The Nightlife San Antonio: (Urban Fantasy Romance) (The Nightlife Series) (14 page)

He chuckled
humorlessly and stepped away from her. “This is ironic.”

“What do you mean?” She stepped
up, craving his nearness, his touch. The one thing she hadn’t told him about their connection, it went both ways. She had a strange affinity for him, even though he probably hated her.

“All this time, I’ve been trying to do the right thing, trying
to help you, trying to care, be the Good Samaritan. What I really wanted was to get laid, but I thought I could prove the Army shrink was wrong. And here you were, doing the same damn thing. You take what you want, what you need, and nothing else matters. We are two of kind, you and I.”

He chuckled ag
ain, but there was no mirth on his face.

“No, I am nothing like you.”

“Oh come on,
La Reina
. The Queen? You think I don’t know what that means? How many people have you killed? Never mind the cartel boys. They can shoot each other to pieces for all I care, but all the innocent bystanders that get caught in the crossfire? And the drugs? How many people’s lives are ruined by cocaine? Millions.”

She could hardly look at him. Every word he said was true, and yet it wasn’
t. If only she had time to tell him the truth, maybe he would understand, maybe he would find it in his heart … forget it. Thinking like that would get her nowhere.

“Believe what you will,
it’s not important. We must go.”

Thudding sounds of footfalls coming up the stairs near the front door
to the apartment attracted her attention. She was up and headed for the door, a sour churning in her belly.

* * * *

Adrian heard the steps of someone on the landing at his door by the time
Her Highness
was looking through the peephole. Damn vampires must have ultra-sensitive hearing. They did in the movies.

He could hardly
believe the things she had said. She had to be a nutjob. Who talks crazy like that? Claiming him for a
bloodslave?
He snorted.

She turned away from the peephole, eyes wide, with a finger held to her mouth to be quiet.
No more time for chitchat, looked like the shit was about to hit the fan. Adrian reached into his goody bag and pulled out eight pounds of pure Kevlar, reinforced by Kevlar plates. One of several souvenirs he’d stolen from the U.S. Army.

Lightweight, durable as hell,
the military issue bulletproof vest could withstand numerous rounds before failing. Adrian had felt at least three rounds hit his previous vest and it was the equivalent of getting hit with a hammer, a few deep bruises, but the vest held up. He’d traded it in for a new one just before his discharge.

He
strapped the vest on over his t-shirt and filled the front and side pouches with extra clips of ammo. Quickly checking his pistol to see that he had the hollow point loads, he slipped up to the front door.

She had stood there, silent, watching him with gr
owing alarm on her face. The damn vampire could get up and walk after being shot seven times, what the hell was she worried about?

Adrian pushed her aside an
d eyed the peep-hole. Four gang-bangers, tattooed, one heading straight for his door, and another standing in front of Crenshaw’s door. The other two were headed over to the other duplex to the right. Canvassing the place.

Fuck, now the mess was spilling over to Crenshaw’s apartment
. Dammit. He already had
her highness
to deal with. There was little room to defend anyone else.
Fuck
.

He stepped lightly back into the bedroom, and opened the slider to the patio. She watched him, and finally followed when he waved her over silently.
Whispering right up against her ear, he held her close to reassure. “They’re at the door to Crenshaw’s place too. I need to get both of you out of here.”

He pulled up his night vision scope
from his backpack, which wasn’t even attached to a rifle – as of yet. As he scanned the pool and surrounding apartments for signs of anyone, she put a hand on his shoulder and whispered against his ear. “I can see fine, and there’s no one out there. Its eleven-o-clock on a Thursday night, they’re all in bed.”

He put the scope down and looked at her, seeing her for the first time a
s she truly was. This woman, this vampire, had worked her way into his apartment, into his bed, and taken over his entire life.
Her Highness
had hearing like a fucking cat and night vision to match.

Knock, knock, knock
. The natives were getting restless.

He picked her up and set her bu
tt on the steel railing of his balcony. “Climb down right here and wait for me. Don’t go anywhere. I need to tell Crenshaw. This is my mess, and I should at least warn him, or get him out of here.”

The door knocking
overlapped, both at his and Crenshaw’s front doors. Shit. He had to get to Crenshaw before he answered the fucking thing

“Do what I tell you and wait!”

He slipped the backpack over his shoulders and palmed the divider between their two porches as he hopped over to Crenshaw’s side. He went straight for the sliding glass door and it opened, unlocked. As he stepped into the reek of stale cigarette smoke in Crenshaw’s bedroom, a dark figure loomed from the shadows with a pistol in his face.

Adrian moved, fast. Slap, punch, elbow to the ribs, and he found himself with a second pistol
in his left hand, and his own pistol pressed against the man’s neck.

“Dude,
you gotta lay off the coffee. You’re fucking wired, man.” Crenshaw’s voice rasped at the pressure of Adrian’s pistol at his throat.

Adrian shushed him with a finger held to his lips and
stepped back. He dropped the gun and shook off the adrenaline rush. This was what he missed most, these intense moments.  He loved the exhilaration of combat, working for the U.S. government with permission to do what was necessary, to kill if necessary, however he wanted to kill, be it pistol, rifle, knife, or frying pan.

Adrian
holstered his pistol and looked more closely at the gun he had taken from his neighbor. “You’re a felon. You’re not supposed to have this.”

“And you
’re committing a felony right now, dude. Pot calling the kettle black?”

Knock, knock, knock
. The natives wouldn’t go away so easily.

Cren looked like he wanted to answer the door.

Adrian shook his head and whispered. “Don’t. I’m pretty sure they’re connected to the guy we found in the alley.”

“La Eme
? Man, what a fucking mess.” Crenshaw had dropped his voice to a hiss as he glanced at the door nervously.

Adrian
checked to see Crenshaw’s pistol was loaded. “Yeah I know. We gotta go.”

“Dude,
you’re better off holing up in here with me. We can take ‘em. I got your back.”

Adrian
looked back to the patio as he heard a slight thud. Hopefully that was
Her Highness
landing on the grass below the balcony. “I don’t have time for this.” He nodded towards the patio. “I gotta deal with the lady. You can either come with me, or hide in here and take your chances.”

Crenshaw shook his head. “Give me back my piece, I’ll be fine right here.
I might even be able to talk to ‘em for a minute, slow ‘em down for you. They won’t mess with me when they see my tats.” Crenshaw pulled off his t-shirt and flexed, showing off his prison muscles. He pointed at the tattoo on his left pectoral, the distinctive swastika with the letters
A B
above and the word
TEXAS
below.

Adrian
handed him his pistol. “Don’t put your neck out for me. Just stay in here, and be quiet. I’ll be moving fast.”

Cren
shaw looked at him funny. “Alright bro, stay strong. Don’t let ‘em catch you slippin’.” Crenshaw held his fist out for the knuckle bump and nodded.

Adrian
tapped his knuckles, and hoped this wasn’t the last time he’d see Crenshaw alive. “Later.”

Adrian went for the balcony and slinked down into the grass, landing right next to San Antonio’s most wanted, who probably could see a hell of a lot better than he could at the moment.

She was holding herself and shivering in nothing but her oversized shirt, her hair still wet. “Where’s your friend?”

“He thinks he’s invincible, or he’s just too stupid to k
now when it’s time to get out.”

Her head spun at something she heard, and she grabbed Adrian’s arm hard. The woman had a serious grip. She pointed, and Adrian could just barely make out two figures loping through the darkness across the other side of the
pool, about fifty yards away.

Adrian pulled her along
slow and quiet, keeping to the deeper shadows beneath the balcony. He moved up behind a tree, and stopped. They were coming around the other side of the pool and playground, and he had a pretty good idea where the other two clowns were at. These bastards were circling around from both sides at the same time, to prevent exactly what he was trying to do.

She watched them
then glanced at him. He could see the fear in her eyes, but something else too, something feral. Maybe this girl wasn’t the one who needed protecting. Maybe he had this all backwards.

No time for guessing games. “Stay here. Whatever happens, don’t move, unless you see me go down and stay down. Then, and only then, you run, as fast as you can.”

He put a key and a wad of cash in her hand. “This is my spare pickup key. If I go down, take the truck and go.”

She shook her head, and he had the irresistible urge to kiss her. How fucked up would it be to leave the world witho
ut even catching a kiss goodbye? For the first time, he actually had someone to kiss goodbye.

She yielded with her cool wet lips, and he wished that they had more time to enjoy this …
whatever they had together. It was something unique, and interesting, and he didn’t want it to be over. He pulled away reluctantly, and glanced at the advancing thugs. “Stay. I’ll be right back.”

He didn’t give her a chance to protest, like he knew she would. Unless you’v
e been in this kind of shit, no one understands what it means to walk out and meet the enemy in the dark corners of the night. The rush, the fear, adrenaline flowing so hard he could barely keep from hyperventilating. There was no feeling like it in the world. No drug could compare to the sensation of a life or death moment.

N
owhere but in the battlefield would he ever be allowed to kill without consequence. But that distinction was over now. Adrian had created his own rules of engagement when he killed the man in the alley, and those new rules were in effect right now.

He walked right up to
both men, gun hand obscured behind him. Just an average guy strolling in the dark, wearing eight pounds of Kevlar and a backpack full of ammo and clothes. Nothing doing here.

He acknowledged them both with a nod.
“What’s up? Looking for somebody?”

One man went
left, the other kept coming straight for him. He knew they were armed, but they wanted him, or her, or information. They weren’t functioning on Adrian’s rules of engagement. Adrian stepped in fast and shoved his pistol against the man’s chest and unloaded three shots.

Silencers are one of those things you always see assassins ca
rrying in kickass spy films, but, the human body can muffle a gunshot pretty damn well, when you shove the tip of the gun right up against the flesh. It’s the exit of the bullet into open air that causes all the noise.

The guy dropped where he stood, gun still in his hand, but his heart was probably ta
king a shit right then, so he wasn’t focused on shooting anyone. Adrian turned immediately to face the man on the left, who already had a pistol in hand coming up at him.

“Carajo!”
The man cursed and shot off a round that missed.

Hollywood had
people thinking it’s easy to hit a moving target. That’s bullshit. Adrian became the moving target when he dropped and dived into a tackle. He wasn’t looking for the MMA choke out, wasn’t planning to force submission with Judo moves or any of that nonsense, he just needed to get the tip of his pistol up into the man’s belly at the right angle so he could hit his heart when he unloaded several quiet but messy rounds into his gut.

The g
uy never got up, nor did he say another word. Adrian stood, and wiped the man’s blood off on his jeans, impatient to get to the truck for his Clorox wet wipes. Though exhilarating, the downside of wetwork was that it was so damn
wet
. Body fluids were disgusting. He shivered off the puky post-adrenaline feeling and fought the urge to gag from his bare hands slick with blood.