Chapter 35

“JESUS,” GREG SAID from his place at the computer. “So what did he think was going to happen? He’d throw up a bat signal, and all his minions from all over the city would crawl out of the woodwork to attack you?”

I sat across the table from him, pouring Firefly Sweet Tea Vodka into a glass over ice. “I don’t think it was quite that complex, to be honest. I think that he killed some people and sold them into undead sexual slavery but kept most of the ones he killed in the cages to be his army. I mean, we’re not telepathic, so it’s not like he could just sent out brainwaves like Professor Xavier and activate his vampire sleeper cells.”

“Yeah, that makes more sense, I guess. Do we have any idea how many people he . . . sold?” Greg asked.

“None whatsoever. Abby fired him months ago, and she figures that at least a dozen girls from the Angel have left their jobs without calling since then. Now, not all of them were kidnapped, but it stands to reason that at least a portion of them were.” I sipped my vodka and tried to decide between dismemberment or flaying for my planned murder of Ian the asshole.

“And that’s not even taking into account the three hundred people that go missing in Charlotte every month,” Abby added. “If even ten percent of those were taken by Ian, he could have a hundred vampires or more running around.”

“Well, a lot less after you guys got through in the tunnels,” Emily said from the bottom of the stairs. We all turned to her. She looked better after a little rest, standing there swimming in Greg’s favorite Garfield T-shirt. “Is this a private war party, or can any dead girl join in?”

Greg pulled out a chair, and she sat beside him at the table. They were tentative around each other, almost like they felt like they should know each other, but had never met. Which they kinda hadn’t, at least not for better than twenty years. She looked at the vodka and raised an eyebrow to me. I grabbed her a glass and poured it half full. That eyebrow came back up at the generous pour, and I chuckled.

“I know, that much straight vodka would have knocked you out last week. But now it’s barely enough to take the edge off for half an hour, and not even that long if you chase it with a blood bag. Booze and drugs have a much harder time affecting us than they used to. There’s probably a physiological reason to it, but I just chalk it up to being a magically animated undead beast of darkness and bitch about my excessive bar tabs.”

She shook her head at me and drank. “You are one weird dude, Jimmy Black.”

Abby laughed, throwing her blond hair back. “Oh, girl! You don’t know the half of it. Just wait until he starts talking about video games.”

“Anyway,” I said, trying to move the conversation back on track. I turned to Greg. “Did you have any luck finding a map of the abandoned subway tunnels?”

“Yes. I was able to get into the city permitting office’s archives, and I found a set of plans. There’s just one problem.”

“Of course there is,” I grumbled.

“Yeah, this is a pretty big one,” Greg said. “They aren’t digital. All I got was the database index. The plans only exist in hard copy, and they are in the physical archives in the basement of the Old Courthouse. There’s literally zero chance that we can get our hands on them in any reasonable timeframe.”

“Why not just break in? We’ve still got a few hours of dark left,” Abby said.

“Have you ever been in a government records office?” Greg asked. “Especially one that hasn’t been used in a couple decades? This place is going to be wall-to-wall boxes, with only the loosest form of organization. These subway plans are from the 1890s, when Charlotte was a booming textile town and city leaders thought it was going to be the centerpiece of the New South. Even if we could find them, orienting them to current landmarks would be almost impossible.”

“So what, we just wander around in the tunnels and hope we find this asshole? I don’t think so.” I slammed the rest of my Firefly and reached for the bottle. Abby slid it out of my reach and slapped a blood bag and a metal straw into my hand.

“Don’t be a dick. We need you clear-headed.”

I wanted to protest, but she was right. If we were going after this guy, I needed to be on top of my game. A few hours’ sleep would be nice, but a bag of go juice would suffice in the meantime. “Okay, buddy. I’m sure you didn’t get me all spun up just to let me run off half-cocked, so what’s the plan?”

Greg nodded. “First, we have to get the vamplets to a safe place. Then we go bloodhound on your buddy Ian.”

I sat back in my chair, literally stunned by the simplicity of it. Between the three of us, our senses rivaled that of any tracking dog in the world. We should be able to track Ian through the subway using trace he rubbed off on my shirt when we fought. “That’s why we keep you around, pal. You’re the brains to go with my beauty.”

“What am I, chopped liver?” Abby mock-protested.

“You’re obviously the brawn, Abs,” I said, reaching over and grabbing her bicep. She flexed for me, laughing.

“Just one problem,” I said. “Where can we stash your sister that she’d be safe? I mean, we could keep them here with William looking after them, but I don’t know if our defenses are enough to keep out an army of vamps if Ian decides to come for them.”

“I wasn’t thinking just about keeping them safe,” Greg replied. “I was also thinking of having some people to teach them about being a vampire, what it means, how to live, what our rules are and how to make a living. You know, Vamp 101.”

“You mean all the stuff nobody ever taught us?” I asked.

“Yeah, that. But also, you know, just let them meet more vampires, see the different ways people approach the whole live forever and live on a liquid diet thing,” he replied.

“You’ve obviously got something in mind, so spill.” I knew what he was going to say, I just wanted to hear it. It’s not like there are that many collections of vampires in the city, after all.

“I want to take them to Morlock City. With Rabbit and Alexander both gone, I can kinda see Jang-Mi taking over both groups. If that happens, they’ll be plenty strong enough to protect them, and . . . I liked the way they were living. So we can leave them in Morlock City and send a message to Jang-Mi. Then she can come integrate her people with the Morlocks and look after Emily and the others at the same time.”

I nodded. It wasn’t a terrible idea. Alexander had a good thing going, for sure. Too bad he wanted to take over my medium-good thing. “Okay, let’s go drop the kids off at Grandma’s then go hunting in the sewers. But if I’m going down to Morlock City, I’m changing clothes first. These boots are the last ones I own that don’t have sewer on them, and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“Yeah, that has nothing to do with the smoking hot cop lady snoring away in your bed, right?” Emily teased.

“Well, I wouldn’t say nothing.” I grinned at her and went upstairs. Sure enough, Sabrina was curled up around a pillow, her clothes in a pile on the floor. She’d dragged one of my old X-Men T-shirts out to sleep in, and one gorgeous long leg peeked out from under the covers. Shoving down all my normal instincts, I covered her up and just kissed her head very lightly. She murmured something cute and incomprehensible, and I dug out the least disgusting jeans from the dirty clothes hamper, then grabbed one of the multiple pair of disgusting boots from the floor. I slipped on the jeans, then got a fresh pair of socks out of the dresser. As I closed the drawer, a glint of silver caught my eye.

Hanging on the Christine Spar Grendel statue on my dresser was the sterling silver cross my old friend Mike’s mother gave me back when I was a teenager. Mike and Greg both got them, too, and we wore them all through high school and college. I took mine off when I turned, thanks to the whole allergic to silver thing, but since Mike passed, I painted the cross with clear nail polish and wore it from time to time when I felt like I needed a little extra backup. This was definitely going to be a time for backup.

I picked up the cross on its narrow chain, and just watched it glitter in the dim light for a minute. The memories came rushing back in a flood. Me, Mike, and Greg at high school football games, mocking the cool kids and gawking at the cheerleaders. The three of us the summer before college, trying our first illegally obtained sips of Scotch. Only Mike ever developed a taste for the stuff. I still think it tastes like licking peat moss. More recent memories, of Mike in the hospital, then him asking me not to let Greg turn him, to let him go be with his God. The look of peace on his face the last time I saw him; all his pain gone, with just the tiniest hint of a smile, like he saw something on the other side that made all this life’s suffering worth it.

I put the necklace around my neck and fumbled with the clasp for a second before I got it to work. The pendant hung down below my collarbone, and I tucked it into my shirt. The metal felt cool against my skin, then warmed almost as if I still had a warm body temp. I patted it under my shirt, then leaned over to kiss Sabrina one more time. I was surprised to see her lying there watching me.

“Oh, hey,” I said.

“Hey. You still miss him?”

I touched the cross. “Mike? Every day. He was the guy I called when I didn’t know what to do. No matter what, even before he became a priest, he always had a solution. That was him—the guy with the answer. It wasn’t always right, and it was almost never what I wanted to do, but he always had something for me.”

“He was a good man.”

“The best of the three of us, that’s for damn sure.” I felt the tears well up and wiped my eyes with a sock.

“Please tell me that’s at least a clean sock.”

“Let’s settle for clean-adjacent, and be glad I can’t get an eye infection.”

“You’re impossible.”

“And you love me for it.”

“I love you, but only God knows why. Now come here and give me a real kiss before you go save the world.”

“I hope it’s just the city this time. Saving the world gets really tiring.” I sat on the bed next to her and pulled her into me. I ran my fingers through her long dark curls and kissed her with everything I had.

After several seconds, she pulled back and leaned on her arms. “That’s a kiss with a lot of promise. You’d better go kill this asshole so you can come back and live up to it.”

“You got a deal.” I kissed her again, this time much less seriously, and got up to head for the door. I stopped with my hand on the knob. “How’s Sean?”

“He’s fine. Your blood got him stable, and they gave him two pints at the hospital. He’s irritated as hell and wants to go home, but they won’t let him until they figure out why he’s healing so fast.”

“Good luck with that,” I said. Modern medicine was not going to have any reasonable explanation for why Sean Fitzpatrick didn’t die of his wounds. Modern medicine did not take into account vampires with magical swords.

“Hey,”

I turned around, and my shirt was on the floor, with Sabrina standing beside my bed. My mouth dropped open.

“Just wanted to remind you why you really, really want to live through this fight. You’ve got this to come back to.”

It took every ounce of my willpower to turn and walk out that door, but I had a whole lot of asshole to kill.