Peg lay on Walter and wrapped his cyborg legs around the vamp’s. Grizz took Walter in a headlock and shoved her weapon up under his jaw.
“You act like you’ve done this before,” EJ said.
Villetti lay across Walter’s body, the null cuffs between them. “Once or twice,” the cop said, too offhand, too casual. “Here and there.” The cop took his weapon and aimed it at Walter’s heart. “Not loaded with silver, but the shredders will turn his heart to mincemeat and stop him until help can arrive to heal him.”
“Help?”
Villetti’s eyebrows quirked slightly. “You didn’t think the queen would fly her banner from your building and not find a way to send the unit’s vampire, did you? Even in a snowstorm? When has a little thing like a blizzard or a flood or a war stopped her?”
“Ah crap.”
Villetti’s eyes narrowed. “You curse like your queen. That’s cute, little boy. Pull the stake out.”
EJ knew he had to do this without Theta or Delta. Just his normal reflexes and his own magic, what little was left of it right now. He gripped the protruding stake. “On the beat after three. One, two, three.” He whistled. Yanked the stake out.
Walter’s fangs clicked down. Bit into the bleeding flesh at his mouth. Pretty Thang’s arm jerked once and then no longer moved. Walter sucked and sucked. And he didn’t stop. Minutes passed.
Pretty Thang slurred his words, saying, “I like a buzz, but I wanna be alive to enjoy it.”
Villetti reared back and rammed his fist into the vamp bodyguard’s chest. Which was one way of getting a vamp’s attention. He placed the barrel of his service weapon at Walter’s eye and said, “Release your bite or lose an eye.”
Walter opened his jaw, tilted his head away from Pretty Thang’s arm, and clicked his fangs into the roof of his mouth. He licked the wound closed. Pretty Thang fell over, and Villetti barely kept the guard from banging his head. “How much did I take?” Walter asked, horror on his face.
Grizz said, “He needs a transfusion, but we have a couple bags of O neg upstairs. Peg, get the sex fiend upstairs for a transfusion. He’ll be horny as a stud in a room full of mares.”
“So, nothing new?” Boots asked.
“I can handle him,” Peg said. “I’m not his type and he sure as hell ain’t mine.”
“Want Boots,” Pretty Thang said, reaching for Boots’s boobs. “Always want Boots.”
Boots evaded the guard’s groping hands and Peg steered him for the elevator.
EJ was still sitting on the floor, too tired to move. The whistled note had drained him to the soul. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to think.
Walter reached down to his own belly and felt. His wounds were healed. “I will give…Pretty Thang,” he said as if the nickname left a bad taste on his tongue, “a sufficient amount of my own blood to help in his healing.”
“Better make it soon. It’s dawn,” Boots said.
“I am well aware. May I rise?”
“If you are in your right mind,” Villetti said, his weapon still inches from Walter’s eye.
“And how would you determine such a thing?” Walter asked.
“Is his brand singing?” the cop asked EJ.
A headache rammed into his head as EJ drew on his magic to listen. “Not now.”
“I might add,” Walter said, “yes, I heard all that was said. I was, again, conscious.”
EJ would have laughed if his head didn’t hurt so much. Once again, no one had been concerned about discussing the vamp while he was staked. They were so tired they were making mistakes.
“Nyoka followed the others to this city,” Walter said. “They would have had the working for a leviathan partition in place, long prior to the queen’s event. They would not have left a third party to chance. Therefore Nyoka was notoriginallyone of three intended recipients of the working, and may still not be, as she would add an unpredictable element to a predetermined mix.”
“Makes sense,” EJ said, massaging his head. If his brain were clear he’d have things to say, he’d be able to make deductions. His brain was too fuzzy to think and the headache was growing. He had to sleep for a few hours or he’d crash.
“As we have always wondered why Ivyanna was branded and taken,” Walter said, “I believe our original consideration was correct. She was likely a test subject, not a placeholder.”
