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“Yeah, boss.”
“Three vampires are leaving with two women. Track them. A female vampire, with long red hair, tight black dress, and heels, might be behind them.”
“Sorry. Got hassled by a cop and had to move. I must’ve missed them coming in.”
West acknowledged him. His man wouldn’t have missed the targets without a reason. A long hallway led to a door, and he burst into an alley.
A subtle static flare heralded his spotter’s low-pitched words. “They went east, approaching—no—turning right at the next corner. Moving slow—the victims are having a hard time walking. Confirmed on the female vamp.”
West stopped and opened his hearing. Over the nightclub’s thumping music came a woman’s ‘Whoops” and a high-pitched giggle confirming Snyder’s observations.
A blur passed at the end of the alley. Shit. The tell-tale passing of a demon or vampire and their supernatural swiftness. Karen had moved faster than expected. He poured on the speed until he sprinted down the alley in a similar blur.
A woman’s eardrum-piercing scream shattered the night. He rounded the corner and skidded to a stop.
Close to an SUV with an open door, the two women huddled together on the concrete, one rummaging jerkily in her purse, probably for a phone. One vampire lay on the sidewalk with his throat slit and blood pooling around him, while the second one had been laid out with a knife’s hilt buried chest-deep into his heart. The tallest of the three and Karen traded blows at an incredible speed—Sanguisian speed—which he could follow because, unlike the spelled amulet he wore disguising him as a human paranormal, he was a demon.
Damn, she worked fast and efficiently. Since she seemed to have the fight well in hand, he crouched down behind a street-side trashcan and said quietly, “Two Vs down, two targets still safe. Fight ongoing. Need cleanup team now. Call in the healers. We won’t get these in the best shape for interro—”
Three gunshots split the night. Hell. He grabbed the gun at his back waistband, one with spelled bullets designed to temporarily take down a paranormal, and peeked around the waste receptacle.
Karen lay on the pavement, her face turned away, a gaping hole in the top of her head. What had been an auburn wig had fallen away, and blood poured from the vampire’s head. He shoved aside his frustration.
The male vamp fled down the street.
One of the women held a gun in her hand and stared at the compact hunk of metal with her mouth working while emitting no sound. The other female stared at Karen’s body, the human’s pupils wide, and her mouth slack.
Fuck. A scream might be discounted on the fringes of the Mission District, closer to a commercial area. Gunshots, though, would certainly draw the police. As if to confirm his thoughts, his acute hearing picked up a siren’s wail.
Double fuck.
Where in the hell was the team? He’d have to let the escaping vamp go, mind control both women to cover their near abduction, and prevent the officials from having to deal with a ‘corpse’ which would rise again. At least their inebriation and shock should make controlling the women easier.
He reached out with his senses and sought the humans’ minds. Dammit. Both were chaotic and difficult to direct. He pushed harder to smooth out their roiling emotions and created a sensation of a movie, rather than reality.
Precious moments later, he had the humans under control, and the gun slipped from the woman’s fingers. If she’d shot him, the wound wouldn’t have killed him. Nevertheless, he had no reason to waste what little blood he had on hand to heal yet another wound, or worse, get incapacitated by a lucky shot, like Karen. Once the women’s minds accepted what had just happened wasn’t reality, he easily put both to sleep.
The rumble of an engine came down the street. A glance ensured the vehicle was his team, and he moved from his position of concealment, relief singing through him. If the women had seen him prior to his glamour, the mental work might be undone should they encounter him again.
He stood and started toward Karen while the van slid to a halt.
“Damn, boss. What the hell happened?” Ian’s shocked tone came from over his shoulder.
West knelt at Karen’s side and examined the wound. Though a lot of her life’s essence had spilled on the pavement, her supernatural ability to heal had already cut off the leakage. She’d need multiple units of costly blood to heal though. “Later. Bind the males. Grab the wig. Clean up the mess, get everyone in the van and set the scene. Use firecrackers. We need to go.”
He slid his hands under Karen’s body and picked her up. Her head lolled back revealing the point where the round entered, her left temple. The bullet exited near the top of her head, leaving a gory, gaping hole the size of a quarter. The shot would’ve killed her if she’d been human. Assuming the gun hadn’t contained spelled bullets, Karen should heal. The magically enhanced bullets would require more recovery time and HP blood, something he had in short supply right now.
For the thousandth time, he damned whoever sabotaged the generator at his warehouse. Ten thousand units of HP blood destroyed along with an equal number of human units. When he figured out which of his competitors commissioned the attack, he’d spare nothing to make sure they were destroyed, truce or no truce.
Though Karen wasn’t petite, his supernatural strength allowed him to easily step into the van with her in his arms. While he settled on a bench lining the vehicle’s walls, he forced himself to keep his senses focused on the humans rather than examining Karen’s fine features—the sweep of her lashes against her pale skin, the lush lips parted slightly. The women needed to stay asleep until they could be returned to a safe location, like one of their homes, with a suggestion of a shared ride home and a movie reinforced in their memory. Adding these two humans to the list of people in his organization as potential blood donors sat lower on his priority list than interrogating the captured vampires and figuring out Karen’s identity and her motivations.
Less than a minute later, his team loaded the groggy male vamps and the unconscious humans in the van, and the driver pulled away. Two of the team remained behind to set off the firecrackers near where the skirmish occurred and to relocate the vamps’ SUV since the vehicle could easily have a tracker and couldn’t be brought back to the safe house.
Disguised as a homeless person who would testify to someone lighting the spent fireworks left on the sidewalk, Snyder relocated to a position down the street.
A snick brought his attention to Ian. At the scene, the mage had magically wiped away the blood, then secured the woman’s gun. He’d dropped the magazine and expelled the round in the chamber from what looked like a compact, nine-millimeter, automatic pistol. His blunt fingers tipped the inch-long item and examined the casing’s brass end. He pocketed the round, tucked the gun into his back waistline, and curved his mouth into a hard, close-lipped grin directed at his boss. “Commercial.”
Good. The healing process would be much faster and far less painful for the vampire in his lap.
