Stormrage (12 page)

"No, Ray!
I'm a fucking coward! Now please, take me home!" Pandora screamed, on the edge of panic.

Raven put the car into neutral.
"Give me your wrist!"

"What?"
Dora asked in confusion.

"I'm not fully healed
from the explosion. Give me your damn wrist!" Raven ordered.

Without further question Dora pulled off her glove and offered Raven one thin wrist.
The dhampyr lowered her mouth and bit, drinking deep of her sister's claret. When she opened her eyes they'd become angry, feral slits. She pulled free and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand.

"You take the car back to the house,
" she said. "You get one scratch on it and you're buying me a new one."

"Ravenel…
what are you going to do?" Dora asked, pulling her glove back on.

"Take
some of these renegade scumbags to school. I'm sick of this crap," she replied.

Raven climbed from the car and began w
alking determinedly toward Club Purgatory, her heels making an angry clack on the pavement with every step. She held her breath, hoping Pandora would catch up. Instead she heard the Bass' engine roar and the car accelerate away.

Raven shook her head but kept walking.
She was Fürstin, after all. The Chosen of the Mistress of the City. Yeah…right. One injured half-vampire against who knew how many vampires, probably armed to the teeth.

For once there was no line outside
Club Purgatory and Raven walked straight inside. There was no weapon check-girl either. Raven figured she was inside with everyone else, or worse. It was a bad sign that Pandora was the only one who had escaped.

Raven paused at the plastic curtain and peeked through.
Just as Pandora had said, a bunch of black-uniformed vampires were separating the crowd. She recognized her brother Thad, beaten, bloodied and zip-tied to one of the club's dance poles and her sister Gemma tied to another. Friends like Pashta and Bruno and a dozen others huddled against the wall, covered by the armed vampires.

"Damnit, Dora you wuss!"
Raven murmured.

Seeing only one choice, Raven kicked off her heels and stepped through the curtain, letting it flap shut behind her.
Immediately one of the Renegade guards covered her with his weapon.

"Ah, Ravenel,"
a voice said. "I was wondering when you'd come to try and rescue these pathetic sheep.

"Pathetic only to you, Xavier,"
Raven replied to her unseen brother. "How's my favorite renegade lap-dog?"

"I'd rather be a lap-dog than
a blind sheep, sister. Unholster that cannon of yours and drop it behind you if you please."

"Whitey
, I know you aren't the smartest man on the short bus, but have you seen the outfit mom has me wearing? Where do you suppose I would hide a weapon?" Raven asked, so cool she could shame an ice-cube.

Xavier appeared in her view
, his cocky smile in place beneath his shocking pink eyes and wild white hair. He was dressed in leather pants, combat boots and armor that covered his arms and hands but left his chest bare.

"Good point, Ravenel," he said.
"The slut look suits you. Maybe I will make you my pet. Once you are properly broken in, of course."

Raven ignored the barb and replied,
"You look good too, bro. What do you call it? 'Stake me please'?"

Xavier sneered and backhanded Raven across the face.
She felt blood trickle from the corner of her mouth, but she ignored the tiny rivulet of crimson.

"Is that the best you've got, Whitey?
Your boys are watching, you know. They're snickering that big bad Xavier can't take down a dhampyr," she taunted.

Xavier growled and balled up his fist for a roundhouse punch.
Raven caught it a few inches from her face. She smiled grimly and twisted. A moment later Xavier was on his back, his arm broken in three places, the bone sticking out from his forearm. Raven kicked his bare ribs hard enough to shatter a few and then stomped on his shoulder-joint, popping it like an overripe fruit leaving his right arm useless, at least for a while.

"So, does anyone else want to
play?" she asked, turning away from the whimpering bloodsucker at her feet. "Or are you going to piss off and let my friends and family go?"

Twenty vampires
armed with Heckler & Koch submachine guns turned toward her, the rifles ready to fire.

Raven sighed and shook her head in mock sadness.
"Yeah. I saw that one coming. Where does he get you guys? Idiots R Us?"

Their first shots rang out where she had been standing
a heartbeat later, clipping Xavier as he was regaining his feet. He spun from the impact and dropped back to the floor in a bloody heap like so much raw hamburger. Raven slid behind the bar on her back and drew her Automag. She turned to look back the way she'd come, but the gunfire from the renegade vampires had pushed Xavier out of her line of fire. He'd been lucky they hadn't hit his head or his heart or he'd already be dust and bad taste.

Bullets bounced off the bar and Raven could hear 'Lius screaming for the men to stop
shooting up his club. When the shooting finally stopped Raven popped up from behind the bar. The black-garbed vampires were re-loading instead of paying attention, a mistake that cost them dearly. Raven vaulted the bar and fired a single shot while still in the air. Cornelius, standing with Strohm's men, gagged on the 30 caliber bullet and then exploded in a shower of sparks and dust.

Raven just kept moving, the Automag spitting flame until it clicked empty
, leaving only fifteen of Strohm's army still standing. The red-haired blur cartwheeled and picked up a fallen Heckler and Koch, firing it with one hand, killing two more vamps and scattering the rest as she leapt up behind Thad. She pulled a knife from his belt and cut the ties from his wrists, letting him collapse to the ground. He nodded his thanks, but clearly was in no shape to fight; blood oozed from his shattered face and dozens of cuts on his torso and arms. Raven handed him the H&K and pushed him off the stage and under cover.

"Thirteen is my lucky number, boys," she called out, replacing the Automag's clip
and standing. "Are you still in the game or are you going home to lick your wounds and hope your master doesn't put a stake in you for shear incompetence?"

The vampire soldiers she had scattered gathered themselves in
to a pyramid-shaped formation and began advancing, their H&K's spitting vampire-slaying rounds. Raven leapt and dodged on the small stage, using the pole to spin like an exotic dancer. Somehow it worked and she somehow always managed to be where the bullets weren't. By the time the army needed to reload again, eight more of them were ash.

Sweat glistened on Raven's exposed skin and blood oozed from a dozen grazes on her arms and legs, wounds that were already healing as she slammed the third magazine into the grip of her Automag.

"And then there were five," she said. "Look, I'm in no mood for this. Has no one explained who I am to you? Okay. I'm Ravenel Estrith Valentina Tempeste, Mistress Valentina's chosen one and Fürstin to the Mistress of the City. You know what that means? It means I can kill you with a napkin if I really have to. Why don't you idiots grab Xavier and haul ass so I can let all these nice people go?"

She glanced at the glowing pile of ash in front of her.
"Unless you'd rather join the dust pile? I do have some questions for my idiot brother."

The vampires looked at one another and then, to a man, dropped their rifle
s and backed away. They paused and lifted the groaning figure of Xavier and dragged him out, never looking back.

Raven holstered her Automag and leapt across to Gemma
, who seemed unharmed.

Once she was free, t
he young-looking ginger-haired girl hugged Raven tight.

"It's okay, sis,"
Raven said. After the hug continued longer than was comfortable she said "Okay, this is silly, you're a hundred years older than me and I haven't seen you since I was a kid. Let go!"

"Aye, but I'
m not a pureblood or a Mistress. Ye saved my life!" Gemma replied in a Scottish accent.

Raven snorted
and extricated herself from her sister so she could release everyone else. When she got to Pashta she kissed the woman's cheek before cutting her free. "How do you feel about being the new owner of this place? I believe the current manager has been relieved of his position."

Pashta grinned.
"The deed and everything is in the safe. Do you really mean it?"

"Of course.
You will have some work to do, but I'm sick of having to kill the bouncer every time I want a club soda," Raven replied, helping the other woman stand.

Pashta laughed.
"You've got a deal, Ravenel. Maybe I can really make something of this place now that grease spot Cornelius isn't in the way."

"I'm sure you can and I am sure my mother will approve
of you being in charge. Would you get a bottle of claret? I think my brother could use a drink," Raven said.

Pashta nodded and hurried off, rubbing life back into her wrists.

Raven walked back to the stage and knelt next to Thad. He'd been well dressed in a grey suit and burgundy shirt before Xavier and his clowns had gotten a hold of him.

"Hey
, T," she said. "How are you feeling?"

Thad sat up against the stage and smirked.
"Like my little brother just kicked my ass."

"Pashta is
bringing you some claret, you'll be right as rain in a few minutes. Tell me what happened?" Raven asked.

Thad shook his head.
"I have no clue, Ray. Gemma had just gotten back to town so we decided to take a night out and we ended up here. A few minutes later Xavier and his goons stormed the place. I didn't even know they were here until they kicked the lycans out and started sorting the crowd into us and what he kept calling sheep. Ray, they fed on anyone that wasn't mom's friends or family. They tossed the bodies out back. They killed twenty or thirty people just to get to us!"

Raven nodded, watching Pashta hurrying
toward them with a warm bottle in her hand.

"Yeah, I sort of figured that out when I didn't see people
running out of here screaming."

Pashta knelt next to Raven and offered the bottle to Thad who drank from it gratefully.

"T, how come they kicked the crap out of you, but never laid a hand on Gemma?"

Thad wiped his mouth and groaned as his wounds began to heal.

"I think Xavier was working off all those wrestling matches he lost when we were kids," he said. "He never mentioned Gemma other than to say she would burn with the rest of us."

"Did she say why she came home
from Canada?" Raven asked, looking to where Gemma was standing with the other survivors.

"I didn't ask, I was just happy to see her.
Ray, why are you playing cop?" Thad asked.

Raven looked back at Thad, who was almost entirely healed from his
beating. "Because it's my job. I have someone killing off our family one by one, I have two unsolved murders that may involve magik of some kind and now Gemma is home after, what, fifteen years?"

"That isn't long in vampire years, Ravenel,"
Thad said in a serious voice.

Raven straightened and used a stage towel to wipe the blood from her legs.
"Ugh, don't use your big brother voice on me. If I hadn't come for you, you would both be piles of ash by now. In my years fifteen is a long fricking time and it seems weird she comes home just in time to get you in trouble and be useless."

"She's not pureblood…" Thad started.
Raven grabbed him by what was left of his shirt and raised him to eye level.

"Neither am I," she growled
. "I am so sick of hearing that shit. You idiots cut yourselves with scalpels so you can see how your arm works, you get your eyeballs tattooed, Pandora has piercings where I didn't even know you could get piercings and you always fall back on who is pureblood and who isn't when the shit hits the fan. You all have mom's blood flowing through your veins. Why don't you fucking act like it and stop rolling over every time some idiot with silver or wood points a gun at you?"

She dropped Thad without waiting for an answer.

"Pash, you have a mess out back, I'm sorry to say. I know Cornelius kept kerosene and flares for just such an emergency and there are old drains to sweep the ash into. If you're very lucky my useless-ass brother may help."

With that she turned on her heel and walked out of the club, muttering
, "they aren't half-blooded, they're half-witted."

* * *

The sun was shining through the room
darkening drapes in Raven's bed chamber like the beam from God's very own flashlight. Raven groaned and pulled a pillow over her head, guessing she'd been asleep less than two hours.