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“Why’d you hit him, Jorgen?” The wolfman didn’t respond. “Jorgen?” I resisted the temptation to shake him, to try to wake him up. There was so much blood, and Jorgen’s breathing was shallow.
I could kill him for sure with the knife. Carve it down and slice his intestines through. But I knew what a stab wound through the gut felt like. I didn’t have it in me. I stood, shaking.
“Don’t follow me if you get up. ” I reached down, yanked out the knife, and headed for the limousine.
* * *
I stepped on my ID badge on the way to the limo. I freed it from the muck and shoved it into my pocket, lanyard and all, and then got into my ride.
Most of the blood on me wasn’t mine, but my knuckles and thighs throbbed. The heat was on in the limo, keys still in the ignition, so I revved it up and pulled away.
The limo had GPS, and the driver, now dead and gnawed on in my parking lot, had been kind enough to enter in his final destination before he left.
Driving it was like driving a boat. Luckily it was automatic, not stick.
I didn’t look at myself in the rearview mirror. I knew that would be a bad idea. I knew bruises were welting up all over my body, that my jeans were torn, that my sweater was covered in were-blood, and what else, who goddamn knew.
No matter how much I might have loved a monster once—I didn’t sign up for this.
If I let go of the steering wheel, the limo would slide to the side of the road, into a snowbank, and I would cry, and be frozen there like a woolly mammoth until a snowplow happened by or the first thaw of spring. No, I would not look up, and I would not look down. I would only watch the road and the little blue dot on the GPS’s screen that meant we were heading toward something, somewhere else. I followed that little blue dot, went out of town, and out into the countryside, until it pulled me into a parking lot circled by a white picket fence. I looked out.
It had once been a church.
* * *
I pulled the limo up. This parking lot was huge, so the church must have been prestigious, before … the fire. I nodded to myself. Snow didn’t hide all the charred blackness of the roof, and I could see blue tarps underneath it, trying to keep some of the weather out. I bet the congregation hadn’t had enough money or time to rebuild before winter, and now, this.
I parked the limousine. I didn’t want to leave it. It was warm here, and it was safe, and I was starting to stick to the seat. A knock on the window startled me.
“You’re late!” Sike said as I opened the door. I could tell she didn’t expect to see me driving. “You stink of were-blood. What happened?”
“Your driver got jumped. ”
“How are you?” she said, and for the first time, I felt she meant it. She put out her hand.
I stood even with her, so she could see all of me. “I’m fine. But after this, I’m fucking through. You’re getting me out. ” I knew she had no say in the matter, but saying it firmed my resolve.
“When you’re done here, you should probably go to Y4. To get were-shots. ” She touched a hand to an earpiece I hadn’t realized she had. “We need a disposal team at the Ambassador’s personal residence. Driver two is gone. ” Then she gestured. “Please, follow me. ”
Some Ambassador I was tonight. Limping, I followed.
* * *
Seeing as the church had holes in some walls, it was freaking cold inside. It wouldn’t bother the vampires, but it irritated me. I’d been through enough already tonight, I didn’t need to freeze too.
The inside of the church had at one time been a Catholic affair. There was a clean space on a blackened wall where a crucifix had been removed, like an inverse cross. The rest of the inside was hollowed out, gutted by the fire. After that, I bet congregants had taken everything they could salvage. Construction lights made everything cast long shadows.
“Why the hell are we here?” I asked Sike.
“We wanted the most neutral ground possible. Churches make all vampires uncomfortable,” she said as she led me in. “Plus, it has a sense of flair. ”
“Remind me to never go shopping with you,” I muttered, following behind her, holding Anna’s knife.
Because the pews were gone, vampires stood where the congregation should be, clustered together in their tribes. Sike led me around them and up to the raised altar at the front. I recognized the other people standing there. Gideon, Veronica, Mr. Galeman—a prior patient of mine whom Anna had bitten—Sike and I took our place by their side. Veronica still looked as feral as she had at my house, and as if to make up for it, Gideon was eerily calm.
“How’d they rope you into this,” I asked Mr. Galeman, who stood beside me.
“Free beer,” he whispered back. Sike hissed down the line at us, then glared at us to keep quiet.
Well. That. Was. Encouraging. I stood there, exhausted, and my legs kept complaining, each claw mark stung—I wasn’t going to need just rabies shots, but tetanus as well. I looked like that chick from Carrie, or one of any number of segments from Battle Royale.
“Now the ceremony can begin,” said a vampire I didn’t recognize from the side. Organ music welled up, pretentious, dramatic.
“Is it always like this?” I asked Sike.
She glared at me. “Shut it. ”
* * *
Anna walked in from off stage. She was dressed simply, in white. It made her already fair skin paler; her blond hair gave her the only color she had.
