An hour later, Clark County Wastewater Treatment Plant was still a mess and Charmaine Villanueva felt like shit.
She’d expected that Anthony would be angry that Charmaine called the OPA. He’d understand, sure, but he’d be pissed.
Now it wasn’t anger Charmaine faced, but an open body bag with Anthony broken inside of it. His head was tipped back weirdly because of the missing portions.
“Yes,” Charmaine said, “that’s Anthony Morales. Registered vigilante license is…uh…” She had it memorized because she wrote it down on so much paperwork. Now she couldn’t remember. “It’s slipped my mind. You’ll need to look it up.”
Officer Wilson nodded, tapping out a message to the coroner on her tablet before setting it on the edge of the gurney. She moved to zip the body bag.
“Wait,” Charmaine said. “I’ll do that.”
Officer Wilson knew a dismissal when she heard one. She turned on her heel to leave, and Charmaine was alone with Anthony’s body. As alone as she could be at a crime scene teeming with OPA agents.
It had started with two-dozen men, maybe, but then the choppers had come in, and the trucks. There were countless people in black suits now sweeping the area for every grain of dust that could have belonged to a vampire. Most of the staff was detaining shapeshifters who’d been caught outside in their animal forms, dismembering vampires left and right. It wasn’t easy cuffing shapeshifters as humans. As animals, it took a veritable army.
By the grace of Undersecretary Hawke, Charmaine was permitted to observe the proceedings. She’d thought it was a gesture of good grace from Cèsar. Now she thought that witnessing this was a punishment.
Charmaine hadn’t felt this terrible since the first time she shapeshifted into a coyote after Genesis.
Her fingers touched Anthony’s forehead, the bridge of his nose. She remembered how he’d said smoking reminded him of old friends. “I hope you’re with old friends now,” she whispered.
She’d just closed the zipper when Undersecretary Hawke returned to her side. “You should be aware that I’m revoking the vigilantes’ licenses because of this,” he said.
Charmaine could still make out the shape of Anthony’s profile through the crinkly black bag. “You shouldn’t blame the Hunting Club.”
“Their repeated dismissal of the law is dangerous to everyone, chief. Look at the result.” He gestured to the body bag as a pair of techs loaded it into the coroner’s van.
“Yes, look at the results.” She gestured toward the crates that had been seized. They were filled with the silver and iron that had been stolen over the last few months. The plant itself had been shut down, ensuring that no tainted water could make it into the system. “If the Hunting Club hadn’t gotten here in time, we would only have empty barrels and a city filled with silver-maddened shifters.”
“The OPA would have interceded before that, if you’d been open with information,” Cèsar said.
A trio of sidhe agents walked Dana out of the building. Charmaine stopped to watch the hunter limping toward an OPA vehicle. Dana wasn’t fighting, so she didn’t need to be held by that many sidhe, but they weren’t taking any chances with a McIntyre.
Dana caught Charmaine looking from across the parking lot. For a fleeting instant, there was understanding between them—the sharing of their loss.
And then Dana climbed gingerly into the truck. She was handcuffed.
Before the doors closed, Charmaine saw a black bag tugged over Dana’s head and cinched at the neck.
“You’re arresting her?” Charmaine asked.
“She broke a lot of laws,” Cèsar said. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t disappear into the system. She’ll get a trial. But she does need to go on trial. I’ve seen a few similar cases, so I can tell you that Dana McIntyre will probably be out of prison in a couple of years—sooner if she’s cooperative.”
Cooperative. The last word that Charmaine would associate with Dana.
Charmaine’s hands clenched into fists at her sides. “McIntyre and Morales were the de facto leaders of the Hunting Club. They were the only ones here tonight. Now one’s in your custody and the other is…” She swallowed. “The Hunting Club has many other associates whose expertise is beneficial to Las Vegas. They should keep going.”
Now Nissa Royal was walked out of the building. She had a guard of a dozen sidhe, while two others half-carried her. She looked to be made of jelly. She’d been sedated.
“All right,” Cèsar said after a moment. “I’ll spare the club’s license. You have an opinion about the daylight bombing? I want to be really fucking sure there isn’t a single vampire left in Las Vegas after this.”
Nissa got into yet another van. One that would take her to prison when she deserved to be in a body bag like Anthony.
“No,” Charmaine said. “Light the city up.”
Nissa let them take her out of Las Vegas.
She felt too hollow to fight back. She may as well have been bathed in Garlic Shots for all the sensation she had in her body.
When Nissa’s sedatives wore off, she was in the back of a van with a black bag over her head, and as far as she cared, she could stay like that for the rest of eternity.
She had almost killed Dana.
That made a thrill climb her spine.
But as soon as she remembered Dana falling under the crush of Nissa’s powers, she also remembered Mohinder dissolving to ash in her arms. The thrill grew hot enough to melt her intestines with fury.
Some part of Nissa’s mind was still back with Penny McIntyre. Not in Mohinder’s basement, in one of those glass boxes, but in the forge where Penny created swords. Nissa had connected with Penny well enough that she could summon the tactile memory of heat on her skin, hammer in her hands, shoulders flexing.
It was hot enough to wake her up. And Nissa used that heat to forge a different kind of weapon.
She reached out with her mind to the driver of the van. She wiggled her way into his brain and took hold of his senses. The driver was a man named Ralph. Ralph needed to pee really badly. He found the smell of witchy charms in the van to be overwhelming, and he couldn’t wait until they arrived at the jail.
Where are we?
Through Ralph’s eyes, she saw a sparser desert than the one outside Las Vegas. They were somewhere in Arizona. The OPA must have had a facility in this area. Some hole where they could hide her until the vivisection.
Stop the van.
The driver stopped so fast that Nissa lurched against the wall.
Nissa hadn’t realized there was a convoy until Ralph watched them stopping through the windshield. They weren’t surprised that their charms and drugs had worn off midway through the ride, and they’d be prepared to sedate her again.
The doors opened. Nissa could hear the rattling through the black hood, but couldn’t see them, since Ralph was still in the driver’s compartment. She didn’t need visual information to reach out to the minds of the people who were approaching her. The OPA didn’t face enough master vampires to have tactics for deflecting them.
Nissa seized their minds.
Shoot each other.
Gunfire rang out. It deafened her.
Hearing was another sense Nissa didn’t need as she slithered out of the van. She stretched her mind out more and more and more until every single OPA agent within a kilometer radius was caught in her web.
Nissa killed most of them with a thought.
Die.
Arteries burst. Hearts stopped. Lungs collapsed.
With the next thought, she said, The rest of you serve me now.
And they did.
Ralph took her hood off. She blinked into the blazing moonlight, so much brighter with her vampire eyes. Nissa surveyed the people around her. There were four left alive: three of them shifters, one of them sidhe. Had she been any other vampire, they’d have been capable of containing her.
“We need to go back to Las Vegas,” Nissa said.
“Why?” asked the sidhe agent. It was like he was speaking to her through the fog of a dream.
Nissa swallowed hard. Her tongue felt enormous in her mouth. “Dana McIntyre killed Mohinder. Dana McIntyre must die.”
Ready to slay more vampires?
Want to know when I publish a new book?
Sign up to receive an email alert!
I’ll only get in touch when I put a new book out.
Please consider leaving a review for the book you just read! Your feedback means the world to me and it helps other readers find the series!
Connect with SM Reine: