Chapter Twenty

The sick man staggered to his feet and tried to push Rey toward the kitchen. “Hide.”

“Too late,” Keydew said.

The door burst open. A huge, overdeveloped hulk stormed inside. Black combat pants, black T-shirt stretched over muscles marching up his arms like steroid mountains, tusk-like fangs gleaming, glowing red eyes. Facial armor like a welder’s mask. Flanking him were a pair of hulkettes in the same black fatigues and smaller welders’ masks. Seriously, they were so alike, right down to the rectangular blue badges on their chests, all they needed were black pom-poms and creatine endorsements sewn on their butts.

The blue-badges. These were the fangs for hire, the same group that had managed to originally capture Elias.

Except the leader had a red badge. I didn’t like the leveling-up that implied.

“Damn it all to Kur,” Keydew spat. “They must’ve followed us here. Get down,” he added as a fourth bloodsucker nosed around the corner of the entryway.

Or rather, nosed his rifle.

My stomach did a belly flop into my legs as the four of us hit the floor, Keydew and me behind the couch, my sister and Elias beside the table, just in time to avoid a strafing of bullets.

I clutched Joyce hard. Where vampires usually relied on fear and fangs, these hardened suckers were professionals. The speed of the breach, the deadly way the sharpshooter covered the room, reinforced the fact that they were most definitely a serious threat.

Against a boy cop, a sickly weak-as-human vamp, my sister, and me. We were in deep shit.

The bullets stopped. Crouched behind the couch, both hands wrapped around Joyce’s hilt, I mentally ranked them by threat level. Thing One and Thing Two were SEVERE, the gunman was CRITICAL, and the leader was DEFCON OH-CRAP.

With my sister’s life at stake, tonight was not a good night to die.

“Give him to us,” DEFCON intoned, his deep, dark voice echoing with an older vamp’s power. “Hand him over, and the rest of you can go.”

I croaked, “Who?”

He pointed a sharp talon. “Elias.”

I glanced over my shoulder to see that very bloodsucker and my sister army-crawling toward us.

Give them Elias? Hand over the sucker king I was going to kill anyway? Then walk away, hale and hearty, having not earned my sister’s wrath?

A no-brainer.

I eased to a stand, hands raised, Joyce still in one. “I don’t want any trouble.”

“Kat, no.” Rey’s voice was hard with stress.

“No trouble.” As I spoke, I slid sideways, putting myself between DEFCON and my sister. She was trying to shield Elias, though somehow the vampire king eased my sister behind him.

Keydew, to my surprise, was at my elbow, sliding with me. I’d have thought he’d have stayed safe behind the couch.

“Bring me Elias, now.” Voice heavily laced with compulsion, DEFCON curled his finger at me.

“You bullies aren’t taking Greyson,” Rey snarled.

“Rey, don’t.” Elias’s whisper was hoarse. “Hide. Please.”

I was in position. I glanced behind me.

My sister’s gaze was hard and confrontational on the bloodsuckers at the front door. “I’m not cooperating with you.”

“We aren’t cooperating.” I snapped into a fighting stance.

DEFCON attacked without warning. Not only a professional, a ruthless professional.

He was targeting Elias, but I was first in his way. I brought Joyce level with his neck and braced myself.

His throat split on my blade. I had a tenth of a second to think, Not as impervious as the king before Joyce hit his spine, his bone as hard as concrete. Much harder than a normal vamp. The force juddered painfully up my arms, nearly tearing her from my grip.

A single spray of blood cut off like a water hose.

He grinned down at me with my sword still embedded in his throat.

Terror stabbed cold spikes in my legs before I could turn and run. For two hummingbird-beats of my heart, I thought the ruby serum hadn’t worked.

Then DEFCON fell back a step, surprise erasing his grin. Joyce came loose with a sucking sound. His plate faded, revealing green skin. Seconds ticked by as we all stared. The sub-goons didn’t attack, maybe simply shocked, maybe waiting for a command from their leader.

A command that’d be a long time coming, if ever. The vertical gash in his neck…extended. More seconds ticked by, lots more than with the plain blue-badges. His skin slowly turned lumpy and his neck wound started bubbling.

Finally, his throat began collapsing like sand in a funnel.

Before it completely dissolved, he managed a burbled, “Sword…poison.”

He grabbed his neck with both hands, fell to his knees, and collapsed on the floor. His body began to slowly disintegrate from the inside out.

Good news, the ruby serum had done its job. Bad news, it had taken longer than the blue-badges. Worst news, he’d blabbed about the poison, and the other suckers would avoid Joyce.

Without warning, Keydew twisted and hit me midbody, carrying me down so hard my focus went totally toward keeping hold of my blade.

The rifleman opened fire.

The young officer had managed to throw us both down behind the couch. Elias huddled there with my sister. Thank goodness Rey went in for overstuffed furniture. Though bullets pocked, we were safe enough for the moment.

“Rey.” Elias’s rasp was urgent. “Go.”

He was still in his sick man disguise. With this much danger, I’d expect him to at least fang up. But he did nothing except urge my sister to flee.

Maybe it wasn’t a disguise? Doubt gnawed at me.

Keydew’s voice, deep with stress, broke into my thoughts. “Kat.” He smoothly drew his firearm and pressed it into my hand. “It’s got silver bullets.”

I blinked at him. Nobody regularly chambered silver. It was too bloody expensive. Which meant… “You know vampires are real. Not just people who ‘think they’re vamps.’ Real.”

“Yes. Sorry.” His expression was pained. “There’s worse. These vampires have trackers. They followed our investigations. Maybe even put a tracker on the patrol car.”

“Trackers?” Numb horror flooded me. I’d led them here? I’d put my own sister in danger?

The pock of bullets abruptly stopped. I shook off my horror, scrambled my legs under me, and rose into a crouch, inching my eyes over the couch.

The noise had covered up the entry of half a dozen more vampire troops.

As Keydew shucked off his duty belt, the SEVERE twins were stalking toward us, leading a squad of blue-badges, the thud of their combined feet like the heavy beat of kettle drums.

Or maybe that was my heart. Joyce in one hand, Keydew’s pistol in the other, I coiled myself to spring, to throw myself at them while my sister escaped.

I’d die. Yet I’d gladly give my life for Rey.

“Wait.” Keydew’s fingers on my shoulder stopped me. “Kat. I’ll explain later, but…”

He wavered. His body…fuzzed. Like a ghost.

An uneasy premonition swamped me.

His blue uniform fell a moment later to the floor with a muffled plop. A bang of displaced air, and Keydew’s body exploded solid.

Or not Keydew’s body. I stared up, and up.

A vampire rose beside me, talons and fangs full-length. He inhaled a bushel of air, chest expanding impressively, stretching his charcoal-gray V-neck to the breaking…charcoal-gray sweater?…then he roared with such bull defiance that the approaching vamps froze.

I froze too, crouching there in horrified wonder. The clothes, the body, were Ryker’s, the human PI.

But the facial armor…

“H-he…h-he’s a… Sh-shit,” Rey said, her voice cold and shaking.

The gigantic vampire glanced at me. That beautiful, terrifying mask, brandishing spikes for extra fear. Primal; deadly. I’d never forget it. Not Elias.

Ryker was my vampire king.