“Duck!” I screamed, squeezing the trigger.
Alex and Nicco peeled down, one a half second after the other. Alex tumbled forward, his head smacking hard against the concrete. Nicco was the late one, and Feng’s silver bullet pierced cleanly through his heart. His lifeless body crumbled over Alex’s.
I stifled a nervous sob while Dixon looked surprised and vaguely pleased. I tossed the empty gun, hearing it slide across the cement, then dove for the pallets, yanking off a strip of wood.
“I didn’t know you had any kind of fight in you, Ms. Lawson,” Dixon said, licking his lips excitedly. “I love it when breathers fight. Gets their blood pumping. Tastes delicious. Nice shot, too. Guess that target practice is really paying off.”
I gripped the piece of wood and steadied myself. “I thought you weren’t going to kill me.”
“Be nice,” he said slyly, “and the offer is back on the table. Immortality.”
He rushed me and I used his momentum against him, planting a foot and sweeping his knees with the pallet piece. I grunted and swung with as much strength and anger and hate as I could muster. I saw the blank, gaping faces of the women on the trail, of Tia Shively, of the ruined patrons of the delicatessen.
“No one is truly immortal, Dixon.”
I felt the wood piece make contact. It didn’t slice the way Vlad’s sword would have, but Dixon’s feet went out from under him and I heard the thud of his full body weight smacking against the cement floor. Had he any air in his lungs, it would have oafed out.
“Get back here!”
I used the wood piece as Vlad had taught me and swatted at Dixon’s arms, blocking his reach as he rolled onto his knees and lunged for me. He was fast, but I was smart and for the first time in my life, confident. I lurched backward and tossed the folding chair at him, hearing the clatter of the metal as it tumbled over him.
“I’m going to kill you slowly,” Dixon roared.
I looked over my shoulder and Dixon was a hairbreadth away, his fingertips reaching out, just grazing my throat.
He pitched backward when Alex’s arms circled his neck, his hands still bound by the duct tape. Dixon’s fingers wrapped around Alex’s wrists and I heard the sickening sound of bones cracking, of Alex howling. I scanned the warehouse, my eyes going over Nicco’s crumpled form and Sampson, chained, unmoving on the warehouse floor.
I felt the heft of the wooden stake in my hand and Dixon’s eyes flashed with obvious amusement.
His eyes narrowed as the stake came at him, my grip sure.
“Go to hell, Dixon.”
Chapter Fourteen
I was sitting in the San Francisco Memorial emergency room, flanked by Nina and Vlad, both of them staring on incredulously as I finished telling them the events of the night.
“That’s unbelievable,” Nina said, shaking her head. Her hair was pulled back in a wet ponytail that was soaking through her T-shirt. Once the heat wave had broken and the sky opened up, the city streets became engorged with people celebrating the rain. They threw their arms up and stomped through puddles; to the casual observer it may have looked like a rain dance.
To the rest of us, it was a vampire-heavy group, celebrating the end of sunshine internment.
“So Sampson is okay,” Nina asked.
“Yeah, thanks to that werewolf super-speed healing thing. But Nicco . . .”
“Through the heart? I’m impressed, Soph. The heart is a much smaller target than the ass.”
“Um, thank you?” I bit my bottom lip. “But hey, I’m really sorry about—”
“You’re sorry you had to kill our boss?”
I stiffened and Vlad bristled; the woman sitting next to Nina perked up, her eyes growing wide.
“Don’t worry,” Nina whispered to her. “He was evil. I knew it the whole time.”
“Alex Grace?” A white-coated doctor stepped into the waiting room and I sprang up.
“I’m here for Alex.”
The doctor looked me up and down. I had cleaned up as much as I could, but there wasn’t much I could do to hide the bruises and the half of my skull that was as bald as a cantaloupe.
“Rough night?” the doctor asked.
I cocked my head. “Actually, it was okay. Through here?”
I pulled back the curtain and poked my head in on Alex, who was stretched out on a cot. He grinned when he saw me, his arm in an enormous cast, a bulbous bruise purpling above his eye.
“Wow,” I breathed, “What happened to you?”
“Very funny.”
I lingered at the end of the bed until Alex beckoned me with his free arm. “Come here.”
I swallowed and stayed where I was. “Am I coming in to see my colleague or my friend?”
Alex sighed. “Lawson, you came this close”—he held his forefinger and thumb a millimeter apart—“to shooting me. We’d better be friends.”
I felt my grin pushing up to my earlobes.