More shots sounded. The three burst rat-a-tat of a submachine gun. Leo diving. Grégoire diving. Something stinging my arm.
I whirled, seeing the others. Two. Male. Dressed in bellboy uniforms. Each with small, ugly, compact weapons held with professional ease. Firing. The scent of human and vamp blood on the air. No one was behind the bellboys. I emptied my weapon into them, even as one turned toward me. They didn’t go down. Vests. They all were wearing bullet-freaking-resistant vests!
I dropped the Walther. Bullets wouldn’t stop them.
Claws. Jane throwing claws.
I dodged hard right. The first blade left my hand. Flashing in the overhead lights. Imbedded itself in the gunman’s throat. I’d aimed lower but I wasn’t complaining.
My second blade hit the second gunman under his left arm. But the kill shot was Wrassler’s two-tap to the forehead. I landed hard. On my wounded arm. And it was over except for the blood and the screaming and the cops.
I directed the emergency medical personnel to the wounded humans, including Derek, who had taken two nonlethal rounds to the flesh of one shoulder and thigh, and two hotel guests, who had been caught in the crossfire. I sent the cops to the twins who answered the legal questions. And I sat, alone, on a hotel sofa, watching it all with a goofy smile on my face. This was my life. Vamps and guns and getting shot at. My life was crap. And I loved it, now that Beast was back. She wasn’t talking yet, beyond her orders in the fight, but I could feel her claws scrape across my mind, hear her breath panting. She was back, fully and completely, even if she was pouting.
Of course, I’d killed more humans. I’d have to deal with my own responsibility at some point, though these humans had been trying to kill me and the people I was sworn to protect. That helped. Maybe enough to disperse any possible guilt that might later attack. I was getting better at dealing with guilt all the time. But maybe that wasn’t such a good thing. Time would tell.
At some point, the EMTs realized I was bleeding and they treated me, bandaging and haranguing me about needing to be seen at the hospital. A round had grazed the inside of my upper arm, taking a groove of flesh with it on the way past. Ruining my lightweight riding jacket. And my shirt. But not my mood. With Beast back, that was doing great.
Later, I saw Leo and Grégoire into their car and out of the parking lot. And I was done. The job was a success. Except for the lingering question—which blood-master had just declared war on the MOC of New Orleans and the greater Southwestern USA?
Love Jane Yellowrock? Then meet Thorn St. Croix.
Read on for the opening chapter of Bloodring,
the first novel in Faith Hunter’s Rogue Mage series.
Available from Roc.
No one thought the apocalypse would be like this. The world didn’t end. And the appearance of seraphs heralded three plagues and a devastating war between the forces of good and evil. Over a hundred years later, the earth has plunged into an ice age, and seraphs and demons fight a never-ending battle while religious strife rages among the surviving humans.
Thorn St. Croix is no ordinary neomage. All the others of her kind, mages who can twist leftover creation energy to their will, were gathered together into Enclaves long ago; and there they live in luxurious confinement, isolated from other humans and exploited for their magic. When her powers nearly drive her insane, she escapes—and now she lives as a fugitive, disguised as a human, channeling her gifts of stone-magery into jewelry making. But when Thaddeus Bartholomew, a dangerously attractive policeman, shows up on her doorstep and accuses her of kidnapping her ex-husband, she retrieves her weapons and risks revealing her identity to find him. And for Thorn, the punishment for revelation is death. . . .
stared into the hills as my mount clomped below me, his massive hooves digging into snow and ice. Above us a fighter jet streaked across the sky, leaving a trail that glowed bright against the fiery sunset. A faint sense of alarm raced across my skin, and I gathered up the reins, tightening my knees against Homer’s sides, pressing my walking stick against the huge horse.
A sonic boom exploded across the peaks, shaking through snow-laden trees. Ice and snow pitched down in heavy sheets and lumps. A dog yelped. The Friesian set his hooves, dropped his head, and kicked. “Stones and blood,” I hissed as I rammed into the saddle horn. The boom echoed like rifle shot. Homer’s back arched. If he bucked, I was a goner.