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Nicky helped me get out of my chair. “I need some air. I’ll see you for lunch tomorrow, but I’m done for tonight.”
“I’m your father, don’t you dare walk out on me.” Dad pushed his chair back and stood on his side of the table.
“Please feel free to finish your meal,” Jean-Claude said as he gestured and the waiter came over to the table.
Ethan came over to Nicky and said, “I’ll get the bill for both tables; get her and Jean-Claude out of here.”
Jean-Claude took my arm, thanking Ethan, saying something to my family, but I was done. My dad was still telling me not to walk out on him, that it was disrespectful or something. I needed air, I needed away from…I was so done. Wicked and Truth were suddenly on the other side of Jean-Claude. Wicked took the side, and Truth dropped back to take rear guard. Not that I thought my father would attack us from behind, but maybe there was another crazed vampire hater in the restaurant to guard against. Nicky got the door for us, and we were out in the fresh night air. I could feel the growing anxiety start to ease.
A vampire with short brown hair and a face still pale and too thin from not having taken blood yet tonight approached us. Most people wouldn’t have realized he was a vampire. He looked so normal: justyour average man, average height, average build, so nondescript he looked like he should have been in the dictionary next tohuman male, white, except he wasn’t human anymore. “Jean-Claude, could I get a selfie with you? Please?”
Wicked tried to step between them, saying, “Sorry, not tonight.”
“Come on, just one selfie?” He raised his phone up, standing in our way to block us, and I realized he was wearing black gloves. It was summer in St. Louis; you didn’t wear gloves even if you were a vampire. Jean-Claude was apologizing graciously about an appointment we had.
Nicky loomed up behind us. “You heard him, move.” He was angry because I was so upset. He started to come around the group of us. I wasn’t the only one who thought he might hurt the selfie vampire, because Truth caught his arm and spoke low to him.
Wicked tried to move the selfie vampire out of our way without hurting him. “Come on, just one selfie with our king, come on.”
I heard my father’s voice shouting at me. “Anita, wait!” He’d followed us out. Damn it.
Jean-Claude said, “It will be quicker to let him have his selfie.”
I heard Nicky say, “Get back inside the restaurant, old man.”
The vampire stepped closer to Jean-Claude and started to position his camera in his gloved hands, and I saw the clear vial hidden inside his sleeve. I knew exactly what it was because I carried them in my vampire hunting kit. I didn’t even have time to think, I just shoved my body into Jean-Claude’s with everything I had, sending him stumbling backward. Wicked threw himself forward, Truth grabbed me to try to pull me back, and the vampire threw holy water all over us.
14
If something isthrown in your face, especially liquid, there’s always a split second of eye-blinking hesitation. Even a human attacker can use that to their advantage; a vampire is faster, a second is forever to them. I’d made the rookie mistake of turning away, throwing my left arm up as if holy water could hurt me. I saw Wicked’s face boiling, screaming. Truth grabbed his brother and pulled him back with one arm; his other hand was bubbling with the holy water. I didn’t look around for Jean-Claude; I’d have felt it if he was hurt that badly. He was safe, that was enough. The world had slowed down as if I had all the time in the world to turn back to our attacker. Everything was crystal edged, sharp and detailed with the rush of adrenaline, the rush of battle.
The vampire was standing right in my face, as if he wanted to see the damage he’d done or was waiting to cause more. You hit with your elbows, so you don’t break your hand, but they’re also better if someone is too close for anything else. I hit him in the face with my elbow, then hit him with my other elbow, a forehand-backhand combo. It staggered him, and I put a knee into his gut, which folded him. I grabbed him, planning to bring his face down into my knee as many times as I could, but the high heels threw my balance off, and I was left holding the back of the vampire’s neck while I readjusted myfooting. If he’d been trained to fight he could have hurt me, but like most vampires he thought just being a vampire would be enough.
He came for me mouth wide, fangs straining, trusting to his superior strength and speed to push me back. His eyes glowed like dark fire, his skin thinning down, until when he took me to the ground it was like looking into a skull with glowing eyes, like some Halloween decoration, except this decoration had weight and strength and was snapping at my face, spit landing on my cheek as he fought the arm I’d shoved against his throat to keep him from tearing out mine. I couldn’t reach my gun, and my cross was trapped under my clothes; if I had to I’d give the vampire my left arm to gnaw on. What was one more scar, if it kept me from dying seconds away from help?
Then something started to glow, and it took me a second to realize it was me; the holy water that he’d thrown on me was making my face and hair glow, and the arm I had shoved against his throat. One minute he was a snarling, snapping animal determined to tear my throat out, and the next his humanity started to fill his face back up. I could feel the skin of his throat moving against my arm, blistering so fast it felt like his skin was moving on its own. I had to swallow hard against the sudden bile in my throat from the sensation. He blinked at me and whispered, “What is that?” That the pain hadn’t hit him yet meant he was very new to vampiric powers. He was like a toddler that hadn’t learned stoves were hot. I looked at him through the holy shimmer of light that he’d given me to harm, not to help. I watched his eyes slide back to human, face filling back out so his skull was invisible under his skin again. I couldn’t see past the glow, and I didn’t dare look away from the vampire on top of me to see if the wereanimals on our guard detail were close enough to help me. I didn’t want him to escape; I wanted to know what hate group he belonged to, who sent him to hurt us. So, I wrapped my legs around him like in Brazilian jujitsu so that I was in guard. I wrapped my right hand in the rough cloth of his jacket and kept my glowing leftarm against his throat. If he wasn’t going to move, neither was I. Then the pain hit him. He shrieked, jerking his upper body back from my arm, but my legs and one hand kept him from raising himself too far from the glowing parts of me. I had a second to see the burned flesh of his neck, and then he was jerking and bucking for me to “Let me go!” There were no BJJ rules to how he fought to escape, there wasn’t even any thought, just him wildly thrashing trying to get to all fours, but I kept flexing my legs at the small of his spine, flattening him back so he could only get his arms up. If he hadn’t been so thin I’d have never been able to control him that well, but my guard was firm around him. He felt almost fragile as he screamed to be free, and screamed at the cold, holy fire so bright in his face.
Fortune was there above us both, saying, “Call Nicky over to help me.”
I stared at her through the soft light, so much softer than a cross in full starlike glory. I wondered why Nicky couldn’t just come to help, but I yelled, “Nicky, to me.” He was just suddenly there with Fortune, and they tried to pull the vampire off me.
“Let him out of your guard, Anita,” Nicky said.
I’d forgotten, not good in a fight. I unwrapped my legs and let go of the jacket as Fortune and Nicky lifted him off me. Ethan was there to take my right hand and get me on my feet. I had a moment of unsteadiness on the high heels and maybe a little bit of shock. Ethan caught me and started to hug me, but I pulled back, staring at my still-shining skin.
“It should be fading now that the vampire isn’t attacking me with vamp powers, but it’s not.” I looked around the crowd of gawkers, but the vampire that was keeping the holy water glowing wasn’t that close. If he’d been there all vampy, Ethan wouldn’t have been this calm. But there was something unholy nearby that was activating the holy water. I drew my cross out of my blouse by its chain, and it glowed softly like an echo of the holy water; did that mean thevampire wasn’t that close to us? I’d never had holy water glow on my skin before, or a cross glow so softly.
There was a vampire nearby with evil intent, but I didn’t think it was actively using vampiric powers on me. It was as if the holy items were already activated so they reacted to the more distant threat. I was guessing, because even for me this was new. Was the vampire hiding from me? Watching? What? I opened my necromancy like unfolding a hand inside me. It was always there inside me waiting to be used. I didn’t need ritual to call it up or get me in the right mindset; it was just there always. I searched for the vampire and…there, there it was, out of visual range, but it was trying to use power on us, on me, us, me. I wasn’t sure, but that’s why I was still shining with holy light, because the stranger was trying to use long-distance vampire powers.
“Tell the Harlequin on overwatch that there’s an enemy vamp south of us. He, I think it’s a he, is trying to use vampire powers on me, us.”
“How far away is he?” Ethan asked.
“Not sure, but he’s watching us, so close enough to see some of what’s happening here.”
“I’ll let the others know,” Fortune said. I didn’t know how she’d do it, because it wasn’t going to be by phone, but I knew if she said she could, she could.
I could hear sirens speeding closer. I’d probably been hearing them for a while, but they just hadn’t registered.
