out a human playing half-sired underling. “Stand down!” she shouted at the master vamp again.
We circled the altar and each took him by an arm, stepping down on his calves as he dropped to the floor. Sonja gripped the back of his neck as I cuffed his wrists, not even feeling the sting of the silver. I was still too amped.
I leaned over Collins and touched his cheek, tilting his head aside to look at the fake wounds spanning his neck and chest. “Are you okay?”
“Just makeup,” he whispered. “They’re timing you. Get out of here.”
Sonja yanked our faux perp up and led him downstairs, giving me a sympathetic frown over her shoulder. After we’d turned him in to the sergeant waiting outside, she squeezed my arm.
“That was a cheap shot, but you impressed me, baby fangs.”
Mic and Emma spilled out of the first house a second later. They both scowled at us. I smiled back, feeling smug that I hadn’t come in last this time. Until Sorano announced that Blair would be my partner for the third and final scenario.
This should go well.
Chapter Twelve
I didn’t think the last raid scenario would be so difficult. I was out of harem donors for the sergeants to surprise me with. What more could they spring on me?
“This one is a royal raid,” Sorano explained.
My heart leapt into my throat, and I thought I might choke on it as I tried to suck in my next breath. They were fucking with me. There was no other explanation for it. God, did everyone want to see me fail so badly?
“This nest is heavily guarded,” Sorano went on. “We’ve included moving targets to supplement the live ones for extra marksmanship points. You’re allowed to shoot at everything except the royal target.” She held up a picture of the male werewolf from Mandy’s unit. “You’ll be using marker rounds with a different color of paint this time, to distinguish your shots from everyone else’s for accurate scoring.” She nodded at the table behind us.
As the sergeant moved on to the next pair of cadets, Blair’s menacing face angled toward me, the corners of her pale lips peeling back to expose clenched teeth. “Don’t you dare fuck this up for me, green fang. My sire is delivering my personal harem to the city tonight, and I mean to enjoy them.”
I gave her a contemptuous smile and retreated to the table, ignoring her as I grabbed a magazine and inserted it into my rifle. Talking to these hoity-toity vampires never accomplished anything worthwhile. I was just glad they were intended for field offices far, far away from St. Louis. The closest one I could even begin to worry about bumping into was Sonja, with her family home being in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I could live with seeing her again.
We lined up and waited for the buzzer. My ears pricked at the hum of the overhead lights far above us. At the sound of my breath as I tried to steady it. At the scratch of Sorano’s pen on her clipboard. I watched as she lifted her hand, signaling whoever manned the buzzer. And then we were off.
The door to the third building smacked the interior wall as Blair and I both kicked it. Her eyes narrowed, but she kept them trained ahead along with the barrel of her rifle. The artificial light from outside spilled around us and through the open door, illuminating dust particles and reaching into the shadows of the structure.
Noise from the other two raids filtered in behind us. Gunshots and shouts to stand down. Our scenario was disturbingly quiet by comparison.
A stairwell divided the lower level. As we split to circle it, a moving target that looked like a snarling wolf dropped from the ceiling, and I tagged it in the snout. I considered firing a second round, but I only had thirty to work with, and another target was fast approaching.
Blood in the Water (Blood Vice Book 3) Page 10