“Thanks.” I pull her upright, spin her around, and break her cuffs, then squat and snap the shackles off her legs.
She stares at me. “You’re letting me go?”
“We’re not all monsters. You’ve got about a fifty-fifty chance of living through this. I don’t like those odds.” I roll the unconscious dude over and snap his restraints.
Stephanie paces around whimpering. “Holy shit. You’re really one of them. I can’t even.”
I snag her by the shoulder and spin her to face me. “Steph?”
“Yeah?” she asks with a head tilt.
“Vampires aren’t real.”
Her eyelids flutter. “Oh, duh. Right.”
I cross the cell in a step and a half and grab the door. A good sideways yank breaks the locking bar with a painfully loud pank of failing metal and bends the bars by my hands. Fortunately, Stephanie’s still too dazed by my mental command to notice. I briefly consider making a dash for the spyglass given I’m back to full strength, but… this dude with us isn’t gonna make it. I won’t have enough time to come back for him. Or Stephanie.
Screw the spyglass.
“Come on.” I grab the guy and throw him over my shoulder like a rag doll.
“How the hell can you carry him like that?” asks Stephanie.
“Extreme yoga.”
She follows me mutely into the corridor.
Evidently, the guy I’d been hoping to meet heard the cell door break. He comes tromping down the steps at the end of the hallway, arriving at the bottom before I can get to the room where my phone is.
I hand the unconscious dude to Stephanie. “Here, hold this.”
Without thinking, she grabs him, and promptly falls over backward under his weight. “Oof.”
“What the…” The guy stares at me in disbelief.
An animalistic snarl leaks out between my teeth. I spring at him, grab him by the shirt, and throw him into the wall hard enough to break his shoulder. He bounces off and staggers around to face me. All the terror I felt when I assumed he was going to rape me explodes into a right hook that smashes his jaw into splinters.
Again, he flies into the wall, this time face first.
Unconscious, he slides to the floor, leaving a trail of blood and spittle.
Stephanie manages to shove the unconscious guy off her and stands. “Holy shit…” She gawks at the thug. “You did that? How?”
“Extreme Taekwondo.”
“I took that as a kid. Well, not the extreme version.” She faces the thug and kicks him in the head with her bare foot.
“You forgot your shoes.”
While she runs back to collect her flops, I snag my iPhone from the cardboard box. Stephanie rushes back down the hall, carrying her shoes, and grabs a small purse from the table next to the box.
I pick the unconscious prisoner up and head for the stairs. The door to the office with the spyglass is only like twenty feet to my left, but I’ve maybe got a couple of minutes before the other vampires wake up. I’m sure Zarkhov and his inner circle use this place as their lair, and I do not want to be here when they get up.
A man walks out of a door on the left as I’m rushing down the hall. Brief eye contact makes him forget seeing me and decide he’s going to spend another twenty minutes in that room. I hurry around the corner at the end of the hall and dash the short span to the curtain. Out in the restaurant area, a handful of people are seated at tables, all basically twentysomethings with wild hair colors dressed in black and lace―or band T-shirts. Bodies move around on the stage, setting up. Everyone seems more or less too absorbed in what they’re doing to notice me carrying an unconscious guy across the room.
Except for the bartender, who stares straight at me. I’m too close to the door to bother with him, so I sprint for the safety of the outside. My passenger does me a favor and opens the door with his head. Sorry pal. Can’t be helped.
Stephanie follows me as I run down the street to the car. When I reach it, the sight of a parking ticket under the wiper feels like the last marble added to a wagon that makes it collapse.
“God dammit!” I yell, hurling the unconscious dude to the ground so I can snag the stupid piece of paper from under the wiper. “Seriously? I get kidnapped and get a parking ticket? Ooh!”
The pat-pat-pat of Stephanie’s bare feet on the sidewalk comes up behind me. Still pissed off about the ticket, I whirl on her about to yell, “what!” but she looks too pitiful, and I can’t do it. Unlike me, she’s got red marks from the chains on her wrists and ankles. She drops her flip-flops and steps into them.
“Hey, can you give me a ride? Those creeps are coming after us.”
“Ugh. Figures,” I mutter. “Yeah, sure. Hop in.”
I toss the dude across the back seat, slam the door, and leap in behind the wheel. Three guys in black come sprinting around the corner at the end of the block. The engine grinds and grinds, struggling, but not catching.
“Of course.”
Stephanie screams, “They’re coming.”
“They’re barely even excited yet.”
“Huh?” She stares at me for a second as the rurr-rurr-rurr of the starter fills in the silence. Her eyes go wide. “Oh, I got it!”
“Naturally. Damn engine. My life has become a frickin’ horror movie, so of course the engine won’t start.”
An instant before I grab the door handle to get out and throw these guys into traffic, the engine catches. One leaps at the car, grabbing at the passenger door handle as I pull away. Another jumps on the trunk. The Sentra roars like an enraged hamster when I floor it, but it moves.
Trunk surfer goes sailing off the car as I swerve. Door guy gives up and lets go before I drag him off his feet.
Heh. Bye bye, assholes.
“Holy shit, we made it.” Stephane fans herself. “How did you get out of those handcuffs?”
“Extreme gymnastics.”
“What?” She stares at me.
With a few seconds of clear road ahead of me, I lock eyes with her. “What handcuffs? Some guys at Club Abaddon tried to kidnap us and we ran away.”
I return my attention to driving, leaving her with a momentary vacant stare. She looks straight ahead, calm as can be a few blocks down the road.
“Holy shit, we got kidnapped!” she yells, a moment later, flying into a random panic.
“Yeah.”
“How are you so calm?”
“Extreme meditation.”
Stephanie blinks. “Wow you’re pretty extreme.”
“You have no idea.”
I take Route 5 up to 520, looking for the first possible way east. Before long, we’re flying over the Evergreen Point Bridge and zooming past Redmond. Soon after I take the turn for Avondale Road, Stephanie looks over at me.
“Where are we going?”
Oops. “Umm. I was autopiloting home. Where do you live?”
“Umm. South Park.” She points her thumb back over her shoulder. “In Seattle.”
“Crap. Sorry. Was a little focused on getting away from them.”
Whump. The car shakes.
“Uhh.” Stephanie glances at the door mirror on her side. “There’s something that’s not real on the car. He’s looking at me.”
Dammit.
A second body lands on the roof with a thud.
I sigh.
“Please don’t let this get complicated.”
Stephanie, her face as white as a ghost, stares at me. “Honey, that guy has fangs. I think things are already complicated.”
I swerve to the side of the road and slam on the brakes. Two guys go flying off the car, but they land gracefully on their feet not too far in front of us.
“What are you doing!” she yells.
“My parents will kill me if the car gets damaged.”
“How are you even driving? What are you, sixteen?”
“I’m older than I look.” Sighing, I shift into park. “Gimme a minute.”
Filching The Stash
19
Two weeks ago, I chased a Jeep, so I know it’s impossible to outrun vampires in a car. Well at least not an ancient Sentra. No sense prolonging things and getting Dad’s car torn to bits. I hop out, slam the door, and walk toward the two vampires.
Both look like they could be roadies for a metal band, with long hair, jeans, leather jackets, and T-shirts. Evidently, my getting out of the car has surprised them, as they stand motionless while I walk right up to them.
“Guys, you―”
The one on the left pounces, grabbing me before nodding to his friend as if to say ‘go get the other one.’
I squirm out of his grip and toss him off the road. Momentum carries me around in a spin, and I come to a stop facing the other guy. “We need to―”
He takes a swing for my face. I manage to duck and pop up with a kick for his groin, but he catches my ankle. I fly up into a spin and hammer him across the face with my heel, which gets him to let go of my leg and stagger back, holding his cheek. Hmm. Fancy martial arts are easy when you can ignore gravity at will.
The first guy seems to think so too. Thing One hurls himself like a vampiric torpedo through the air at me. I dive out of the way as he flies on by toward the road; he stops, but only because he faceplants against the side of a passing box truck with a tremendous boom. The startled truck driver lays on the horn.
Yeah, like that’ll help.
Thing Two lunges at me again, but he’s moving so fast it feels like I’m a normal person with zero fighting skills getting attacked by a bigger normal person with somewhat of an idea how to box. He pops me square in the face, knocking me into a backward stagger. The guy who smooched the truck grabs me from behind with one hand around my chest, the other grabbing my chin.
Thing One pulls with a sharp yank, and a sickening crack echoes within my skull. A dull pain throbs at the middle of my neck and my head lolls to the side, my ear touching my shoulder.
Ow. Son of a bitch broke my neck.
“Oops, I broke it,” quips the guy holding me. “Grab the other one.”
Fangs dig into my neck.
I sigh. “Really?”
The guy sputters and pulls out. Never something a dude enjoys having to do. “Huh what?”
I grab my head and push it upright, wincing from the crunch of my bones grinding back into place. “You guys are seriously slow, aren’t you?”
The one who’d been heading to grab Stephanie stops, and whirls around to stare at me.
Fangs out, I hiss at him.
“Oh, shit, Dale… she’s one of us.”
Dale, formerly Thing One, gives me a light shove that makes me spin around to face him. “For real?”
“You didn’t figure that out when I threw your ass off the road?” I point to where he landed.
The other guy walks over and tries to grab my chin. I snatch his wrist before contact and fling his arm away.
“I’m not a damn horse.”
“Girl, you look way lifelike,” says Thing Two. “What are you doing stealing our snacks?”
“The hell are your people doing mistaking me for a snack?” I yell back.
Both are clearly confused, as evidenced by their spot on impression of the Geico Caveman stare.
“I go to this place looking for a part time job, and this stupid knuckle-dragger throws me into a frickin’ legit dungeon. What. The. Hell.”
They exchange a glance before Dale scratches his head. “Why’d you go to the holding cell? You should’a kicked Bill’s ass. He’s only a human.”
“Wait. How were you in the club with the sun out?” asks the other guy.
I’m not sure how to react to vampires who are both clearly older than me and also less knowledgeable about our kind. Then again, Dalton didn’t know about my sun thing either. I had to learn that from Aurélie. Maybe keeping that a secret from these clowns is a good idea. If I credit it to a magic amulet or something, they’ll probably believe me. But then they’d beat me up and try to take it I bet.
“I got a potion from an Academic. Turned me human again for twenty-four hours. Basically, it took away all my powers and let me go out in the day.”
“Oh,” says Dale. “That’s kinda cool.”
“Guess it wore off,” said the other one.
I lick a fang in his direction. “Ya think?”
“So, why’d you steal our snacks?” asks Dale.
Hands on his hips, the other guy shakes his head. “Yeah, that’s like uncool filching our stash.”
“I heard you guys kill them. After sitting in a cell all damn day, I was both kinda pissed off and felt sorry for them. You’ve got plenty of mortals going in there to have no shortage of food. Why kidnap them? Just knock them loopy, take what you need, and make them forget.”
“Oh, yeah. We do that for normal.” Dale nods. “But the ones downstairs are the special refreshments.”
I lean back. “That’s like super creepy.”
“Oh, I mean we get ’em drunk or high, then pass ’em around like a spliff.” Thing Two grins.
“What’s a spliff?” I ask.
“Duuude,” says Dale. “You grow up in a bubble?”
“I guess I did.”
“Heh, she felt sorry for the snack pack,” says Dale. “Guess the new girl’s too innocent.”
I fold my arms. “I’d groan, but you don’t even know what you said.”
“Look, sorry about the neck breaking thing. Just give us back our prey and we’ll call it even.” Dale gives me a ‘how ’bout it’ look.
“I can’t let you do that to her, sorry.”
Thing Two grabs my arm. “We’re tryin’ ta be friendly, but you can’t just steal our shit.”
“And I think you can’t just torture and kill people because you wanna get high. Go find junkies or something.”
“Dale.” Thing Two nods toward the car and yanks me into a bear hug.
Growling, I stomp on his foot and ram my head back into his mouth. He staggers away, letting go.
Holy shit. That actually worked. I learned that when I was thirteen in taekwondo class. (The instructor thought all the girls needed that.)
I face the Dale. “You―”
He jumps at me. I sorta dodge to the left, but he grabs my right arm. Thing Two runs in and punches me in the chest. Crack. Oh, there’s a rib. I emit a noise part angry growl part pained whine, and ram my foot into his balls as hard as I can. The hit cracks his pelvis in half and launches him six feet in the air, a faint squealing sound leaking from his nostrils. Thing Two hauls me off the ground and tries to powerbomb me onto the pavement.
My attempt to catch myself with flying slows me enough to land with mild pain instead of broken bones. I swing myself around and kick his legs out from under him, but he only tilts backward, hovering, and punches me in the face. The back of my head bounces off the road and my cheek rebounds into his knuckles. Dazed, I hang there a few inches off the ground for a second or two before he kicks me in the side and sends me spinning like a human Frisbee into a tree. Dale remains in a lump, cradling his crotch. Thing Two decides to leave me wrapped around the pine and walk toward the car. Stephanie screams.
I push myself back up, trying not to pay attention to a few ribs knitting, my jaw un-breaking, and several sprains going away. “Hey. Leave her alone.”
Thing Two turns toward me as I leap into flight. He swats my punches aside a few times, then steps in and palms my face, shoving me over backward like an annoying little sister. Dale staggers to his feet, looking furious. Uh oh. Guess he didn’t like having his nuts launched up into in his throat. He lets out a roar somewhere between bear and human, and charges at me.
I run to the side, but fail my first lesson in matador school. He tackles me at the edge of the road and lines my head up in the path of an approaching car’s tire. Fear launches me into the air, my flight overpowering the simple weight of his body on top of me. The car whizzes past close enough that the side mirror rips a few strands of my hair ou
t, the driver honking at us.
Dale refuses to let go of me, and we wind up crashing to the ground by the trees. He pins me down, wild-eyed and snarling, fist cocked back.
“You―”
He wallops me in the face.
“Ow.”
Thing Two zips over and grabs his hand before he can pummel me again. “Dude. She’s just a kid. C’mon, man. Bad enough some sick bastard turned her that young.”
I almost snap I’m eighteen at them, but maybe playing the cute card isn’t a bad idea here. I’m in enough pain. On that note, my jaw slides back into place with a sharp pop.
“How long you been one of us?” asks Dale, still with a look in his eye like he wants to tear my heart out.
“Like three weeks,” I say.
“Congrats, man. You beat up a little kid,” says Thing Two.
Dale hangs his head.
“I’m not that little.”
Thing Two gestures at me. “I meant like in vampire terms.”
“What the shit are you doing?” growls Dale, while shaking me by the shoulders. “Why you bothering to get your ass kicked over some mortal bitch?”
I sigh. “If I have to explain it to you, you wouldn’t understand.”
Thing Two pulls Dale off me. “Dude, she’s young. Probably a tree hugger. Screw it man, let’s go back to the ’Don. Can’t reason with these new age kids. She’s gonna have teen attitude forever.” He leans around Dale to wink at me.
“Yeah… yeah.” Dale shakes his head. He gives me a look like he still really wants to pay me back for the groin kick, but snarls and leaps into the air.
The other guy shrugs, then follows him.
Well that was special.
I trudge back over to the road, just in time for a cop to pull up behind Dad’s car. Ugh. Really? At me fast-walking around the nose end of the Sentra, the officer rolls her window down, so I keep going until I’m standing beside her patrol car.
“You girls all right?” She notes my ripped up shirt and probably blood on my face. “Jesus, kid, what happened?” The officer starts to open her door, but I push it closed.
“I’m fine, officer,” I say in a cheerful tone. Her expression slackens as I force my way into her thoughts. “It just stalled out. We’re fine. You can drive off and forget you ever saw us.”
A Beginner's Guide to Fangs Page 24