I started to pull back from Tony's consciousness. I became so engrossed in finding Cicero; I almost missed his next fleeting thought. I didn't see a name or a face, just a building. I pushed back in and grabbed at the thought. I don't know what made me do it, maybe just gut instinct, but I found what I wanted. From his thoughts came an unwavering image, a nondescript apartment building in the heart of the city. I recognized it at once and realized why it looked so familiar. I had been living there for almost a week. I wondered why he would be thinking of it when I saw several people emerge from the front door and walk toward Tony. I watched the events unfold through Tony's eyes and realized he sat in a car waiting for the people to come out because he had the job of driving. Three people emerged from the building, two holding one upright. The third one wore a bathrobe and had a black hood over his head and his wrists bound with rope. The two approached the car and Tony popped the trunk. The car wobbled a little as they put the bound and hooded man into the trunk. My heart sank with the realization, they had Pete.
The two opened the back door of the car and climbed in. I saw fangs glint from the overhead street lamps as they slid into the leather seats. "Whoever the boss got the information from didn't lie; we saw her stuff in the spare bedroom. Only the boss would be lucky enough to have an FBI agent in his back pocket," one of the men said and smiled as Tony pulled away from the curb.
I broke the trance in a panic. I looked down at Tony and I saw nothing but fear there. He had betrayed the vampire god he had come to venerate above all things and he wanted to die. I snarled in his face and roared loud enough it would make even the werelion behind me jealous. If he wanted to die I would help him. Let's just hope I could send his god to him in death.
The flesh of his neck parted beneath my fangs. I didn't just bite, I tore. I chewed muscle and sinew and felt the rush of blood fill my mouth like I had bitten into a hose. I felt the blood push past the back of my mouth and flow down to wherever it goes and is absorbed into my body without swallowing. There would be no healing from this wound. I drank until the blood flowed no more and I came back to myself to find Tony quite dead beneath me and a disinterested werelion watching the entire scene. I had murdered a vampire and Thompson hadn't even tried to stop me. I think Thompson's disinterest bothered me more than the death.
I wiped the blood off my mouth onto the sleeve of my jacket and stared at Thompson. I had pulled Tony's memory of the knowledge of somebody in the FBI who had leaked not only who my partner had been, but where he lived as well. Whoever it was, had gotten Pete kidnapped and might have even gotten him killed. Could it be Thompson? It could, but if it were him, why didn't he just take me to Cicero himself? I couldn't chance it. I had already killed one vampire directly and one by putting him in a situation to be killed. I needed to find Pete and rescue him, on my own, but first I needed to get rid of Thompson.
"Are you going to sit there or are you going to change back?"
I watched as the air around him began to shimmer. I hoped to gods his clothes came back with him when he changed. The only thing that had survived his transformation had been the tattered remains of his suit pants. Bones began to pop as they reformed into a more human shape. Muscles poured and skin ran down the length of his body. It found it amazing a bald human could have a lion's mane in his Wereform, but the same could be said for the fine coating of fur over the rest of his body. I had only witnessed one transformation in my life during the fight I had with Rose Gates at the academy, and I had only seen the human to wereform shift. It had been a messy process as the animal under her skin had burst out in a shower of blood and other fluids. The transformation back seemed a lot less messy. The lion form seemed to shrink back into the human form and fur, fangs, and claws seemed to just get retracted back under the skin. I found myself grateful they didn't implode back.
Thompson stood before me in his pants, barely. His shirt, shoes, socks, and suit coat lay somewhere back in the alleyway. He looked tired, like it had taken everything to shift back, and for all I knew it had. I blushed a little at his mostly naked form. Damn my hormones, but he looked like he had been chiseled from a hunk of onyx and it showed in his arms and chest. I really needed to get my mind out of the gutter.
"They have Pete," I told him.
"How do you know?"
"I pulled it from Tony's mind before I killed him."
Thompson walked over to the body and nudged it with his toe. Tony didn't move, but I could see the wound at his neck closing. It wasn't healing at vampiric speed, but it was closing. I kneeled down to look closer to make sure I wasn't seeing things, but the repair became even more obvious the closer I got. I could see skin growing and the muscles stretching and healing themselves as well. Maybe I hadn't killed him. Damn.
"He's not dead, but you drained him dry. He'll heal, maybe not before the sun comes up, but he'll heal. We need to get him out of the street, unless you want him dead?" Thompson didn’t display a hint of emotion whatsoever. Like the decision belonged to me and he couldn't care less.
"No, I don't want him dead even though he deserves to be. I'm not a killer," I told him and my answer seemed to appease him. I just hoped it wasn't because he worked for Cicero. I had just started to like Thompson, and if he had been the one who tipped off Cicero, I swore to myself I would kill him.
I needed to get back to the apartment to start looking for Michaels. I couldn't just go to Capone's Vault and start banging heads together. I needed to think, I needed to cry, and I needed to figure out where to start. The sun would be up soon so I didn't have time to do more than think anyway. Okay, maybe think and take a shower, but that's all.
Thompson pulled out his cell and dialed a number. I didn't know who he dialed until I heard him tell the person that he needed an ambulance. He must of dialed 911. For all I knew he could just be pretending to. I listened carefully and could actually hear the dispatcher on the other end of the phone asking Thompsons location. He gave our exact location, and he impressed me by knowing exactly where we had ended up. While I had been chasing Tony, the last thing on my mind had been to look at street signs.
"Do you really want the police showing up here while you're dressed like a homeless person?"
"No, not really, but unless we get Tony out of the prospective sunlight, he's gonna get pretty crispy. I sure as hell ain’t hauling him back to the office."
I stared at Thompson and formulated a plan to get away from him. If he was the one tipping off Cicero, I couldn’t afford to let him know about Michaels. For all I knew as soon as I turned my back on him, he'd clunk me on the head and drag me to Cicero and Michaels and I would both end up dead. I just wish I knew what Cicero wanted and why he took Michaels.
"Go home ,Thompson. I'll wait here for the police and make sure Tony doesn't wake up anytime soon. Officers seeing you like this probably isn't the best of ideas right now."
"You sure you can handle this?"
"Yeah, just leave me the car keys. You have a way home?"
"I'll run," he snarled and smiled.
I nodded and he tossed me the car keys from his mangled pants. Before I had even caught them he had changed back into his lion form and started climbing up the fire escape of the closest building. I guess he's going to take the rooftop route. It would probably be smarter than letting everyone see a werelion running through the streets of Chicago.
I turned and looked down at Tony's prone form. I felt relieved I hadn't killed him and a little sorry I hadn't. I resisted the urge to kick him in the head while he lay there, and sat down on an empty vegetable crate someone had left in the dark alley and waited for the boys in blue to show. I didn't have to wait for long either.
The first squad car showed at the end of the alley with lights on and sirens blaring. It echoed down the alley and really began to pierce my ears. Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity, the siren stopped and two cops got out of the car with their guns drawn. One sighted me as they walked slowly down the alley, and the other had his sights on the passed out form of Tony.
"Hands in the air where I can see them!"
"Relax officer, I'm FBI," I shouted back.
They didn't relax their grip or posture as they continued their way down the narrow alley, nor did I expect them to. If someone shouted FBI to me, I probably wouldn't relax until I saw some identification.
"You got any identification?" The cop moved close enough to see it. I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled my badge out. I held it up and the cop leaned in close enough to read it. I expected him to put his gun up, but he seemed unimpressed by my federal identification. I stood and he shifted his gun away from me finally and I walked over to the prone form of Tony.
"He got a little frisky, so I had to knock him out. Could you gentlemen please make sure he makes his way to a holding cell until I can get the reports together enough to file charges?"
"Yeah, we'll take care of him," the taller and older of the two said and turned toward me. "Are you all right agent?"
"Yes," I lied.
I turned toward the entrance of the alleyway and listened. I could hear more cars approaching as their sirens gave me a good measurement of their distance. They seemed loud, but not loud enough to expect them in less than a few minutes time. The two shining examples of Chicago's finest must have heard them too because I heard one of them mutter a mumbled, "Shit!" from behind me. I wondered what he meant, but before I could turn to ask, I felt the bullet hit me square in the back before I heard the report from the weapon. I looked down and actually watched my chest explode in bits of bone and a spray of red mist. "Fuck," I said as I collapsed to the disgusting alley floor.
Chapter 19
I woke with my chest on fire, and a hunger like I had never known before. I couldn't see anything, but smells assaulted me from every direction. I could smell my own blood, I could smell chlorine, and I could smell death all around me like a moldy wet blanket had been thrown over me. It turned out to be a good analogy, because as soon as I thought it, my sense of touch started working and I could feel the blanket or sheet covering me, keeping my eyes from seeing.
I brought my arm up from where it pressed against something cold at my side and pushed the shroud from my prone form. I should have left it where it lay. I looked down in horrid fascination and saw my breasts and skin had been peeled back like the skin of an orange and my ribs had been pulled back and held apart by some sort of metal contraption. I didn't know whether to scream for help or just start sobbing. I looked around the room in a state of panic and realized they had put me in the morgue. One wall of shiny corpse sized doors and the large manila tag tied to my toe had been a dead giveaway. No pun intended.
I took stock of my situation. I had heard of bad days. I had even had a few of them myself. Getting a decent vampire killed and my partner kidnapped certainly qualifies. Ever woken up in a morgue with your flesh peeled back and your ribs spread open with all your organs exposed? I might have just set a record and thought I should get a medal.
I raised my hand up off the cold morgue table and reached for the rib spreader. It felt cool to the touch and was covered in my blood, fantastic. I had no idea how the damn thing worked and I didn't want to cause any further damage to my ribs. Along the shaft of the cruel looking instrument lay what looked like the crank handle of a vice. I could do this. All I had to do is turn it, right? I gingerly grasped the handle and turned it a little to the right. I nearly screamed as I felt the contraption spread farther apart. I remembered the righty tighty lefty loosey mantra my aunt muttered every time she used a wrench around the house. Who would have thought it would apply to a rib spreader. Slowly I turned it to the left and felt the strain on my rib cage lessen immensely, whew.
I kept turning and turning and finally I could turn the device sideways and remove it from my chest, and now the fun part. I grabbed my ribs and pulled them together. I didn't know what else to do. I broke an antique ceramic bell once my aunt had been particularly fond of. She went to the store and bought a little bottle of superglue and made me fix it. The only manufacturing defect of superglue is the fact you have to sit there motionless for quite a while before the two sides bonded. This felt vaguely similar. The only difference is this time I prayed.
I sat motionless for the better part of five minutes. Trust me when I say it felt a lot longer. Finally I built up enough courage to let go and see if my body had enough strength to heal itself. My ribs didn't go "shproing" and pop back open so I took it as a good sign. Very, very, very carefully I grabbed the most predominant rib on either side of my chest and gave a little tug. Thanks be to the gods, they held. There are things nobody should have to do in their life, this being one of them.
Without trying to think about it too much I grabbed my peeled-back flesh and pulled it over my ribs like a blanket. Of course the medical examiner chose the exact moment to return from whatever he had been doing. I turned my head to look, hands covering my smallish breasts, when I saw his eyes roll back in his head as he fainted. My own head winced as I heard his hit the cold concrete floor with a sickening thud. I resisted the urge to rush over to him to make sure he wasn't dead from a heart attack. I had my own problems to deal with.
I realigned the flesh so it wouldn't heal crooked (you're a pretty girl, but your breasts look a little uneven). This time I didn't pray, just watched my flesh as it reknitted. If I ever had another press conference and somebody asked me what I thought my greatest vampiric ability is, I would have to indubitably say it's the healing. Not even a scar remained as my skin forced itself back together like melted plastic. I sighed with relief because I knew I would be okay. I might need a little therapy, but I would be okay.