Shiv Crew (6 page)

The ever-eager floater carried out
the first staking of the day.

“It’s like an Easter egg hunt,”
Sherry whispered.

“Don’t be an idiot.” Rune put her
vgun to a sleeping vampire’s chest and pulled the trigger. She tried to ignore
the eyes that suddenly flipped open as the vampire awakened and realized, in
its last few seconds of what passed for life that its existence was ending.
Quickly she pulled her razor-sharp blade, took the head, and tossed in onto the
growing pile in the middle of the floor.

It took mere seconds to completely
execute a vampire. At least when they were sleeping. When awake, things would
have been a little more…tense.

Most of the vampires they killed
appeared to be starving—barely any blood was released from the decapitations.
Rune remembered conversations in which Llodra was said to be a harsh and cruel
master.

Raze bent down to whisper in her
ear. “There’s another room full of them through that doorway.”

“They’re all starved,” she said,
her voice low. “Why aren’t they feeding?”

He shrugged. “Llodra.”

They’d all heard the stories. “I’m
going to pay him a visit soon.”

“Why?”

She pulled back a little, confused.
Why indeed? Why had her first thought been sympathy for the vampires and anger
toward Llodra? She was there to kill them, not to negotiate a better life with
their master. “I…” She shook her head. “Let’s go end them and get this done.”

He stared at her for a long moment,
and she could practically feel his curiosity. But she couldn’t explain. Deep inside
her, flickers of affinity and a strange reluctance to kill the monsters rose up
to slap her in the face.

“Let’s go,” he finally replied, and
with his light motioned Z and Sherry to join them. Once they’d finished their
work they’d leave the vampires where they lay. The bloodless, headless monsters
would be piles of dust in mere hours.

In the next room the sleeping
vampires lay in hollows in the ground—but these vampires were sleeping in
pairs.

Some of them were spooning, and she
spotted a few couples sleeping with their arms around each other, like lovers.

“That’s weird,” Sherry said,
prodding one of the vampires with her vgun. “They don’t have feelings, but it
looks like—”

“What do you mean they don’t have feelings,
Sherry? You know better than that.” Rune’s heartbeat picked up, and she took a
deep breath as for an instant, the room swam.

“What’s wrong?” Z peered down at
her, adjusting his goggles.

“Fuck,” she whispered. “I don’t
know.”

A wave of dizziness hit her again,
and she doubled over from a sharp pain in her stomach. She gagged, and before
she could slap up the steel walls around her thoughts—those terrifying
thoughts—they burst free.

She cried out in horror, more
afraid than she could ever remember being. She was losing control. Someone was
messing with her—some metaphysical monster—and she couldn’t fight it. Whatever
it
was.

“Stop it,” she yelled.

Raze picked her up and threw her to
Z. “Get her the fuck out of here. Send Jack. We’ll finish the rest.”

Before Raze had finished speaking Z
tossed her over his shoulder and began to jog from the room.

But hanging upside down over his
back she caught a glimpse of something, something so wrong, so impossible, she could
barely process it.

She fought her way out of Z’s arms
and fell to the ground, trying to breathe. “Oh my
God
.”

Z dropped to his knees beside her,
and she vaguely heard Raze muttering almost frantically to Jack on his radio.
Sherry went calmly about her business, staking vampire couples.

Rune looked once again into the
trench holding two vampires.

One was her mother, and the other
was her father.

The adoptive parents she’d murdered
when she was a child were lying in the dark, musty ground in front of her.
Vampires.

She lost it.

Her parents. Her
parents
.

She’d
turned
them. She’d
made them vampires.

She’d spent her life taking out her
secret when she could no longer force it to hide, agonizing over it, crying,
hurting herself to ease some of the unimaginable horror and guilt…

She’d taken out their photos as
well, studying the worn pictures, tracing her finger over features she could no
longer recall.

She couldn’t remember their faces,
but she remembered their love.

And she’d not only murdered them—she’d
made
them.

Raze now knelt on her other side.
She looked at him and giggled, then moaned.

“My mama,” she said, imploring.
“Raze?”

He thought she’d taken leave of her
senses. They all did. He glanced over her head at Z. “Z is going to take you
out of here, sweetheart. Okay? Go with Z.” His voice hardened as he spoke to Z.
“Get her the fuck out of here.”

Raze and Z knew she’d lost her
parents to a monster. They didn’t know she was the monster. That would go to
the grave with her. Not that she deserved to keep her secret shame to herself.

Sherry appeared suddenly in the
dark of her tunnel vision, pushed her vgun to Rune’s mother’s chest and pulled
the trigger.

Mama’s eyes popped open, and in
that millisecond, she saw Rune.

“
Baby
,” she said. That one
word was full of torment, full of agony.

Rune felt her mind slip away.

In one quick, smooth flash of
silver, Sherry lifted her shiv to take the female’s head.

Rune didn’t realize she’d pulled
her vgun, but it was suddenly in her hand, and she was frantically pulling the
trigger, over and over. She had to stop Sherry. Sherry was killing her mother.

Sherry leaped out of the way. Dropping
to her knees with a freakish calm, she pulled her gun on Rune.

Z tackled Rune, and Raze went for
Sherry.

All Rune could do was scream. Oh
God, how to make them understand? How to make them stop, just
stop
. She
fought Z, fought him with skill and desperation. Some cold part of her seemed
to separate from her body and stand with crossed arms and dark eyes, watching.

She didn’t want to hurt Z. She
didn’t.

But they were killing her
parents.

There was no time to calmly explain
to them, to try to regain her authority and forbid them from staking any other
vampires. No. All she could do was fight and watch her mind break a little
more.

But Z was stronger than she was,
and he was terrified.

He forced her to the floor,
whispering her name even as he held her down.

Her face was turned toward the
hollow in which her parents lay. Even staked, there was still a small chance Llodra
could bring her mother back. But most likely she was too young, too weak, and
he would not care.

Sherry and Raze fought on. Sherry
was raging. “Motherfucker! You fucked-up motherfuckers!”

“Knock her the fuck out and get
over here, Raze,” Z yelled.

Rune struggled harder. She couldn’t
think. She just needed to get up, to go get her parents, to save them.

This was a second chance. Her
second chance.

And deep inside her, her monster stirred.
Maybe that was a good thing because she automatically concentrated on
controlling it, and that forced her to still. To think.

Never after the deaths of her
parents had her monster been so close to taking over. She starved it, beat it
into submission. And usually, she couldn’t have called it had she wanted to.

But now, maybe because of the link
with her parents—her
children
, essentially—the monster stirred.

Jack and the twins ran into the
room, guns in one hand, silver shivs in the other. They took in the details in
a brief second. “What the fuck,” Jack yelled. “What the fuck?”

The vampires began to rise.

As she watched, her father sat up.
He looked different but somehow the same. He glanced down at his wife and saw
the end of the stake protruding from her bony chest. “What?” he asked. “What?”

“Daddy,” she screamed.
Oh my
God. It’s my daddy.

“Rune?
Is that…oh no, oh no.” He lifted his hands, hiding his face. “Oh no.”

Her men went completely silent.
Stunned, no doubt. Even Sherry shut up.

And finally, Rune was able to beat
her monster back with sheer force of will, and she calmed. “Z.” Her throat hurt
from screaming, and her words came out in a hoarse whisper. “I’m okay. Let me
up. We have to get out of here.”

The few vampires that remained were
waking, and she couldn’t kill any more of them. Of course not. She had to get
her crew out of there.

Daddy. Mama.
“I’m so sorry,”
she whispered. He’d hear her.

Z rose cautiously, unsure, as all
the men were. The twins stood with vguns and shivs ready, and she knew their
eyes would be darting between her and the other monsters.

Z put his arm around her.
“Everybody out.”

Sherry opened her mouth. “But—”

Raze pointed his shiv at her. “Shut
the fuck up and move your ass.”

He’d reached his limit, and Sherry
seemed to realize it. She growled but jogged from the room. The rest of the
crew followed—Z and Rune first and the others behind them just in case the
vampires attacked.

Z nearly carried Rune up the crude
steps, his hands firm on her waist. After he tossed her through the opening,
she jumped off the porch and fell to her knees. She couldn’t stop dry heaving.

Finally her stomach settled and she
yanked off her goggles, throwing them as hard as she could at the house. That
was all the energy she had left.

She dragged in deep breaths of the
fresh, fragrant air. How was she going to deal with this fresh new hell?

How?

Her men surrounded her, helpless in
the face of her pain.

Sherry leaned against the porch
railing, quietly watching them.

Jack was the first to speak. “Fuck,
Rune. What can we do?”

Levi leaned forward and hugged her
hard, ignoring her when she immediately recoiled. “I’m so sorry.”

They all murmured and fidgeted and
wondered what to do to make her better. But they could do nothing. There was no
better, not for her.

They knew nothing other than what
they’d seen. Her parents had somehow been turned, and Rune hadn’t known.

What a fucking shock.

The rest of her secrets were safe.
Her shame was still her own.

Out of the blue, she began to sob.
Tearless sobs. Rune never really cried. She wanted to die. What was she? Was
she some sort of mutated vampire? She pretty much had to be, if she’d managed
to turn her parents.

She was a monster. The question she’d
always struggled with was what flavor of monster.

“I have to go back down there. I
have to tell my father—”

Denim squeezed her shoulder. “He’s
not your father anymore, Rune.”

Damn touchy feely twins. She
shrugged his hand off her shoulder.

The vampire
was
still her
father. She’d seen it in his eyes.

And for the second time, she’d
murdered her mother.

She sat in her office, drinking
coffee strong enough to rust iron, and put her father and mother away in a
little compartment in her mind. Over the years she’d gotten pretty good at
avoidance.

Her men had taken her lead and hadn’t
picked at her. Jack simply told her to let them know when she wanted help
figuring it out.

“I don’t want to think or talk about
it right now,” she’d said. “Not right now.”

They understood.

She hoped Jeremy would come to her
tonight. She needed her fix and needed it badly. If work kept him from her,
she’d snatch someone from the shadows and get what she needed before she lost
her fucking mind.

She looked up when she heard the
reception-area doors open, head cocked as she listened.

“She okay?”

Denim’s voice. She glanced at her
clock and realized she’d lost track of time. She’d told them to bring Lex by.

She stood, happy for the interruption.
Anything to keep the thoughts at bay.

“Come in,” she called.

Lex looked a little weak, but
otherwise fine. She was a stunning girl with her perfect skin and long black
hair. She’d dressed in a simple, loose pair of cotton shorts that hung nearly
to her knees, calf-length boots that looked like they might be useful in
kicking the shit out of a person, and a faded green T-shirt. She held a worn
jacket that seemed better suited for early spring.

She’d covered her crazy black eyes
with a pair of cute sunglasses. Rune wondered who chose her clothes and
accessories. The twins?

Ellis stood beside them, gazing at
the exotic new girl.

Rune strode to Lex with her hand
out before she realized the girl couldn’t see her. Slightly uncomfortable, she
put her hand down. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, Lexi.”

Lex didn’t smile. She turned her
face toward Rune. “Thank you.”

Rune gestured at the two chairs
positioned in front of her desk. “Ellis can grab another chair if you’d all
like to sit down.”

Before Rune could back away, Lex
shot her hand out and wrapped her fingers around Rune’s wrist. Carefully, she
slid her fingers down until she was holding Rune’s hand, her expression solemn.

Just the tiniest bit, her body
began to vibrate.

“Lex,” Levi said. “Maybe—”

“Quiet,” she said.

Rune frowned at the twins. “What is
she doing?”

Lex tightened her grip. “You can
ask me, Rune. Just because I’m different doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.”

Rune’s face heated. “Sorry. What
are you doing?”

“Reading you.”

“Shit.”
Rune twisted her hand
out of the Other’s grip, her heart galloping. “Stay the fuck out of my head,
Lex.”

Ellis gasped. “Rune!”

The twins, as one, sighed.

Lex just shrugged. “I felt
something from you when you touched me that first time. I wanted to follow up.”

“Yeah, well, don’t.” She hesitated.
“You’re a telepath?”

“I am many things. I can
sometimes…sense things from certain types of people.”

Levi shifted his weight and glanced
at Denim. She could almost see the thought passing between them.

“You don’t want to read me, Lex.
And I really don’t want you to.” She crossed her arms and leaned against her
desk. “So is that the extent of your powers? The boys led me to believe you
would be a good asset to Shiv Crew, but I don’t need anyone to read people. Not
currently.”

Ellis sent her a narrow-eyed,
disapproving look but she ignored him. Like the girl said—being different
didn’t make her an idiot, and Rune wasn’t going to make the mistake of treating
her like one.

“My body wears me down,” Lexi said.
“I see by its vibrations. I don’t see in the literal sense of the word. But
that doesn’t matter. The point is…”

She trailed off, as though she’d
lost her point and couldn’t find it.

Levi stepped in. “She’s a fighter,
Rune. You know what Denim and I can do.” He pointed at Lex, a gleam of pride in
his eyes. “She’s better.”

“Better?” Rune was skeptical. She
knew the twins loved the girl, but it didn’t make sense that they’d lie. Rune
could easily test her.

As though he’d read her mind, Denim
moved to push a chair out of the way. Ellis grabbed the other one. Levi took
Lex’s jacket and tossed it onto Rune’s desk.

“Try her out,” Denim said.

But Rune was hesitant. Try out a
blind girl? What was she supposed to do, exactly, to test her?

Levi shot her a smile and pulled
his shiv. “We’ll do it.” He looked at Rune. “Give us some space. You and Ellis
stand behind the desk.”

Rune looked at him.

“Please,” he added.

She shrugged. “Come on, Ellis,
let’s get out of the way.” But she glanced at Levi’s shiv before she moved.
“You’re not to risk hurting her.”

Denim flashed one of his rare grins.
“Don’t worry, Rune.” He pulled his own shiv.

“We’ll make it fast,” Levi said.
“She’s still not a hundred percent since her…”

“Episode,” Lex finished, when he
hesitated.

What a strange bunch.
Rune
stood beside Ellis against the wall. “Do it.”

Lex began to vibrate.

Rune could understand how the
vibrations would exhaust the girl’s body but still wasn’t clear on why, when
she had her
episodes
, her mind was affected as well.

Beside her, Ellis watched the trio
with wide eyes. He was always so in awe of everything, always so genuinely
interested. He was like a kid at a circus, except he wasn’t scared of the
clowns.

“She’s just so sad,” he whispered.

Who wasn’t? It was a sad world.

Lexi’s vibrations were
frighteningly intense at first, but then they seemed to ease. Rune realized
that was only because they’d become so fast it was difficult to see that her
body was actually moving.

The girl pulled off her sunglasses and
tossed them to Rune, who automatically shot out a hand to catch them.

Lex smiled.

And then, in an unexpected move,
Denim threw his shiv at the blind girl. He threw it hard, professionally, and
with every intention of driving the thing through her heart.

At least that was what it looked
like to Rune. She stood in stunned silence as Lex not only caught the blade but
sent it flying into a blank space on the wall where it stuck with a solid
thud
.

Levi didn’t wait for Denim’s shiv
to hit the wall before he threw his own shiv at her. The boys had come loaded with
blades and obvious plans to use them all.

Almost too fast to watch, the twins
hurled lethal knives at a girl who should have been dead. But she kept
snatching the blades out of the air and flinging them at the wall.

It was a perfect, awe-inspiring,
terrifying show. It was even more impressive than the twin’s stunning test at
the Sandbox.

Every time Levi and Denim had
something new to show her, they shocked the hell out of her. And amazed her. Lex
was beyond extraordinary.

Ellis stood with his hand over his
mouth, squeaking like a trapped rat. If Rune had been less rigid, she might
have done the same thing.

The twins were really trying. After
they ran out of blades Levi yanked two of them from the wall and tossed one to
his brother.

They came at Lex from different sides,
quiet and quick, and if she hadn’t witnessed what happened next Rune simply
wouldn’t have believed it.

Lex jumped into the air and kicked
Denim in the face. Almost before the blow connected, she hit the floor, turned,
kicked the shiv from Levi’s hand and then landed a right uppercut that sent him
reeling into the wall.

There was a small silence in which
Lexi stood, her arms crossed, a tiny smile crossing her face. Her eyes were
vibrating as fast as her body.

Rune parted her hands and started
to bring them together in a clap of admiration.

“Don’t applaud,” Lex said.

She froze in mid clap. “How the
hell did you know I was going to applaud?”

But how the hell had the girl
fought off a dozen knives and two trained men?

“Because, Rune, that is what I do.
This
is my power.” She stopped vibrating as suddenly as she’d started.

It was visibly noticeable. When she
wasn’t vibrating, Lex was blind again. She seemed to grow smaller, even, and
the spark that made her shine just…went away.

And she lost her ability to calculate
events, movements, intentions.

It was one of the saddest but one
of the most incredible things Rune had ever witnessed.

The twins, scowling and holding
careful hands over their bruises, looked at Rune.

“There is more,” Denim said, “but
even she doesn’t know everything she can do. She discovers new things all the
time.”

“She can’t hold the vibrations for
extended periods of time,” Levi added. “Not yet.”

“But I’m doing it longer,” Lex
said.

“And she gets sick,” Denim said.
“In time we’ll figure out why and fix it. We will.” He put his arm around Lexi,
not even flinching when she touched his swollen face.

“I got carried away,” she murmured.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “A little bit.”

Ellis pushed away from the wall and
walked to Lexi, his face set in lines Rune recognized. It was his “I’ve got a
new project and aim to fix everything” face.

“The vibrations are making her
sick,” he said, peering into the girl’s eyes. “And even now, though you can
barely see it, she is still vibrating.”

Lex jerked in surprise. “You can
see that?”

“Yes I can, my sweet, sweet girl.”
He looked at the twins. “You can’t?”

“They’re weak vibrations. Too weak
to make me tired, too weak to give me any power.”

“They’re like little muscle
spasms,” Ellis noted.

The twins just watched the interaction,
interested in what Ellis was saying but not looking hopeful that he’d find a
solution to Lexi’s collapses.

He put a finger on his chin, his
eyes narrowing. “What do you do when you’re not calling your power?”

She shrugged. “I rest. Do quiet
things and try to save my energy.”

“Maybe that’s your problem, dear
heart.”

Denim frowned. “What do you mean?”

Ellis pursed his lips. “It’s just a
thought, but maybe she doesn’t need to rest.” He gestured at the girl.
“Obviously she’s never really resting. She’s always low-level vibrating.”

Rune joined them. She’d seen Ellis
as Mr. Fix-it before. He was good. “So?”

Ellis’s eyes shone. He clasped his
hands together and practically danced in place. “When I was a kid I knew a lady
who had a dog. A
huge
dog. It never got exercised.” He looked at them
all, his blue eyes bulging. “Mostly it lived in a small kennel. Saddest thing
ever.”

Rune glanced at the twins, as
mystified at they were. “Are you saying we should get her a dog?”

He slapped his thigh. “
No
,
Rune. We should exercise her! That poor dog never had an outlet for all that
energy building inside him. Bad things happened—not just physically but
mentally.” He grabbed Lex’s arms and shook her gently. “How often do you do
what you just did, baby girl?” Ellis had never met a stranger.

She opened her mouth to reply, but
before she could, Denim spoke. “We don’t think it’s a good idea for her to
vibrate so hard unless it’s an emergency.” He looked at Rune. “Or unless she
needs to audition for someone.”

“Uh-huh,” Ellis said. “Uh-huh. So
basically, never.”

The twins looked at each other.
“Not since…”

Rune understood what he was about
to say.
Not since her mother was sentenced to death.
So for five or so
years, the girl had been a couch potato.

“Hmmm,” Rune said. “What Ellis is
saying makes sense.” She did like it when things made sense.

They all looked at Lexi. She stood
quietly with a strange little half smile, her unseeing stare on Ellis.

“What do you think, Lex?” Rune
asked.

“Maybe he’s right.” She took his
hand, her head tilting to the side.

Ellis didn’t seem to care if she
read him. “Can you see into my heart?”

Her smile was gentle. “Yes. I can.”
Then she let go of his hand and gestured at the others in the room. “But so can
they. You are the purest and truest soul I’ve ever met.”

It was true. Ellis was a good guy
all the way to his toes. Too good, really. He believed there was decency to
everyone, and that all beings, whether human or Other, should be equal. He was
a sweet soul, and the world was much too harsh a place for him. He worried her.

Rune sighed, then shook off the
melancholy. “Ellis fixes people, guys. He’s human, but he has a few superpowers
of his own.”

Ellis blushed, his grin wide. “Why,
thank you, my love.”

Rune winked. “Okay then, take her
out and let her get some exercise, boys. Every day. See what happens. Can’t
hurt, right?”

“I don’t know,” Levi said. “Maybe
not. If she exercises and has problems, we’ll just try something else.”

“I want you all to stop talking
like
I’m
a dog,” Lexi stated, her voice hard. “I don’t appreciate it.”

“Sorry,” they told her. It was easy
to think of Lexi as a helpless little blind girl when she wasn’t kicking the
crap out of people.

“I’d like my glasses back.” Lex
ignored their apologies and stuck her hand out for her sunglasses.

Rune looked down, realizing at just
that moment that she’d crushed the glasses, likely right around the time she
thought the twins were going to kill Lex. “I’ll buy you a new pair. I seem to
have shattered these.”

Lex dropped her hand and turned to
Denim. “I’m tired. Take me home.”

She looked tired, but there was
something more. She was depressed as hell. Rune recognized it. Depression was
an old, familiar acquaintance. Or was she just projecting?

“Rune, before we go. Is she in?”
Levi’s eyes were suddenly shuttered, as though he feared Rune’s answer.