“You should join me here, Deacon.” Thick hair swayed as she motioned with her head. “Come closer so that I may know you better.”
My head shook from side to side. “No way in hell am I coming up there with things the way they are.” I pointed at the man who still had his hand down Larson’s mother’s shirt. “Tell your boy there to back off.”
Amusement crossed her eyes. Leaning back and thrusting her hips forward, she said, “Do you not find me glorious? Surely you are drawn to me.”
This was a prickly situation. She was an ancient, powerful vampire. My experience seems to be that the older a vampire gets, the more unhinged they are. Appollonia was obviously used to men, and probably women, slavishly lusting after her. I could see it. She was powerful, beautiful, and glorious, to use her word; but I knew the truth behind the lie. She was a blood-sucking, homicidal beast, regardless of what package she was in. Like most situations that called for diplomacy, I chose to go with the truth.
“Don’t get me wrong, you’re hot, but the blood thing is a little much. I know it works for you vampires, but not so much for the rest of us non-blood drinkers. Gross is not sexy.”
For the first time since she first turned around, Appollonia let her gaze move from me to something else. She examined her arms and torso. From an unspoken command, two Were-spiders dropped from the ceiling to stand behind her. They had a robe made of a thick, silky material, spiderwebs, that they put over her shoulders. As they stepped back, she shook out her long mane of midnight hair. Thousands of tiny black specks moved from her hair and the robe to crawl over her body. It took only a moment, but the tiny spiders cleaned her of the blood and then retreated back to the robe and her hair. She handed the cat-o’-nine-tails to one of the Were-spiders but held on to the lance.
“Is that more to your liking, Deacon Chalk?”
“Sure.” I shrugged. “But I am still not coming up on that stage until we get some things worked out first.” I stepped up to the edge of the stage, just below where she stood. The robe of webs hung loosely from her shoulders, framing her naked body more than covering it. “If you want me, then you need to allow all the humans here to leave with no further harm.”
Larson’s mother and sister shrieked as the man with them stepped forward. He now had both of them by the hair and was dragging them with him. Muscles stood out with tension as he dragged them across the carpet. Rug burn blossomed ugly on their knees as they struggled. The fighting ended as he shook them violently, still using their hair to control them. They both slumped in his grip, whimpering and crying. His face was a contorted mask of rage.
“You do as you are told or these two will pay the price for your insolence!” Muscle corded in his arms as he shook both women again. Tears were streaming from their eyes and they howled in pain. It took both hands to hold Larson in place next to me. I didn’t even look at the man, my eyes stayed pinned to Appollonia. She was the power. He was her renfield. He would do what she said. Throat tight with the strain of control, my voice sounded calm when I addressed her.
“Appollonia, you tell your slave there to let them go. If he does one more thing to hurt them, I am going to break every bone in his arms. I will leave him crippled and useless.” Threats are better if you are specific with them. Pointing at the man, I said, “If you don’t rein him in, I will. I don’t respond well to threats. They never make me do what the person wants and only piss me off.”
Appollonia looked at me with heavy lids. She simply stepped back and gestured toward the man. It was an invitation to rein him in myself. Good, I was feeling like hitting somebody right then.
One quick hop put me up on the platform. Once I was on the stage, I kept moving, striding to the man. I could feel the smile on my face. A sharp shove pushed Larson’s mother and sister away from him. They scrambled away, off the stage and into Larson’s arms.
The man flashed teeth, his smile matching mine. A big hand moved to the hilt of the dagger on his hip. Slowly, he drew it out and flipped it into an upside-down position.
A knife fighter’s position.
Great.
Not only did he have a weapon, but it looked like he knew what to do with it. In a knife fight, you are going to get cut, especially if you don’t have a knife. I had one still in my boot, but I would be stabbed before I got it out. I looked around for something to pick up as I kept moving forward. Appollonia’s voice called over my shoulder, power pulsing in every word.
“Matthias, I want him alive. Drop your knife. You will fight skin-to-skin.”
I saw the anger flash in his eyes, burning like a brush fire. His hand unfurled around the knife and it fell away to the stage. My smile widened, becoming even more sadistic. Now we would see how things went.
Matthias lifted his hands up, holding them loosely like a boxer. We circled a step or two around each other. In a one-on-one fight, if you don’t get the drop on someone, it’s always risky to make the first move. You have to open your defense to strike and you don’t know how good the other guy is.
This is why in a lot of fights you have name-calling. You are trying to goad the other guy into breaking defensive posture and making the first move. This is why there is a saying that if two masters ever fight, there is no fight, because neither would make the first move.
I was not going to dance with Matthias, so I just stopped moving. I stood with my arms to my side and my feet planted. It was something I learned in Kenpo. You never know when someone is going to jump you, so you learn to defend from natural positions. When I would compete in tournaments I found that standing still and not in a fighter’s stance drove my opponent to make the first move. I don’t know why, but it seemed to infuriate them, like I wasn’t taking their threat seriously. Later, as a bouncer, I found that it worked in the real world too.
Matthias was already pissed. Appollonia had made him drop his knife when he did not want to. So my tactic drove him over the edge. Those hands clenched and unclenched, and his face mottled purple with rage. Stepping forward, he threw a big hand toward my face. My elbow came up to block it and his knuckles skimmed across the leather of my coat, not hurting me at all. It was a big punch and could have done serious damage if it landed. But big punches are easy to see. I brought my hand down from blocking his punch to grab his arm.
A sharp pain jabbed into my ribs, shoving my breath out of its way to filling my chest.
He had slipped his other hand inside as I blocked his punch and hit me between my ribs and hip. His fingers felt like steel rods driving into my spleen. My diaphragm spasmed like an epileptic in a disco. Our faces were close and I saw smug satisfaction in his smile. He knew he had hurt me. And it did hurt. Like a charley horse in my diaphragm, it doubled me over and made me stumble backward a step.
As I moved back, my foot kicked out. A short, sharp snap, the edge of my boot connecting with his shinbone. It wasn’t flashy, but it was a good solid kick. The satisfaction left his eyes as the pain flared in his leg. Getting kicked in the shin is no joke. Hopefully I broke something.
We both pulled away and I tried to suck air in. I was hurt a lot worse than he was for the moment, but I would get my breath back in a second, that kick was good enough that he would have trouble putting weight on that leg for the duration of the fight.
As the oxygen pulled into my lungs, I felt my brain slip into that animal part that we all have. When you fight, thinking goes out the window and training takes over. That’s why fighters train all the time. You can’t pull it from your bag of tricks if you never put it in there.
It took only a second and my air was back, flowing into my lungs, but I stayed slightly crouched, acting more hurt than I was. He moved toward me and I leaned out. He took the bait and his boot flew in the air toward my ribs. Up came my knee to hit his shin and push the kick away. His shinbone connected solidly with the thick part of my tibia. Another injury to the shin.
With fluid grace he used the momentum of the push to move into a spinning heel kick. This time
his boot flew to my head. Standing tall, I threw my arm over his leg, using my coat to capture it and absorb the blow. I clamped my arm down and held his leg. My forearm locked around his knee, putting his back to me. His cloak whipped around me and I grabbed a handful of it.
His leg slipped out of my grip as he tucked his head down and rolled toward the floor, but I held on to the cloak. I had that tightly in my fist. Using both hands, I yanked on it, pulling it tight around his neck. He wasn’t a vampire, he needed to breathe. I pulled harder as he scrambled on the floor and almost fell on my ass when the cloak came away in my hands.
The leather it was made of was soft and thin, like lambskin. My mind blinked, stuttering as I understood what it was made of. This was human skin in my hands. Revulsion rose up inside my gut and I threw it as far from me as I could. Matthias slammed into me and pushed me toward the edge of the stage, his shoulder in my stomach. If he drove me off the stage with his weight on top of me, I would be at his mercy.
I did not want to be at his mercy.
My legs shot out from under me as I threw all my weight onto his back. The angle was right and my weight crushed him to the stage. I felt the satisfying crunch of his nose as it broke from the impact of being driven into the stage. Air whooshed from his lungs. Sitting up and leaning back put my ass on his skull, grinding it into the stage even more. My knees went on his arms, pinning him facedown on the stage. I brought both hands down with as much force as I could muster.
My fists battered into his kidneys and lower back with dull thuds. In my head I saw him hurting Larson’s mother and sister. This drove my fists even harder. I felt his lower ribs crack and give, feeling like a broken wicker basket under my hands.
I stopped beating on him.
Matthias moaned under me, a wet, thick sound. My limbs were leaden even though so much adrenaline coursed through my bloodstream I had the shakes. Crawling off his back, I rolled him over. It felt as if he weighed a thousand pounds. His arms fell akimbo limply.
That handsome angular face was a red mess. Blood and mucus poured from his flattened nose, running over upper teeth that were ruined and broken. He would never be pretty again. Getting to my feet, I stood looking down at him.
I stared at the man who had hurt Larson’s mother and sister. God only knew what he had done while Appollonia slept. He wasn’t a vampire and would not have needed to sleep during daylight. The cloak of human skin I had pulled off his shoulders rolled through my mind. This was one evil bastard. Evil in his own right, no matter how human he might be, he was a monster.
Putting my boot on his upper arm, I stepped down, applying my weight. The crack of the bone sang out in the silent sanctuary. Only Larson’s mother had a reaction, she hid her face in her son’s coat. His sister stabbed eyes of hate at the man under my foot. For her, what I was doing was personal, but for me, there was no sense of satisfaction or revenge in that break. It was business.
I had a threat to back up.
He had been warned to stop hurting Larson’s family and he had chosen to push that one last inch. Plus, in a roomful of monsters, I had to back up my threat if I wanted any chance of getting the humans out alive. After stepping on the other arm, I knelt down and took his wrist in one hand. It was thick and warm. My other hand clamped down on Matthias’s elbow. Pain flared in my side from the fight as I twisted my hands in opposite directions.
The spiral fracture of his forearm sounded like fiberglass twisting together. It took a few minutes, but I finished on Matthias’s arms and stood again. His arms lay to his sides like mangled chicken wings. He had been out the whole time, but now he would never harm anyone again.
Ever.
My adrenaline rush was gone. In its place was the ache in my side from where Matthias had gotten me. Weariness settled in and I was sweating lightly all over. Turning back to Appollonia, I wiped my head. Moisture covered my palm. Flicking it away, I dried my hand on my shirt.
Imperiously, Appollonia pointed at Matthias’s mangled body and then waved her hand away in dismissal. Two Were-spiders crawled down from the rafters. They were mostly changed and had an upper body that was a half-human, half-spider hybrid, but from the waist down they were gigantic spider bodies, complete with long, furry legs and a bulbous abdomen. Quickly they scooped him up and scurried away.
Appollonia’s voice was a purr, rolling from deep in her chest. “That was most”—a blood-red tongue slithered over her lips—“impressive.” Dainty hands skimmed along Appollonia’s body. Taloned fingers caressed her breasts and dipped between her thighs. The heat in her eyes now blazed in an inferno.
There are women in the world for whom violence just works. Firestarters, usually they have a boyfriend or a husband they are constantly cheating on just to get him to fight over her. Apparently Appollonia was one of those women before she died. Now after the fight with her renfield, she was acting like a bitch in heat. Maybe her whipping of the man earlier had warmed her up, like foreplay. Just my luck to be the object of affection for an insanely powerful, sadistic, vampire hell-bitch.
I sighed wearily. I couldn’t help it. “Glad you liked the show. Now tell me what I have to do to get the humans safe.”
Hips swaying, panther grace stalking, she moved toward me. Stopping about a foot away, she ran her free hand through her hair, dislodging tiny spiders, and waved the lance in front of me, indicating my crotch. “We can talk after you have shown me your magnificence.”
I firmly shook my head on her implication. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but no deal, lady; if you want a peep show, then you have to cut the humans loose.”
Her head tilted back and she looked up at me with her big golden brown eyes. They were like pools of dark honey. Thick lashes fluttered up and down in a long, slow blink. “But, Deacon, I am not threatening, I am requesting. I am interested in seeing your flesh naked.” The look she gave was meant to be seductive, but a lion does not seduce a gazelle. “If you are not going to cooperate, then I will not either. Look at my people.” Gesturing with the lance, she indicated the sanctuary full of vampires who were still watching us with serene expressions, still as statues. “If we cannot come to an agreement, then I will turn your friends over to them. It is only my will that keeps them in check. You know very well what we are like.”
It wasn’t an outright threat, it was the implication. If that many vampires fell on us, then we would all be torn limb from limb. They would fight over us so much that they would not drink our blood from our veins, they would lick it from our shredded bodies. They were so still it was easy to forget they were even there, but that would be a very bad thing to do.
Terminally bad, dammit.
I shrugged out of my coat, controlling it to the floor so it would not thud against the wood. My fingers were slow as they undid my shoulder harness and the buttons on my shirt. I let both fall to the stage and stood shirtless before Appollonia. No way in hell was I taking my pants off for her. Besides, I had lost two surprises in my coat, taking off my pants meant I would lose the only weapon I had left, which was the knife in my boot.
Facing her, I watched her expression. Appollonia’s mouth was open, dainty fangs glistening in the low light of the sanctuary. If she had needed breath, it looked like she would have been holding it. I have undressed in front of women who were attracted to me before. It was always the same the first time if they had never seen someone with as many tattoos as I have before. Appollonia’s face was slack with lust. Her mouth soft and open with want.
My arms are sleeved with tattoos from the knuckles of my fingers all the way up and spilling across my chest and shoulders. Ink covers all the skin on my arms and on my chest from the bottom of my sternum to my jawline. Black letters cross the top of my stomach. My tattoos are a combination of styles and colors that flow across my skin. Combine the tattoos with my sheer size and it’s actually very impressive to see it all when I take off my shirt.
Appollonia stepped forward, reaching for me. My hand went up, stopping he
r in her tracks. “We had a deal. Humans safe, then we can talk.”
The smile that slid over her face was very human-like. “I would not be satisfied with merely talking, Deacon.”
Now was the time for negotiations. Careful negotiations to get the others safely out of the way. Vampires are strange creatures. Evil to the core, but occasionally you could negotiate with them. Phrase things correctly and their vampiric nature had to stick to their word. It’s similar to the demon thing. It’s all about the deal. You cannot reason with a vampire or a demon, but you can deal with them sometimes.
“I want the humans safe.”
“You have my word.”
I shook my head. “Not good enough. You cannot promise their safety while they are here in harm’s way.”
Her chest thrust out, spiderweb robe slipping to the side and revealing full breasts. Rouge red nipples stood out hard, like pencil erasers. The lance swung as she gestured. “My will is law. They are safe as long as I will it to be so.”
“I want them physically away from these vampires. Outside in the open air, free to walk away from this place unharmed.”
Her eyebrow arched. “And what would I get if they were to be taken from harm’s way?”
Here we go. “What do you want?”
Her tongue slid across her lips, leaving a glossy trail of moisture behind. “I want to touch you. To run my hands over your skin.” Her voice was breathy, thick with lust. “I want to explore you.”
Careful. Careful.
I looked over to Larson. He had his arms around his mother and sister, hiding them in his coat as much as he could. His eyes were pinned on me. I don’t know if he knew how deep in the hole we were, but those eyes were looking to me to dig us out.
Both his mother and sister peered out from under his embrace. Their faces were puffy and red, tears streaking down their cheeks. They were frightened. The sister was scared, her lips trembled and she stared at me and the vampire on the stage. Larson’s mother was so frightened she was almost crazed. White showed all around her eyes and they darted wild like caged animals. She was so terrified she was almost broken.
Blood and Bullets Page 17