“Give me a minute,” I said, and slipped out. Eli had rigged his vehicle to be able to turn off all the interior lights, which made it easy to come and go without being seen by neighbors, not that many were up at this hour. I moved through the night, my nose to the wind.
And I smelled blood. A lot of it, which made sense of this whole kidnapping. Leo’s enemy had kidnapped him, drained him, and placed dinner before him. If what I was guessing about the transmission of the vampire plague was correct, it was probably someone who had the vamp disease. If Leo had drunk, it was likely that he was sick now, just like his old lover Rosanne Romanello. Crap. “Boys, I’m circling the house,” I said. “Don’t trank or shoot me, okay?”
“Copy.” “Copy that.” And a snort of laughter from Chi-Chi.
Listening, sniffing, I moved around the house, drawing on my Beast senses. At one window I heard voices. Panting. It was the sound of pain, when one has been so damaged that one can no longer even scream. Crap. Leo.
I tapped my mic. “Leo is in a room at nine o’clock. He’s hurt. Where are the blood-servants?”
“Pulling up now,” Chi-Chi said.
“When we go in, have them slit their wrists and follow close.”
“Say again?” Chi-Chi said, startled.
I chuckled, no humor in the sound at all. “Leo will attack any human who gets near. If he scents blood, he’ll likely go for that site rather than rip out their throats. I’m guessing that they know all this, but just in case, remind them. The wound doesn’t have to be deep, but it has to be actively bleeding. It might save their lives. “
“Son of a— Copy,” Chi-Chi said. “Why don’t you take point?”
In this case, point wasn’t a position of honor for the best warrior in the bunch, but the most dangerous position for the one they liked least. “Gee thanks, Chi-Chi.”
“Anytime, Legs.”
At least there was amusement in his tone. I heard a car brake out front and I pulled my shotgun from its spine sheath. Chi-Chi said, “Takeout is here. Trank the dogs.” From the backyard I heard spats of sound and yelps as an air gun fired. The dogs went quickly silent.
“Dogs out,” Lime whispered. “Moving to the back door.”
A moment later Chi-Chi said, “Blood meals are appropriately bleeding.”
I raced around the house to the front door and up the steps, hearing the sound of untrained feet running noisily behind me. The door was steel. Fortunately, when I turned the knob, it clicked open. It wasn’t locked. Which meant very sloppy vamps or a trap. I said a small prayer and pulled on Beast-speed as I pushed open the door and raced inside. The place was unlit and unfurnished, all the rooms I could see were empty, but the smell of blood was everywhere.
Eli moved to my left and just behind: Chi-Chi and Hi-Fi were behind him. We checked each room, though the scents told me everyone was in the room with Leo. From the back of the house, I heard Lime Rickey enter.
I lifted my nose and followed the scent to the room on the left in the middle of the house. A light was on inside. Beast pounded her strength and speed into my bloodstream. I caught a breath and whispered, “On three.” I turned the knob. “One, two, three.” And slammed open the door.
In the space of a single heartbeat, light stabbed my eyes, and the smell of sickness assaulted my nose as I took in the room. It was a bloodbath. There were two bleeding blood-servants standing beside the back wall, and two bleeding vamps, sitting on a blood-drenched sofa. The strangers were sick, all of them.
Shackled to the far wall was what had once been Leo. Silver cuffs burned into his flesh at wrists and ankles. He was vamped out, his jaw dropped and thrust forward, looking as if it was unhinged—three-inch fangs out and glistening. His hair clung to his gore-smeared, sweaty skin in wild, bloody strands. His clothes were mostly torn off. Or bitten off. Fang marks were all over him, at knees, crotch, and elbows mostly, all places away from the defensive weapons of his own fangs and claws. His skin was palepalepale, ashen, dead-looking. His eyes were wild. Insane. His fangs were pearl white, no blood was smeared at his mouth. He hadn’t fed from the infected offerings.
Before the vamps could move, I fired the M4, taking down the vamp on the left, then the one on the right as he stood. Nonlethal, standard ammo, midcenter, abdominal shot placement. Eli and Chi-Chi were standing over the humans, weapons aimed down at them. I hadn’t seen or heard them taken down, but I had felt the thuds under my feet as they hit the floor, forcefully. I couldn’t hear myself ready the shotgun for another round, nor my voice over the concussion in my ears, but I knew the vamps heard when I shouted. “You move, you die true-dead.” One sank back on the sofa, clutching at her belly. The other one rushed me.
I reacted without thinking, dropped to one knee, and fired again, this time a head shot. The vamp dropped like a thrown rock—with momentum. I dodged left, out of the way of the falling body and bloody bits. So much for keeping them all alive.
Leo threw himself against the shackles at the smell of more fresh blood. It was the final proof that he hadn’t fed off the infected blood offerings; he’d not still be this ravenously hungry. A weight fell from my shoulders at the thought. His blood-servants entered, hesitating a moment before converging on Leo. I didn’t watch as the first one lifted his wrist to his master.
*
Sixty minutes after we had left, Eli and I were back at my house. Half an hour later, we were each eating a very good, very rare steak and sharing the events with Alex. When we were sated and the adrenaline had been burned off with several beers, Eli said, “So. Are we hired?”
He looked cocky and amused, and I tilted my head. “Ehhhh.” I looked at his brother. “Your brother can follow orders and take down a house. How about you? You got info for me?”