The Dark-Hunters (349 page)

“Shoot me!” the blond officer screamed at the other two who were still standing. “Quick!”

Susan froze in her struggling as she caught sight of Ravyn. He held the blond cop in front of him, but that wasn’t what stunned her. It was the fact that his eyes were no longer black. They were a deep, insidious red. He tilted his head back, opening his mouth so that she could see long, sharp incisors. The other men in the room froze as if they were every bit as terrified as she was.

And before she could release her pent-up breath, Ravyn sank his teeth into the officer’s neck.

I don’t believe in vampires. I don’t believe in vampires.…
The litany repeated itself over and over again in her mind as she watched the blood pour down the officer’s shirt while he struggled to get away from Ravyn, who effortlessly held him with one arm.

Suddenly, the two thugs opened fire on both Ravyn and the cop he held. The cop’s entire body shook in response to the bullets pummeling him as his eyes turned glassy and dull. Ravyn laughed evilly as he released the lifeless body to sink slowly to the floor at his feet.

He threw his hands out and some kind of invisible wave went through the room, knocking the two men off their feet. His eyes matched the red blood that still dripped from his chin as black clothing appeared on his body.

“You don’t knock on the devil’s door, boys, unless you want him to answer,” he said, his voice deep and evil. He wiped the blood from his chin.

“Th-they said you wouldn’t attack us,” one of the thugs said in a frightened tone.

“
They
lied.”

Some unseen force ripped her out of the arms of the officer who held her. Ravyn rushed the thug closest to him and hit him so hard that he was knocked off his feet, and three feet up, into her wall, which shattered as the thug hit it. The brunette officer rushed at Ravyn, who spun about and caught him a powerful blow to his jaw. The sound of bones breaking echoed in the room as the officer fired more bullets.

Ravyn’s eyes turned an even brighter red before he waved his hand in the air. The bullets stopped dead in the air, hanging there for two heartbeats before they reversed direction and struck the cop.

Susan couldn’t breathe as her gaze scanned the carnage of the four men who’d entered her home. Now the only one standing was …

The male stripper.

“Please, please tell me that I’m having an acid flashback.”

His eyes faded back to black. “You drop acid?”

All she could do was shake her head no as some foreign coldness invaded every part of her body. This couldn’t be real. She couldn’t have seen what she’d just seen.

I’m having a psychotic episode.

Maybe they weren’t dead. Maybe all of this was still part of the hoax Leo had perpetrated. She took a step toward the blond officer to feel for a pulse … only there was no way to press her fingertips against his carotid since it was no longer intact. It had been ripped out.

And that wasn’t makeup. It was real. Disgusting and real. At one time, she’d been on the police beat and seen more than her fair share of dead bodies. This was no hoax. Her male stripper had just killed four men in her house, which would make her an accomplice if she didn’t report this.

“We have to go to the police,” she said in a strangely serene tone. “Tell them what happened.”

He shook his head. “We can’t go to the police. They’re in on this.”

“No, they’ll—”

“Susan,” he snapped, shaking her lightly. “Look at me.”

Even though she wanted to run, she stood her ground and met those spooky black eyes.

“This isn’t a game. Didn’t you hear what your friend was trying to tell you earlier? There’s some serious shit going down here. Now that I know what’s going on, I can take care of myself, but you’re another matter. We have to get you to a sanctuary before more of them come to find
you.
Do you understand?”

“But I didn’t do anything wrong. I didn’t kill them.
You
did.”

“Bobby? Alan? What’s going on? You got the woman yet?”

Her breath caught as she heard the officer’s radio going off. Were there more of them outside waiting to come in?

“Bobby? Respond. Over?”

Ravyn cursed as he heard heavy footsteps outside. “There’s two more men coming up the walkway.”

“How do you know?”

Before he could answer, her door was kicked wide open. Ravyn shoved her toward the kitchen before he slung his hands and knocked the two human males down. He took a step forward only to realize that these two were smarter than the others … they had the one weapon that would incapacitate him. A Taser. One shot and the electricity would bounce around his cells, turning him from cat to man and back again without his control. His magick would be haywire and he would be defenseless against them.

As much as he hated it, it was time to retreat. Changing to cat form, he ran after Susan, who was making her way toward the back door.

“We have to get to your car.”

Susan froze as she heard the male voice in her head and saw the small leopard back in her house. “Please tell me I’m having some kind of stress-induced hallucination.” It was better than the thought that she had actually lost her mind completely.

But insane or not, she needed to get out of here until she figured out what was going on. Since there was no way to get to her front door without confronting the two newcomers, she grabbed the spare set of car keys from the small hanger inside her back door. She rushed out of her door as bullets sprayed the wall beside her, narrowly missing her.

Too afraid to look back, she ran to the driveway only to realize that they’d blocked her in. Damn. Another shot rang out before the passenger window of her Toyota shattered. Susan crouched down as she made her way around the car, to the driver’s side. She didn’t dare glance back until she had the door open.

She couldn’t see anything until the small leopard came bounding out of the door, headed for her. Before she could move, it leaped into her car and jumped into the backseat.

Deciding not to argue, she got in, slammed the door, then started the engine.

“Duck!”

Normally, she didn’t obey anyone’s orders, never mind a disembodied voice in her head, but given the oddness of this day, she decided not to argue or hesitate. No sooner was she down than more bullets sprayed her Toyota.

“This is ridiculous!” Infuriated over the damage done to her car, she put it in drive and gunned the engine as more shots were fired. The car lurched as it went tearing through her neighbor’s yard, over their small white garden fence. “Jenna is going to kill me.” But she’d deal with her neighbor later, provided she survived this and had a later.

Her heart pounding, she sat up so that she could actually see where she was going. Off in the distance, she heard the sound of sirens. The saner part of herself wanted to head toward them, but she thought better of it. Those had been cops at her door.…

Jimmy had been terrified of his compadres in uniform. For argument’s sake, what if that part of his psychosis had been real? She knew more about police corruption than any human had a right to, and though she’d always thought of the Seattle cops as much more honest than others, there could very well be more than one dirty apple in the barrel.

“I need to speak to Jimmy,” she said under her breath. He was the one cop she could trust.

“Head toward Pioneer Square.”
There it was again … that deep masculine voice in her head that she now recognized as Ravyn’s.

“Why?” Oh good grief, she was now buying into the talking-cat thing. Great.

“Just trust me. Three-seventeen First Avenue South.”

Sure, why not?
“And who’s there, the Addams family?”

“Yes.”

Of course. Who else would live there?
“This is one hell of a delusion I’m having. All I can say is that I hope whatever put me into this coma doesn’t leave any lasting damage.”

“Since I’m the one with all the bullet wounds, I don’t want to hear it from you.”

“Lay off me, Puss in Boots. I’m having a really bad day.”

“Ditto.”

Deciding to listen to the voice that sounded like her own, she headed back toward the clinic.

“This isn’t the way to Pioneer Square.”

“Yes, voice in my head, I know. But I’m doing things my way, so sod off.”

At least that was the plan until she got to the animal shelter and saw it marked off with yellow warning tape. Her heart rose in her throat to choke her as she saw the coroner, newspeople, officers, and a gathered crowd.

What had happened?

Part of her wanted to check it out, but given the fact that her car was currently riddled with bullet holes, that might not be the prudent thing to do until she found out what was happening and why the police seemed to be after her. No, she needed to get the hell out of here. But where could she go?

Leo.

He was … “Oh, don’t say it,” she whispered. She couldn’t believe that he, of all people, was her lifeline. Yet she couldn’t think of anyone else who might know why the police were at the shelter. Pulling her phone off her belt, she pressed 3 and waited while it rang.

“Yo?”

Never in her life had she been more thrilled to hear that goofy little-boy voice of his. “Leo?”

“Susan? Is that you?”

“Yes, and I—”

“Listen,” he said sharply, cutting her off. “Don’t talk.” His curt tone irritated her, but for once she didn’t argue. “There’s been some odd things happening this afternoon. Did you by any chance go see your friend Angie today?”

“Yes. Why?”

He was silent for a full second. “Where are you now?”

“I’m in the car.”

“You still got the cat?”

If there were any doubts Leo was in on the prank, that eliminated them. How else would he know that she’d taken a cat home from the shelter? “Yes. Puss in Boots is safe.”

“Oh thank God.” There was an unwarranted amount of relief in his voice. “Whatever you do, don’t let that cat out of your sight.”

“Why?”

“Just trust me.” She heard a muffled sound like Leo was covering up the phone with his hand. “Tell them just a second.” Then he returned to her. “I have to go. You need to head to Three-seventeen First Avenue South. Hole up there and I’ll be over as soon as I can.” He hung up the phone.

Three-seventeen First Avenue South. There was that address again. What was it with that place? Deciding that it must be important to her delusional mind, she finally succumbed and headed for it.

Susan really wished she knew what to think as she worked her way through the relatively light Seattle traffic. She could hear the cat moving around in her backseat from time to time, but for the most part, he was quiet.

Until she finally reached Pioneer Square.

“Pull around to the loading dock in back.”

Convinced she was utterly insane, she did as the disembodied voice said, then parked the car. Her nerves were pretty much shot by the time she opened the door and got out. She half-expected the cat to leap out, but instead it was lying on the backseat … completely covered in blood. Her heart clenched at the sight.

Was it dead?

Terrified, she opened the back door. She touched the cat’s shoulder only to have it hiss at her. “Easy,” she said, pulling back.

The cat rose up slowly so that it could limp out of the car, toward the dock.

“Hey!” a cute young man with short black hair snapped at her. “You can’t park…” His voice trailed off as he caught sight of the cat.

His face went instantly pale before he shouted inside the door. “Mom, we got Ravyn out here! Code Red.” He grabbed a coarse blanket from a stack of them that was piled on the edge of the dock, then jumped down to wrap it around the cat.

Carefully, he picked the cat up, cradled it in his arms, then took it back to the loading dock.

Unsure of what she should be doing, Susan locked her car (and immediately wondered why she bothered since one window had been completely shot out and the rest of the car looked like it’d survived a war zone—but then, old habits die hard) and followed them into the dock, which led to a small storeroom. As soon as the kid shut the door and set the cat down, Ravyn returned to being human. He braced one bloodied and blistered hand against the right wall and kept his head bent down as if he was exhausted.

Sure, why not? He really
was
the cat. Made about as much sense as the rest of her day. And hey, if she had to be delusional, at least he had the best naked backside she’d ever seen, except for the fact that there were numerous bullet holes riddling almost every inch of his exposed flesh.

But then he was only naked for a few brief seconds before a pair of jeans and a T-shirt appeared on him. It didn’t take long before the shirt was saturated in blood.

Susan cringed at the sight of it. How could he still be alive, never mind standing upright?
Just play along with the delusion, Sue. What the hell?
“He needs an ambulance,” she said to the kid.

Ravyn lifted his head to look at her over his shoulder. There was a small bit of blood on his lips, and for the first time she saw his fangs when he spoke. “I’ll be all right. I just need some sleep.”

“I have got to start taking drugs,” she mumbled. “At least then I’d have an explanation for all this.”

A door on the opposite side of the small storeroom was flung open to show two more people running in. A young woman who was around the age of the boy and a tall, dark-haired woman in her mid-fifties. The older woman paused as soon as she saw Susan. “Who are you?”

Ravyn rubbed his bleeding arm. “She’s with me, Patricia.”

Patricia gave her a suspicious look but didn’t argue. “What happened?” she asked Ravyn, moving to examine the bullet wound he had in his right biceps.

“The Daimons have declared war on us and they have some of the police department on their side. I don’t know how they managed it or how many they have, but it’s enough to warrant our undivided attention. They claimed they killed at least one Dark-Hunter, didn’t say who, and they almost got me. We need to warn the others, ASAP.”