Beta brain wave patterns leaped into Alpha, instantly into Theta. Delta Mode hung in his mind, folded, coiled around his magic, mental techniques learned in the war.
His senses sharpened.
Delta patterns were ready to blend with Theta and engulf him if his magic was needed. Power thrummed through him. On a thermographic reader, his hands and head would be glowing brighter and brighter. He inhaled deeply and exhaled. In that single breath, his body, mind, and gifts were ready to kill.
Officer Stevens moved ahead, stepped past a tiny closet, notseeing it in the uncertain light. But EJ knew this house. He reached to clear it. Opened the door. A woman lunged at him.
EJ dodged away. A knife snagging his coat. His reflexes feeling-seeing-knowingthe blade.
He blew a single note. A directedbruciareworking.
Her blade went scalding hot, glowing red. Her brittle blade cracked at the instantaneous heat transfer. She dropped it with a yelp. EJ slammed the door shut. Catching her blistered fingers in the crack. She squealed louder and jerked her fingers, breaking them. EJ directed the same working at the latch and blew the same note. The mechanism was cheap metal and melted in place. Scorching her flesh. Another note cooled the melted metal, locking, trapping her in.
She threw herself at the door, fingertips peeking out. The melted lock held. She screamed. Banging on the door. Fingers crushed and burned in the crack. Stinking.
EJ’s single glimpse of her. A vamp. A blade in her hand. A vamp-killer.What the…
He turned to Stevens. The kid was stopped in the doorway to Londyn’s office. Gun held in nerveless fingers, pointed somewhere toward the floor. Immobile as a mannequin.
A vamp’s arms were around him. Fangs buried in Stevens’s throat.
EJ’s reflexeschanged.
In a single instant,Delta Modeunfolded.
Magic swept through him. Battlefield fast, EJ lunged forward. Buried the null sticks in the vamp’s side. He blew the first note again. Less directed. Less sure. Poor aim. But it worked.
The null sticks melted inside the vamp. The silver in the runes poured into the vamp’s abdomen.
Shrieking the ululation of a vampire death call, the vamp jerked away. Yanked fangs from Stevens’s throat. Together,Stevens and the vamp dropped to the floor. All Stevens’s metal weapons, including his Glock, were melted or heat damaged. Even his belt buckle and the metal eyelets on his shoes holding his laces. He’d have burns, but the kid was grinning in drunken bliss. He’d been well and truly rolled.
EJ tapped an ear-patch. Got nothing. The protections built into the walls were on, stopping all electronic communication. He was sorely out of touch with what was happening in the rest of the house.
His brain in Delta Mode battle pattern, had become time selective, malleable in his thoughts. Beneath the ear-patch, his hearing went sharper. Placing his feet carefully, every sense alert, his breath was slow and deep.
EJ stepped over the two bodies, one writhing in pain, the other grinning in sexual bliss.
He cleared the office. Backtracked.
In the entry he again stepped over the bodies. Paused. He carried small healing amulets made from an old flute, keys that once covered the holes. As a child, he’d rescued them from his father’s collection when their house burned to the ground in a magical attack. When he grew skilled enough, he’d imbued them with different air and sound workings. He placed one between the two wounds on Stevens’s throat to help him recover.
The vampire stopped moving. She looked true-dead, but the light was dim. The vamp could die for all he cared, though that would mean involving politics. With a swift strike, EJ plunged a wooden stake into the vamp’s belly, piercing the small knot of nerves that paralyzed bloodsuckers, just in case.
Never leave a live enemy behind you.Training from the war.
In the closet, the vampire was weeping but had stopped thrashing against the door.
He pocketed the flute and pulled another. The point was silver over steel, a three-hole flute. The sharp edge, a razor. The notes on this one wereS&Rworkings—search and rescueworkings—nothing defensive or offensive. His null sticks were all melted.
A sound penetrated his ear-patch—fractured musical notes, broken, off-key. Beneath it, screaming, as if someone was being tortured. A cracking like sticks breaking. With his left hand, he unfastened the palillos castanets, ready for use.
EJ blew a softer note, asearchworking targeted specifically to Walter. If anyone was here, hiding, waiting, they would be able to locate EJ by the sound. Magic always had a cost. But he knew by the echo only he could hear that Walter was close. Very close. He walked steadily toward the kitchen. A woman’s body lay in a pool of blood. The cop, Rocas, was bending over her, administering CPR.
At his feet was another pool of blood. He lifted a foot to step over it.
A shadow moved at the corner of his eye. He shifted his step right.
Too late. A vampire’s arm was around his throat, cutting off his wind.
