Have stakes, will travel
In one of Bitsa's tiny rearview mirrors, I saw a slice of light followed by a pinpoint of red. A laser-targeting sight. Crap. The killing spot between my shoulder blades began to itch. So I got louder, raised my voice as thunderously as I could. "Derek told me he thought he'd be safe when he came home to the United States. Instead, he found his neighborhood was full of bloodsucking vamps. He had to go back to war just to keep his family out of harm's way. So I'm looking for Derek. He knows me as Injun Princess." I didn't necessarily love the nickname, but it seemed to amuse Derek.
My voice fell away. If Derek didn't find me now and give me safe passage, I figured I'd be in a lot of trouble. For the second time tonight. Beast rose in me as the seconds dragged by. Minutes passed, feeling like hours. I started to sweat in the humid air, a betraying trickle lazing its way down my side. My heart beat a bit too fast, fear leaching into my bloodstream. I hated being passive. And I hated standing there with weapons drawn, awaiting my fate.
Finally I heard a door open. A voice called out, "Last time you hunted vamp in a dress and party shoes. Looks like you learned something, princess. Yo' mama mus' be proud."
My heart jumped into my throat and did a little tap dance before I swallowed it down and found my voice again. "If I'd ever had a mama, maybe so," I called back.
"Thought you was a Injun princess," he said, walking toward me with that measured step grunts learn early.
"Princess of my very own nook in a children's home," I said, softer. "Age twelve to eighteen. Now I'm still princess of my domain, but it's a bit far from here. You in charge of this one?"
He chuckled. "This domain? This lovely, sweet-smelling, clean, and pretty little patch of turf? Nominally speaking. Watchu want, Princess?"
"Safe passage. To hunt for the sire of the rogues we killed."
He laughed again, this one lower, knowing, and just a bit brutal. "Thanks for the money you sent our way, for the dead-vamp heads. It came in handy to buy more ammo. To kill the ones who came after."
"There've been more?"
"Six." He flicked a lighter and held it away from his body, using it to see me by before touching it to a cigarette--half tobacco, half weed by the smell--as he drew air through the paper and herbs. His face was lit in the flame, his black skin moist with perspiration, black shirt and dark clothes nearly invisible. The steel butt of a handgun rested in the waistband of his pants. I waited as he evaluated me in the light of the flame. "We got the heads in a cooler, kept that way with dry ice, since Ada came through. Crips are moving in too, some say with backing from a breakaway clan. We're getting low on supplies and ammo, but Leo ain't answering his cell. And we ain't getting paid no bounty."
"Ah," I said. He was making a deal. I felt Beast show teeth at the idea of negotiation. She believed in fighting first and talking after--over the blood and guts of her enemies. "Leo's grieving the death of his son."
Derek snorted at the term "death." I acknowledged, "As much as the dead can die. But he's not himself exactly."
"Rogue?"
I thought about the face and form standing in my small yard, vamped out. Thought about the dissension in his ranks. "Not yet. But something's funky. One of his scions used the word or the name 'Dolore.' You know it? Or her?" Derek shook his head no. I said, "Yeah. Me neither.
"I can send word of your kills to the vamp council. Get permission for you to talk to them. I'd even go with you to tell them they owe you. Sort of an emissary."
Derek blew smoke away from me in a long pale streamer. "Now, that would take some balls." He looked me over. "You got any?"
I grinned and let Beast shine in my eyes for a moment. I didn't know what he saw in the poor lighting, but he nodded.
"Okay. I'm not interested in talking with any fang-heads except Leo, and I'm not wild 'bout talkin' to him these days. How 'bout this? You talk, you get a deal, you keep twenty percent for the negotiation. And you leave our names out of it."
Now, that was interesting--the marine wanted to remain anonymous. "How 'bout I turn in the heads for you on my own bounty, which is twenty thousand a head, keep nothing, but you guarantee me safe passage through here while I hunt? And you back me up if I need help while I hunt for more. Deal?"
Derek thought about it a moment. "We'll need guns. Like the one you got pointed to the ground."
"You got six heads at twenty K a pop," I said. "Get your own."