The Beloved, page 30
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Run, run, quick like a bunny. Fast, faster, fastest, you can do it, honey.
As Evan’s brain tagged along with his body’s explosive sprint, the refrain from his childhood stuck with him, the syllables landing in his head like his boots on the ground. Meanwhile, the wind was whistling in his ears, and he was vaguely aware of the streets that he crossed—two, or was it three?—and the alleys he ducked down—two, for sure.
Just as he started to wonder if he was just going to work out for the rest of the night, he heard the shooting.
A last right-hand turn, and he arrived on scene.
It was the short woman with the braids, whose apartment the tunnel bottomed out at. She was down in a crouch, both hands holding a pair of autoloaders in front of her—and like she sensed him, she looked over her shoulder.
As a bullet ricocheted off a brick wall and shot right by his temple, she glared at him. “You fucking sonofabitch—you took my shit, didn’t you. My—oh, fuck you,” she spat as she refocused ahead of herself and went back to shooting. “Will you fucking help me you fucking asshole!”
Evan’s first instinct was to run away and protect himself. He had a body disposal job to do, and this was not his fight—
His own body took over, his palms finding the guns that, yup, he had stolen from her, as his legs took him right beside her. While she knelt, he stayed standing, and he started shooting before trying to see what the hell was firing back at—
There was a sudden pause in the exchange of bullets, and he peeked around the corner. Across a narrow break in the abandoned buildings’ lineup, an inset doorway appeared to be where the shooter was taking cover. He couldn’t see anything more than that—and as everything stayed silent, he squinted his eyes.
They must have taken off, he thought. Into the building—
“You fucking asshole!”
The punch to the balls was a left hook from outta nowhere, and as he grunted and doubled over, the woman went for the guns in his grips—
It happened so fast. One minute, he was gasping from the pain and she was pulling at the weapons. The next, he had her in a choke hold with the barrel of what was in his right hand pushed into her temple.
In a voice he had never heard before, he said, “Don’t ever come at me again. I will stab you back to the maker. Are we clear?”
“Fuck you—”
He pulled the trigger.
As the gun went off, he was so shocked at what he’d done, he recoiled and dropped his hold so he could jump back.
The woman landed facedown in a heap, her arms out like she was trying for something just beyond her reach.
“What the fuck am I doing,” he said under his breath as he stood over his second dead body. “I’m a fucking feminist.”
Before he could—well, he didn’t fucking know what he was going to do—there was movement. The woman dragged her arms back. Gathered her torso. Slowly raised from the dead.
Her head cranked around to him, and the black blood that oozed out of the alarming exit wound gleamed. “What fuck.”
Um… yeah, he thought. That about covered it.
“Why the hell you do that.”
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled. Like he’d scraped her car or maybe insulted her hair. “But you punched me in the balls.”
“You think this”—she motioned to the bullet wound in her brain—“equal to slap in sac?”
“To be fair, you don’t have them, so you wouldn’t know.”
She spit off to the side, more annoyed than anything else. “I got knuckled in the boob once. It was not that big a deal.”
“You weren’t going to stop at the sac,” he said grimly. “Don’t front.”
She was silent. Then she cursed in Spanish, and against everything that made any kind of sense, she stood up—and because she had both of her weapons back in her hands, he pointed his at her. Or… hers at her.
“We don’t need to do this.” He stared at her eyes, stared into her. “And I will make it all up to you.”
“How.”
“I’ll give you what you want. I’ll give you something worth killing.”
He didn’t know what the hell he was saying. What he was clear on was that he didn’t want that happening on half of his skull.
“You make good on your promise,” she said as she narrowed her eyes, “and you keep the guns. But no steal from me again.”
Evan thought of the additional weapons he had at Mickey’s. “Done.”
The woman turned back to the corner they were taking cover behind. As her matched pair of autoloaders pointed back in the direction of the doorway, he felt compelled to acknowledge her little boo-boo.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
She glared at him over her shoulder. “My fucking job. What you doing.”
“But your…” He motioned around his own head. “What about—”
“You think I’m go to a doc in box? The ER? Fuck you.” Then she frowned. “Fine, we call for reinforcements. Then we go finish this job.”
Shoving one of the guns under her armpit, she took out a cell phone, and fumbled with her thumbs. Just as he was going to ask her if she needed help, she hissed at him and sent out something via text.
“Now we go get those two vampires,” she told him.
* * *
Across the way from where the slayers were, Shuli was still flat on his back. But at least his case of the stunned-stupids was dissipating, so he was able to see more clearly.
And what a view.
Looming over him, like a pissed-off Paul Bunyan who’d gone hard-ass and gotten himself a bunch of tattoos and some militia training, L.W. was doing that leg-plant thing he did, all but straddling Shuli cowboy-style.
“Must you,” Shuli muttered.
“Can you walk?”
“Do I have to.” But he was already sitting up. “Gimme a hand.”
The only thing good about L.W. was that when it counted, the male was a doer, not a stew-er, and he pulled Shuli up to the vertical with a yank. They didn’t have much time. The lag in bullets-trading wasn’t going to last, and it was going to resume right up close: The slayers had to be reloading before they were going to close in.
Unfortunately, Shuli did more tap-dancing than true walking—at least until L.W. hitched up a hold and carried him under one arm like a cardboard cutout. Thanks to the excellent eyesight of vampires, the contours of the back hall they were going down were nominally visible. There were office chairs on their sides, paper bags and fast-food wrappers, a couple of what looked like sleeping bags—
Something was off about this, Shuli thought as he looked around. He just didn’t know quite what was wrong with the corridor.
L.W. clearly felt the same. But as the slayers entered the hall and the scent of death and old-fashioned talcum powder drifted down, the two of them had to go even faster.
When they came up to a door, L.W. fired a bullet into the knob without even testing whether it was locked—and there was no giving him shit for the noisy decision. Then again, Shuli was essentially an armchair quarterback deadweight.
Commentary might just get him dropped.
The open area on the far side was an old office facility of some kind, but it had been a while since the desks and chairs had been used. Musty/dusty, mold, and crud—the stink was nearly as bad as the lesser shit. There was also no good cover to be had, and no clues where an exit was—although it was a good bet they’d gone through some kind of fire door, so maybe if they—
“Head that way,” Shuli said as L.W. already started off. “Toward the front.”
The place had been stripped of whatever cubicles there had been, but given the patterns of wear and tear on the carpet, he could just imagine it being some kind of call center, back before AI had completely taken over that job.
Not that he wasted much time on that kind of origin story.
Because they had problems.
When they came up to the main entrance, it was not just locked, it was made of… steel plates?
And meanwhile, the scent of lessers was getting stronger, so clearly the slayers were tracking them through the building.
“Stand here,” L.W. said as he pushed Shuli against the wall.
The male took out a cell phone—then cursed. “You gotta be kidding me.”
“What.” Shuli looked up at the ceiling. “Wait a minute…”
There was a subtle gleam up above—and all around them.
“I got no signal—”
“Oh, shit,” Shuli breathed. “This was a data security firm. It’s steel… we’re surrounded by steel and lead.”
So no dematerializing.
“Fucking hell,” L.W. muttered.
Shuli looked back toward the fire door they’d come out of. Then he glanced at the other male. “Tell me you have a charge on you.”
Zsadist, who had trained them both, had always maintained that every fighter needed an explosive with him, just in case.
This was just in case.
“There has to be a way out,” L.W. groused like he hadn’t heard what Shuli’d said.
“There is. It’s blasting through this steel door.” Shuli started checking his own magazines. “Get yourself out. I’ll hold the enemy for as long as I can—”
“Wait, what the fuck are you doing?”
Shuli started limping back for where they came. “I’m going to be a distraction—”
L.W. grabbed hold of Shuli’s arm. “The fuck you are—”
“You’re the future King. I’m—well, I’m rich and I’m good looking.” He searched that hard, cruel face, and thought about all the Wraths who had lead the species. “But there are plenty of me’s. There’s only one of you—shut up. You know I’m right so quit arguing. Set the charge, get the fuck out. I’ll do what I can to give you the time you need.”
“Shuli—”
“You know I’m right. And I don’t mind going out like this. It’s better than a lot of alternatives—do not let me down, though. You get yourself out of here, and when your own time to die comes, don’t blink at it. I’m not.”
The future king seemed speechless. “Fuck, man.”
Shuli looked down because he couldn’t bear the surprising pain in those pale green eyes. “Damn shame to waste this coat, though. It fits like a fucking glove—and it does not make my ass look big.”
Jerking his arm out of L.W.’s hold, Shuli stared hard at the male. “Don’t waste this chance I’m giving you, okay?”
With that, he started off for that hallway.
Like the future of all vampires depended on him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Zsadist heard the explosion first.
The unmistakable whoosh! sound fired off about four blocks away from where he was staking out the induction site with the tunnel access in its basement. And almost before the blast echo faded, he got a Mayday text so he immediately pulled an up-and-out from his position behind a picked-clean car.
He wasn’t the only fighter who arrived on scene to a short building that was nothing but a windowless block of concrete: Phury, Xcor, and Tohr were right behind him, zeroing in on the smoking aperture that had been blown in the front facade.
No one was coming out, though.
Forming a stack by the breach, he was glad they didn’t have to worry about any municipal surveillance cameras on this rundown block. They did not need cop-bots getting in the way right now.
Following established entry protocol, the four of them moved in sequence into the interior and spread out to clear the space. He had a vague impression of office furniture litter, staleness, and rot, but the baby powder and fresh blood under the stink was what he was worried about. And then he was in front as they closed in on a fire door—
The gunfire in its back hall was rapid, and he rushed forward.
In the corridor beyond, smoke made visibility low, but the hulking shadow that was backing toward them, while shooting and carrying something, was too fucking huge to miss.
And he knew who it was.
Zsadist jumped ahead of L.W.—was that Shuli he was lugging? Fuck.
There was no time to worry about injuries. Z took control, double-palming his weapons in front of himself as he back-flatted, pushed forward, and just kept discharging bullets into the swirling smoke. When there was a sharp series of signal whistles from his twin, he changed tactics. No more offense, now it was an extraction.
He began backing up—
A sudden flare of pain in his side was nothing compared to what was going on with his shoulder. But that was another thing he couldn’t worry about. When he was out of bullets, he swapped magazines with practiced moves, and then he was continuing on the retreat, until he’d backed out of the fire door.
“On your left,” Phury said.
“Roger.”
Working in tandem, they kept the square footage controlled, and when he could smell fresh air from the blown entry, he felt a secondary, almost-outta-jail adrenaline rush.
That lasted until they made it out on the street.
And were ambushed.
There was an entire flank of lessers advancing from down at the river, and the slayers immediately started shooting.
It was clusterfuck time—and Shuli and L.W. were both injured and in the middle of it.
Shoving his hands into his jacket, Z whistled high and sharp. And then he started pulling out the pins of grenades and throwing them like he was in the World Series, real wind-up-and-follow-through time.
The first of the explosions lit up the narrow street like daylight, and gave excellent visualization: Half a dozen slayers, who’d been rushing forward without much coordination, pulled a spin and retreat—that wasn’t going to last.
The second blew one of them up, fragments of flesh flying in chunks, the black splatter washing the windowless building next to it. The third drove the others back farther, but was again a reminder that the withdrawal was only temporary. He had one more and then he was going to have to yield his position. He could only pray that his brothers had evac’d the injured and there had been no casualties—
Flashing blue lights.
And headlights.
The Caldwell Police. Of course.
The only good thing was that the slayers scattered like the rats without tails they’d been before Lash had turned them: The Lessening Society didn’t want law enforcement complications any more than the brothers did.
Zsadist turned around and assessed his options. He could head back into the building, but if there were other lessers in there? No way he could dematerialize. He was off-the-chain activated. No chance of calming down—
Abruptly, he was spotlit like a billboard as one of the two patrol cars came at him like it was going to run him right over.
As he went to jump out of the way, the CPD bot slammed on its brakes and skidded into a swing, its vehicle’s rear coming around so that it stopped with the driver’s side right by Z.
The window went down and—
“What the fuck,” Z breathed.
Butch smiled from behind the wheel. “Hop in. I gotchu.”
Even though it was the middle of a skirmish, Zsadist looked around. “How in the hell did you do this?”
“Hey, I used to work homicide for them, remember?” The cop nodded to the empty seat next to him. “I broke into the impound, got two, and L.W. and Shuli are being put into the other. But we gotta blow right now.”
Zsadist shook his head. “You got it, Detective.”
* * *
Shuli knew he was losing blood, but he was still with it enough to know that he was somehow, inexplicably… in the back of a Caldwell Police Department patrol car. The blue lights were a dead giveaway. Well, that and it had showed up at the worst possible time.
The confusing part? For some reason, on the far side of the mesh that separated them from the front seat of the vehicle… it seemed like Rhage was behind the wheel.
But he couldn’t worry about all that.
Summoning his flagging energy, he forced his head out of its awkward lean against the door that had been shut on him. Next to him on the bench seat, L.W. was crammed into the space that barely fit Shuli. The male had his knees up around his earlobes, and he was breathing too hard for how much he wasn’t moving.
“What the hell is wrong with you!” Shuli hollered at the guy.
Up front, Rhage looked into the rear view mirror with a start. “Everything okay back there, boys?”
“No!” Shuli punched L.W.’s upper arm—okay, it was more like a pat with his knuckles, but whatever. “You weren’t supposed to come back for me!”
L.W. looked over with half-mast eyes. “Can we not do this right now?”
“I am so pissed off—”
“You wouldn’t be alive right now without me, so relax—”
“I was supposed to save you!” Shuli tried to lower his voice as his heart rate got erratic against his ribs. “Jesus Christ, you are such a hardheaded asshole—”
“I wasn’t leaving you to die—”
“—that you can’t listen to someone else—”
“—and right now, I am seriously—”
“—and take care of yourself.”
“—rethinking that decision.”
As their argument came to a pause for respiration, the patrol car blew through a red light, and Shuli glared out the window, watching the blue flashes strobe the buildings. As they went by Bathe, he shook his head.
What was next, he blew up his own house?
The soft chuckle from up front brought his head back around—which was a mistake as the pounding between his ears flared to an eye-bulging degree.
“You two,” Rhage murmured with a sentimental smile. “You remind me of good times.”
Shuli glanced at L.W. Who popped a brow.
The Brother continued. “And I’m glad you both got out okay. I’ve gotten caught in a tight crack like that before.” Those brilliant blue eyes focused on Shuli. “And of course he was going back for you.”
“No offense, but that makes no sense.” Shuli pushed himself up a little higher on the seat. “Plus he doesn’t even like me.”
