Rebellious Hood

by Kendrai Meeks

  “Come on, Geri,” she said, creeping forward half-step by half-step. “Don’t you want your mate back at your side so you can finally be together? You and I both know killing Vlad is part of that process. The other Ravens are tough but not undefeatable; we’ve already proven that. With Vlad, the rest will fall in short order, but we must kill him. Let me take the baby. I can still leave tonight if I move quickly.”

  “We’re not doing anything that is going to bring a lick of harm to this child.” My arms went wide, but not in a mere display. As the vampire dripped toward me, I called out the silver hidden under my clothing, fashioning it into a chakram. I’d never fought with the Indian weapon before, but the circular throwing ring had an edge as sharp as a sword, and could be used up close as well – both advantages when fighting a vampire.

  Inga blinked thrice. “My, my. Been doing some research, or did someone watch Xena?”

  No idea what that meant, I answered instead by positioning my weapon. “We are not using this baby as a weapon.”

  “Why not? She’s not that precious. Alex got knocked up by a wolf; it shouldn’t be hard to get another slayer to do the same.”

  Revulsion roiled my insides. “Their race is dying and you want them to be some kind of anti-vampire breeding factory? Not to mention what that does to a wolf.”

  “We’ll use unmated wolves, then. Since they automatically love whomever they first bed, what’s the big deal? Besides—” Inga held up a hand. “We don’t even know if it will work. Worst case scenario: I use Mina as a peace offering, Vlad takes me into his fold again, and then I can work from the inside to destroy them.”

  Across the room, Alex labored to sit up. She did better this time, propping herself on her elbows. The sedatives they’d given her during the c-section were wearing off, but that didn’t mean she was in any state to anchor a battle. “Give me one shot and I’ll end this discussion.”

  “Don’t move, Alex, or you’ll rip your stitches. Don’t worry, I’m not letting her touch Mina.”

  The vampire flexed her fingers, cracking each knuckle like a string of fireworks. “I tried the nice way, hood. Now we do this my way.”

  And before I knew what had happened, I was flying through the air.

  SIXTEEN

  AMY

  Someone had brought their pug to the hospital, and when I’d nodded off, it had crawled up into my lap and made itself at home.

  No, wait. Check that. It was Caleb. Caleb had crawled up into my lap and made himself at home. Or at least, his head had.

  “Get off me.” I pushed him practically onto the floor.

  He startled awake like all supernaturals... uh, supes did: leaping into full battle position. What was it with this crowd, did none of them have to rub the sleep from their eyes and spend five slow and confusing minutes trying to figure out which frat boy’s bachelor pad they’d passed out in drunk the night before? Every time they were shocked awake, they expected Lord Voldemort to be attacking.

  Luckily, he hadn’t conjured a solarium, because that probably would have really freaked out the thin, middle-aged woman dressed like an LL Bean commercial in the chair across from us. I mean, I knew that since Inga had arrived, she had all the doctors and nurses involved with Alex’s case sequestered and Criss Angel-ed, but down here in the main waiting room, it was still clueless hueys.

  Which, for once, didn’t include me.

  I rolled up my copy of Der Spiegel and hit the slayer on the thigh. “Who gave your head permission to be on my lap?”

  “What? I fell asleep.” His stance eased. “And if you want to give me permission to put my head somewhere else, by all means.”

  Luckily, German middle-aged auntie didn’t seem to speak English. I, however, did. What the hell was it with this guy? How could you so openly flirt after you’d just had your heart broken? Besides, totally inappropriate innuendo was my thing. Caleb Helsing was beating me at my own game, and he didn’t even like me.

  By the way, what was there about me not to like?

  The slayer sauntered to the automatic coffee machine. “How long was I out?”

  I turned my wrists out to him. “Do you see a stopwatch?” My eyes went to the clock over the world’s most pristine goldfish tank. “It’s five-thirty. Morning or evening, though? We’ve been at this hospital so long, I’ve lost track.”

  He shoved a coin in the slot, and automatically a disposable cup popped into existence underneath the dispenser as it spouted out liquid humanity. “Morning. The sun is about to rise. Probably why I fell asleep. That, or you bored me to death.”

  “Believe me, Buffy, if I could kill you by talking, I’d never shut up. Now, stop being a self-centered bastard and get me a cup of coffee, too.”

  “Your wish is my command, Barbie.”

  Despite the lip, he did as asked, shoving a scalding plastic cup into my grip a few moments later. Inspired by joe, I finally untwisted myself from the awkward position forced by trying to sleep in a waiting room chair, bending at the hip, elongating my frame, puffing my chest out to stretch my lower back. I did not miss how Caleb’s eyes clung to me during the whole procedure.

  “Didn’t Inga get here, like, three hours ago?” I asked. “I thought she’d just go through and mind zap all the particulars and we’d be out of here.” I took a survey of the waiting room. “Where are the others?”

  “Cody and Pietro are sleeping out in the car,” Caleb said between sips. “Markus and Yan are upstairs, helping to run doctor and nurse interference.”

  “Why? Is there something wrong? Is the baby okay?”

  The slayer shook his head and then, annoyingly, crossed his arms and beamed at me. “You’re very cute when you’re concerned with someone beside yourself.”

  I stood and shoved a finger into his chest. His very solid, very defined chest. “I’d say the same of you, but I don’t know what that looks like.”

  Those soft lips curled into a mischievous grin, one I wanted to smack off his face.

  With my lips.

  Hot coffee scalded my hand as Caleb threw me against the wall, knocking all the wind from my lungs. I’d had aggressive lovers in the past, but this was borderline Christian Grey-level shit and I was not having it.

  Especially not in these clothes.

  But no sooner had I drafted a witty way of saying “fuck you” that simultaneously said “fuck me” then I figured out Caleb wasn’t attempting to ravage me. Not unless a slayer’s idea of getting to first base was to paste you to the nearest flat surface with their backs pressed into your chest.

  Which begged the question: were slayers’ danglies on their frontside like ours, or to sleep with Caleb would I have to reinterpret the term “reverse cowgirl”?

  “What the f—?”

  Boom. Crash.

  I’d never heard anything about earthquakes in Germany, but it would have been hard to miss the way the whole building shook.

  The slayer peeled himself off me and shoved me toward the exit just in time to see LL Bean high-tailing it likewise. “Get out of the building, now!”

  Caleb almost managed to get away before I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back. “What’s going on?”

  “Fighting. Not sure who. Go to the car in the parking lot. Send Pietro and Cody in. Might need their help. Hurry!”

  In a blur, my hand was empty and Caleb was gone, leaving me unprotected, and worse, unravaged.

  Sigh... Maybe I should try to sneak out of the house and hit up the local bar scene when we got home. Apparently, I needed someone again. Always did, eventually, and it had been... what, six months since that graduation party at Delta Mu Xi?

  Did Triberg have a bar scene?

  Ignoring the throbbing of my scorched fingers, I instead focused on the destruction of my last pair of blue jeans as I headed toward the exit, all while things were crashing somewhere behind me. All around, frightened chatter turned into panic as patients and hospital staff alike fled the building.

  I turned to
look up to the three-story structure, knowing Geri and Alex were on the second floor. Right where a bright light flashed moments before the windows blew out from one side of the building.

  “Holy—”

  Women screamed. A child cried. I looked up, only then realizing I’d fallen to the ground, a moment later to be pulled to my feet.

  Cody shoved keys into my hand as Pietro whisked by. “Get the car ready. We might need to make a quick getaway.”

  “They’re still up there.” My head jerked to the place where a patch of wall had simply ceased to be.

  But Cody didn’t wait for a reply. He flew as fast as two feet allowed, running the opposite direction of the crowd.

  This was bad. This was super, mega bad. Some serious shit was going on upstairs, and they wanted me to go start the car? I looked over my shoulder and found it parked just twenty feet away, past cement barriers that would keep me from bringing it much closer. The key fob had a remote starter. As long as I didn’t lose the keys, it was fine.

  Slipping them inside my pocket, I circled back.

  The good news was, Lahr was in the middle of nowhere. Nowhere being the Black Forest region. Well, technically, it was sort of on the upper northeast side, but there weren’t many people there. Caleb said Inga had created a safe zone around the area where Alex was recovering. Other than Geri, Markus, and Yan, there shouldn’t have been anyone there when whatever exploded went boom.

  Oh, except a poor, helpless baby.

  I wasn’t exactly what one would call “interested in kids,” but just because I didn’t go gaga over mini-humans didn’t mean I’d let one get hurt if I could do anything about it.

  As I reentered the building, I came to the sudden realization that I really had no idea where to go, other than up. Luckily, the steady stream of people heading in the opposite direction gave me some clue. Near the stairwell, a man wearing a security uniform, his chest pumping and his face uber white, talked over a red phone. He held out a hand as I passed, saying something very German.

  “Sorry, I no sprechen.”

  “Explosion!” he warned in an accent so heavy, I’d have to pay extra fees to take it on a plane. “You no can go in the—”

  I hit the stairs and didn’t hang around to hear the rest. At the top, I could turn right, down a sterile hallway, or left, down a sterile hallway with a window at the end. The glass in the window was still intact. I thought that was as good a reason as any to hang a right. A few doors down, I heard growling. A few more steps, a thundering voice wove into the mix.

  “... can’t let you do this.”

  Caleb? My feet picked up the pace, as did my heart.

  I rounded the corner and passed a door. Like, one on a wall, only not hung by hinges. The smoldering rectangle bore a perfect shape to fit into a frame that now stood empty.

  On the side of the room without windows, or really, much of a wall anymore, was Geri, holding a bundle of pink blankets clutched to her chest, winged by Markus and Pietro. Yan and Caleb stood in front of the trio, the slayer balancing a solarium on his hand. Also, there was a wolf. Like a massive, hulking, would-make-my-mother’s-chihuahua-shit-itself wolf. Alex was still in the hospital bed, and from what I could see, unconscious.

  Inga’s back was to me, but I’d learned enough about supes in my limited time to know they all probably knew I was there. Hearing me or smelling me or their earlobes tingling or something... The supernatural really got the royal flush of hands when it came to the five senses.

  And... that made me wonder what Caleb’s mouth could taste like.

  “Silly slayer!” Inga hissed. “Don’t you see? This is the solution! That babe has the power to kill the Ravens. All I need to do is present it to Vlad, and finally, your kind will be saved.”

  “We are not sacrificing a baby!” Caleb snapped. “Back down or else.”

  Inga crossed her arms. “Are you going to kill me, Caleb? You couldn’t do it when I found you, and you’re even more compromised now. Now, hand over the baby. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

  “Hurt anyone?” I’d never heard Geri’s voice so worn, so broken, not even when we left Istanbul. “You killed Alex!”

  My racing pulse went still as I sucked up all the air in the room.

  And surprisingly, that’s what drew the vampire’s attention.

  Inga spun. “Why, hello, Amy.”

  Caleb looked past the vampire. “I told you to wait in the car.”

  “Alex is dead?” No, that couldn’t be possible. She’d just given birth. She’d just gotten free, god damn it, all to die here, in the middle of the Black-Fucking-Forest? “How? When?”

  I closed my eyes against the sting of tears, but in doing so, also closed them against the signs of danger. I flew forward. When I opened my eyes, I was five feet farther into the room then I’d been before, and Inga had me trapped, one of her blood-red fingernails at my throat.

  And that’s when it hit me, I was going to die.

  “Caleb!”

  Caleb? Why the hell, among all the people in this room, was I singling him out.

  “It’s okay, Amy.” He inched forward, but Inga dug her nails deeper into my skin, and then under it. A hot line of blood trickled down my neck, soaking into my shirt after rolling over my collar bone.

  “Careful, Caleb,” Inga warned. “Little Amy is just a huey. I could kill her before you had a chance to blink.”

  The slayer cocked back his weapon. “You do, and I’ll kill you here and now.”

  “Like I said, how? Share a secret, Amy?” The vampire’s lips hovered next to my ear. “I’ve had a theory that this is part of the reason that Caleb is such a manwhore. His solarium has performance issues, so he bangs everything with a pulse to feel like a man.”

  Anger fringed my fear, burning away its fumes. “Probably why you’re so jealous,” I said. “Having no pulse, he never gave you the time of day.”

  The vampire’s chest shook with laugher. “Oh, I do like you. I’d hate to kill you. Geri? Give me the baby, and that doesn’t have to happen.”

  I locked gazes with my best friend, shaking my head. “Don’t you dare, Kline.”

  Geri nodded. “I won’t, Amy. I won’t.”

  The wolf—Was that what Cody Ryland looked like with fur?—chuffed.

  I turned my eyes back to Caleb. “Throw it.”

  His eyes went blank. “But it will kill you.”

  “If you don’t give Inga the baby, she’s going to kill me anyway,” I said. Even if what the vampire said was true and Caleb’s supernatural power had performance issues, it had to hurt like a son of a bitch, right? “Besides, I got nothing to live for. No job, no home, no boyfriend. My father hates me, and my mother thinks I’m the reason he hates her. Saving a baby from a wacko vamp would at least give my death some purpose, even if my life has added up to zero net gain.”

  Said vamp tugged me a step backward. “The girl makes sense, Caleb. Now, hand it over or I’ll take you too, Geri. Your blood could keep me going until Doomsday.”

  Geri got the fire of the gods in her as she put a hand forward and morphed silver into some kind of ball. Because the best kept secret in history is that you can kill a vampire by bowling at it.

  My friend sneered. “To the death, then, Inga.”

  Amy’s death. I mean, that’s what they meant, right, being that I was the hostage du jour? I closed my eyes, trying to buy my sales pitch. I could see my mother weeping her crocodile tears in my mind’s eye, but I could also see Geri, actually crying.

  Fine, I’d die. At least I’d be the hottest corpse ever.

  The grip around me loosened and the floor smacked my ass suddenly. A moment later, I found myself sitting in a puddle of something dark and crimson. A thud next to me drew my attention. Turning my head, I found a body without its own.

  Pietro Kline stepped away from the non-human shields that had gathered around the baby. “Gracias, Dio.”

  Was he smiling? Grimacing? Having gas? Any of those was poss
ible based solely on the half-grinning, half-kidney-stone-passing expression he wore.

  I followed Pietro’s gaze, swiveling, my arm losing its grip from the slick sheen of blood pooling out over the floor. What I saw didn’t makes sense. A red hood, brown hair pulled into sober braids that twisted like a crown around her head, and a silver sword dripping red.

  An actual, fucking sword. In the post-op recovery room.

  At the end of the woman’s arm, the head of Inga Rosethorn, frozen mid-bitch. She (the sword-wielding badass, not the decapitated vampire) looked down on me, both literally and, I felt in my huey, huey soul, figuratively, and asked, “And who in the hell are you?”

  SEVENTEEN

  GERI

  I stepped past my father and fixed my mother with the most acidic glare I could manage. “Her name is Amy Popowitz, and she’s my friend.”

  My mother ground her teeth. “Markus, explain.”

  Markus cleared his throat, even as he pulled his silver away from the twin daggers he’d fashioned in the heat of battle. “Her name is Amy and she’s—”

  “Amy Popowitz!” I intervened. “As I just said.” If Brünhild thought she was going to pretend I didn’t exist after what she’d just done, she had another thing coming. “And she doesn’t have to explain herself here, you do.”

  But one didn’t get to be Grand Matron by being easily emotionally manipulated. Ignore me she had decided to do, and ignore me she would. “Markus, please help Miss Popowitz to her feet and take her to the bathroom to wash off. Quickly. Sunrise is eleven minutes out, and you need to be on the road in six.”

  Friend though he may be, my cousin was still a righteous hood, and fell right back into being the perfect little solider when the Red Matron snapped her fingers. He hoisted Amy to her feet, even as her left and right legs attempted to swap sockets. “Whatever you do, don’t get any of it in your mouth. Inga was a Dracule. Very potent maker bloodline. Even a few drops could start the process.”