Chapter Seven
EJ
“Mmmm,” Walter said. He had heard too. “Why don’t we check out the back,” Walter suggested to Rocas, letting his voice go soft and mesmerizing, the way the older of his kind still could, “and when we know it’s safe, we can ring the bell, and see if Londyn will let us in.”
Rocas’s eyes narrowed even more at his words.
Impelling her just a bit more with his voice, he added, “The young men can stay here.”
She took something from his words, something the others didn’t hear. She gave a single nod and said, “Officer Stevens, wait here with the civilian.”
“Yes, sir,” the man said.
EJ put on his headgear, watching as she drew her weapon, which the circumstances she knew of didn’t warrant, checked it, and carried it low at her thigh.
She turned into the lawn and opened the back gate.
Her words came through an ear-patch, as she jerked her head to the side, into the shadows. “We clear?”
“You are asking me as a vampire, to tell you if we are alone.” Silky tones. Dulcet.
EJ gave in to a grin as he pulled a flute. Walter had the hots for Seargent Rocas. He was jazzed. EJ would razz Walter about it later.
“There is no one and nothing in the side or backyard but us,” Walter said, adjusting the headgear so EJ could see what he saw.
The vampire followed her across the grass. Came to an instant stop. EJ heard Walter’s breathing, short sniffs. “Blood confirmed,” Walter subvocalized into his comms. “From the back of the house.”
Rocas hadn’t heard. She moved to the side, heading up the narrow driveway. Her weapon was in a two-hand grip, a null stick in a unicom attachment brace on her offhand. The null stick was an old prewar version, but still effective.
Walter followed, watching everywhere, but his cam always settled on her.
Softly, her back to Walter, she said, “You try that rolling shit with me again, and I’ll break your nose. That’s me talking, not the cop. Understood?”
Walter took a sharp breath. EJ figured he was surprised and EJ chuckled, just loud enough for Walter to pick it up on his patches.
“Indeed, Sergeant. Please forgive me.”
“I’m guessing you have a reason for getting us back here alone, other than you wanting to take a sip, which would be inadvisable,” she warned again.
“I smell blood from the house. A great deal of fresh blood.”
“Damn it. You shoulda told me that right off,” she stated, sounding pissed. The tone of a woman quietly furious. The tone of a commander holding in rage.
EJ was betting she had been active duty in the war.
“Yes. I would have, except the null sheathing in the walls kept me from scenting properly,” he lied, to keep Rocas from knowing about the queen’s people in the security system.
“I caught only a faint hint. The breeze changed direction and brought the scent from the back of the house. Now I smell it quite well.”
He added, “Too well. So much lovely blood.”
That meant it was fresh. Very fresh.
Rocas spoke into her comms, saying, “Vampire IC claims there’s blood inside the house. Request backup. Vampire and I are at the rear of the house. No visible unsubs present.”
The reply was muted by her ear-patch. A military patch, end-of-war or postwar. Something she had either paid for herself or taken with her from military service. EJ was betting on the latter.
“Affirmative,” she said. “Copy that.”
Walter said, “I heard a moan. I believe that someone may still be alive inside.”
Rocas turned to be picked up by the hidden cam in the headgear. “How many? How many wounded? How many DBs?” DBs meant “dead bodies.” These were questions a warrior in the Witch War would have asked.
The war he had signed up for when he was sixteen, when the Rus witch clan—all male, some vampires—had called EEBs from another dimension, and used them to attack the vampires of Europe, and then the humans. It had been four bloody, possession-ridden years of horror.
EJ looked at the rookie. Scared shitless. No help in a fight. Kid would piss his pants if he saw someone who was demon-ridden.
The sound of Walter inhaling, little snorting puffs of air, ended with his lungs deeply filled, the sound distinct over comms. “The blood of two humans, one still bleeding, one freshly dead. Perhaps one other human, not bleeding. Silent but alive. Mithrans have been here, but their scents are buried beneath the blood.”
“Two potential human vics,” Rocas said into her mic. “Multiple potential unsubs. Unknown Mithrans have been on-site, may still be on-site. We are at the back door.”
EJ saw what Walter did through his cam, as they each peeked through the door’s window.
Rocas whispered, “Mother of God.” Into her mic she said, “There’s blood on the floor in the kitchen. One vic in sight, potentially still alive. Exigent circumstances. Medic and woo-woo backup requested. Yes, sir. Affirmative.”
Her tone changed in EJ’s headgear. “Officer Stevens.”
“Yes, sir,” the rookie said.
“Ring the front bell. If the door is unlocked, and appears safe to the witch, enter the premises. Announce yourself and secure the entrance. You and the witch are to remain at the entrance. Do not further enter the house until I’ve cleared it.”
“Yes, sir.”
EJ didn’t disagree with the orders, despite the fact that the rookie had no idea how to handle whatever this was. Stevens pulled his weapon and took off in a crouched run. EJ followed, his own weapons at the ready.
Rocas said, “You. Walter. Can you locate the unsubs and the others by scent?”
“Yessss,” he said, the word hissing as it passed between his fangs.
Blood to a vamp was like food to a starving man. And their protector hadn’t fed enough for battle.
“Stay behind me,” Rocas said.
EJ shadowed the kid, covering their six and both sides, because the kid didn’t. He also followed Rocas on the screen. She opened the door.
Walter was much faster than the sergeant, much more likely to survive a bomb or a shooter or even a magical attack than she was.
He might be caught up in blood-scent, but according to his cam, he was still thinking rationally, still in control.
He positioned himself so he could grab Rocas and throw her to the side if there was danger.
EJ moved left of the kid. They stepped onto the sidewalk.
Walter and Rocas entered the house. On his lenses, EJ saw the blood pooled and splattered everywhere.
Furniture overturned. Stoneware broken. A woman sprawled on the floor, half hidden behind an open refrigerator door.
Walter darted to the victim. Rocas disappeared from the screen.
The woman was so covered in blood that from Walter’s camera angle, EJ had no idea who or what species she was, only that she breathed, a wet, blood-slobbering sound.
Rocas reappeared in the screen. Walter pointed to the right. “Unsub.” Her weapon in a two-hand grip, the sergeant stepped into a dark room before disappearing from the screen.
Visible in the micro cam, Walter sliced his wrist with his right fang and placed the bloody flow at the woman’s mouth. He leaned in and began to lick her wounds, clotting the ones he could see and could reach with his tongue with his saliva.
EJ heard bells, cracked, broken, the sound of bones shattering. He knew that sound.
The kid rang the doorbell.
Angie
I woke to stabbing pain. My body arched away from the steel. Drawing to the right, away from the heart strike. Mind whirling. Visions in swathes of bloody scarlet.
I threw off the afghan, dislodging Aurora, who yowled like a banshee.
Barefooted, I ripped weapons from their hiding places as my conscious mind came awake.
My Clever Gurl knife was open in one hand.
In the other was the staff, lifted from where EJ had placed it.
Blue light brightened the green walls, flashing like a strobe from the labradorite capstone.
Bloody light. Death. The vision ripped me with its claws. EJ!
The staff in the crook of an elbow, I took a small sheath from the wall, closed and stuck the knife in it to protect my wool pocket.
Slung a war-era AE headset on, pressed the ear-patches over my ears, and tapped it on, though I had no idea what channel they were on.
I activated it and heard Ojos’s faint tone as the headset merged with my unicom wristband.
“Search for The Firm’s comms,” I said. The AE was an Audio Equalization Pass Filter System I had taken when I left Asshat, and was totally illegal to own—therefore Karson hadn’t tried to get it back in the divorce.
Satisfaction shot through me, adrenaline strengthening my precog gift.
Blood. Blood everywhere. I adjusted the nearly invisible eyepieces out of the way.
My head thrummed with the beat of my heart.
Pain. That strengthened my gift too. If it got too strong, I’d lose awareness of the present, fall into the possibilities, and not be able to stop what hadn’t yet happened.
Precog was a double-edged sword. Pain had brought on my battle magic. I might need the pain.
I slammed my bare feet into boots. Found another headset, older, with fewer capabilities, but still functional. On one headset, I called a Chat-uber. On the AE, I dialed 911.
911 rang and rang.
With that headset still ringing, I ordered a ride.
Snatched up an unlicensed handset, a handful of cash, and threw on my cloak, too fast. The cloak falling over my shoulders and down my body felt like being tased.
The world gyrated around me. Nausea climbed my throat, acid hot.
My head pounded. I caught a glimpse in the mirror—cloak, staff, and still wearing the stupid tiara with rosemary poking out.
I looked like an idiot, but I left the jewelry in place, in case it was helping and the pain was actually worse, as in incapacitating.