Chapter 19
NINETEEN
ANDREAS
“Alls I’m sayin’ is, I’m exhausted.” Kaso rubbed at the back of his neck and rolled his shoulders. “I don’t know how they do this all day long and then sing for live audiences at night.”
“Every time we stop one of these assholes, I find a new respect for our ladies.” I sighed. “Criminals are exhausting . . . which means we might be exhaustin’? Ya know what I mean?”
Kaso nodded. “At least we’re helping them. But they don’t seem to be gettin’ any closer to takin’ us back. She hasn’t been in my bed for over a week now and I’m gettin’ real tired of it. Not the Christmas Eve I had been hopin’ for.”
“Yeah, same.” I glanced around. “But this guy is the worst of the worst. He’s too smart, too manipulative, and too damn hard to catch . . . That’s why we’re gonna do it.”
“I hate that you got me sitting amongst the weeds and trash of Jersey.” Kaso glanced around. “Didn’t we dump a body or two here back in the day?”
“Hey. We turned over a new leaf. Don’t be bringin’ up our shady past.” I smacked his arm. “But yeah, we have.”
There weren’t many places one could dump a body and get away with it.
But Jersey was one of them. In the outskirts of Elizabeth where the ports and mafia ran almost everything and all major highways going to the city intersected—under these highways, the grass was long and the unkept dark fields made a perfect dumping ground . . . or hunting ground.
Kaso nodded his head toward the highways above. “Yeah, good place to ditch one.”
Elizabeth wasn’t the safest place to linger at night, and the neighborhood people tended to keep to themselves, which meant they didn’t see nothing and didn’t hear nothing.
Even if they did indeed see something, they still didn’t see nothing.
Tonight, we strolled the streets between the small brick houses and broken-down apartment buildings.
There was a heavy gloomy feeling in cities like this.
At night the underbelly came alive, and the sounds of TVs and arguments flowed from the buildings out toward the streets.
Time-worn cars slowly crept down the street with their bases thumping.
Kaso and I slowed our pace, listening for any sign of the vampire we hunted.
Then I heard it, a whisper in the wind, and I tapped his shoulder.
He snapped his mouth closed and we both held our breath.
There in the distance, I heard the words, “Now just cut her slowly. Be precise.”
My head snapped to the left. I turned, running in that direction. The streets flew by in a blur as I moved toward the voice.
“There now. Do it deeper. Yes, yes, just like that,” his voice carried just loud enough for us to hear.
“What kind of sick fuck do you got us goin’ after?” Kaso matched my pace, the two of us twisting and turning down streets and the narrow spaces in between houses.
I came to a stop in the darkly lit parking lot of a smaller apartment building. The building itself was in an L-shape with the back end of it jutting out into the parking lot. Lights from the apartments cast rectangular shapes over the cracked asphalt. I spun in a circle, waiting.
“There you go. Now move to the other side.” A hum of approval. “Yes, then cut it . . . perfection.”
Kaso’s lips pressed into a hard, thin line and he hissed, “Where’s it coming from?”
My eyes darted over the rooms in the building. There on the basement level floor was an apartment that was darker than the rest of them. They had thick black curtains over the windows. The metallic scent of blood trickled out toward us and my fangs sharpened.
I turned for the door, but when I got there it was locked with a heavy bolt and keypad entry. “We have to get in there.”
“I got this.” Kaso stepped in front of me and dropped to one knee.
He pulled a small black pouch from the inside pocket of his jacket, unzipped the top of it, then pulled out a few tools.
Within seconds the bolt slid to the side and he shoved the door open.
The keypad made an obnoxious buzzing sound that did not stop.
Kaso popped to his feet and gently smacked the side of his fist into the box.
It crackled, then the buzzing stopped. He waved his arm toward the door. “After you.”
I ran down a small flight of stairs. The smell of blood grew stronger but was masked by the scent of the different food cooking in each apartment.
The walls were a plain beige color with a dark and dingy brown carpeted floor.
The doors were a flimsy wood with tarnished gold numbers on them.
The only thing cheerful about this dump was the Christmas music blaring from several different rooms, especially the one playing that Weird Al song about Santa going crazy and killing everybody.
I glanced at my brother and found him mouthing the words to the song. I smiled, then remembered what we were doing. I moved faster, hurrying by each of the apartments and then turning down a hallway. The scent of blood grew stronger as we approached the last door at the end of the hallway.
I stopped just in front of it and glanced at Kaso.
He gave me a single nod, so I shoved my shoulder into the door.
The frame splintered and the lock gave way.
Even the small chain he had across the door snapped.
I stepped into the room and froze. Kaso was right beside me with wide eyes and disgust plain on his face.
The room was covered in large plastic tarps, with thick pieces of duct tape holding them in place.
They were draped over the walls, floor, and furniture, which had been pushed against the walls.
A large man with slick brown hair and shit-brown eyes stood over a woman sprawled out on the floor.
Her face had been beaten beyond recognition, and her body was naked.
Thick cuts marred one side of her chest, and he’d clearly started on the other when we’d barged in.
I listened for the beat of her heart, but it was so faint I worried the girls wouldn’t get here in time and I didn’t have our usual supplies to heal her.
“Get out!” the man bellowed to the two of us, but his command fell on deaf ears.
My eyes were locked on the shadowy figure in the corner of the room . . . a vampire. He was tall and slender with waxy skin that looked nearly blue. Dark bags hung under his eyes and his nails were long and pointed as if he filed them into claws.
Kaso growled. “Look at this Dracula wannabe mother fucker.”
The vampire hissed in our direction.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “Okay. Listen, Darren—yeah, we know that’s your name. I’m about done with this bullshit. You’re either goin’ to the Virtues for exile or I can exile your ass right to hell.”
“I thought we weren’t killin’ people no more,” Kaso muttered under his breath.
“If anyone deserves it . . .” I motioned to Darren, the nearly dead woman, and his little apprentice.
“True.”
“I haven’t killed anyone.” Darren’s voice came out like a light, low hiss, as if it was a struggle for him to speak. “So I haven’t committed a single crime. There will be no exile.”
Darren and his apprentice shared a look, and they charged toward us at the same time.
I smirked and rushed at the apprentice and batted him away with a single backhand.
His body flew through the air and crashed into the opposite wall.
His head smacked back into it, and he crumpled to the floor in a heap.
I turned toward Darren as he crashed into Kaso.
The two of them smacked into the wall and created a huge dent behind the plastic.
Kaso smirked in my direction, and I put my hands on my hips waiting.
In three . . . two . . . one.
Kaso wrapped his hand in Darren’s shirt and shoved his arm out, holding Darren away from him.
Then he curled his hand into a fist, and at the same time he threw the punch he jerked Darren closer to him.
His fist cracked Darren’s nose on the first strike and blood spurted down his face.
Then he punched him in the jaw. Two teeth flew from his mouth.
On the third, he broke the bone around his eye.
Kaso shoved him back toward me. I kicked out the back of his knee, and he dropped to the floor between us.
The plastic crinkled under him as he squirmed.
I shoved my hand on his shoulder and squeezed. Darren flailed and scratched against my skin. “No, you can’t. Don’t!”
“You like to hurt people, Darren.” I bent down and wrapped my hand around his bicep. With a quick yank, I dislocated his arm from his shoulder. His hand went limp and fell to his side. I moved to the other side and grabbed hold of him. “Just so happens we’re much better at it.”
“NO!”
YANK.
His other arm went limp at his side as he screamed.
Kaso bent down in front of him. “You can keep screamin’, ‘cause nobody in this place is gonna help you. I’m sure they’re used to screams.”
Darren whimpered and tried to stagger to his feet.
I shoved him back down. “If you try to run, we’ll break your legs next.”
He slouched in front of us. Kaso glanced from Darren to his accomplice to their victim on the floor. “What do ya think we should do with this?”
I glanced around. “We text the Virtues to come get him and pray Bodhi can heal her. Then we gotta call the cops to deal with the human piece of shit. We can’t let him go.”
“And we can’t kill him.” Kaso stared at the man. “Though I don’t think we’d get in trouble for that one. He deserves it.”
“Better not chance it.” I pulled my phone out and texted Regan.
‘I got something you gotta see . . . Better come here. Preferably quick, time is of the essence for Bodhi.’ I dropped the address into the chat and slid my phone back into my pocket. “And now we wait.”
“I could kill them both.” Kaso pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and began to wipe Darren’s blood from his knuckles. “It’d be so easy.”
“Yeah, like poppin’ the head off a doll.” I bent down next to Darren’s ear. “Pop!”