by Mary Hughes
The hulk’s jaw jutted in consternation. “It’s Maim, not Mamie. Maim.” He squeaked it, seemed to realize he’d only confirmed the girl’s spelling of the name and switched to a low growl. “Maim, like mutilate.”
“Of course.” Blackthorne slid one foot forward and slanted his body sideways in a relaxed fighting stance, blade in his back hand. “And the rest?”
Seeing him so completely secure thawed my brain and body. It wasn’t seven against one, but seven against two. I could help.
Mace waved at the back row, squirming under Blackthorne’s Grim Reaper stare. “Let me introduce you to your worst nightmares.”
Blackthorne snorted. “For shit’s sake, Mace, have some self-respect. Throw out whatever response tree Nosferatu gave you and have a professional write your lines.”
“Fuck you, Blackthorne.” Mace glared. “Skiver, Blaxx, Magnum and Pike.”
“Thank you.” Blackthorne gave them a grin the likes of which I hope never to see again, equal parts teeth and death. “I like to know the names of my kills.”
He erupted into a sidekick that plowed Mace’s middle so hard it not only folded the vamp in two but sent the Lestat bowling into the back row of vamps. Leather coats went flying like so many pins.
Blackthorne landed through in fighting stance and swept his blade into Maim, several times. The Lestat dropped to the ground with two big thuds and a lot of little pats.
But while Blackthorne was busy chopping, the Worst Nightmare Quartet had recovered. In concert, they attacked him. Fear jolted me.
He swept out both hands and one leg, catching three of them and sending them flying. Windmilling up, he punched the fourth in the nose. He was poetry in motion, fighting four on one.
But while he was, prizefighter Scythe had flicked out a nasty, illegally long switchblade and wound up to jam it in Blackthorne’s back.
I drew my gun and fired, hitting Scythe in the heart.
The Lestat’s eyes flew to me, as red as fire pits. His face hardened into a mass of plate—bony, primeval and utterly unnerving. I swallowed ice.
Scythe stalked toward me.
My heart skipped and my breath started coming in cold pants. My lizard brain threw frantic messages at me. Vampire coming.
But my cop brain was shuffling through and discarding defenses. I remembered Dirk singing, “Axe the neck or stake the whole heart, a bullet’s too small so you gotta be smart”. Without axe or stake, I hesitated.
Scythe grinned, baring fangs like nails. Fear makes the blood sweeter.
My heart raced. My fingers tightened on my gun.
My gun. It wasn’t an axe or stake, but it did have a thirteen-round magazine plus one in the chamber. That had to count for something, even against a vampire.
I ignored my body’s panic and squeezed off four more shots in a spiral pattern around his heart. He shuddered with each strike. His stalking steps faltered. I kept shooting. Five, six. His left breast began to look like a bloom of raw meat.
What the hell. Even if this didn’t work, it distracted him from knifing Blackthorne. As I shot, and shot, and shot again, Scythe wobbled, face paling. I shot and he keeled over. I shot his collapsing body as he thudded onto the park’s turf.
A snap of fingers caught my attention. Blackthorne leveled a black glare at me over his shoulder. Mouthed, Enough.
That pulled me out of whatever funk I was in. I mouthed at him, What? Did he expect me to stand by and knit doilies? I pointed at myself. Cop.
He grimaced before returning his attention to the remaining vampires. Maim and Scythe were in pieces. Mace was kneeling on the grass, hurking up on them.
But the Quartet were climbing to their feet yet again.
Blackthorne executed a stomp-check in front of the first, Skiver. It’s a move that startles and grabs attention, often immobilizing the opponent.
The vampire’s head jerked up. Blackthorne chopped it off. A step-behind sidekick in the face took out the second, Blaxx. The force of Blackthorne’s kick was so great it broke the vamp’s neck. Blaxx’s head flopped unnaturally back as the body collapsed.
My stomach tried to evacuate through my throat. I covered my mouth with my forearm and fought it down. I had a couple bullets left and I considered using them on Blackthorne. No wonder Elena thought he needed watching.
He glanced over his shoulder and nailed me in the eye. Then, very deliberately, he raised one black brow. As if challenging me to see the assassin, the vampire—see him as he really was.
Which made me think. I’d been judging him by human standards. Vampires were strong and healed fast…which meant a little extra force was needed to disable them. It was gory, yes, but from the heads-snapping-on-necks stuff last night, it wasn’t like he’d actually done lasting damage.
I shrugged.
He blinked as if really seeing me for the first time.
While he was turned away, one of the remaining vamps, Magnum, sprang into Blackthorne’s blind spot and grabbed him around the neck. Magnum palmed Blackthorne’s crown, preparatory to twisting and breaking his neck. I tried to shout warning. It emerged as a squeak.
Blackthorne smiled at me. It wasn’t his humorless death smile. He’d known the vamp was there. He was reassuring me.
As Magnum twisted, Blackthorne tucked his arms and turned his body in the vampire’s embrace, twisting with him, neutralizing the move. Spearing hands in the air, Blackthorne wrapped his arms around the Lestat’s neck and kneed the vamp in the gonads, putting some hip into it.
Magnum gasped and hopped back. But only his legs hopped away. Blackthorne still had hold of the Lestat’s neck.
The vampire’s upper body was sticking way out from his center of gravity. It was a simple matter for Blackthorne to push the vamp’s head down, then strike an elbow between his shoulder blades to send him plummeting to earth.
The Lestat didn’t get there immediately. Blackthorne’s knee got sharply in the way. The vampire’s head kicked up like a volleyball. It made a beautiful arc up and back before plowing into the March soil, the next best thing to a block of ice. The Lestat skidded to a halt and lay still.
Mace finished hurking and scrambled to his feet. With a roar, he charged Blackthorne. The dark assassin contemptuously stepped aside.
Leaving Mace charging directly at me.
I gasped, my heart kicking back into my throat. But my training was already bringing my gun to bear.
Blackthorne winked. I paused.
Mace’s angry-face morphed to horror as he launched in the air, arms and legs flailing.
Blackthorne’s leg was extended like a tripwire, in what had been Mace’s path. Mace hit turf and skidded to a stop a good foot short of where I stood.
With that incredible ease, Blackthorne sauntered over and took off the Lestat’s head with a particularly vicious slash. He straightened slowly, arms akimbo, shoulders rising like a colossus standing, and turned toward the last Lestat.
Pike gaped at him. He glanced at his buddies lying bleeding and in pieces, trembled a smile at Blackthorne, turned—and ran.
Leaving me alone with the assassin.
Chapter Nine
I swallowed hard and trained my gun on him. “Aiden Blackthorne, you’re under arrest.” I only had a couple bullets left but hopefully he hadn’t been counting.
Yet knowing him even the short time I had, of course he’d been counting.
His back was to me, watching the last Lestat disappear into the night. I expected him to whirl and attack me with his deadly skill but he just stood there, not moving in any way.
Finally he drew breath. Still without turning he said, “What for?”
“Um…did you pay your ticket?”
“I have ten days, remember?”
“You’re a criminal.”
“Not for nine more days.”
“I’m pretty sure intent means something.”
“I’m pretty sure only action counts.”
“Well…” I glanced at the broken bodies. “Assault, then. With a deadly weapon.”
“They’re vampires. They’ll be fine.”
I lowered the gun with a sigh. “I know.”
He turned at last, slowly. He was frowning. “You’re not supposed to know that. Haven’t you been connected with Iowa yet?”
“No. Why?”
He didn’t answer directly. “Talk with any bass-voiced men lately?”
“Look, while the enigmatic stuff is sexy, it’s also annoying as hell.” I had questions about vampires, about him—and tonight I had my cuffs. I holstered my weapon with an irritated snick and stalked to him, collecting my restraints on the way, fastening one bracelet on my wrist using the thud of my shoes to cover the click. “You’re coming with me to Interview.”
“I don’t think so.” He gazed down on me in cool amusement.
“I do think so.” I glared up. That amusement was so annoying. With him I forgot avoidance and politeness and even the nuclear option and went straight to a shrieking mess. “You are coming with me and I’m going to interrogate you so hard you’ll scream for mercy.” My face heated as other reasons to scream occurred to me. To cover it, I slapped the open cuff on him, tethering our wrists. “So there.”
He looked down at where we were joined and almost smiled. He rattled his wrist. “Handfasting? How sweet. But you should have asked first.”
My cheeks burned but I spat, “Arrest.” I spun and resolutely stalked off.
So my arm nearly yanked out of its socket when he refused to budge, steady as a rock.
I half-turned, grabbed my own arm and gave it a good tug. “We’re going to the station and that’s the end of it—hey!” I nearly fell on my keister. My cuff had somehow become attached to nothing but air. Ninja rock.
I flailed and would have fallen but he swooped in and swept me off my feet. “We’ll go to the station, all right. But I’m not staying. You are.”
We were over the bridge before I’d drawn a full breath. “I’m not—”
“You are.” We were outside the cop shop. Damn, he was fast. “There are bad guys out here, extraordinarily hard to stop, and you know both too much about them and not enough.” He set me down. “Do me a favor. Go inside and don’t come out until dawn.” He turned, about to disappear yet again.
“You’re not the boss of me.” Besides, he’d seen me handle them. Shooting out that vampire’s heart, turning vampy chest into a mass of meat but I kept shooting. And shooting. And shooting…
The dark side of me laughed. Five-three plus a gun was seven feet tall. Shooting again and again, and heaven help anyone who got in my way…
I shuddered. Maybe, just for once, he was right.
Blackthorne disappeared into the night. I didn’t try to call him back, wondering who the real threat was.
Chicago wilderness, early 1800s
The boy had a name, but no one used it. To the clan elders he was Young Chief, always leading around bands of children. To those children he was First Friend. To his mother he was simply Beautiful Son.
To his father he was Halfbreed.
He paid attention to none of it. Those were the golden days, drenched in sun and companionship and challenges, always a game to play or animal tracks to follow or hidden places for talk.
He lived with his mother, unless his father was visiting. The man made threatening gestures and gave the boy evil looks when his mother’s back was turned, then acted like nothing had happened. The boy might have told his mother, but she smiled as if everything was fine, and he was too young to understand. So when the man visited, the boy hid. Except for that, the boy was by nature a happy, outgoing child, trusting. He learned quickly and made friends easily.
Until his mother died—and his father stole him.
Because the boy knew the man, he didn’t run away when his father came upon him alone. Then his father grabbed him and gagged him and stuffed him in a canoe under a pile of furs.
The boy nearly suffocated before his father uncovered him. Even then, the instant the furs came off, he sucked what air he could and tried to call out to his people. But all that emerged was a muffled cry.
“Shut up, kid. Ain’t no one coming for you.”
The boy knew his father was wrong. His mother’s people would find him. He kept alert for an opportunity to escape, ready. The hours wore on and his father gave him no food or water, but the boy stayed awake, waiting. Hoping.
It was two days downriver before his father removed the gag and gave the boy water. The boy had gone without food before, but his throat burned and the gulp barely made a dent. Still, he managed, “Why have you taken me?”
His father didn’t answer. He untied the boy’s wrists but left his legs hobbled. His father dragged him out of the canoe, onto land that no longer felt solid. His father hoisted the canoe over his head. “We walk here.”
The boy still hoped for rescue and tried to leave a trail, but the ground was frozen and his mind was dull from lack of water and sleep, and his father butted him along with the canoe. They made camp that night on bare soil without a fire. The boy dozed fitfully, still trying to be alert. Ready.
The next morning his father kicked him awake.
“Your ma bragged what a great hunter you are. Show me.”
The boy sat slowly. His belly was starting to eat at him, but the air was too cold and the smells were wrong. “No.”
The man smacked him, hard palm shocking his cheekbone, snapping his head around, pitching him onto his back.
That was the first time the boy had been hit. He lay in pained stupor. “W-why?”
“For your own good, to learn you not to sass.” His father grabbed the boy by his hair and dragged him to his feet. “Now hunt.”
The boy glared, trying to kill his father with his eyes, but the man just laughed. So the boy pointed at some scat. “Rabbit.” He hobbled off, pretending to follow the animal’s spoor in a dusting of snow.
The moment he got out of the man’s sight he tried to run.
But his legs were still bound by the hobble. He fell, and fell again. Hope prodded him up from increasingly skinned hands and knees. His breath made quick puffs and soon he couldn’t feel his feet. Still he tried to run.
The crack of a twig was his only warning. His father came from nowhere and planted a fist in his gut. The boy folded in two.
“You think you can run from me?” The man jerked him straight and backhanded him. The boy reeled, ears ringing. “You’ll never get away, you hear? Never.” The man punched his face. The boy fell, nose broken, blood running into his mouth. “Now hunt!”
Bleeding, sparks of pain floating in his eyes, the boy did.
He found the small telltale hole of a ground squirrel. He looked for the back entrance and filled it in, then used his hands to dig into the tunnel. He hoped for a hibernating rodent but the tunnel was too shallow and the animal awake. It tried to escape. The boy grabbed, forgot he was hobbled, and went crashing.
His father was waiting. He snatched the creature up and killed it with a shake.
The boy started to say the proper thanks for the animal sharing its life but his father waggled the body in front of him. “What the hell is this?”
“Food.” The boy glared. The man had no respect.
“This ain’t but a mouthful.” He threw the carcass in the boy’s face. Tiny claws slashed already bruised skin. The man yanked the boy to his feet and dragged him stumbling back to their campsite. “You ain’t getting food ’til you catch something worth eating or worth selling.”
The trip continued. The boy lost count of the days. Doubt crept in that his mother’s people would find him. Alone for the first time in his life, sick in body and soul, the boy f
elt the nibble of fear.
That was the first time he gave in, telling himself he couldn’t escape if he was weak from starvation, though he hated himself for it. He trapped a fox for the man. When he turned the pelt over for a mouthful of food, he felt dirty.
Only the memory of his mother’s voice comforted him, soft and sweet. “Beautiful Son. Life, friendship and love. They are worth fighting for.”
The moon waxed and waned many times before his father finally stopped in a place the boy didn’t recognize, a place of straight wide trails and fences and box houses.
The boy remembered his mother’s words and tried to fight for life and friendship and love. But as a hated alien among his father’s people, trust and friendship withered away; under his father’s fist, hope and love died, until the boy clung to life alone, and that only by a thread.
One day a man came to meet with his father, a small, thin man with rich clothes and an odd marking on his cheek, a line with two humps like a bird or bat. The boy hid behind his father’s chair and watched. His father pointed to a pile of furs, animals trapped and killed in the cruel way without proper thanks, although the boy said thanks to them after, behind his father’s back.
The rich man held out a silver coin.
“Ain’t nearly enough.” The boy’s father puffed up, threatening like a thundercloud. The boy cringed. The man only laughed.
His father swung one large, hard fist. The boy flinched.
But the man caught his father’s fist. With a thin, ugly smile, he squeezed. His father cried out. When the man released him, he backed away, face bloodless.
The man pocketed the silver coin and held out a copper one.
His father snatched it from the man’s hand and slammed out of the cabin.
The boy clutched himself. He knew what happened when his father had copper. He’d return smelling of whiskey and hate. The boy could only hope the man’s squeeze had softened his father’s fist.
Then the man approached the boy where he hid behind the chair. “Do you want away from this?”