Elder’s Prize (Tales of the Sanguinant #2)

Chapter 1

Lookout duty was of course a necessity in any vampire-hunting team, but Layla Cartland wished it didn’t involve pretend kissyface with fellow soldiers.

“There’s that grey Acura again,” she murmured, shifting against warm, gritty bricks.

A hot August night, soaking with humidity, had already plastered the pretty black sundress to her lower back.

Even bare arms and legs offered no relief; the air was thick as cottage cheese and her toes were sweat-slippery inside cotton socks and combat boots.

“Same license plate—and will you quit that? It tickles.”

“I hate having my back to the street.” At least Pete stopped rubbing his stubble on her hair.

He was the only one short enough for her to see over his shoulder, and nobody would suspect a couple supposedly making out between two separate nightclub entrances of good taste, much less surveillance.

It was the second spot on their rotation, the only bare patch of wall in sight, and next they’d move to an alley-mouth half a block down.

She couldn’t wait.

Layla could probably count the fact that stocky, snub-nosed Pete inevitably got a chubby as a compliment to her own mild attractiveness, though the cheap cologne he dabbed on for every operation involving decoy or lookout made her sneeze.

The wall she was propped against thudded faintly with dueling bass beats, a giant’s drowsy pulse.

The bouncers were leaving them alone, more concerned with the lines of drunks and name-droppers trying to get in or out of the roughnecks’ paradise known as Cactus YaYa or the slightly more expensive Blue Moon Spot; wall-humpers would be told to move along if the crowd got more restless, but until then the lookouts were in a golden zone, politely ignored.

“Pete and Layla sittin’ in a tree…” Ackerman’s voice came over the earpiece, a clear tenor singsong; he was perched on a rooftop wearing his goddamn cowboy hat, probably getting a breath of night breeze as well.

It was rare for him to unbend enough to tease anyone. Progress was being made, hopefully as a result of her own steady encouragement, balancing out the rough teasing other males mistook for therapeutic. Maybe simple, stupid hazing was how a male animals of any species showed they cared.

However, Pete now became even more tense—if that were possible. He was always amped on operations, even simple recon. “Fuck you,” he snarled, the throat mic picking it up double and squealing slightly in her poor ear, and Layla had to repress a sigh.

“Cut the chatter.” As usual, Dan’s voice made her heart thump an extra beat. Unfortunately, the leaps had been getting smaller lately. Especially when she wondered when this entire operation was really going to get off the ground. “Steve-o?”

“I got it, boss.” Lanky laconic Steve, always professional, drawled over the invisible line. Group chat with vampire hunters, just the thing for a girl’s night on the town. “Got three coming in from the west, big black Marias. Guessing that Acura’s the lookout.”

Or can’t find a place to park. Layla didn’t bother stating the obvious, but as usual, Ben just had to.

“Could be a civvie, looking for a place to squeeze in. Like Pete.” Ben’s slight wheeze said he was grinning like a jackal, his bushy eyebrows waggling ferociously. “How’s it looking down there, Petey? Nice and juicy?”

“For Chrissake,” Pete muttered, thankfully too low for the mic to pick up.

Just ignore him; he does it because you respond. Bullies were the same everywhere. Layla patted her lookout partner’s side, just over the hard hidden edge of Kevlar.

At least Ben did his job—sort of. Layla could even suppose his clowning might be a bonus in certain situations, like the hair-trigger violence displayed at the least provocation. On the one hand, he’d been overwhelmingly on-target with the two biters they’d already put down.

On the other, it had taken both Dan and Ack to get Ben bundled out of the bar where they’d gathered intel about the Griskov bounty—plus all her own practice at defusing male tempers afterward to clean up the mess, with Steve glowering theatrically over her shoulder.

Finally, the client had unbent enough to agree they were the team for the job—but no down payment, because Ben had fouled the waters almost past soothing. And Layla could be forgiven for thinking she was tired of dealing with mess, physical or emotional, all day every damn day.

Every squad member had their own reasons for this kind of work, and bad coping mechanisms to match. You didn’t enter a fabulous career in vampire hunting unless you’d lost someone—or unless you had more psychological problems than a stick could shake at.

At least Dan was adamant about not taking on any more crazies, even if it meant a little less firepower. Small mercies, as her grandmother always said, were the only kind a woman ever got.

Not that it mattered at the moment. “I see them,” Layla said softly, because she did.

Three big glossy SUVs, each black as midnight itself, trundling west along 21st Street.

Huh. She inhaled sharply. “Three Marias coming in westbound, and two more just joined from Battery Road, heading east. Looks like all the same makes and models; I think we’ve got extra players tonight. ”

“Fuck me.” Ack, grimly unsurprised—he never expected anything to go smoothly, even laundry. “I see ’em too. What we got tonight, friends and neighbors?”

“He could be leaving early, maybe upgraded his security detail.” A crackle from Dan’s mic—this time he’d drawn the squawker from the gear barrel, instead of Layla. Another tiny mercy. “Eyes, hold your positions. Ben, Steve-O, stay loose. Ack, take your lock off.”

A rash of ten-fours, including Pete’s murmur.

Layla’s pulse began to pound, sweat greasy on her neck and arms. A regular old crowded downtown street on a summer night, car horn blaring at the far end, shriek of drunken laughter from a group of college kids spilling out of a bar a block and a half up, faint thread of cigarette smoke lingering on unmoving air.

Every salt-soaked inch of her shrank from the assault of noise, light, people.

It was only the adrenaline kicking her senses into high gear, but she still had to suppress a twitch.

“Pulling up now.” She enunciated clearly, quashing the urge to yell.

Her other hand rested at Pete’s nape; he leaned protectively into her, torrid male sweat-smell now edged with the same metallic stress-based cocktail pouring into her own bloodstream.

Funny how you could smell the adrenaline, after a while.

“Both directions. They’ve got traffic corked, gentlemen. ”

Which meant five SUVs full of something bad against their small team.

She waited for Dan to make the call. As usual, Suzy’s face floated in front of her—not the awful butcher’s ruin on the morgue table, but bubbly blonde Suze on her wedding day, smiling beatifically during the waltz, tiers of white lacy dress swaying around her legs.

And Dan, his eyes closed, keeping his chin carefully near his new wife’s piled curls.

He’d looked so handsomely protective, and her best friend so peaceful, that Layla had gone right to the open bar and started in on the whiskey. Two fingers, neat, hold the ice.

At least she hadn’t opened her mouth at the wrong time that day. No sir, she’d done the best thing possible, and been quiet ever since.

“Egg’s cracked.” She gazed steadily over Pete’s shoulder as the SUVs popped their doors. “Looks like bodyguard details in standard… oh, shit.”

“What? What shit?” Dan, as usual, didn’t like it when she swore. “Give me something better, Eyes.”

I’ve liked you for a long time, Danny, but sometimes you’re a real prick. Layla buried the thought as deep as it could go. No use in getting distracted. “It’s a biter,” she muttered. “Just not ours. Repeat, not our target. It’s another one; I think…” Where have I seen that face before?

“Fuck.” Nobody yelled at Ackerman for uttering a blue word, of course. “Angle’s bad until a target gets closer to the door. Do you have an ID, Layla?”

I’m working on it. She mentally shuffled every laydown in the past few weeks—the face was familiar, and she knew he had to be a vampire. She just couldn’t remember precisely which one; the most unsettling thing was that they all looked so goddamn normal until you got entirely too close.

Then the flawless matte skin, the slightly different texture to the hair, and most of all some indefinable, atavistic feeling of predator, oh shit, run away were all dead giveaways. It was terrifying how good the human-camouflage was, until you realized there were human monsters too.

Those were entirely out of Layla’s control. At least you could feel a hundred percent good, moral, and American about killing a bloodsucking fiend.

“Man, let’s just abort,” Ben muttered. Pitched right in the sweet spot for his mic to pick up, but not loudly enough for Dan to call him out for either cowardice or defeatism.

Layla pressed her bare shoulders against the bricks; this dress was pretty, kicky, and would be absolutely zero use when the shooting started.

She could remember the biter’s face, the exact position of the grainy 8x10 photo, seeing it against a stack of manila files—worth their weight in gold, each the product of her own hard work, endless online argument, and constant re-checking.

Her role was clerical, close logistics, and occasional surveillance, which was a pretty way of saying she was a glorified maid-plus-secretary.

Still, that was necessary for the smooth functioning of any endeavor.

Without her, they wouldn’t even have hardcopies of the files from O’Shaughnassey’s crew, all verified sightings and intel.

Poor Shawn. God.