by Skye Knizley
“Let me go ask,” Raven said. “You stay here.”
Levac pulled himself to his feet. “Why? I’ll be fine.”
Raven drew her pistol and turned to follow Williams. “Damage control. Don’t let anyone leave.”
“You always get to have all the fun,” Raven heard him say.
She stepped out into the cold. By the looks of things, Williams hadn’t exactly vanished into the crowd. A man sat on his butt in the middle of the street, staring after the tail-lights of a speeding Range Rover. Raven pulled him out of the street then turned to the black and silver 1967 Shelby Mustang parked across the street. She slid behind the wheel and the 428 engine roared to life. A moment later she was racing after Williams, plumes of slush spraying from the car’s wheels.
The fleeing Range Rover wasn’t hard to spot. Williams was weaving through evening traffic leaving spin outs and crashes in his wake. Raven followed, the modified Shelby responding easily under her hands. They skidded through a six lane intersection and accelerated onto North Lake Shore heading south. Moments later they were joined by four police cars, each racing to be first.
“Back off!” Raven growled into her radio. “This guy is mine!”
“Step back, Storm,” Lieutenant Christian Frost replied. “Let the black and whites bring him in, they know how to stop a fleeing suspect!”
“Like hell, Chris,” Raven replied. “Rupe and I have been after this psycho for months. Tell these guys to back away. Williams is crazy, even I don’t know what he’s going to do!”
It was too late. One of the patrol cars had raced past her and was now side by side with Williams’ stolen Range Rover and Raven heard the officer on the loudspeaker ordering Williams to pull over. The Range Rover swerved and crashed into the police car not once, but three times, showering both vehicles with sparks and chips of paint. The police car spun on the icy road and came to rest against the guardrail where it was hit by another car. Both tumbled into the river below.
“Dammit, Chris, pull these bozos back, two cars just went into the river!” Raven yelled.
“Fall back, Storm, I have six units in the area! You’re just in the way!”
“Go to hell, lieutenant,” Raven replied.
She pressed the accelerator and the Shelby surged forward, cutting off the next patrol car. She drew her Automag and pulled up beside the Range Rover. The pistol spoke and the Range Rover’s right front tire exploded, spraying ice and rubber across the highway. A beat later the car spun out and rolled, coming to rest in the middle lane where it was just missed by another patrol car.
Raven stopped the Shelby a few car lengths beyond and climbed out, her pistol leveled at the figure inside the wrecked SUV.
“Show me your hands, Williams,” she called. “Show me your hands and you might just live through the night.”
She heard a laugh and the passenger door of the Range Rover fell into the street, followed by Williams, his hands spread.
“You got me, Detective,” he said. “I admit, I didn’t think you would shoot at me on a busy highway. I’m a little impressed.”
“I’m not here to impress you, Williams. I’m here to lock your ass up. Put your hands on your head and drop to your knees,” Raven said.
Williams shook his head and his blades slid out of his hands, ichor dripping from the hardened bone. “I don’t think so, Detective. Boo!”
Raven arched an eyebrow. “I’m sorry, am I supposed to be frightened? Bub, I’ve seen things that would make your blades go limp. Put the toys away and drop to your knees.”
Williams chuckled again. “Now I am very impressed, Detective. I heard about you. Chicago’s own badass Harriet Callahan. I didn’t buy it, though. Nice to see I was wrong for a change. If you run away right now I’ll let you live.”
Raven thumbed back the Automag’s hammer. “There must be a hundred reasons why I shouldn’t just blow you away, but right now it’s hard to think of one. Get down on the ground, now!”
Williams shrugged and, in a burst of blinding speed, charged. Raven’s pistol barked again. The heavy thirty caliber carbine round punched through William’s forehead and he tumbled backwards, landing flat on his back.
“Nice shot, Detective,” a patrolman said, stopping next to her.
“Thanks,” Raven replied. “I smell gas, do me a favor and keep the gawkers back in case this car explodes, okay? Way way back.”
The patrolman nodded and started crowd control, moving the crowd away to a safe distance. Raven made sure they were out of earshot then approached Williams’ body. There was surprisingly little blood on the pavement which made Raven pause. She raised her pistol and said, “I know you’re just playing dead, Williams. Get up.”
Williams sighed and sat up, the hole in his forehead almost healed. “You are no fun at all, Detective. You can’t kill me that way. The kid was right, though. It was an excellent shot. You even knocked me out for a second. Care to run away now, little girl?”
Raven ejected her pistol’s magazine and replaced the regular rounds with some of her brother Thad’s special hunting rounds. He called them “the works,” always giving the phrase a Brooklyn accent. Raven had no clue why, but it always made Thad chuckle.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Williams said. “You are very stubborn, human.”
“So my familiar keeps telling me,” Raven replied. “Don’t move.”
Williams rose to his feet and swung his blades around in an arc making them hum in the night air. He ended in a guard position and waved them in a “come get me” gesture.
Raven shook her head and pulled her pistol’s trigger three times in quick succession, each shot a flat crack in the winter air. Two shots penetrated his heart, turning it into so much paste while the third punched through his left eye. Thad’s white oak, holy water, gold, silver and cold-iron bullets tore through him, leaving contrails of blood as they passed through his flesh. Williams blinked at Raven in surprise and looked down at the smoking wounds, his blades slowly retracting into his palms.
“I’ll be damned,” he said.
“Too late,” Raven replied. “You reservation is waiting.”
Williams dropped to the ground, dead. This time permanently.
Raven was still standing over him when Lieutenant Christian Frost stepped up behind her, his grey coat flapping behind him.
“I ordered you to stand down, Storm,” he said.
“Yeah. And I told you to go to hell,” Raven replied. “You got two officers killed, tonight. You know better than to let rookies play in my sandbox.”
“It isn’t your call, Storm,” Frost said. “This isn’t a one woman department. You needed backup and I sent it. We have procedures to follow, Detective.”
“I have backup,” Raven snarled. “Rupert is the only one who has ever survived dipping a toe into the cases I handle and he’s all the backup I will ever need.”
“And where is Detective Levac? Left him behind again, did you? I don’t call that backup.”
“He was handling crowd control and doing his job, Chris,” Raven said.
“Maybe if you were doing your job I wouldn’t have a mess on the highway,” Frost said. “I have two families to deal with.”
“Your fault, lieutenant, not mine,” Raven said. “I’m sorry it happened, more than you can know, but if you’d had them back off they might still be alive. My case, my rules.”
She started toward the waiting Shelby, hoping the argument was over. People were dead and she couldn’t do a damn thing about it. That always left her in a rotten mood.
“Your father did things his own way, too,” Frost called. “It’s why he’s dead. If he’d done what I said, he might have seen you graduate high school.”
Raven stopped walking and felt her vampiric blood go cold. She wanted nothing more than to pull Frost’s head off and take it bowling. Instead, she looked over her shoulder.
“That might be so, Chris,” she said. “But I doubt it. You and I both know how strange the
weird cases can get, and how dangerous they are. You chose to stay out of his way then and not get hurt. I suggest you stay out of mine now.”
“Are you threatening me, Detective?” Frost asked.
“Just reminding you of your limitations, lieutenant.”
Two hours later found her at the apartment she’d rented a few months previously. She still maintained a room at her family estate outside Chicago, but with her sister Pandora taking over some of her duties it was no longer necessary to stay there all the time. When the opportunity for her own place had arisen, Raven had jumped on the State Street apartment. The two bedroom suite with hardwood floors, massive master bathroom and a closet big enough to hold all her shoes had become the perfect home away from home and her trust fund paid the ridiculous rent without even a whimper. Her mother had complained a little, but Raven had convinced her that having her own apartment was best for everyone.
Now, as the clock ticked toward nine, Raven was lounging on her new grey sofa. She’d never had a sofa not covered in some kind of animal hide and she enjoyed the sensation of smooth, warm cloth against her skin. A plate of cheese crackers and a glass of wine sat on the table beside her and she stared at the white paneled ceiling, her thoughts on her father who had been killed when she was in high school.
She knew he’d been a cop, a good one. He’d handled a lot of the weirdest cases and, knowing what she did now, he was either excellent or lucky to have stayed alive as long as he had. But what if Frost was right? What if he had died because he’d made a mistake?
Raven shook her head. Dad had been a lot of things, some of them not very nice, but he had been good at his job. If someone made a mistake that got him killed, it hadn’t been him.
She was still staring at the ceiling when the doorbell rang. She rose and padded in bare feet to the door, expecting Levac to be there with donuts and decaf.
“Right on ti—” she started as the door opened.
“Good evening, Ravenel,” Francois Du Guerre said.
Fuck, Raven thought.
TEMPESTE MANOR, CHICAGO
SPRING 1984
MASON STORM’S SILVER AND BLACK Shelby Mustang rumbled down the driveway of Tempeste Manor, the engine’s roar muted in the vine-covered courtyard. The mansion belonged to his wife and though he had lived there for the last nine months he still didn’t consider it home. More often than not he and Tina retired to his small apartment downtown when they wanted to be alone. It wasn’t much, just what he could afford on a cop’s salary, but it was far cozier than the huge gothic mansion on the outskirts of the city.
He parked the Shelby in front of the house and hurried up the steps. The house’s daytime butler, Liam was waiting and he ushered Storm through the foyer and into the main living room. Storm could hear Tina screaming from the nursery they had set up and he ran toward the door, where he was stopped by Tina’s familiar, Dominique.
“I’m sorry, Mace,” she said, blocking his path. “It is best if you don’t enter.”
Mason glared at the willowy blonde woman. “What’s going on? Are Tina and the baby okay?”
Dominique looked away. “There is some trouble with the delivery. Dhampyr’s are always difficult, at best.”
“Define difficult,” Storm growled.
“Mother is having trouble giving birth to your pathetic human seed,” a voice said. “With any luck it will kill them both.”
Storm turned to find a pale, white-haired vampire dressed in black leather standing across the hall, a smug smile on his face.
“Xavier. Isn’t it past your bedtime?” Storm asked. “You’re usually neck deep in a pool of rats by now, aren’t you?”
“Hello, daddy,” Xavier replied. “I was just going that way when I heard mummy’s caterwauls and thought I should look in on her.”
“I’m sure she appreciates you going somewhere else,” Storm said. “Now.”
Xavier moved. One moment he was on the far side of the hall, next he was in front of Storm with an Automag partway up his nose.
“Nice try, kid,” Storm said. “You take one more step and Liam will be scraping you into the fireplace. Are we clear?”
Xavier glared at Storm, but nodded just enough. Storm pulled back, but kept his pistol aimed at Xavier’s head.
“Get out of here,” he said. “If I see you again there won’t be enough left of you to fill a baby food jar.”
“As you wish, daddy,” Xavier said.
Storm kept his pistol aimed at the skinny vampire until he was out of sight, then turned his attention back to Dominique.
“My apologies,” she said. “Xavier—”
“—Is a hotheaded little shit,” Storm finished. “Can I see Tina, please?”
Dominique paused and the door opened behind her. A tall blonde vampire stood in the gap, a smile on his too-pretty face and blood on his arms. What was his name? Something French.
“All is well,” the vampire said. “You may enter, Mr. Storm, and witness your newborn daughter.”
Storm pushed passed him and hurried toward the bed. Storm had done his best to ensure that the nursery didn’t look like something out of Grimm’s Fairytales, but the huge Gothic bed covered in satin sheets, chest of drawers and three hundred-year-old crib were trappings even he couldn’t keep at bay.
Lady Valentina lay in the bed, her dark hair spilling around her like a sweaty curtain. She was exhausted, but still radiant, the newborn held in her arms. She smiled at Mason and held the baby close. Mason sat next to her and stroked the baby’s head. She had the greenest eyes he had ever seen.
“She’s beautiful, Tina,” he said.
Valentina smiled. “She looks like her father.”
“She looks like her mother,” Storm said. “Look at those eyes. We never agreed on a name for a girl, any ideas?”
Valentina looked at the baby in her arms. “Ravenel,” she said. “Ravenel Erszebet Storm.”
“Ravenel Erszebet?” Mason asked. “Hell of a name for a kid to live up to.”
“No worse than Mason Beowulf,” Valentina said with a gentle smile.
“Ravenel… Raven,” Storm said. “I like it.”
Valentina smiled and Mason kissed her. He couldn’t help it.
1401 SOUTH STATE STREET, CHICAGO
PRESENT DAY
RAVEN GLARED AT FRANCOIS AND felt her palm itch for the comforting weight of her pistol. “What are you doing here, Du Guerre?”
“May I come in, Ravenel?” Du Guerre asked.
Raven sighed and held the door open wider. Du Guerre passed through and looked around the apartment appreciatively. “Pretty, Ravenel. Not to my taste, but it suits you, shows your softer side.”
Raven closed the door and shot the bolt before turning back to Du Guerre.
“Whatever, Francois. I needed some space away from Court and I like having modern air-conditioning. Now what do you want?”
Du Guerre smiled. “Just to talk, Ravenel.”
“You’re a bloodsucking mosquito two seconds from being shot, what else is there to talk about?”
“You know, Ravenel. It has been two years, can you not forgive me?” Du Guerre asked.
Raven folded her arms. “You mean for drugging me and handing me over to be bled dry? You think that is something that can just be forgiven, like taking the last Dorito?”
“I did not intend that you would be harmed, Ravenel. I had a plan in motion to protect you. You saved yourself before my people could act,” Du Guerre said.
“Francois, if they had waited any longer I’d have been dead and the city would be crawling with Raven Wannabes on Strohm’s leash,” Raven replied. “Continental drift moves fast. Or were they waiting for me to die and just call it an accident?”
Du Guerre sighed and leaned against the wall. “Of course not, Ravenel. Things were…complicated and I have apologized. Can we not get beyond this?”
“I don’t trust you, Francois.” Raven said. “And I never will. You tried to kill me, be grateful I’m n
ot returning the favor.”
“Ravenel…”
Raven opened the door and held it open with her foot. “Get out before I throw you out.”
Du Guerre spread his arms in surrender and went out the door. “Sooner or later we must talk, Raven. There are things—”
“Not in this lifetime,” Raven said. “Go away and forget this address. I swear if you show up here again, you’re going back to France in a jar.”
She kicked the door closed and turned away, running her hands through her long red hair. That was all she needed. A pissed off boss, a report she didn’t want to write and now Du Guerre.
She scooped up her wine glass and turned toward the kitchen. She was debating if she should have another glass or just go to bed when her phone started ringing. She knew from the tone it was Frost.
She answered on the third bar of Who Can It Be Now. “Hey, Chris.”
“Storm. Did I catch you on your way to bed?” Frost asked.
“Just finishing a snack, what’s up?”
“I’ve got a new case for you and Levac,” Frost replied. “Meet Aspen Kincaid on North La Salle, Old Town. I’ll have Levac catch up with you. It’s a weird one.”
Frost ended the call and Raven glared at the phone. “Always a pleasure, Chris.”
RAVEN HAD CHANGED INTO BLACK jeans, a green tee shirt paired with comfortable black boots that rose to her knee and hid the silvered fighting knives her mother had given her last Christmas. Her Automag hung comfortably under her left arm, concealed by a leather biker jacket that once belonged to her father and still smelled like Old Spice aftershave.
She arrived at the corner of La Salle and W. North just after eleven. Three squad cars and the white CSU van were parked in a semi-circle around a triangle of yellow crime scene tape outside the Old Town Bank and Trust and Raven could see Aspen’s purple hair bent over a figure sprawled in the culvert. She left the Shelby next to one of the cruisers and climbed out to join the patrolmen guarding the line.