Mary came racing to Peter’s side. She’d changed to her she-devil form, with a gargoyle-shaped skull and the haunches of an emu. She grabbed what was left of Peter’s tuxedo jacket and pulled him out of reach of the Bengal’s flailing claws.
I had one split second of pity for the animal. He was beautiful, a regal beast with gorgeous black, white, and orange markings. And he was helpless. This wasn’t his fight; he’d just been following his nature. Mick Erzatz had penned him, in a parody of domestication, and then used him to try to kill me when Mick and his boxenwolves and his alpha female had failed. I wanted to put the tiger out of his misery. If I could use Peter’s gun . . .
But I didn’t have time. Ty and James and Charlie and Tod had all shifted. They were attacking the weres that Mick had gathered around him. Ernst had a kirpan in both hands and he was slashing at an ancient red werefox. The fox was fast, but Ernst was faster. Chunks of red fur scattered around him. He was using his sucker to toss pieces of cut flesh. Ty had morphed into a sleek black jaguar—twice the size of a real one and just as beautiful as you’d expect him to be. Leave it to a leading man to make sure he looked good in battle. Charlie, on the other hand, understood the value of special effects. He’d shifted into a monster with bat wings and a pig’s snout, his skin layered and crusted like a mangy Shar-pei. His black tongue was covered with spikes, and he had four sharp three-inch tusks protruding from his mouth. Ever the showman.
He was using them against an ape—a giant weregorilla who must have weighed four hundred pounds. The ape fought with its hands and its feet. Charlie locked his jaw around the beast’s leg, breaking its tibia with his tusks, and severed its tendons. The ape’s scream was unearthly.
Mick had backed away. “You should have signed with me, bubaleh!” he yelled at Orson. “I never would have let you make those wine commercials!” He scrambled onto a low boulder and made that whistling sound again.
James, half man and half bear, and Tod, a werejackal, tore into the beasts that surrounded them. Their fighting took them farther away from me, up the hill. I saw James crush the head of a massive dog and fling the entire carcass across the mountainside.
The noises the weres made belonged in Dante’s Inferno. Howling and shrieking and screams raged even louder than the fireworks. Mick whistled again, and this time I heard another sound, human voices whispering a mantra. And rubbing. The sound of flesh rubbing fur. Mick Erzatz had summoned the paparazzi who’d been waiting at his front door hours ago. The paparazzi with the wolf collar talismans hidden around their necks.
I was fighting alongside Ernst, chewing off a werehyena’s ear, when the pack of boxenwolves attacked. They cut me away from my clan the way an Aussie herds sheep. I was suddenly by myself, and I was surrounded.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
I needed to help Ovsanna, but I was in trouble myself. I’d cracked my head open, I knew that. I’d heard the sound it made when the tiger knocked me down. Now I needed to open my eyes. There were noises—explosions and screaming—and I needed to open my eyes to see what was going on. But when I did, I saw Ovsanna on the beach, attacked by paparazzi-turned-werewolves. I closed my eyes again. My eye sockets throbbed with a white, shooting sharpness. I touched the back of my head and my hand came away wet. I struggled to open my lids. Everything blurred in front of me.
I could barely make out animals fighting thirty or forty feet away. No, they weren’t animals. They were grotesque, monster versions of dogs, wolves, and foxes. They must have been those fucking werebeasts Ovsanna said Mick had on the preserve. The hyenas had giant jaws and no fur, just slimy, pinkish gray skin with yellow spots. Their hindquarters were twice as tall as their front legs. They looked as though they should be stretched out on a prayer rug. The ape was ancient, with patchy white hair and pustulating tumors on his back and haunches. He was huge, though, and he was being torn apart by a half-pig, half-bat apparition that could only have been one of Ovsanna’s clan. I was guessing Charlie Chaplin.
Ovsanna was away from the others, closer to me. And she was being attacked by werewolves—this wasn’t a déjà vu. My heart started pumping, but my mind slowed down, the way it always does when I’m dealing with danger. I saw everything I needed to do in slow motion. I’d promised Ovsanna I’d take care of her; I wasn’t going to let anything hurt her. I didn’t want to lose her.
I tried for my gun, but my arm wouldn’t move. The right side of my body was numb. I reached my holster with my left hand and freed the Smith & Wesson. From my right, I heard a pain-filled, high-pitched barking sound. Fireworks lit the sky, and I saw two werefoxes and something that was part woman and part ostrich. That had to be Mary, with a gargoyle skull. The foxes had her down; they were going for her neck. I fired. One fell away from her. Snakes shot out of her mouth and attacked the other. I turned back to aim toward Ovsanna. The sky was dark again, rain clouds blocking out any moonlight. I could just make out the pack of wolves blurring into a black mass around her silver dress. I wasn’t worried about hitting her, I’d seen her recover from a lot worse, but it took all my strength to raise my head and pull the trigger a second time. Nausea hit me like a tidal wave. My vision dimmed. I fired once more before I couldn’t see anything. I puked and the pain seared through my head. I knew what I needed to do, but I couldn’t keep my eyes open to do it. I dropped my face in my vomit and everything went black.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
There were five boxenwolves circling me—none of them as big as Mick’s alpha female friend, and not nearly the size Mick had been when he’d attacked me in my yard. That didn’t mean I could survive them all in a pack, though. If they took me down, I’d never get up again. And I had to get up. I had Peter to take care of.
The first one came at me low. I kicked him in the side of his head, smashing him against the boulders off to my left. He stayed down. Two more sprang at me from either side. I grabbed one by the throat and ripped open his chest with my fangs. Head-butted the other, his mate’s lung and bones dripping from my teeth, and twirled out from under him as he went flying over my shoulder, slashing my back with his hind paws. So much for my silver Narciso Rodriguez. I still had my hand around the second one’s throat. I spit out his ribs and pulled him to my face, took his heart in my mouth, and tore it from his body. This time I didn’t spit. The taste was too seductive. I was chewing and swallowing even as the last two boxenwolves took me down.
One sank his teeth in my neck, the other tore at my stomach. The third, the one I’d thrown over my shoulder, came at my legs. I kicked him off and sliced the claws of my toes across his jugular. Even as his life’s blood spurted into the air, he tried one last time to hamstring me. Again I kicked him away while I struggled with my hands to pry the first wolf’s jaws from my neck. If he bit any deeper, I wouldn’t survive. The wolf at my stomach had backed off to devour the flesh he’d torn from me, but already my body was healing itself. It was my neck I had to protect.
I was gushing blood. Losing strength. The wolf’s snout was buried in my throat. If I took my hands from his jaws, he’d clamp down deeper and I’d die. I tried raking him with my toes, kicking him off me, but I couldn’t get purchase. I felt my strength draining. I’d been right about my evening wrap. I wouldn’t be wearing it home.
I wasn’t ready for my life to end. Not when I was just beginning a new relationship. And not when Peter needed me to save him. Fuck Mick Erzatz and his fucking zoo beasts. I struggled harder to break free.
Two gunshots fired. The wolf with my stomach in his mouth never stopped chewing. The wolf with his teeth in my neck let loose, his jaw went slack, and he collapsed on top of me. I pushed him off and leapt after the gourmand. He was so busy dining that he didn’t know I was there until I ripped off his collar.
“You’re a fucking piece of shit, Diego!” Mick raged over the explosions. In the light of the fireworks, I saw the boxenwolf begin his shift back to human form. I grabbed him by his forearm and flung him over my head, impaling him on a tree branch. He looke
d like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. Mick screamed at his spasming body, “Do I have to do everything myself?!”
And instantly, Mick shifted. It was so fast, I barely saw the transformation. One minute he was a short, fat ex-agent in a brown kimono, smelling slightly feral, and the next he was the rabid werewolf that had attacked me in my yard a week ago, foaming from the mouth with acid saliva, and smelling so rancid that my eyes began to burn.
He advanced on me slowly, snarling, his orange eyes glowing with hatred. His body was muscle and power, but his head was grotesque, with its double row of yellow fangs and mangled muzzle. My vision was so heightened, I could see the veins in his gums, even in the darkness between fireworks. He was no longer Mick Erzatz, but a frenzied beast driven by ancient intincts. He wanted to eviscerate me, disembowel me. To feed on the vampyre who had obliterated his progenitor, the creature who birthed him—the mother of all evil.
It’s not easy to kill a vampyre, especially if we’ve fed recently, and God knows I’d done enough of that in the last few days. Drowning, staking, dismemberment, and decapitation will do the trick. This Mick-turned-werebeast wouldn’t be able to drown me or impale me, but he could tear me apart.
I needed my clan. In the distance behind me I heard them rending flesh, bodies crashing against beasts, teeth crunching bone. Howling, raging, ungodly screams rent the air. The Vampyres of Hollywood had their hands full with the rest of Mick’s weres; they wouldn’t be coming to help anytime soon.
I sprang at him as he crouched to leap. He was stronger than I was, more powerful, but I was faster. I raked my nails across his face and his left eyeball split in two, viscous liquid draining down his snout. I landed to his left, and he had to turn his whole body to track me past his newly blinded eye.
We circled each other, with him lunging in to snap at me and pulling away before I could strike or kick. If I could get my teeth into his neck, I could pierce his jugular, but to do that, I needed to come at him from behind. His snout was too long for me to rush him head-on. One second I was facing him, and the next I took myself to his blind side and prepared to spring.
I felt a searing pain in my calf. The boxenwolf I’d kicked in the head and sent flying against the boulders had slunk in to help his master. He looked dazed and disoriented, but he had his teeth clamped on my right leg. I was wearing chain-link Giuseppe Zanotti ankle straps with four-inch metal heels. Not the best choice for someone who anticipated a battle with beasts, but they worked with my dress, and come on, what’s more important? The advantage was that the ankle straps had kept them on my feet. I slammed my left foot down on the boxenwolf’s head. My heel smashed through his skull like a steel spike. He was dead instantly, my shoe sucked into his brain matter so deeply that I couldn’t withdraw my heel. So when he went down, so did I. I had to push against his skull with my right foot to free myself.
And by that time, it was all over. Mick was on top of me, his front legs pinning my shoulders to the ground. We locked eyes. There was nothing human left in his, only animalistic rage and the foreshadowing of a kill. He raised his head and howled in victory.
I was going to die. Too young for a vampyre. Too young for me, Chatelaine of the Vampyres of Hollywood. Who would look out for my clan? Who would take care of Maral? And what had I done to Peter, brought him into the lion’s den to be killed?
I heard a loud crack and tore my eyes away, searching the sky for the fireworks, the last image I would see in my 450 years of life. The sky stayed dark; I was losing my vision. A second sound exploded past me and that’s when I realized Peter was firing again. His second shot grazed Mick’s shoulder.
Mick pulled away from me, a chunk of my breast in his jaws, and hurtled towards Peter. Peter fired a third time, missing Mick but hitting me. That was twice he’d done that. If I didn’t know better, I’d think it was Freudian. We’d have to talk about that—if we lived to talk. Pain burned through my arm as I focused my sight on the space between Peter and the were. Mick was twenty feet from him. Peter would be dead in two seconds.
I am Clan Dakhanavar of the First Bloodline. Our nature—my father’s and my ancestors’—is to guard and protect. At that moment, 450 years of instinct flooded my being. I’ve never been so strong or so fast. I was on top of Mick in an instant, reaching around to tear off his gonads. He writhed and bucked, and I rode him like Debra Winger in Urban Cowboy. Then I sank my teeth in his neck and used my claws to rip out his heart. The last of the fireworks exploded.
So much for Mick’s New Year’s resolution.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
At one thirty in the morning on New Year’s Day, the skies over Montecito opened up and flooded Mick Erzatz’s wild animal preserve with torrential rains. By that time, most of my clan had disappeared, leaving behind them the minimal remains of fifteen or twenty werebeasts, all of which were conveniently washed away in the deluge. They wouldn’t have been identifiable anyway, just bite-size pieces of hyena skin and ape bone.
Ernst had stayed with me, helping me get an unconscious Peter into the tram and down the hill and then calling the police and EMTs once we got into a phone service area. They were waiting with an ambulance and a medevac when we got back to the castle. The party was still going strong. Nobody seemed to realize their host was no longer alive.
The rains brought flash floods in the mountains. Unfortunately for the investigating officers, they wiped out any sign of the vicious tiger attack that had taken the lives of celebrated agent Mick Erzatz and his photographer friend Diego. I described to the Santa Barbara Police what I thought had happened, but I don’t think I was very helpful. I said I’d been quite a ways away when the big cat had gone crazy and devoured the two men. One minute we were celebrating New Year’s, and the next my escort was being mauled. I didn’t see the attack on Diego or Mick; I was too busy trying to help Peter. All I knew for sure was that if Peter hadn’t regained consciousness and killed the Bengal, we probably would have been his next course.
It was an award-winning performance. I know they believed me.
The doctors did surgeries on Peter’s arm and chest and shoulder. They put him in traction. I was alone with him in his hospital room when he came out of the anesthesia. He stared at me for the longest time, and then he smiled.
“Hey. Happy New Year,” I said. “I’d give you a kiss, but the doctors don’t want you to move your head. How do you feel?”
“Like I must be on pain meds. I’m not feeling a thing. How are you?”
“I’m fine. Not a mark on me. And no more werebeasts to worry about. I’ll tell you all about it when your head is clearer.”
“I don’t remember much. I hit Mick Erzatz, didn’t I? Did I save your life?”
I nodded. I was grinning. “You helped. That’s for sure.”
“You see, I told you you couldn’t go there without me. There are times when being a vampyre just doesn’t cut it—you need a cop, with a gun. Anyway, it was a hell of a way to celebrate New Year’s.”
“Oh, I don’t know. We got rid of the bad guys and we got to dance. What else could you ask for?”
“Well . . . how about mad, passionate vampyre love? Which I’m developing quite an appreciation for, by the way. That would have been a nice capper to the evening. So what are you doing for Valentine’s Day?”
“We’re not going to have to wait that long.”
“We’re not? With me in traction and a body cast? I don’t see it happening anytime soon.”
“Well, you’re forgetting one thing,” I said, tossing off his sheets.
“What?”
“There’s always your toes.”
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Love Bites Page 26