Vamp-Hire (29 page)

Clarkdale, Nick remembered. Operation Sun
Sweep.

“That thing in Arizona? With the
Renfieldians?”

“Not Renfieldians. Close enough. All I have
to do to prove my team is ready is rout out a small rebel force in
town and we get a golden ticket.”

“Small rebel force?” Nick asked. He had the
sensation he already knew: Ti and the gang. Maybe even Lucky too.
He shuttered the thought, fearing Leonard might pick up on it.
Church seemed like a good front for a rebel base operation. That
building was a whole lot bigger than he’d seen.

“Yeah. I suspect one of them was the one who
attacked us when we came to see you the other day.” Leonard stopped
again. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to know who that was, would
you?”

“No,” Nick said. He couldn’t make it sound
not like a lie. Fortunately, Leonard didn’t call him on it. They
continued down the hall, turning around a corner. The lieutenant
waved his badge in front of a security box and it beeped, a green
light coming on as the door unlocked. He pushed through and they
walked into a large room that was half holding cell.

The vamps from the other night stared at them
with tired eyes. They were all to one side of the cell, a corpse on
the other side. Nick couldn’t have mistaken him for asleep; half of
the upper side of his head looked like it had been bitten off.

“Oops, I forgot I killed that one.” Leonard
smiled, as warm and friendly as before. “My bad. Now, Nick, which
one of these fine vamps is next?” He put his arm around Nick’s
shoulders and pulled him close, gesturing toward them with his free
hand. A couple of them groaned.

“I thought you said you don’t kill
innocents?”

Leonard looked at him with a half confused
expression. “I never said that. Besides, we’re past that point. I
tried to ask them first who killed Brandon. Told them I’d let
everyone else go and you know what? They wouldn’t tell me. That one
there got mouthy and started giving me a piece of his mind so I
decided to take him literally.”

“Nick,” Pearlanne said, coming up to the
bars, “he’s some kind of monster. Don’t listen to him, he’s going
to kill you too.”

“Don’t pay her any mind,” Leonard said and
then he looked at her. “Nick is one of the good guys now. One of
us. Remember?” He bent and pulled Nick’s pant leg up, showing the
still-healing skin where he’d been bitten. “That first one takes a
while to heal up. Every wound after that will heal faster than you
can believe. Just wait until the first time you get shot!”

Leonard walked up to the bars. He flinched at
Pearlanne and everybody jumped except her. Someone who looked
eighty percent like her might have tried to kill him a few days
ago, but Nick felt a certain fealty to her, that if she died now he
would be responsible in some way. He felt responsible for whoever
that was dead on the floor.

And Dolph. For all he knew, the man was still
lying in a hospital bed, totally unaware of what was coming his
way. If only he could get to a phone and warn him or maybe call the
police and have them protect him. He had an appreciation now for
what Phoebe had been upset about and had to figure out a way to fix
it.

One impossibility at a time. First, he had to
stop the monster standing a couple feet away from him.

“I’m so sorry for what I’m about to do,” Nick
said. “It’s the only way I can save any of you. He said he’ll let
the rest of you go if I give up the one who killed Brandon. You
will suffer. Horribly. The rest of you can go. Right?”

Leonard cocked his head back and rolled his
eyes. “Sure.”

Nick stepped past him and touched Pearlanne’s
hand. He didn’t know that woman’s story who’d robbed the Big Pig,
however Nick was certain that she could tell him about it. There
were a thousand conversations he thought the two of them could have
together and the thought of never being able to have them angered
him.

Her skin didn’t feel like skin. It felt
liquid. Nick felt a part of him dive into her and felt her
strength. These bars were too strong for her to bend, though she
should be able to crush bone in her bare hands. He couldn’t use
that quite yet. He had to get Leonard closer first.

Nick put both arms around her as best he
could, positioning himself so that Leonard couldn’t see one hand.
Nick made a show of looking at them all, though he’d already
spotted Kim near the back. He pointed at her, beckoning with his
finger for her to come closer. Nick didn’t want to focus his gaze
on anyone in particular and give the lieutenant the impression he
was indicating anyone. A small hand circled around his. It was warm
and soft and showed him how cold he must have been.

“I need you to search my heart and see I did
not choose this. That what happened to Brandon was unintentional
and I would never want that to happen. I’m just in so much pain
right now and I wish someone would take it away.” He shook her hand
with each word, hoping she was picking up.

He felt something like fire coursing up his
arm and into his chest. Nick did his best not to scream, biting his
lip to lock in the high-pitched whinny that almost came out of him.
It felt like he had a coil of electrical wires wrapped around his
hand, but he refused to let go.

“Hey, hey, hey, what’s going on there?”
Leonard asked. He seized him by the shoulder and Nick hoped what
was happening couldn’t be felt by touch from a third party. Nick
needed to scrub away Leonard’s control so he could actually
function in the next few seconds.

He threw Nick off, propelling him halfway
across the room.

“You,” Leonard said, pointing a finger into
the cell. “All of you. If I wasn’t already going to kill you,
I’d…”

“You’d what?” Nick said. He pulled himself
off the floor, his whole body still buzzing. What Kim had been able
to do in those precious few seconds would have to be enough for
what he was about to try.

Leonard turned and cocked his head at Nick.
“I can’t hear you,” he said. “Why can’t I hear you?”

Nick didn’t waste any time. He shoved Leonard
in the chest, driving him backward. The lieutenant felt like he
weighed a ton. Nick only managed to push the man back a step, his
forearms burning up to the elbows like he’d been gripping a bat and
a baseball had unexpectedly hit it. Leonard’s tongue poured out of
his mouth and he hissed, his hands already changed to talons.

“I may not control you,” he said, “but I
still can eat you!”

Nick threw his hands under Leonard’s chin and
pushed as hard as he could. The lieutenant was caught off guard,
his arms windmilling. He stumbled back a few more steps and Nick
chanced a look at the cell, hoping Pearlanne was on the same mental
wavelength as him.

Thankfully, she was reaching for him with
both hands.

White hot pain lanced Nick’s side when
Leonard carved through his clothes with taloned hands. As intense
as it was, it was also bearable. Nick was able to easily detach
from it and redouble his efforts.

“I’ll suck out your eyes!” Leonard said, his
mouth half closed. “I’ll split your tongue to the root! I’ll—”

His last threat was cut off with a squeak as
Pearlanne’s hands wrapped around his throat. Nick pushed one final
time before grabbing his arms. He didn’t want those talons tearing
at her hands before she could choke him to death.

It didn’t take long for Leonard’s body to go
limp. Pearlanne held him for at least a minute longer, squeezing to
make sure she got every bit of life in him out. He fell like an
unstringed marionette.

She spat on him and looked at Nick. “Now get
us the hell out of here.”

Leonard didn’t have any keys on him. Nick had
no clue where to search and nobody had a Skill that would help free
them.

Then Nick remembered the doctor. Where had he
gotten off to? Maybe he had left or maybe he was somewhere nearby.
Nick smelled the air and was surprised to find that the doctor was
close. He stepped into the hall and walked down about a dozen feet
and found him in a smaller common area that was furnished with two
chairs and a small round coffee table. He was sitting in one of the
chairs and reading a thick, leather bound Bible.

“Do you have keys to that cell back there?”
Nick asked.

Without answering, the old man fished into a
pants pocket and pulled out a thick set of keys, holding them out
by a black rabbit’s foot.

“He is not dead,” the old man said. “The
rabisu is unkillable.”

“The what?” Nick said, already backing out of
the room. He didn’t feel comfortable leaving the other vamps
trapped in that cell for a second longer even with the dead…
whatever he’d called it in the room with them.

He felt a moment of panic before turning into
the room, thinking Leonard would be on his feet, fully turned into
the monster that hid under the skin of a man. He was there, though,
dead as before, and Nick went through a couple of long keys before
finding the right one.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry,” one of the vamps was
saying as he dipped the last key in the lock and turned.

They filed out, mostly quiet, the injured
ones being helped by the others. Kim cradled her broken wrist to
her chest, dark circles beneath her eyes. A male vamp with soft
auburn hair pulled into a ponytail and a goatee had an arm around
her.

“She needs a hospital,” the man said. “As
quickly as we can get her to one.”

Nick nodded. “There may be one more of those
super vamps around,” Nick said. “We need to stick together just in
case.”

He headed in the direction of where the old
man had been in the small common area and everyone followed. Nick
didn’t know how he’d been appointed leader and didn’t want to
complain yet. As if on cue, the vamp with the widow’s peak spoke
just then.

“Wait a minute!” he whisper-yelled. “Why in
the world are we following you! That demon guy said you’re one of
them. This could be some kind of trap for all we know.”

“Vince, shut up, already,” Pearlanne said.
“He helped us kill Leonard and he’s the reason we’re out now.”

“How do we know this isn’t some sort of trap?
I never seen nothing like that guy before. For all we know he
peeled the real Nick’s skin off like a banana and someone else is
wearing him like a pair of pants!”

Nick had to admit it was a valid concern.
Pearlanne turned and opened her mouth. Then closed it. So far as
the rest of the world knew, the only monsters had been vampires and
they were all extinct. Now that they knew there was another monster
that had slipped completely under the radar anything was
possible.

“Go by what makes sense,” Nick said. “If I
were the big bad, why would I let you out of that cage?”

“I don’t know—maybe if you scare us or
something we taste better.”

Nick gave him a look.

“Anybody not already scared?”

“I’ve been scared since I got out of bed two
days ago,” someone said.

A couple of them laughed and the tense moment
broke. Nick turned and began following the old man’s scent, hoping
it would lead to an exit.

In a few minutes they were pushing open a
fire door, the sun greeting them. He wasn’t surprised to see this
was the same building he and Dolph had come to a few days ago. This
place was a long drive away from the city and unless Alex and
Cameron were on foot and he could hotwire a car, there was no way
to catch up. He had to think of something. If only he had his cell
phone.

This building was in the middle of nowhere.
He knew there was probably a phone somewhere inside and going back
in was the last thing he wanted to do.

“So what’s the plan?” Ray asked him, whipping
his blond ponytail off his shoulder. People really were looking for
Nick to lead. That was so odd to him.

“I know the city is back that way. I need to
get back. Anybody else not interested in risking their lives better
not come with me. Two of those uber vamps are on their way to kill
a friend of mine and I have to stop them if I can.”

“Why don’t we hotwire a couple of cars and
race over there?” a short vamp said. It was the teenager who’d
gotten the woman’s blood splashed in his face the other night. He
looked none the worse for wear after the trauma even if he still
had some of her blood crusted down the front of his clothes.

Nick hadn’t thought of that. All these cars
were sitting there, waiting for somebody to take them.

“You know how to do that?” he asked. “Do you
have the tools?”

The teen smiled. “Always come prepared,” he
said, holding up three fingers in a Boy Scout salute. He fished a
jimmy out of his pants and walked up to the nearest car. After a
second he had the door open. In about twenty he had the first car
started.

* * *

Clip probably could have hotwired every car
in the parking lot so that everyone could have driven their own.
The group had split in two; those who were coming with and those
who were going their own way. The ten coming with Nick all piled
into three cars. There were only two who wanted nothing to do with
any of them and Clip gave them a black Ford Festiva to drive.

“I have to go to my family,” the
yellow-skinned vamp said as apologetically as he could.

Nick didn’t blame the vamp, as he himself was
on a mostly similar mission.

As they piled into cars, Nick noticed someone
was missing. “Where’s Allen?” he asked. A short redhead gave him a
faraway look.

“That was him in the cell,” she said. “That
thing bit off his head when we wouldn’t tell it who killed
Brandon.”

Nick shuddered. He couldn’t imagine what
seeing something like that must have been like. If he could help
it, anyone associated with Leonard would not harm anyone else. He
didn’t know what that meant as he climbed into the driver’s seat.
Maybe he would have to kill. So be it, if it came to that.