“He’s alive,” Sawyer called to us. “Just knocked out, I think.”
“Can vampires do that?” Hardin whispered to me. “Just knock someone out?”
I didn’t answer because I saw a flicker of something dodging from one shadow to the next. “Sawyer, behind you!”
He whirled, saw the figure who had appeared instantly and silently behind him. The assailant, a pale man dressed simply in dark slacks and a shirt, raised his arm in preparation of delivering a blow. Sawyer reacted instinctively, driven by panic, bringing his gun to bear and firing. Trigger-happy bugger, wasn’t he?
Caught in the chest by the shot, the vampire staggered back a step. But he didn’t fall. I didn’t smell blood. He didn’t react again, except to square his shoulders and focus his gaze on Sawyer. He closed the distance between them in a second. He was a flash of movement.
“Shit,” Sawyer murmured as the vampire drew back his fist and finished the interrupted strike. He backhanded Sawyer with little effort. The vampire barely moved. I wouldn’t have guessed the force of it would be enough to bruise him, but Sawyer left the ground entirely and crunched on the asphalt a few feet away.
After a heart-wrenching moment, Sawyer moved. Not quickly, but he moved. He started to push himself up with his arms, but only managed to roll himself onto his back. He lay there, gasping.
“You are under arrest!” Hardin screamed at the vampire. She aimed her gun at him, no matter how little good it would do.
“Hardin, use your crossbow,” I muttered. In response, she fumbled between the weapons. I approached the vampire cautiously, cross raised, like I could coax him away from the fallen man.
The vampire looked at us and smiled. Then, he ignored us and continued after Sawyer.
Hardin’s belt radio cackled to life, but the voice speaking through it was muffled. It sounded like one of the other cops who’d come with Hardin. Shots fired at the front of the building. She muttered an expletive, but didn’t otherwise respond. We couldn’t do anything about it right now.
Two more vampires ran at us from the side of the building. Both youngish, one dark-haired, one tall and blond. With a gasp and an unhealthy dose of fatalism, I cut to intercept them, holding the cross like a shield.
Sawyer was moving, trying to sit up. He didn’t see the threat behind him. Hardin fired her crossbow. The vampire flinched, brushing at his arm. The bolt fell; it hadn’t stuck.
Hardin cursed and grabbed at her belt for the pouch that held more bolts.
I put myself between the newcomers and Hardin, misting the air around me with holy water. That slowed them. It kept them from doing that thing where they moved too quickly to track. But it wouldn’t last. I fumbled for the stakes Ben had stashed in the backpack.
When the blond one swatted at me, I let loose another volley from the spray bottle. Water squirted out and caught his hand. He rubbed it absently, not at all incapacitated. It might as well have been a swarm of gnats. Then he backhanded me out of the way. I didn’t even see him coming. I was sure I’d been out of range. I was standing, then the next moment I was facedown on the asphalt, spitting out grit. The stakes spilled out of the backpack.
In front of me, the first vampire stepped on Sawyer’s chest, shoving him to the ground, then twisted his head. It was an inhuman move, requiring inhuman strength. And inhuman sensibilities. I heard the crack. Saw Sawyer’s head flop back down, unsupported. Heard the beat of his heart go out. The vampire dropped Sawyer to the pavement.
“No!” Hardin screamed, then fired her crossbow again. And again. A bolt struck the vampire’s shoulder, another his thigh.
She didn’t see the vampire standing behind her.
The blond one was standing over me.
I grabbed a stake and slammed it into his foot. Sharpened hardwood, it went right through that shiny leather shoe. Snarling, he pulled his foot away and kicked, but I had a little superhuman speed of my own, and I was ready for him. I rolled, another stake in hand. Angry now, he rushed me. I let him. I ducked. Bracing my arms, I held the stake up and prayed.
I felt his chest give out on top of me. Then, his weight shoved me to the ground, pinning me. He was a newer vampire—mere decades old. He didn’t turn to ash, a hundred years of decomposition catching up to him. When I shoved him away and looked, he was desiccated—gray flesh, sunken cheeks, hollow body. His clothes hung on him in tatters, and the stake remained poking out between ribs. His clouded eyes stared at me.
Swallowing back a scream, I looked away.
The second vampire had closed Hardin in an embrace from behind and touched her neck with his lips. A wicked smile on his lips, the first one launched himself into a run toward her. Even restrained, she still held the crossbow and managed to get one more shot off. This one landed true and buried itself in his chest, in his heart.
He halted sharply and touched his shirt, picking at it, like he was trying to pull it out. Snarling, he looked at Hardin, stepped forward like he might attack. Then he started disintegrating, before he even fell over. Bit by bit, he turned to the ash of the grave. He fell to his knees, then his knees weren’t there anymore. He never took his rabid gaze off Hardin, until he was lying flat on the pavement, and his face itself disappeared into dust. Nothing left but ash.
Giving a shout, Hardin struggled, trying to twist out of the second vampire’s grip, but his hold was too strong. Blood trickled from his mouth, down her neck.
I moved as fast as I could, which turned out to be pretty fast, and grabbed two stakes, just to be sure. Putting all my speed behind the blow, I crunched both stakes into his back.
He dropped Hardin, who stumbled away. Arcing his back, he fell to his knees. Didn’t make a sound. Like the blond one, he was new. He didn’t turn to ash, instead becoming a corpse before our eyes. Flesh and clothing dissolved, hanging on bleached bones. He smelled like mold.
“Jesus Christ!” Hardin pressed a hand to her neck and stared at her attacker. “Am I— Oh, God, am I going to turn into one of those?” She looked at the blood on her hands.
“No,” I said, panting. “They have to drain you. If they only take a little you’re okay.”
She didn’t look okay. Panic burned in her eyes and she was almost hyperventilating.
“Detective,” I said, catching her attention. “Breathe.”
She nodded quickly and took a deep breath. That slowed her down. She found a handkerchief in a pocket and held it to the wound on her neck.
I knew, but I had to do it anyway. I touched Sawyer’s neck, feeling for a pulse that wasn’t there. His neck was twisted at a strange angle, and his eyes were open, staring. He didn’t deserve this.
“Sawyer?” Hardin called. I shook my head.
I looked for the others I knew must be out there. And there she was: a pale, svelte woman at the top of the stairs, blocking our way down. She had white hair and an icy expression.
“Stella,” I murmured. “What’s the deal? Where’s Rick? Where’s Ben? They’re supposed to be here.”
“None of you are supposed to be here.” She stalked toward me.
“Detective?” I murmured.
“Out of ammo,” she said as she went to retrieve the bolts she’d already fired.
Great. I’d dropped the cross to do the stake thing. I didn’t think I could stake her by surprise—she was ready for me. I quickly retrieved what I could, shoving everything back in the pack. The spray bottle still had some holy water in it.
I met Stella face-to-face. Or as face-to-face as possible, considering how tall she was.
“Just a hint,” I said, letting my mouth do what it did best—run away with me. “Did you get Rick? At least tell me whether or not you killed him. I’m sure you’d love to tell me how completely we screwed up.” But she didn’t tell me that we screwed up. She didn’t tell me where Rick was. Maybe because she didn’t know.
I hadn’t noticed any other evidence of dead vampires apart from what we’d just made. I was willing to hope Arturo’s gang hadn
’t killed Rick before he got inside. He’d evaded them. This wasn’t over. I let her come closer. Let her think she didn’t have to work for this one.
“Come on, you can tell me. I’ll beg for it, will that make you happy? What’s going on? Is Arturo here? Is Rick?” And Ben, where was Ben, goddammit?
“Oh, you haven’t completely screwed up,” she said, wearing a pained smile. “You’re in the process of completely screwing up.”
She was within arm’s reach and still talking when I let loose with the spray bottle.
The mist caught her in her pretty marble face. She hesitated, blinking, confused, like she didn’t know what had just happened. A rash broke out, red spots appearing on her mouth and cheeks and radiating outward. Then, she sneezed, then started coughing. Her eyes widened in shock, and she clutched her throat.
Vampires only draw air in order to speak. I’d certainly never heard one sneeze. But she’d been opening her mouth to say something, had just happened to draw a breath, and thereby inhaled a fine mist of holy water, which had gotten into her nose, sinuses, and throat. From what I’d observed, holy water had a similar effect on vampires that silver had on lycanthropes—it produced an allergic reaction on the skin, rashes, hives, that sort of thing.
I tried to imagine breaking out in hives in my sinuses and down my throat. And I thought, Oh, yuck.
She didn’t stop coughing. She dropped to her knees, and the rash erupting over her face turned fiery.
By that time, Hardin had returned, her newly loaded crossbow trained on the incapacitated vampire.
“She out of commission?” Hardin asked. I nodded quickly. Stella didn’t seem concerned with much of anything at the moment but her own discomfort.
The radio at Hardin’s belt was calling again. She ran for the front of the building, and I chased after her.
“Lopez, talk to me!” Hardin called.
Sneaking a look around the corner, I could see the two officers, back to back, weapons out—one had a gun, the other a crossbow. Both of them looked wild-eyed and on the verge of panic, waiting for an imminent attack.
“I don’t know!” Lopez, the one with the gun, called back. “There were three—”
“—four,” the other cop said. “Four of them.”
“I don’t know, three or four of them, I thought we were finished. But they just disappeared.”
I still hated when vampires did that. Reflexively, I looked behind, up, all around, waiting for another shadow to move and strike.
“They won’t have gone far,” Hardin said. “Keep watching.”
Again, I turned my nose to the air. I had other ways of watching. They were here. I could smell them, even differentiate individuals. They had different flavors to their scents, but I couldn’t quite identify them. Part of it was the nature of the place—it all belonged to vampires. We could get rid of them all, bulldoze the building and plant a garden, and some of that undeadness would still linger.
We stayed like that, stalled in place, waiting for shadows to strike.
Finally, Hardin said, “Well? We scare them off or what?” She smelled of nervous sweat, but her manner was calm. Lopez and his partner didn’t believe it—they remained back-to-back, tense and ready.
I wasn’t willing to make any guesses. The street was quiet. Nothing could possibly happen on a street this quiet.
“I’m going to go back to check on Kramer,” Hardin said. “Call me—”
Lopez fired another shot.
“Would you stop doing that!” And there was Charlie, yelling at the officer and rubbing at a smoking bullet hole in his T-shirt. He came around the corner and dropped a body—vampiric, male, built like a fighter—in front of us. He looked me up and down. “What are you doing here?”
Hardin’s cops trailed after him, still tense to the point of quivering.
“Where’s Rick?” I shot back. “Where’s Ben? Ben was coming to help but I don’t see his car—”
“Rick’s downstairs. I need your help, Violet’s hurt.”
“Wait a minute, is this another vampire or what?” Hardin said.
“He’s one of the good guys.” I think. “Charlie, Detective Hardin, Detective, Charlie. So is that guy dead or what?” A dead vampire decomposed. This one hadn’t, so what was he, knocked out?
How do you knock out a vampire?
But Charlie didn’t answer. He grabbed my shoulder and pulled me around the opposite corner.
Lopez pleaded with Hardin, “What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know. Follow Kitty’s lead, keep your eyes open.”
Propped against the wall, safe in a shadow, lay Violet. A glistening trail streaked the front of her black shirt—blood, streaming from a gash in her neck. Something had ripped half her throat out—vertebrae were visible. The shredded wound wasn’t bleeding anymore—all the blood had drained out. Lopez turned away, a hand covering his mouth.
Her eyes were closed; she didn’t move. I couldn’t tell if she was dead. More dead. All vampires smelled dead. It looked like all the blood she’d borrowed—that was why vampires drank, to replace the blood they’d lost when they were turned—had spilled out, and maybe she was gone forever this time.
Charlie knelt by her and tenderly cradled her in his lap. “Violet, Violet baby, I brought help. Stay with me now, okay?” He stroked her cheeks, her hair, clutched her hand, and she didn’t respond. “Kitty’s going to help, okay? Hang on for me, baby.”
“What can I do?” I murmured, my heart breaking over the scene.
Charlie looked at me. “She needs blood so she can heal. Strong blood.”
Of course she did. She didn’t even need much, a mouthful or so. I’d seen how this worked.
“Do I have to?” I said, wincing.
“Please. Just a little.” I’d never seen such a look of pleading on anyone’s face, much less a vampire’s.
I nodded. “Detective Hardin, do you have a jackknife or something?”
She stared. “You can’t be serious.”
“Yes, please,” I said softly. “And you might want to pay attention. This gets pretty interesting.”
She didn’t have one, but Lopez did, a thin penknife on a keychain. It would have to do.
I knelt by Violet, pulled open the blade, and before I could flinch or change my mind, I drew it across my left forearm. It cut deep. I didn’t look at it. Almost, it didn’t hurt—until my blood hit the air. Then it stung viciously. I gritted my teeth and held my arm over her lips.
Charlie tilted Violet’s head back, holding her jaw in order to ease open her mouth. The first drops that fell from the wound hit her cheek, drizzling a scarlet line to her jaw. But by the time the dripping blood became a steady stream, it fell straight into her mouth. Like giving water to someone dying of thirst.
Because of my rapid healing, the stream of blood didn’t last long before clotting, and the cut scabbed over as we watched. But Violet didn’t need much. After the first few drops, she closed her mouth by herself. Her throat moved, swallowing. We could see the exposed muscles and tendons of her neck working. Then, her throat started healing. I healed quickly, but this was faster, skin creeping, stretching to cover flesh and blood that now glowed with life. Hardin murmured an expletive.
Violet licked her lips, catching the stray drops, straining forward for more. She winced in pain, then leaned back, settling into Charlie’s lap.
“Charlie?” Her voice was small, childlike.
“Yeah, baby?”
“It hurts.”
“It won’t, in a minute.”
Her skin flushed, gaining some color as my blood took effect. Her fingers moved, then her hands, then she stretched her arms to grip Charlie.
He helped her sit up, and all at once she seemed like she’d only been sick, maybe hungover, not drained of blood and near death—or what meant death to vampires.
“Shit,” she muttered. She picked at the blood on her clothing and grimaced. “All this good stuff gone to waste.”
/>
“Feeling better?” Charlie said.
Her answer sounded tired. “Yeah.”
“You’re welcome,” I said, rubbing the newly healed cut on my arm. It had already turned to a closed, pink scab.
I noticed two stretched-out piles of ash on the concrete nearby. The ones who got Violet, I was guessing. Charlie hadn’t let them survive.
So. Had we gotten them all?
“How many more are there?” I said.
“I don’t know,” Charlie said. “Three, maybe four. Maybe more downstairs. Rick wanted them all alive. He wanted everyone alive.”
“Kitty, are these good guys or what?” Hardin demanded.
Violet purred, “Ooh, I wouldn’t say good guys.”
Hardin opened her mouth for a retort, but then narrowed her eyes. “Do I know you two? Have I seen you before?”
Charlie and Violet glanced at each other, then back at her.
“I don’t think so,” Charlie said. Violet giggled. Right, so Bonnie and Clyde were back to normal.
I wanted to grab them both by their necks and shake them. “Is Rick downstairs?”
“Yeah.”
“What about Ben? And Dack, we have to find Dack, he’s working for Mercedes.”
Charlie’s smile fell. “Shit.”
“We have to tell Rick.”
Hardin pointed at Lopez. “You two, call for backup, check on Kramer out back.”
“Where’s Sawyer?” Lopez asked. Hardin just shook her head.
“There’s another one of those things down out back, keep an eye on her.” She fired off the patter of instructions.
“Things?” Charlie said. “She calls us things?”
Then Violet jumped to her feet and braced, preparing for a fight. “They’re still out there.”
I didn’t see anything but shadows, and they were everywhere.
Charlie grabbed my arm. “Go downstairs. Tell Rick what’s happening. Go!” He shoved me on my way.
Hardin and I ran to the back, passing Lopez, who was talking into his radio. Calling for backup. Lopez’s partner had a crossbow trained on Stella, but she was doubled over and croaking. Hardin led with the crossbow, moving cautiously along the wall. The basement door still stood open. I couldn’t hear anything from inside. Slowly, Hardin leaned around the doorway for a look, then slipped into the hallway. I followed.