Anita Blake 15 - The Harlequin (45 page)

Peter kept firing; his gun must have been pressed into her head. We ended up on the ground in a breathless, deaf heap. He was up on one arm, his gun still shoved into her face. Peter's T-shirt was in rags over his stomach. Cisco was above us; his lips were moving, but I couldn't hear him. I rolled free of the pile. I had my gun out and pointed before my back hit the wall, before I could truly see what was happening.

Soledad's head was a red mass. There was no face left. Brains were leaking all over the floor, her brains. Even for a weretiger, this was dead. Peter was still over the body, his gun pumping into that mass of tissue. I think he was dry-firing by now, but I couldn't hear well enough to say. Cisco knelt beside him, his lips moving, but I couldn't make out the words. He got Peter to stop firing into the body, then tried to ease Peter off her. Peter let him ease him back onto his knees, then Peter popped his empty magazine out, put it in his left jacket pocket, got a spare clip out of his right-hand pocket, and reloaded. His stock was pretty high with me right then; the reload made it go higher. Maybe we wouldn't get him killed.

Cisco tried to get him to stand up and move away from the body. I think Cisco was worried about how Peter would react when the shock wore off. It made me think better of Cisco. Then a lot of things happened at once. I couldn't hear it, but I must have seen movement out of the corner of my eye, because I turned to see Edward and company come barreling down the hallway, guns drawn. The door to Richard's room was open, and he was leaning in it. His beautiful chest was a mass of scars on one side. He was pale as death, and looked as if the only thing keeping him upright was the doorway. The scars showed where the bullets had taken a chunk out of all that nice muscled flesh. Sometimes silver scars. He mouthed something, but I still couldn't hear anything but the ringing silence in my own head. Gunshot too close to the ear. I'd be lucky if my hearing wasn't permanently damaged.

I felt movement nearer to me, and turned, but I was slow. I think Peter wasn't the only one in shock. Cisco was pulling Peter to his feet by the collar of his jacket. Cisco was shouting something. I couldn't see what the problem was—there was nothing but Soledad's body. Then I looked at the body and realized that she was still in tiger form. Her body hadn't reverted to human form. Dead shapeshifters always revert to human form. I raised my gun and had it aimed, when the "body" sprang up and threw itself at Peter and Cisco.

CISCO FOULED PETER'S shot by throwing his body in the way of the claws. I got off two shots before the faceless body brought them to the floor. And I was suddenly having the same problem they'd just had, trying to find a place to fire into that fur that wouldn't hit the two boys underneath it. They had saved my life and I still thought,
Boys
.

Claudia and Remus got there first, because you just can't outrun a shapeshifter. Edward and Olaf were close behind, but they didn't get there first. It was Claudia and Remus who joined me around the struggling pile. A gun fired up through the tiger's chest. Claudia actually pushed me out of the way hard enough that I fell against the wall. Too many guns in too small a space; friendly fire was as dangerous to us as Soledad.

Whoever was shooting was trying to make a hole through her chest. Her body jerked and jumped with the power of it. She staggered to her feet. I swear that I could see the hallway through the hole in her lower chest. But even as I watched, the muscle began to flow like water, healing. Shit. It was Peter who had shot a hole through her. Cisco was trying to breathe through a throat that wasn't there anymore.

Edward and Olaf were beside each other, firing into Soledad's body like they were on a shooting range. So cool, so professional, so accurate. It was a little hard to miss her at this range.

Some of the guards had gone to their knees around Edward, Olaf, Remus, and Claudia, some standing, some kneeling so they wouldn't get in each other's way, a very organized slaughter. The tiger's body jumped and danced with the bullets like some sort of spasming puppet. But she didn't go down. I fired from the wall where Claudia had thrown me. I emptied my clip into Soledad and watched her body and fur flow over the wounds. It was fucking silver and she was treating it like it was ordinary bullets. I'd never seen a shapeshifter able to do that. Even fairies, once you opened a hole in them that big, didn't heal like this. I emptied my clip and did almost exactly what Peter had done earlier, except that my extra clip was attached to my belt. She wasn't acting like a wereanything. She was acting like a rotting vampire, that special kind of undead that were rare in the United States. Of course, her master wasn't from around here.

My hearing was coming back in my left ear, because I could hear screaming, distantly, as if they weren't all standing right next to me. My right ear was still a buzzing silence. I yelled, "Fire, we need to set her on fire!" I must have yelled it too loud because they all looked at me. I yelled, "Burn her!"

Olaf took off running back down the corridor. Seeing him run away actually distracted me enough that I jumped when the guns started firing again. I turned back to the action, and found the body up and moving again. The face had grown back, but the chest was a gaping wound. Her lungs had to be gone, but she moved; she jumped at me in one of those long arcs that made her body a golden smear of light. I fired at that blur until my gun clicked empty. I dropped the empty gun and went for a blade, and knew I'd never make it.

A second blur was in front of me, and we were crashing back into the wall, hard enough that I saw stars before I realized that the second blur was Claudia. She'd thrown her body in the way, and was slugging it out hand to claw. She must have been out of ammo, too. Those claws sliced up her chest, and she went into a defensive crouch, protecting herself as well as she could. The tiger screamed, or roared at us, and then turned and ran the other way. It was almost funny, because for a breath we all just stood there. Then almost as a mass we ran after her. My stomach didn't so much hurt as twinge, as if the muscles weren't working quite right. It made me stumble, then I found my feet, and I ran. If I could run, I couldn't be that hurt, right? I could feel blood flowing down the front of me, soaking into my jeans. If Soledad got out, she might move the vamps, or warn someone, or set up an ambush. We had to stop her, had to. But we couldn't run like the shapeshifters ran. Remus and the others passed Edward and me as if we were standing still.

They bayed her at the double glass doors. They bayed her within sight of the parking lot, in sight of freedom. Remus was cut up now, too. They formed a circle around her, double thick in front of the doors. She crouched in the center of that circle, snarling at them. She was all gold and white, and even after everything I could still see that she was beautiful. Graceful in that way that the cat lycanthropes seemed to be. Her tail twitched, tight and angry.

Edward popped a fresh magazine home. He pulled the slide back and put one in the chamber. The sound echoed around the circle. Not everyone had more clips; some, like me, were out, but enough of them did that it was eerie and businesslike.

Soledad snarled with her tiger fangs. "My death will not stop the Harlequin from killing you. My mistress's death will not protect you from the wild hunt that is coming."

"You didn't give us a black mask," I said.

Her orange-yellow eyes turned to me. She made a noise that was between a growl and a purr. The sound of it raised the hairs on the back of my neck. "You will die."

"The vampire council is all about rules, Soledad. It's against your own laws to kill us when you've only given us white masks, something about fair play and all that."

I wasn't great at reading even people I knew in animal form, but I thought she looked afraid. "If you kill us, the rest of them will hunt you down, Anita. It is against vampire law to slay the Harlequin."

"I'm not killing you as Jean-Claude's vampire servant. I'm killing you and your mistress as a federal marshal and a legal vampire executioner."

"I know your laws, Anita. You have no warrant for us."

"I have two warrants for two vampires that look a damned sight like your Mercia and your mistress."

Again there was that flinching through her alien eyes. I was just getting better at reading furry faces. Bully for me.

"The warrants list names of church members," Soledad purred.

"But the warrant is worded sort of vaguely. It states that I can kill the vampire responsible for the death of the victim, and that I can, at my discretion, kill anyone who assisted in that death. It also allows me to kill anyone who tries to impede me in carrying out my court-appointed duty." I looked into that strangely beautiful face. "Which means you."

Olaf was beside Edward. He had a can of WD-40 in his hand and a torch made of rags bound to what looked like the end of a metal mop handle. There was a sharp oily smell from it all. He said in that deep voice, "I was going to go for the ordnance in the car, but the janitor's closet was closer."

I almost asked what he meant by
ordnance
, but was probably glad I didn't know. Though maybe what they had in their car would have been quicker than what we were about to do to her. Olaf had Edward light the torch. Apparently he'd soaked it in something, because it burned clear and bright.

Claudia told the people on the far side of the room to clear a space. They parted like a curtain and left Soledad in a clear kill space. The guards formed two lines, one kneeling and one standing. They took their stances, and Edward joined them.

Claudia yelled, "Head or heart!"

Soledad leapt, not toward the double line of doors and freedom, or the firing squad, but the thinner line that led back down the hall. The guns all seemed to sound at once. That liquid leap of gold and silver crumbled to the floor. She could heal, but the initial injury was real. They fired into her until she twitched, but didn't try to rise again.

Olaf turned so I could see the gun tucked in the back of his belt. "Cover me."

I kept expecting my wound to catch up with me, but the adrenaline was carrying me. I'd pay for it later, but right now I felt fine. I wrapped my hand around the gun and pulled it free of the inner pants holster. I'd expected Olaf to go for something big, but it wasn't. It was an H & K USP Compact. I'd looked at one before I settled on the Kahr. I clasped it in a two-handed grip and aimed it at the fallen weretiger. "Ready when you are," I said.

Olaf glided into the circle with his torch and his squeezy can of accelerant. I didn't glide, I just walked, but I was at his side when he got to her. I was at his side when he sprayed accelerant over her ruined face and chest. The world suddenly smelled thick and oily. She reacted to the liquid or the smell, reaching out at us. I shot her in the face. The gun jumped in my hands, so it was pointed at the ceiling before it came back down to point at her.

"What the fuck is in this?" I asked.

He shoved the torch into the wound I'd made, and she started to scream. The smell of burning hair was strong and bitter. It began to overwhelm the scent of the accelerant. He set her afire. He covered her in the thick oily liquid and burned her. She was too hurt to do much, but she could scream, and writhe. It looked like it hurt. It smelled like burning hair, and finally, when she stopped moving, it smelled like burning meat, and oil. She made a high-pitched keening noise for a very, very long time.