“That sounds like a good man,” Mickey said. I glanced at her in the mirror, then changed lanes in the thinning traffic.
“Does it? I’m not an expert.”
“Do not take this the wrong way, but you are old.”
I snorted. “How could I possibly take that the wrong way?” Mickey smiled at me in the mirror and I found myself grinning back.
“For a runner, I mean. You do not get that way by being stupid. And you are driven. You would not be walking away from your career over a man unless he was worth it.” She nodded, satisfied with her reasoning.
“The next exit,” Tilde murmured. My mouth tightened into a hard line. Was that what I was doing, giving up my career? I wasn’t good at staying still and I suspected that the craving for speed and a daily dose of danger couldn’t be replaced by any combination of things that was good for me.
Carla didn’t know my real name, but she had my photo. I wouldn’t be able to work anywhere new, not unless someone was desperate or careless, and I didn’t want to be associated with a shop that was either of those things. And it wasn’t like I could go home either, just pop up and say, “Do you have an opening? Oh, by the way, I’m not really dead.”
I eased off the gas and downshifted as I exited onto a quiet street lined with crumbling buildings. I checked my mirrors and the shadows around us. Soraya was tracking us by blood, but I didn’t know how fast she could round up the boys and move. I hoped it was fast though as—on Tilde’s direction—I crept up on a hulking warehouse. The windows were broken out and boarded up. Gravel pinged beneath the tires, and my hands tightened on the wheel. I stopped outside the eight-foot fence, overgrown with dead grass and vines, and papered with trash.
“This is it?” I asked. Tilde nodded, then groaned. Mickey held her, rubbing her hands up and down the girl’s arms.
“She is not well.”
“It’s the bite,” I said, killing the lights. “She’ll be sick without another. And he’s already drained her.”
“You’re going in there?” Mickey asked in a hushed voice. Her face appeared beside mine and we stared up at three imposing stories of abandoned industry. Tilde began to weep quietly. I glanced back at her. She was slumped, horribly pale, and while her eyes were wet, she wasn’t producing tears. Wasn’t capable. Seconds ticked by.
“Mickey, unwrap her neck and hand me the bandage.” I held my hand out. She went wide-eyed, then scrambled back to comply. “I doubt she’ll bleed much in her condition. Drive her to the hospital. I’ll wait here.”
How long could a vampire cavalry possibly take?
Chapter Sixteen
I stopped thirty feet from the building, straining to get a fix on Malcolm, or anyone. I caught him abruptly, the outward edge of his power like the warmth of fire from a distance. He wouldn’t let that out unless he was using it, or could no longer control it. My eyes roamed, trying to pick out a surge of vampire reinforcements. Nothing but the taillights of the Honda as, blocks away, it turned right.
“Come on, Soraya,” I whispered, waving the bandage languidly through the air, hoping that the spoor left on it would be enough to attract her. Tilde couldn’t afford to wait any longer. Malcolm’s energy intensified, and still I didn’t feel any other vampires. Maybe he was just pissed because he’d arrived to find the place empty. I took a couple steps forward. Or maybe Vorster had been here, they’d clashed and Malcolm had been left behind. I imagined him, lying on the cold, dark floor…dying alone while I waited out front.
I left the bandage in the center of a loading-bay ramp. Several of the ground-floor windows had been busted up, and I climbed between the jagged, broken boards. It was dark and chill inside, stinking of moldering cardboard and the remnants of transient humans. It was also dry, the air so chalky that I had to fight against the urge to cough.
I crept through the room, feeling for debris with hands and feet, subliminally aware of the low ceiling and close walls. Some kind of office or storage room. The door had been removed, and I found the entrance to the warehouse thanks to a dull, flickering light somewhere beyond it. I peeked out, heard nothing, and felt nothing other than ambient vampire energy. More than just Malcolm now, but I couldn’t get a good fix and it wasn’t very strong. Machinery rumbled deeper inside the structure, vibrating the floor, and was accompanied by irregular clanking noises all around. I followed a hallway, trailing my hand down the dusty wall in order to move straight, then paused to rub against it, coating my clothes and hair and skin in the accumulated grime.
Vermin skittered in the dark, water dripped and I really hoped my vaccinations were effective against whatever I was rolling in. I came to an opening and glanced out, starting at the sight of something directly in front of me. I bit my lip to keep quiet, breathed for a moment until my heart rate regulated, then peeked again. A stairwell, tarnished metal with faded yellow warning chevrons on each step. I was just out for a walk in the dark, through a vampire-infested warehouse. Nothing to get jumpy about.
Dismantled machinery had been piled on the other side of the stairwell, high enough that it should cover me if I went up. From what I could see beyond the machinery, the main floor had been cleared by the expedient of shoving everything toward the walls, and was lit by hundreds of candles. Eerie.
I squinted through the grated stairs at the mezzanine. More discarded industrial crap, but there seemed to be some room to maneuver. Snipers and lookouts, the guys who weren’t doing the hand-to-hand fighting, liked high perches. That sounded pretty good to me.
I was practically crawling in an effort to stay low by the time I reached the top. And then I made the mistake of looking down. Wherever Malcolm was, he wasn’t alone. Vampires hid in darkened nooks among the machinery, support beams and dusty, battered crates. I counted nine and had the sinking suspicion that the shadows were similarly populated.
Note to self: vampire radar sucks in large spaces full of metal.
While I was pretty sure they were all on the ground floor, I couldn’t help peering up at the rafters. No batlike goons to be found. Some kind of sliding crane system hung listlessly a little ways from me, and I crept toward it. There’d be an opening near it, a loading place that would give me a better vantage point. Voices drifted toward me, along with their tinny echo, and I plastered my back against a large wooden crate.
“It was rigged, top to bottom. I show up, with eight of the original fourteen, and there wasn’t a proper fence to be had.” Vorster, conversational and amused. “Swag of the century and nobody there recognized it. Could have used you then.”
“Ayers never realized he’d lost his pieces?” Malcolm’s voice. My heart leaped into my throat. Vorster laughed. The sound echoed through the space before dying a lonely death. Silence followed for a moment, over the thrum of the machines.
“Come on, Malcolm.” Vorster again, still going for companionable, but his voice was strained. How long had it been since he had to ask for anything? He took things in order to revel in the pain he caused, not because he enjoyed a hard day’s work or the challenge. “Don’t tell me you don’t miss it. The game you’re playing has no winners, not in the long run, and you’re stuck with a crap hand for the foreseeable future.”
I swiveled, ever so slowly, and peered down through a narrow gap. They stood in profile about a foot apart—Vorster a few inches taller in his impeccable gray suit, Malcolm more muscular, thicker in the chest and legs. He wore a charcoal sweater over lighter pants. I hadn’t even noticed when he took off, but it made me smile. That’s how he’d dressed when I first met him, casual vampire about town. I hadn’t realized I’d missed that. The smile froze. Four suckers stood behind him in a semicircle, wearing long, loose coats, their attention squarely on him. They didn’t share any of Vorster’s friendliness.
“And what do you have?” Mal asked. His hands were in his pockets but there was no way he was as calm as he seemed, not after the way he’d left.
“I reinvested. Saving up for a rainy day.” Bitterness chipped away at the merriment in Vorster’s tone until that was all that remained, and suddenly they weren’t facing each other so much as sizing each other up. Reach advantage to Vorster, but Mal had him on raw strength. Too bad that wasn’t all that mattered when vampires fought.
One of the vamps hidden below me stirred, and I felt Malcolm grow more alert. He had to know he’d walked into a trap. It was just the scope he didn’t know. Why had he come alone? And where the fuck was Soraya?
“Give it back to me,” Vorster said conversationally.
“
She
never belonged to you.” Malcolm. Just as affable. I shifted so that the crate wasn’t digging into my shoulder quite so hard, and settled in. This was the dullest fight I’d ever seen.
“It’s the principal of the matter now, Mal.” Vorster laughed. “I’ll even pay for her. What’s this worth to you?” Vorster gestured, and Malcolm turned toward two cases on a stainless-steel table. They were the kind of cases that terrorists in action movies carried stolen automatic weapons in. White swirls marked the ends, and even at the bad angle I recognized the Goya symbol.
“A peace offering,” Vorster went on. “This drug has been giving you trouble, no?” Mal touched one of the cases. He said something, too quiet for me to hear. Vorster snorted.
“I know what they
say
it is. I’m not so naive that I believe it. How many have you lost to it? Dozens? Hundreds?”
Malcolm’s hand dropped to his side and he turned to face Vorster.
“Come on, Malcolm. It’ll be like old times. You can relieve yourself of this ridiculous burden. Volunteering for slavery. How can you bear it? Or have you made it worth it?” Vorster’s voice dropped and I had to lean forward to hear him. “Bronson’s been rampaging across the Americas for years. How much has he accumulated? What things might one take from a master like that? You always did favor the long con.”
“And you preferred instant gratification, even when it wasn’t profitable.” The tension, even in the large space, increased. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you what his collections held.”
“Try me.” Vorster’s hands hung at his sides. Malcolm merely watched him, his face blank. “I would hold no grudge. Lift your vow to her and come back with me. Bronson is nothing. One master going mad like all the others before him. We did not endure our undeath so we could
manage
a
community.
” He spat the words. “We did it so that we can go wherever we wish, do all that we want. Let me show you what you’ve been missing.”
I held my breath as Malcolm’s eyes brightened. Vorster’s power expanded, scratching over my skin, a chilling counterpoint to Malcolm’s heat. He hated serving Bronson, hated the duties he had to perform because the powerful vampires couldn’t be bothered to rule his splintered territory. He’d vowed to do it, to save himself, to protect Soraya. But if he thought he could walk away from it all… My stomach shrank into a hard pit.
“I’ll make it easy,” Vorster said, leaning his elbow on one of the cases. “I’ll bring some people in, help one of his rivals move against him. I’m surprised they haven’t done it already. He’ll be too busy trying to put his territories back together and buying off the human government to even bother with you. You’ve been chained to that master and that female. You’ve got years to make up for.”
“Even if I wanted to give Soraya to you, you couldn’t have her. If I die or am lost to him, Bronson has claim to all of my possessions.”
I shifted again and my foot slipped in the dust. I bumped against the crate, sucking in a breath as my collarbone twinged. Malcolm lowered his gaze to the floor.
“And what about the other? This human you’ve latched on to? Would your new master have claim to her as well?” Vorster didn’t sound so cordial now.
Malcolm bared his teeth in a cold, mocking version of a smile. “You should ask him yourself. You’d be surprised at his answer, if you could find the courage to speak in his presence.”
Vorster pounded his fist on the case. His thugs moved all at once, drawing swords and clubs from their coats. For slashing veins and crushing bones, Soraya had said. I clapped a hand over my mouth, swallowing a warning cry. Malcolm didn’t so much as blink.
“It doesn’t have to be like this, Hen.”
“No, it doesn’t. But I’m done with your pointless game. This cat-and-mouse bullshit. Come back to me!” Spittle rained down around Vorster and a flush lit his narrow face. Malcolm’s fangs slid partway down, but still he did not move.
“Your memory’s too short, Hendrik. I never belonged to you.”
“I will chain her at the neck and drag her behind me for the rest of her days! And I’ll break your human pet, then feed her to your falcon.”
“Will you now?” Malcolm murmured. I stared at him, unable to blink as the seconds ticked by.
“Piece by tender piece.”
Malcolm launched himself at Vorster, his hands catching the other vampire around the throat. Vorster fell back onto the table as his goons swarmed. Malcolm turned, cracking his elbow into one face, while kicking another in the gut. I knew for a fact that didn’t feel good. He grabbed the nearest sucker around the neck and jerked until the vampire’s head came half off. I winced, and the vampire below me snapped his head toward me. Malcolm grabbed the fallen sucker’s sword and stared at me, his face hard, his eyes glowing. I scrambled away from the edge of the mezzanine.
They attacked in a flurry of motion, Malcolm parrying the blows with his sword. Power exploded, sending dust billowing into the air like a mushroom cloud. Vorster streaked forward and crashed into Mal’s side, driving them both through the far wall. Suckers flooded from their hiding places, aiming for Malcolm. There was no way he’d—
The ceiling tore open. Metal shrieked and wood splintered, bits of it singing past me. Six dark figures blurred through the air and crashed onto the floor. Vorster’s goons paused for an instant before dividing, a few creeping toward the broken wall, the others turning to face the new threats.
And that’s when shit got interesting.
Most of the candles went out, and the temperature dropped about fifteen degrees. I edged along the wall toward the stairs. Reinforcements had arrived, and I was suddenly, acutely aware of what a liability I was. House arrest at the blood lounge was sounding pretty damn good.
Something decidedly bodylike smashed into the crate in front of me. It shattered, chalky powder billowing out of it, and a heavy splinter grazed my cheek. I dodged, coughing as the dust invaded my eyes and throat. Vampires screamed down below, and the building reverberated with the impact of bodies and thrown items. A massive gearbox sailed onto the mezzanine and I rolled away from it, landing about where I’d started. I made it to my knees, aiming once again for the stairs.
The feel of Malcolm raked through me. Had he gotten loose? I poked my head around the side of a metal stand with the crane controls. The crane swung, chains jingling merrily. The floor was a mess of motion. Swords glinted, broken objects were being used as clubs, and vampires blurred apart and back together. My eyes searched frantically through the seethe and the growing pools of blood on the floor. No sign of Malcolm, just puffs of dust, as though the shattered hole in the wall was exhaling.
Soraya moved furiously, her back to me, swords singing in both hands. She filleted one sucker, then dipped, stabbing another low in the abdomen. She rose, both swords unzipping the male. She turned toward me and bared her teeth—her long, sharp, pointy teeth. Right, so me being inside the warehouse hadn’t been part of the deal, but she hadn’t mentioned her problem with punctuality. Or that she’d be eviscerating people. One day, very soon, these images were going to wake me screaming.
On the ground floor a tray of candles flared, the flames shooting five or six feet into the air and leaving a notable void over the candles. Combustible particles. Nice. The benefit of hanging out with adrenaline junkies like runners? There’s a would-be arsonist in every crowd.
Energy spilled through the warehouse, making me shiver. I felt Malcolm and Vorster first and foremost, the strongest, the most agitated. Other cold touches felt vaguely familiar, Malcolm’s people. There were fewer of the strange ones, but not few enough. It was still an uneven fight, for all Soraya’s skill, the males’ tenacity and Malcolm’s resolve. I swallowed panic and stood.
A support beam below cracked, and the mezzanine groaned and listed. A box behind me tipped over, spilling small metal rings. They rolled past and dropped off the side. I grabbed the operator box and pushed myself away from the edge. Soraya yelled below, sounding more pleading than angry, which I didn’t like at all. I ran toward the stairs, and as I did, power licked at me.