Wren.
“How many guards do you see?” Zac asked, squinting into the darkness like his human eyes could catch something mine couldn’t.
“Two. Humans with rifles. Likely more inside and around back.” With the buzzing cicadas and relentless chirping crickets, I had to speak at a louder volume than I wanted. If it were only humans out there, it wouldn’t be an issue. I, on the other hand, could hear an ant fart if I concentrated hard enough. It was safe to assume other vampires could do the same.
“When are visiting hours?” I asked, but I had a growing suspicion that visiting hours wouldn’t matter.
“Who said we’re visiting him?”
I smacked my forehead and groaned. “I should have killed you back in Silversage. This is suicide.”
“This is perfect,” he said. “It will be sunrise soon, the perfect time to break a vampire out of jail since the vampire guards can’t follow. We just have to make it to your car and not get separated.” He held my gaze. “And we won’t.”
“Like I said…” I looked to the eastern horizon, already shaded with a ribbon of blue and the faintest hint of orange. “Suicide.”
Zac held his cell phone and spoke quietly into the speaker like a doctor taking notation. “This is Detective Zac Palmer, here with Melody…” He looked up at me. “What’s your last name?”
“Songsmith. At least that’s what it says on my ID.”
“So you don’t know for sure?”
I shook my head, again feeling like an idiot for not having known something so basic. When you’re eight, you tend to believe whatever your mom tells you, so I never thought to question it. Like one Christmas when she happened to find a tiny Christmas tree we decorated with snowflakes cut out of newspapers and a foil fast-food wrapper star. I woke up Christmas night to find a Barbie doll dressed in a pink ballerina tutu and no shoes and some scuffed snow boots. She had smiled brightly and said, “Look what Vampire Santa left! You’ve been a very good girl this year.” Later I realized she had probably robbed the thrift store. We’d been sleeping in their basement for a couple weeks.
He spoke into the phone again. “Here with Melody Songsmith at an unnamed facility in Brightwell, Louisiana, approximately half a mile south off the three-eighty-two bypass at mile marker fifteen. Time is 0530 hours, the twelfth of August, 2019. Target, a male vampire, first name Ashe, last name unknown. Two guards visible, unknown number inside the location.”
“Who are you reporting to, exactly?”
“That’s classified.”
“Okay. Whatever.” If he knew my real name, he was good at hiding it. I’d let him call me Melody for now. Hell, he might be using an alias, too, for all I knew. We weren’t chummy enough for real first names yet.
Mosquitoes buzzed by my ears. They never bite me because I’m not exactly alive and all. But they were homing in on Zac. He smacked his cheek, and with that smack came the scent of his fresh, hot blood.
Shit, it smelled good. I paced far enough away to smell the decaying leaves and sickeningly sweet honeysuckle in the woods around us. Between that and this need to find a vampire I had never met, my cold blood boiled, throwing all my senses into overdrive. I could hear the wet splatter of tobacco juice from one of the guards who stood watch outside the jail. Disgusting.
“Did you have a plan of action in mind, Detective, or are we just going to storm the castle? Because right now, I think I can rip all the doors off their hinges.”
“If this is the kind of facility I think it is, we’ll need more than your vampire strength.” He opened Birdie’s passenger door and rummaged through one of his bags, then buckled a duty belt around his waist like Batman. He now had two guns holstered and had removed his blazer. Damn, he looked even more lick able all armed and dangerous.
Sniffing the air, I detected the distinct smell of…
“Silver bullets,” he said, smiling.
“Is this a rescue mission or an assassination?”
“Depends on how it goes.” At my stop-the-bullshit look, he added, “Rescue is the plan, but we’re likely to encounter some hostiles.”
The symbol on my arm vibrated, sending pinpricks all along my spine. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Okay, so first we should take out the two guards there in –”
I didn’t wait for him to finish. Whatever this sensation or instinct was, it wouldn’t let me linger any longer. Not when Ashe was in there, whoever the hell he was.
The chirps and buzzes of crickets and cicadas became one shrill scream as I zipped along the narrow dirt road through the darkness. I let my senses take over, veering off the path through the brush, where I easily dodged trees and thorns and hurtled over fallen logs and crumbling fence posts that housed half-buried rusty barbed wire. It wasn’t much different than hunting my mother’s killers. Hell, for all I knew, maybe these people had something to do with it. That thought made what I was about to do even easier.
I moved so fast, it must have sounded like a mini tornado. The first guard spun around just as I collided with him. He made an “oomph” sound as I pinned him against a chain-link fence. Though he held his rifle with an iron grip, I ripped it from his hands and flung it aside. The dim security lights reflected the fear in his lazy eye and a rounded chipmunk cheek full of tobacco. I didn’t recognize him, but he reeked of the same stench as Rusty and the other rednecks I’d crossed off my list.
“Terry!” he managed to scream before I plunged my fingers into his neck and tore his throat out.
I flung him to the ground, where he gurgled and flailed on the gravel.
His partner, whom I assumed was Terry, aimed a flashlight at me. I squinted into the light and hissed with my fangs fully emerged. Totally for dramatic purposes. It always freaked humans the fuck out.
“Shit!” Terry dropped the flashlight and pointed his rifle with its red laser sight at me.
I darted straight for him. A soft, hollow pop came from somewhere in the woods as I knocked him to the ground and held on. We skidded along the gravel like I was riding a human skateboard. I raised my hand to rip his throat out, but his eyes rolled back in his head. Foam bubbled up from his mouth like a mini science experiment volcano. A very thin dart stuck out from his neck. If that was poison, it sure was some powerful shit.
Zac emerged, running into the clearing from the dirt road, lowering his gun which looked like a Colt .45 with a fat telescopic sight. “What the hell? I didn’t mean like that.”
“What is that? A dart gun?”
“Yeah, with tranquilizers that would keep them out for a few hours, and you should have let me use it on both guards. If the rest of them didn’t know we’re here, they do now.”
“You said take out the two guards. They’re taken out. Now how do we get in this place?” I slung my hand to remove the bits of flesh from the first guard’s neck and touched the chain-link fence. It stung like a hornet, but it wasn’t electrified. “Shit. Is that –?”
“Silver plated. I told you this was no ordinary jail.”
The more I looked around, the more I saw that he was right. The silver-coated fence surrounded a solid concrete building that had tiny slits of windows near the roof. I suspected the shingles also contained bits of silver, considering how they sparkled. Cautiously, I stuck my hand into a sickly yellow shaft of light from one of the security lamps overhead.
“Don’t –” Zac said a moment too late. It was fiery hot, like passing your finger through the flame of a candle.
“UV lights.”
“Yeah, I thought so. High-powered, too. Like the sun times five.”
I paced like a caged animal along the fence line, careful to avoid direct light. “So how do I get past the silver and sunlamps on crack?”
“What do you feel right now?”
“I…feel...” Closing my eyes, I concentrated on the energy that throbbed in my arm and pressed against my subconscious mind. “He’s scared, confused, ashamed?” I turned to Zac with a helpless shrug. “All I know is that I have to help him. Why am I feeling this?”
“I’m not sure, but I can get you in there, if you can take out anyone that gets in our way.”
“Deal. But if there are any hostile vampires anywhere in the vicinity, that dart gun is useless.”
“I know. That’s what you’re here for. This is for the humans. We don’t need any nosy neighbors or cops complicating things.”
More lights flared to life just then from the building’s roof. They moved spotlight-style along the ground. I dodged one, got clipped by another on the cheek, and took refuge behind Zac.
He checked his phone, then pointed left. “That way. There’s a service entrance.”
We ran around the corner of the fence. The gravel road dipped down to a flat area where a few vehicles were parked. We ducked between an old Toyota pickup with a bent chassis and busted taillight and an ugly sunflower gold van.
Zac eased himself up and quickly peered through the passenger window of the van before squatting back down again. “Good. There are keys in the ignition.”
“For?”
“We may need a getaway vehicle if we can’t make it back to your car before sunup.”
“I would say I wouldn’t be caught dead in that thing, but…”
He chuckled then gently touched my cheek where the light had left a blistered streak. “Does it hurt?”
“It’s fine.” I brushed his hand away. What was I supposed to say? That it hurt like a sum bitch and if he touched me like that again, I might drain him dry? I hadn’t had a proper meal for a couple days, and a angry vampire wasn’t someone you wanted to hang out with.
Between the sweeping lights, I peeked over the truck to scan the area. There was a wide gate with a thick lock and chain. A heavy silver-plated steel door opened, and out came another human guard, gun raised.
“You’ll leave if you know what’s good for you!” the guard hollered. He half hid behind the open door and squinted into the parking lot, nervously searching for whatever had triggered the lights. The lights might be torture for vampires, but did nothing to help the humans’ already pitiful night vision.
“Stay down,” Zac said as he steadied the dart gun on the hood and pulled the trigger.
The guard fell out of the door and onto the concrete stoop. His body flopped like a dying fish sprawled on the steps. The door swung shut again with a bang that echoed through the night.
“If you’re trying to keep this quiet, you’re doing a shitty job of it,” I said.
A rat—spooked from all the ruckus, no doubt—scampered out from under the truck. I snatched it up and sank my fangs into its jugular, drinking deeply until its pulse faded. Tossing its carcass aside, I wiped my mouth with a napkin I found discarded on the ground next to a crushed cheeseburger wrapper and foam cup.
I looked up to find Zac grimacing at me. “What? I was hungry.”
“A rat? I mean…that’s…”
“Gross? Would you rather me eat you?”
“No, but is that a normal thing for vampires?”
I huffed a laugh. “How the fuck would I know?”
“Is that what you ate when your mother…” He bit down on whatever he was going to say. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”
A brief image of a spider web-dusted crypt and a scrawny rat ran a chill down my spine. “No, you shouldn’t have. Now shut up and get me in there.”
He held my gaze for a moment before I tore mine away. Then he slipped over to the gate and took another tool that looked like a tire pressure gauge from his belt. A second later, a red laser started cutting through the chain. The lights circled back around, so I ducked down, feeling like a helpless little girl again.
I’d never tried to explain my circumstances to anyone before. Now that I had to rehash the shit-fest that was my non-life, it all sounded so pathetic. Maybe I should have been like those bloodthirsty creatures in the movies, killing at will and not giving a fuck. My mother would have been no less dead. I would have been no less alone, and maybe I would have already met a special vampire by now. Especially now that I knew others like me existed.
“Melody!” At Zac’s loud whisper, I peeked cautiously over the truck again. The insta-sunburn lights were out. He had gone through the gate and now stood by a silver-plated electrical box. He motioned me over.
I breezed through the gate, careful to avoid the metal.
“I cut the wires,” he whispered, grinning like he’d performed some magical feat.
“What do you want? A cookie?”
“No. But I’ve cut power to most of the building, I think. They wasted a lot of time and money vampire-proofing the place. Guess they didn’t think to human-proof it. Shall we kick some ass and find your vampire?”
“I thought you’d never ask.” We opened the service door and sneaked inside. I led the way, since the only light came from very dim emergency lights on either side of what looked like a large storage room. Crates and boxes lined the walls. Shelves holding guns and ammo and various silver items – nets, locks, pliers, and a whole host of torturous-looking implements – took up one of the narrower walls.
Fast, heavy footsteps echoed from a stairwell across the room. Narrow points of red light bounced along the walls. I sniffed the air – more human guards. About three of them from the sound of it.
Zac started forward.
I grabbed his arm. “No, I got this.”
I zoomed ahead before he could stop me and met the guards halfway up the stairs. The rest of it went down in about five seconds.
Here’s the slow-mo version:
Fangs bared, I hissed like an angry cat. Human guard One froze dead in his tracks and pointed his gun at my head. His buddies, Two and Three, were going so fast, they rear-ended him, which knocked him off-balance. The gun went off, blowing out the emergency light above us.
Glass rained down as I tore the gun away from him and drove it through his beer gut. Down went One. I kicked him aside. Two pointed his gun, but his arms shook so bad, the laser sight bounced all over the place. I yanked the gun from One’s gut like a redneck version of Excalibur and shot Two with it. Down went Two.
Three hightailed it up the stairs, but I grabbed his leg and dug my fingers in. He shrieked and dropped his gun. It clattered down the steps as I reeled him in and flipped him over. This one would be dinner. I sank my fangs into his neck, ignoring his shrieks as I gulped down his life like he had probably chugged down beer.
Something moved on the stairs below me. I sprang up and pounced. My hands were around Zac’s neck before I realized I had pinned him against the wall. His pulse beat like a war drum under my fingers.
“Melody, it’s me.”
I leaned in close, inhaling his warm, rapid breaths. “Why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I obey my instincts?”
“Because you need me. Alive.”
Boy did he ever feel alive, his skin hot and sweaty beneath my palms. I pressed closer against his firm body until his racing heart thumped a seductive rhythm on my tits.
Withdrawing enough to look into his eyes, I saw fear, mixed with longing and loneliness. It was like looking into a mirror. I wanted his blood so badly I could imagine its hot, metallic thickness flowing across my tongue and down my throat. But then the tattoo on my wrist shot a jolt of electricity up my arm and jarred me back into reality. I swallowed hard. Zac might have been an idiot to get involved with me, but he could be my only chance at bringing down the rest of my mother’s killers.
The hunger subsided.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered and let him go. “I didn’t mean to.”
He stood up straight and rubbed his neck, not meeting my gaze. “We don’t have time for– Get down!”
I ducked. Zac fired a shot up the stairs. Another body tumbled, writhing and howling like an animal, like something not human. I looked down into yellow eyes, bared fangs, and a hole pouring thick, nearly black blood from his shoulder. He had on a uniform like the other guards, but he wasn’t like the other guards.
“You’re a vampire,” I whispered.
He hissed at me. “No shit, Sher—” and then his eyes went wide. “Bronwen? How the fuck are you alive? You won’t be for long when Queen Ravana finds out about this.”
Hearing my mother’s name lifted all the hairs on the back of my neck. “How do you know my mother? Who’s Ravana?”
“Mother? Holy shit! Bronwen had a kid?” He shook his head with a wheezy laugh. “Did you come here to kill him?”
Kill him? Kill who?
Another shot startled me. A hole oozed blood and molten silver from the vampire’s forehead.
“Come on!” Zac went ahead, stepping over the first vampire I’d ever seen, besides my mother, stopping only to tear the ID from where it was clipped on the vampire’s belt loop.
I followed, lost in a cloud of overwhelming confusion. “What did he mean, kill him? Kill who?”
“Ravings of a mad vampire. Did you see his skin? I think he was a meth head.”
“Vampires do meth?”
“No, they drink blood from meth heads. Same effect.”
We emerged onto the main floor where rows of silver-plated steel doors lined the walls. Jail cells, I guessed. Each door was inset with tiny windows. Shadows flashed by them. I looked at one such window as we passed.
A pair of yellow eyes appeared suddenly, which scared the shit out of me, even though I knew very well that these were my “people,” if you could call them that. As we crept along the hallway, more eyes followed us from every window. Pleas and shocked cries echoed from within the cells.
“It’s her! It’s Bronwen.”
“My queen! Get me out of here, would ya’?”
“She gonna fuck Ravana up!”
We were coming up on another corridor that crossed the one we were in. That could pose a big risk for ambush. But my distracted mind was still trying to make some sense of the nonsensical. Apparently they thought I was my mother and a queen. Maybe they were all druggies, but I’d heard another name twice.
“Who’s Ravana?” I whispered to Zac.
He held a finger to his lips and blocked my way with his other arm. “We have company.”
From the left came a blur of movement. Zac couldn’t get a shot off in time. A vampire guard tackled him, throwing him to the floor. Zac’s head banged against the concrete.
I grabbed the vampire’s collar and belt before he could deliver a lethal bite and threw him against a cell door with a clang that echoed through the building and vibrated the floor. He shrieked as his arm made contact with the silver door. I glanced at Zac, who appeared to be out cold, hopefully not dead.
The vampire rolled to a crouch and sprang at me then knocked me to my back. But I didn’t give him a chance to pin my arms and legs. I kicked and threw him over my head, directly into another guard who had just emerged from the other corridor.
Flipping to all fours, I stayed between them and Zac, who was slowly coming around, and gave them a full-fanged hiss. It wasn’t an act like before. This hiss came from somewhere deep and dark and instinctual.
They started forward again but suddenly froze, their yellow eyes widening, glowing with a mix of shock and fear.
One of them got control of his senses enough to whisper, “It’s… No, it can’t be. Queen Bronwen? Is it really you?”
Two shots rang out. They fell limp to the floor, silver bubbling from the holes in their chests. They melted into gooey globs of flesh a second later. I turned to see Zac sitting up, gun still aimed as though they might spring back to un life any second.
I jumped to my feet. “Why did you kill them? We could have gotten information from them.”
“Trust me. You don’t want them alive. They’re not on your side.” He slowly got to his feet, wincing as he rubbed the back of his head.
“What are you not telling me? I swear I will rip your balls off and make you choke on ‘em if you’re hiding some—” But before I could carry out immediate castration, my symbol lit up like a Christmas tree. Energy zinged up my arm, pulling me forward to the last door on the right of the main corridor.
Zac followed. I peered into the window, careful not to touch the door. I could see nothing but total darkness. No sounds from within either.
“You think he’s in there?” Zac asked.
“I don’t know for sure. Can you open it?”
“Let’s see if this works.” Zac touched the first vampire guard’s ID on a red laser scanner by the cell door. It slid open leisurely like we were about to step into a Walmart.
The dim emergency lights did little to illuminate the pitch darkness. My night vision revealed a cot with a crumpled blanket and pillow, a bloody cloth and a cool blue shape hunched in the far corner. Almost like…a man?
“Ashe?” I whispered.
A head lifted, and copper-colored eyes locked on mine.
“Is that your name? Are you Ashe?”
He answered with a full-fanged snarl and hurled himself at us. I zipped in to block him, punching him in the chest with the heel of my hand. He flew back onto the cot, legs flying over his head, and toppled off the other side.
A tiny groan followed. “Ow.”
I ran inside, now afraid I’d killed this vampire I didn’t know but had to find. The two symbols on my arm stopped buzzing and instead turned to a steady warm sensation that flowed over my cold skin like a towel fresh from the dryer.
I spent a millisecond too long basking in that warmth. When I looked back up, he was right beside me. In a blur, he picked me up and threw me down onto the cot. The springs under the terrible mattress screeched at the injustice. I saw movement from the corner of my eye. Zac pointed his gun right at Ashe’s head.
“No! Don’t!” I looked back up into the face of this stranger with beautiful copper eyes, full lips, and short sandy-brown hair. He wasn’t hurting me, just staring at my face as though he’d never seen anything like me before.
My mind struggled to find something not stupid to say. I mean, what the fuck do you say to a vampire you’ve just sprung from jail? A vampire who might kill you or fuck you, and more disturbingly, knowing you’d let him do either without a fight?