Parked under a big tree casting a thick shadow, Luke and his team assembled quickly. This time, they stuck with their normal approach—shotguns stashed in a duffel bag, jackets over any other incriminating items. When they walked around the block, they darted behind the nearest hedge and peeked out. The porch was empty; no light spilled out into the night.
Luke pulled his head back under cover. “This looks fishy. Let me go check it out.”
He popped out onto the sidewalk and strolled past the house, stepping behind a tree just past their yard and poking his head around the side. He snorted when he saw what the fangers had done. He stepped away from the house and crossed the street, looping around and back to where his friends remained hidden in a hedge.
“They’ve got the windows covered with something to block the light. I could see the slapdash tape job. They’ve also got a security camera pointed right down the sidewalk leading up to the house.” Luke turned to Delilah. “Still got that can of spray paint in your backpack?”
“Yup.” Delilah turned around so Luke could fish it out.
Luke found the can and the bearded beanies they periodically used as disguises.
“Mask up. Let’s keep your faces off the radar.” Luke handed out the masks.
“What about yours?” Delilah asked, pulling the beanie over her head.
Luke lifted the one in his hands before putting it on. “I’m sure he’s had an artist mockup an image of me and sent the image around, but I’ll keep the team uniform intact. Ready?”
He looked around to the house they were standing in front of. The thick hedge heading all the way to the sidewalk provided a nice barrier. Their blinds were down, and only some dim lights were on upstairs. He waved everyone to follow him into the neighbor’s yard. He found the gap in the hedge he’d seen from the other neighbor’s yard and had everyone pull out their Winchester M12 shotguns. He shoved the folded up bag into Delilah’s backpack.
“Follow me as soon as I neutralize the camera.” Luke removed the spray paint cap and walked through the gap, creeping along the wall to stay out of the camera’s focal range.
When he got up onto the small concrete pad in front of the door, he noticed the high-tech doorbell. Starting with it, he sprayed the lens, then stood on tiptoes and sprayed the camera above the door. When the gang joined him, he put the lid back on the spray paint, dropped it into Delilah’s bag, and zipped it up.
Luke picked up his shotgun, made sure the safety was on, and backed up to the door. Setting the butt of the gun just next to the doorknob, he pulled the gun forward and set it back to center his aim, then drew it forward and slammed it into the door, bursting it open. Pablo kicked the door aside and jumped through, firing off a couple shots. Delilah followed, then Sam. Luke, checking around him, backed in and shut the door behind him. Sam was already working her way upstairs, Delilah behind her.
Pablo had splattered the walls with several younger vamps who’d been hanging out in the front room when he burst through. The sound of broken glass and slamming doors yelled loud and clear that several vampires had exited post haste out the back. Pablo swept through the kitchen, making sure it was clear while Luke looked for anyone hiding in closets or for stairs leading down. A couple shotgun shots from the floor above told him Sam and Delilah were putting down whatever fangers were upstairs.
“Clear!” Sam yelled as she and Delilah came down the stairs.
“Pablo?” Luke asked.
“Clear back here,” Pablo called.
“I don’t see anyone else here.” He checked his watch—three minutes. “Let’s go.”
Pablo pushed out through the back door, sweeping the yard with his shotgun in case anything fanged was hiding in a bush. “Clear.”
Sam ran out, then Delilah. Between Pablo and Sam, they helped Delilah over the back fence into the neighbor’s dark back yard. Pablo gave Sam a hand up, handed her shotgun over along with his, then followed with a clever vault. Luke followed, handing them his gun, then stepped back for a running vault of his own.
Delilah was already gone, through the side yard and out onto the sidewalk. “Clear,” she whispered loudly.
Luke, Pablo, and Sam jogged out. Delilah ran ahead, climbing into the driver’s seat of the pickup, the engine turning over a few seconds later. Another few seconds, and the rest of the team was in the pickup. Delilah sped away, zigging through the neighborhood and avoiding the likely routes from the nearest police precincts. The team kept quiet as they looked around, their heads on swivels to catch any sound or sight of sirens or lights. When they got to the freeway without a close sighting of the police, they collectively heaved a sigh of relief.
Sam, the light of her phone screen illuminating her face from the seat next to Luke’s, looked over with a relieved smile. “Archie’s squad just checked in. ‘Success, on our way to stop two.’”
“Nice job, team!” He took in a deep breath and exhaled noisily, letting the first round of tension drift away with it. “Since we have some time on the road, I wanted to talk to you about something.” When he got a nod from everyone, he continued, “Maggie thinks we should get some off nights scheduled for everyone, and I agree. We’ve been going hard, and I want to keep everyone sharp.”
They all agreed.
“The key, though, is we’ll want to keep the teams full. So that means we’ll need to insert some of our less experienced wolves. You all feel comfortable training the newbies when I’m off? I trust you all. You know how to run the squad through a house.” No one objected. “I also think as long as we keep Archie or Jung-sook, they can handle training on their side.”
Sam nodded along with Luke’s assessment. “Yeah. They’ve got the experience, and they’re natural leaders. They’ll do great. Why the sudden urge to get a time off schedule going?”
“Well, you all have families and personal lives. Plus, it really will keep you all stay fresh and sharp. I can’t run you all ragged like I run myself.”
Sam chuckled, a knowing smirk on her face. “And Maggie reminded you that she hasn’t gotten any time with you lately?”
Luke blushed. “Well, that too. I didn’t want to make it about me though.”
Pablo turned around from the front passenger side. “Dude, it’s OK to want a night off to spend with your lady friend. We all want you to be happy, and I’ve never seen you more generally happy in the time I’ve known you than you have been lately.”
“Yeah, even with the intensity of everything going on, you’ve been much more lighthearted. It’s nice to see that side of you,” Delilah said from behind the wheel.
“Good. Since you’re all so eager to see me have a nice time with Maggie…” He paused and pulled his phone out from his pocket. Seeing the confirmation that Maggie was free for the proposed date, he shoved it back into his pocket. “I’m taking the night after tomorrow off. Sam and I will go over the schedule. If you have days off you want specifically, let us know.”
“Did Luke just sucker us into letting him have the first night off?” Delilah asked. She chuckled and turned up the radio, the Alabama Shakes’s “Hold On” playing.
Pablo laughed. “Looks like it.”
Sam smiled at Luke and patted his knee, giving him a wink.
* * *
Luke hadn’t looked at the property their next assault targeted—he trusted his team to do the research. When they pulled up to the address on his map app and looked it over, he had the other team meet them at the parking lot of a chain steak house just off Highway 26 so they could go over their approach.
The house was deep on the northern outskirts of Beaverton in the hills of the Cedar Mill neighborhood. Although he would have liked to put eyes on the house before going in, the street level view of his maps app did a solid job of filling in the blanks.
“Everyone have their radios with them?” Luke asked, looking around and collecting nods. He pointed at the map he had spread out on the hood of the Subaru Archie’s team was using. “Good. Archie, I want you to park in this lot up here. Put your car in backwards so all you have to do is hit drive and go. You’ll be on the front door. Head down this street. The house is fairly isolated back there. My team will park on this side street—”
Pablo interrupted, “I don’t like it. That street’s a dead end.”
“Well, it’s our closest option and the rest don’t look that great either,” Luke replied.
“I just want to let everyone know—not a fan of that.” Pablo crossed his arms over his chest.
“Noted.” Luke returned to the map. “This lot is unfenced in front. We’ll proceed along the fence line with the neighboring property. It looks like heavy vegetation, so as long as the house there doesn’t notice us, we should be able to come up on the backside of the vampire house. When we’re within range of the back door, I’ll check in with you, Archie.”
Archie nodded. “Right. One question, will they feel us approach? Smell us? I’m not sure how vampire senses work. That house is fairly isolated.”
“Well, just walk up to the front door and knock. If you’re not sneaking, they’ll just think it’s a meal delivery—some dumb sucker who picked the wrong house to walk up to late at night.”
Archie smirked. “Right, we’ll play it that way, mate.”
“Any other questions?” When no one spoke up, Luke folded the map. “Alright, let’s move out.”
They filed into their team vehicles and pulled out of the parking lot. Five minutes later, Luke got the message that Archie’s team was parked. Luke jumped out of the back of Pablo’s pickup and waited behind the truck until everyone else joined him. Without a word, he walked up the dark street, checked both ways, then darted across NW Cornell Road and into the scraggly bushes and trees along the roadside edge of the property they were about to cross. When everyone had safely made it across, Luke poked his head out to make sure the house to their right was dark. This time of night, chances were everyone was safely tucked in bed. Darkness and even deeper shadows dominated the lot. Luke started across the yard, careful where he set his foot in the tall grass. The going was slow. Luke figured taking their time was a better option than a turned ankle.
When they snugged up against the fence separating the two properties, Luke thought he saw something in the shadow along the fence. Holding his hand up to have everyone stay put, he inspected what turned out to be a loose board in the fence. When he pushed against it, it shifted. He caught it before it could fall into anything. Sticking one hand through the gap, he worked the bottom part of it loose from its nails or screws. When it popped free, he carefully pulled it back through and set it out of the way. Now with more room to work, he twisted the next few boards loose, pulling them out and setting them aside. When he was done, he had a nice hole they could easily use.
Luke waved the team over. Before he headed through, he clicked on the radio and whispered that they were in place.
“Roger, moving to the door now,” Archie replied.
Luke unslung the M12 shotgun from around his back and slid through the hole. They jogged around the backyard to step onto the deck, out of view of the windows overlooking the back of the property. Archie’s loud knocking sounded over the house. Archie must have left the radio engaged.
“What the fuck do you want?” someone said.
“Candygram!” Archie replied.
Luke snorted but stopped himself before he could laugh out loud.
“What?” the voice said, confused by Archie’s statement.
Luke pulled open the screen door and let Delilah hold it open. Reaching out, he tested the doorknob. Locked. He stepped back.
“Lead delivery?” Archie asked.
“What the fu—”
A shotgun blast interrupted the shouting vampire. Luke took that as his cue and kicked the door, shattering it and the frame around the knob and latches. Bulling his way in, he leveled his shotgun at a shocked face that had just turned to check out the commotion. Luke blasted him, letting the new shotgun shell turn the vampire into dust. The door freed up, he stepped left and chambered another round, firing it off toward a couple vampires frozen in place by shock. One sluiced to the floor. The other one took a couple of the smaller buckshot and howled in pain as the silver burned through its flesh. Luke ended the fanger’s misery with another shot.
Turning his head, Luke's eyes flew open as a female vampire dropped to the floor in an attempt to evade Luke, the barrel of her pistol pointed his direction. The round cracked out, shattering the window behind Luke. One of Luke’s crew returned fire. Luke’s heart thundered in his chest.
“Got ‘em, Luke,” Sam called.
Luke scrabbled to his feet as he tried to calm his breathing, shotgun blasts alternating with the crack of a handgun. Ahmed and Rhonda emerged from a room they’d just cleared. Archie and Jung-sook exchanged fire up a stairway with at least one vampire. While the rest of the team finished clearing the first floor, Luke shoved more shells into his shotgun to top it up. Shotgun ready, he hugged the wall that joined with the stairway. Pablo, backing up, made room for him.
Archie dropped his hand where only Luke could see and signaled at least four people upstairs. Luke nodded, pulling the sawed-off from his right holster. He carefully worked the barrel between the stair’s railing and fired off both barrels.
“Lucius? Is that you down there?” Cassius yelled from upstairs.
“Just your friendly neighborhood exterminators,” Luke called back, grinning viciously. He loved it when luck worked in his favor. He glanced over at Delilah, finding a similar grin on her face.
“Can’t you find a new hobby? I’m trying to work here.”
Luke laughed. “If you’d like to take some time off, I’ve got a retirement plan for you right here in my shotgun.”
“That’s mighty generous of you, but I think I’ll pass. How about we both put our guns down and see if we can come to some sort of agreement? I’ll pull out of your territory and you stay out of mine?”
“Sounds like a good way to tell you where I live. How about this for a counteroffer? I kill you and you fuck off and die?” Luke replied.
“You always were narrow minded…”
Archie’s eyes went wide as he looked up the stairs. He dove out of the way as bullets thudded into the wall at the bottom of the stairs. Luke reloaded his double barrel and shoved it back into its holster. Pablo eased his way toward Luke. An M12 in his hand caught Luke’s attention. Seeing where Luke’s eyes went, Pablo handed it over. Luke wound the strap around his arm, then picked up his M12.
Taking several deep, quick breaths, Luke chambered a shell. Waiting for the guns upstairs to empty their magazines, Luke stepped around as soon as he heard what we wanted. Not picking shots, just aiming upstairs, he fired a shot off with each step he ascended. When he hit the sixth stair and emptied his shotgun, he tossed it behind him for someone else to pick up and pulled Pablo’s M12 around. He kept climbing the stairs.
In between each blast, the sound of vampires screaming in terror rolled down the stairs, their nightmare climbing toward them, cutting their escape off. When Luke didn’t see anyone firing back, he stopped firing.
“Damn it, out,” he yelled.
Someone was dumb enough to fall for it. When their head poked around the corner, Luke blasted them in the face.
“No! No!” someone shouted from above.
Luke stopped, one shell in the chamber and one left in the magazine.
A back poked out from the corner as they struggled to get back to cover.
“It’s your duty to protect me,” Cassius growled.
“Fuck you, Caspar. You’re getting us all killed.”
Once he had a good enough shot, Luke put a round just under the struggling fanger’s left armpit. When he dusted out, all resistance pushing against Cassius disappeared, and he tumbled to the floor. Luke was ready for it and fired the last round in the shotgun where he anticipated Cassius’s body landing.
What Luke didn’t expect was Cassius turning the fall into a tightly controlled dive, curl, and roll. Luke failed to end Cassius, but the scream of his former friend told him he’d at least hit him somewhere. A vampire that wasn’t Cassius stumbled out onto the top of the stairs from the side Cassius just dove into, flailing to catch his balance after being shoved. Luke dropped the empty M12 and pulled the sawed-off from his left hip and ended the vampire, splattering oozing goo all over the carpet and wall and leaving a nasty slick at the top of the stairs.
Luke yanked the other double barrel from his right hip and stepped into the hallway at the top of the stairs, his boots squishing in the remains of the vamp Cassius had sacrificed to aid his own escape. Off to the right, shattering glass pulled Luke’s attention into that room. Making sure the left was clear, he ran into the bedroom at the right end of the hall. A breeze fluttered the drapes, broken glass twinkling in the dim light coming in through the shattered window. Kicking the larger pieces aside, Luke peered out the window as Cassius pulled himself over the fence in the backyard, crashing to the ground with a painful sounding shout. Once the dark silhouette cleared the visual shadow of the fence, Luke watched Cassius hobble away, moving fast compared to an injured human, but much slower than an old, powerful vampire should have been able to go.
“He’s getting away!” Luke yelled, frustrated that despite the luck of finding his enemy, the wily bastard had slipped through his grasp yet another time. “Archie, get your team back to your car and get out of here.”
Luke flew down the stairs. Someone had already cleared the shotguns he’d left in his wake. Sam and Pablo pelted after Luke, Delilah trailing behind. Using all his enhanced speed, strength, and night vision, Luke vaulted the fence and tore in the direction he’d last seen Cassius running. He couldn’t see anyone in front of him. When the lights of the house to his left flared on, he skidded to a halt in the shadows of the trees next to NW Cornell. Looking down both directions, he couldn’t see if Cassius was running down Cornell. They’d lost him again.
“Fuck!” he yelled. He wanted to let loose a string of curses, but clenched his jaw shut, not wanting to make more noise than necessary.
Sam and Pablo slid to a halt next to him.
“Did we lose him?” Sam asked.
“Yeah,” Luke bit out.
Pablo perked up, aiming an ear to the southwest. “Sirens.”
“Everyone to the car!” Luke shouted back across the large lot.
Sam and Pablo disappeared over Cornell and into the darkness of 110th Ave. Luke darted across but halted in the shadow of a large tree, waiting for Delilah. The moments seemed to stretch into an eternity as he waited for his friend to catch up. Not even bothering to look left or right, trusting the dark street to mean it was headlight free, Delilah sprinted across Cornell, her arms pumping as breath whistled in and out of her mouth.
When a bright light flashed out from the west, Delilah nearly tripped but recovered as red and blue lights flashed.
“Cops!” she exhaled as she ran past Luke, heading to Pablo’s pickup.
He turned and followed her, picking the passenger side as she broke right to get into the back seat from the driver’s side. Pablo’s truck flared to life, Pablo behind the wheel.
“Go, cops,” Delilah gasped out between ragged breaths.
Pablo jammed on the gas, shooting forward. He’d parked nose toward their escape route. Screeching to a brutal halt, Pablo slammed the pickup into reverse as the cop stopped in front of them, blocking their exit onto Cornell Road. In the bright lights of Pablo’s headlights, two cops poured out of their car, guns in hand. The one who’d been in the passenger side skidded across the hood to fall behind the protection of the police cruiser.
“I fucking told you so!” Pablo yelled while trying to back up and avoid hitting any of the other cars parked along the side of 110th Ave.
The smell of burning seeped into the cab of the pickup as Pablo locked up the brakes, reaching the cul-de-sac at the end of the short street. He pulled his phone out of his pocket, opened his map app, and looked through it furiously.
Shaking his head, Pablo let out a frustrated sigh. “You’re going to owe me for this, Luke. Everyone buckle in and hold on to your asses!”
He backed up, then turned around. When he was ready, he gunned the gas and mounted the curb, plowing through the front yard into the side yard of a house on the center left of the cul-de-sac.
“Shit!” Pablo screamed as the Toyota pickup slammed through the wooden fence, sending cedar boards flying.
He yanked the wheel to avoid a trampoline in the backyard, the metal of the trampoline’s outer ring scrapping the side of Pablo’s truck. Slaloming through trees, a lower branch scraped across the roof and canopy. Delilah shoved her hand under Luke’s, gripping it tightly as they busted through their second fence into the back yard of the next house.
“House, Pablo!” Sam screamed.
Pablo cranked the wheel to the right, leaving deep ruts in the soft grass of the yard. When the side fence shattered, the cross beam tumbled over the hood, narrowly missing the windshield, and skittered across the roof of the canopy. Pulling the steering wheel back to the left, the pickup carved an arc in the neighbor’s yard as Pablo aimed for a giant hedge.
“I hope there’s not a car parked on the other side!” Sam yelled.
Everyone cringed down, trying to pull their heads inside their torsos as if they were turtles. They shot through the hedge, branches tearing at the side of Pablo’s truck as the rough ground and obstacles bounced everyone in the cab.
“Holy shit!” Pablo screamed, the pickup briefly flying through the air as gravity reached out its surly grasp to pull it back down.
They hit the pavement, tires protesting and seat belts locking up. Regaining control, Pablo swerved, wiping out a mailbox before he got the pickup going straight down NW Copeland Street. Pablo’s hands shook on the wheel, his shoulder rising and falling rapidly as he struggled to calm down. His passengers weren’t in any better condition as they checked themselves.
“Pablo, slow down. We need to try to blend in now,” Luke said between deep inhalations. “Also, good job getting us out of there.”
“Where do we go?” Pablo asked.
“Let’s get up to Germantown and across the St. Johns Bridge. Get us back to our hood.” Luke reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. His hands shook as he tried to put in his pass code. Once he managed that, he opened the map app and pulled up their current location. “Right up here. Then the first left. We’re going to work through these neighborhoods until we get to Miller Road. We can take one of the little streets through to Skyline Boulevard and then we’re nearly home.”
“Just like that…” Pablo laughed, bordering on hysterical.
“You’re doing great, buddy. That was some nifty driving.”
“My poor baby…” Pablo rubbed the dash affectionately.
They saw very few cars on the road as they worked their way through the residential streets of Cedar Mill. When they pulled onto Miller Road, they headed north, everyone keeping an eye out for any flashing lights that might be moving down the larger road.
“Pablo, slow it down a bit. We’re getting close to Cornell. Let’s not charge up to the intersection,” Luke said.
Pablo nodded and eased off the gas as they moved around the bend leading to the stoplight at Miller and Cornell.
“Ah great,” Pablo groaned as he pulled to the right, stopping. A pair of cops blocked the intersection as several more flew through it, heading west on Cornell.
“Just give it a moment. It’s dark. We’re in the trees. With our headlights blasting in front of us, they can’t tell anything other than we’re a truck, and there are plenty of those in the burbs. We just look like thoughtful, law-abiding citizens who pulled off the road when we saw flashing lights. If they don’t move, we’ll backtrack and try a different route.” Luke reached up to pat Pablo’s shoulder.
Pablo nodded nervously. Sure enough, after a few more cops passed through, the two blocking Miller moved into the line at the end of the caravan of police heading to the scene of their latest assault against the vampires.
“Doesn’t it seem like a lot of cops to you?” Sam asked.
“What do you mean?” Delilah let go of Luke’s hand and leaned forward.
Sam turned to take in Luke and Delilah in the backseat. “Well, we’ve seen some of the parties they’ve sent out to check up on our handwork. This seems excessive.”
“We found Cassius. We invaded his hideout and killed his fangers. I even managed to shoot him a little bit. That silver embedded in his leg has to be burning.” Luke felt a smug smile emerge on his lips. “He’s scared. He’s calling in his boys.”
“Good.” Delilah nodded hard to emphasize it. “Next time, there won’t be anything left of him to call in his cops with.”
Once they drove across Cornell, everyone breathed a temporary sigh of relief.
“Yay!” Sam threw her hands above her head, her phone in her hand. “Jung-sook just messaged. Their car appears to be in the clear. No cops sighted in a while. She’ll keep me updated.”
Luke exhaled noisily. “Good, good.”
“Sam, can you take my phone and text Tony? Tell him to meet us down at Jorge’s shop in twenty minutes,” Pablo said.
Sam shook her head. “I’ve got Tony’s number.”
“Gonna stash the pickup at the shop?” Luke asked.
“Yeah. It’s gonna need a lot of work, and I don’t want it out where it can be seen in case there’s an official description nosed around.”
“Probably a good idea,” Luke replied.
Sam cut in. “Tony said he’ll be there.”
They made it down Germantown Road and its series of curves. The only nervous moment was when they made it across the St. Johns Bridge and had to pass near a small police precinct. Fortunately, they caught the light, turned left, and disappeared into St. Johns until they emerged onto Fessenden near Jorge’s auto shop. Pablo parked in front of one of the bay doors and jumped out. Punching in the code to the door, Pablo climbed back in and parked the truck inside. As soon as the engine turned off, the team got out, waiting for Pablo to shut the door. When the door rolled shut, Pablo slumped and let out a sad groan, reminding Luke of when the rebels were forced to close the blast doors on Hoth, leaving Luke and Han trapped outside. Safely hidden away, they took out the guns and repacked them, emptying Pablo’s truck of their gear. Now the truck was safely tucked away from prying eyes. They’d almost made it home.
“It’s OK, buddy,” Luke said, putting his arm around Pablo’s shoulder. “Jorge’ll fix it up like new.”
“I know. I had him put in a stock of panels for the pickup when he started looking for replacements for yours. I just don’t like to see it all beat up like that.”
Luke grinned. “You probably better have him take a look at the undercarriage too. It’ll probably need an alignment after the way you’ve been driving it. The ride back was kind of wobbly. You should be more careful in the future.”
Pablo shucked Luke’s arm off his shoulder. “Not cool, dude. Not cool at all.”