I followed the team and the concrete ribbon down, down steep inclines that switchbacked through the naked gut rock of Texas. Shortly after we had passed under the big slab of rock overhanging the entrance, we came upon a light switch. Unfortunately the power had been deliberately cut off so we were forced to use the night-vision goggles.
“I’ve never used night-vision like this,” I sent quietly, in awe at the clarity of sight.
“That’s because it’s not just magic, it’s tech, too, white boy.”
BB’s voice somehow transformed the dry rasp of subvocals into a lecturing tone. “Enough chatter, you two.”
“Check, boss.”
“Check.”
“Sending HUD to your goggles … now,” BB announced.
Winking into existence in the upper right-hand corner of my goggles came a map of the caverns, rendered in thin white lines. Long and snake-like, they stretched off to the northeast for hundreds of feet, widening and narrowing at points before opening into an enormous cave roughly two-hundred-fifty feet long and nearly a hundred wide. Little side tunnels dotted the map—perfect ambush sites for an enterprising vamp.
The slope steepened and turned, steepened and turned. All the while the humidity rose and the temperature dropped until it reached a comfortable 68°F. The only sounds were the barely noticeable scuffing of our rubber-soled boots and the slow, regular drip, drip, drip of water.
If a hard, vicious thrill hadn’t been searing through my veins I would’ve been in awe of the wonders around me: limestone carved by countless centuries of ponderous erosion, dripstone deposits forming extraordinary displays of stalactites and stalagmites, pillars of time curiously formed to appear almost organic and soft as they stretched toward one another.
The ceiling began to rise as we descended into the first cave, over a hundred feet long, the walls and ceiling hung with lichen-covered stone that looked as if it had been melted and then re-shaped by gravity.
The path wound round humped rock and shallow pits, pools of mineral-rich water and strange looking protrusions on the walls. Soon, about seventy feet in, we came to the cave-that the talking head on TV had been blathering about, where the tunnel began to narrow. Jagged-edged rock created a large, treacherous mound that humped its way ten feet into the air—an ugly assault on the beauty of the cave.
“What now, boss?” Canton asked, staring at the mass of rubble blocking the way.
BB turned his goggled gaze to the magician. “Win, can you do something?”
“I got it, boss.” She pulled off a glove and dug around in a pocket for a gemstone, walking slowly toward the cave-in. The gem, a garnet, glowed white in night-vision while she placed a hand on a skull-sized piece of limestone. A few seconds of concentration and she gave a brief nod, the garnet winking out. “That should do it, boss. It’ll hold for about five minutes.”
“Good,” he sent. “Everyone over and mind your step.”
I don’t know what kind of spell she used, but even the smallest rock remained steady, as if cemented in place. Navigation was still dicey, however; the dripstone was slick with moisture and with one slip, any of us could have easily twisted or broken an ankle.
On the other side, some twenty feet from the end of the fall, the cave split in three—one right, one left and the cement path running straight ahead down the middle. BB signaled Canton, Win and me to stay by the fall and stay ready.
Signaling Thomas to take the right-hand corridor, BB took the left. Our HUDs indicated that the corridors on either side were short, only a couple dozen feet long. “Light bomb, Thomas,” he said.
“Check.”
Light bomb?
I found out real quick what that entailed.
Each of them pulled out a gem from their web belts and softly whispered into their fists before hurling them into their respective corridors.
If I had been wearing military grade night-vision goggles, they would’ve overloaded from the actinic glare that flooded like liquid light from those corridors. Five, six, seven seconds of blinding whiteness later and the light died as if a switch had been thrown.
BB nodded to Thomas as both entered their respective corridors. They came out seconds later and slowly continued up the center passage. “All clear,” BB sent.
“Cool, eh, white boy?”
I couldn’t help but grin. “Friggin’ awesome.”
Fifty feet farther down and the concrete ribbon became a catwalk, iron railings on either side protecting tourists from a steep dropoff to either side where hundreds stalagmites waited to impale the unwary. According to my HUD, this section of the caverns ran on for roughly a hundred fifty feet.
More protrusions resembling melted wax jutted from the walls while stalactites loomed above. I began to get the feeling that we walked within the bowels of an immense, stony beast.
Sccccchh … The sound was so soft that it almost wasn’t, but the hyper-alert part of me took note and spun my body around, the Bowie already in my hand coming up and it …
Shunnk … plunged wetly into the stomach of a young man, a child really, eyes wide in fright and confusion … mouth gaping, a trickle of blood drooling from his lower lip. Horrified, I stood there, staring, taking in the thin, pinched face and the long, greasy hair, the black and white of night-vision rendering him into smears of gray.
“Oh, god,” I whispered, agonized as he stared at the knife in his gut, my hand frozen on the handle. “I’m so sorry!” A kid, just a kid, no more than sixteen and I had gutted him like a trout.
Suddenly a hole appeared in his throat spewing blood while gore shot out the back of his neck and his legs gave way, gravity sliding his body off the Bowie to land in a heap at my feet. My head swiveled to see Canton lowering his pistol, a frown on his normally inscrutable flat face.
“What the—” I began.
“Shut up!” He interrupted. “Keep it subvocal, Green Pea!”
I nodded. “Sorry, Canton.” My eyes traveled to the lump of bone and meat at my feet. “Look what I did, man. Just a kid …”
“Look closer, white boy,” Even through the earwig his voice was sad. “Look at his wrists, his neck.”
I knelt at the kid’s side and plucked a slack arm. Heavy gauze covered his entire forearm from wrist to elbow, as did the other arm. Next to the body lay a wicked little knife, a dagger actually, the type with a nine-inch triangular blade called a misericorde. “What the hell?”
“Vampire lunch box.” Thomas announced, staring impassively at the corpse. “Five will get you ten that that’s the Renfield. Looks like he was sneaking up on you, Pea. Wanted to take you from behind.”
“But why?” Relief flooded me that I hadn’t committed cold-blooded murder on an innocent kid. Renfields usually were vamp lovers who enjoyed doing their master’s dirty work. My mind flashed to the photo of the murdered girl and I felt a brief moment of satisfaction. Moments ago I’d considered the kid I’d killed an innocent victim, but now he belonged at the head of a long list of monsters I longed kill. One down …
“Renfields are tasked by their vamp masters for protection. Just be happy he didn’t have a gun.” Thomas sounded immutable as a rock.
Right. Good thought that. With a brutal smile that hurt my cheeks, I stoked the flames of my wrath, certain that I’d need it soon.
Curious as to where the kid came from, I stepped over his cooling body and backtracked until a knot of black caught my eye. A dark nylon rope wrapped around the base of one of the iron railing uprights led down over the side of the catwalk into the depths of the stalagmite forest below. Somehow the kid had held onto the rope long enough for us to pass and then had quietly climbed up, pulled the misericorde and snuck up on me. The kid had skills. Grimacing, I looked over the side into the darkness below.
And into the snarling face of a vampire hoisting itself up at me, a hiss of rage steam kettle whistling from its throat.
I raised my arms in time to catch the freight train that slammed into my chest. It threw me back against the opposite railing, bending me backwards and sending the Bowie and .44 clattering off into the darkness. It was my first vampire and it was everything I didn’t want it to be.
Bone white skin stretched taut over obscenely protruding cheekbones and lips like flatworms parted to reveal a mouthful of pale spikes. Insanely strong hands gripped my shoulders and bent the titanium armor plates. My lungs rebelled at the strange snaky smell of it as flecks of saliva from its open mouth spattered against the skin of my face, deadening sensation. I knew it was only a matter of moments before its teeth found me and bit my face off.
Like an animal lashing against the bars of its cage, the rage struggled to be set free, so I opened the door.
The monster’s progress toward my face halted as the rush reached my muscles and a look of incomprehension etched its way onto the whiteness of the creature’s face. A tight smile on mine answered it. Roaring, I heaved myself up from railing and whirled, slamming the vamp against cold iron. Then, again and again, hammering at the railing with the monster’s flailing body, summoning every ounce of strength that I could leech from the fury that boiled within. The repetitive pounding against that railing became my whole world, my whole reason for existing at that moment and I felt good.
“Green Pea …”
Again and again, trying to obliterate that hateful face, each impact ringing against the metal.
“Green Pea!”
The face, that terrible face with its pink eyes now slick with some sort of viscous fluid, but I didn’t care, I kept slamming and slamming …
“Green Pea!”
Hands grabbed at me, my upper arms and shoulders, but that didn’t matter, the beast inside wanted to feed because this thing, this monster, had to die, they all had to die so there were no more Leenas for me to mourn. My gloved hands found either side of its head and I twisted!
“Holy Mary mother of god,” someone whimpered.
“Kal!” My name, so urgently called through the earwig, finally brought me back to myself, pulling the plug and draining the rage from my flesh.
“What?” I gasped aloud, panting and sweating in the humid air.
“Kal, are you all right?” BB sent, sounding like he was talking to a dangerous animal.
“What?” I sent back stupidly, not understanding the question.
“White boy, look at your hands.” Canton sounded scared.
“I don’t know about you guys,” Thomas interjected coolly, “but I’ve never seen the like.”
Winnie silently crossed herself.
Uncertain, I looked down and saw that I gripped the vampire’s skull by its thin white hair, its blood, quite black in my night-vision, pattered down onto the concrete. Its body lay in a widening pool at my feet.
“Oh,” I grunted, dropping the dripping head. It landed with a hollow thunk.
“ ‘Oh,’ you say? ‘Oh’?” Thomas said, a faint hint of sarcasm leeching through my earwig. “You just killed a vamp bare-handed and popped its head off like a champagne cork. That’s never been done before.”
“Well then, I guess I’m not a Green Pea anymore.”
Canton’s smile shone bright and fierce. “You got that right, white boy.”
With a snort, I looked for my weapons and found them a few short feet away. As I rose, Bowie and .44 in hand, there came a thump! and BB flew past me, arms flailing, to land with a crash ten feet beyond.
Another vampire was among us, hands clawing. Thomas grabbed an arm in an attempt to throw the creature to the ground, but the vampire heaved the big man right off his feet with one arm as if he were a child and threw him over the side of the catwalk to fall among the stalagmites below.
Canton fired, wooden bullets stitching up the front of the monster’s button-down oxford shirt, but strangely the vamp smiled and blurred forward, fist smashing into the Native American’s chest. He flew backwards right into Winnie, connecting with bone-breaking force. Both landed and lay very still.
The .44 roared silently in my hand, two explosive rounds hitting its left bicep, blowing the arm clean off. Another steam-kettle shriek split the air. I raised the Bowie in a mocking salute. “Come on, ugly, let’s do this.” My smile was as potent as a shout. It looked at its truncated arm for a second before raising its pink eyes to meet mine.
Its answering grin nearly tore its face in half and, for the life of me, I couldn’t meet its gaze. That just pissed in my Wheaties.
We charged each other, the vamp reaching speeds I couldn’t hope to match, but it was up against my sheer bulk … the unstoppable force meeting the pissed off object. The impact knocked the wind out of my sails and set both of us landing on the back of our laps.
Despite the shriek of agony from my lungs and the pain in my ribs, I snagged the iron railing, levering myself upright. The vamp came at me and, instinctively, I stabbed with the Bowie, catching the beast in the stomach. It felt like stabbing half-dried cement, the knife entering almost two inches before stopping.
The vamp smiled toothily and smashed me in the in chest with a forearm like an iron rebar. Ribs groaned under titanium and I thanked my lucky stars I didn’t have any air in my lungs to lose.
With a hiss the vamp grabbed my skull with one obscenely long-fingered hand and began to squeeze. Those damn digits nearly encircled my head.
Raw pain exploded behind my eyes in the biggest migraine of my life. So I did the only thing I could … I let go of the Bowie, pulled my Glock, and jammed the barrel in its mouth right through its razor teeth, knocking a couple down its gullet. Before it could react I pulled the trigger. Twice.
The muzzle flash lit the inside of its maw as wooden bullets tore through the back of its head. The screech that flew from its throat sent knives of agony through my ears. Convulsing, it fell to the ground while cool air rushed into my starved lungs and I finally felt like I had a chance.
A couple of seconds of relief were all I could count on, for the vamp was thrashing like a broke back snake. I knelt on the thing’s chest and tore the oxford button-down shirt down the middle, exposing the Kevlar vest underneath. No wonder Canton’s bullets hadn’t hurt it. Pulling the Bowie from its stomach, I sliced a hole in the tough fabric. I unclipped a rosewood stake from my belt and, in an incredibly Van Helsing moment, plunged it between its ribs and into the monster’s putrid heart.
It stopped thrashing and the high-pitched scream cut off abruptly, bringing blessed relief to my already abused skull.
“White boy, you are one hundred percent greased murder, you know that?”
“Get off me, you big idiot,” Winnie cut in. “I think my wrist is broken.”
I thought fast. “Win, heal yourself. Canton, check on BB, see if he’s okay. I’m going to check on Thomas.”
“Listen … to the Green Pea … giving orders,” Thomas grunted laboriously.
“You’re okay!” I sent.
“Define ‘okay.’ I’m … wedged between these stalagmites … and I think I have … some broken ribs. One … of my arms is pinned, too.”
“Win, how’s your wrist?”
“Five more minutes, Kal. I’ll be right as rain.”
During those incredibly long five minutes, I located Thomas, his body wedged in the V of several stalagmites. “Canton, I’ll need help with the big guy. He looks wedged in pretty solid. Will, come on down, but be careful of the cave-in.”
“Check, Kal.”
Kal … not Green Pea. Yep, if the situation weren’t so dire, things would have been looking up. “Win, how’s the boss?”
“BB’s back is broken. He needs some major healing. That thing must have kicked him.” Win produced a brightly glowing diamond like a lone star in the dark. “Going to take more than just a few minutes.”
Crap. The third vamp would have to wait. “Looks like you and I have a date with the next vamp, Canton.”
“You really know how to sweet-talk me, white boy.”
“No way you two—” Thomas protested.
“Can it, Mace,” Canton sent. “You and BB are out of the picture and that leaves me in charge. Besides,” he slapped me on the back, “I got me a genuine vamp-slaying fool here, so don’t you worry about me.”
What Thomas said next was damn near unprintable.
Canton nodded. “I’ll take that as a ‘yes, boss.’ ”
We were joined shortly by Will, gingerly climbing his way up and down the cave-in. He looked at the bodies and tipped me a wink. “Good job, kid,” he said aloud, producing a length of rope, and we proceeded to go fishing for Thomas. Eventually we managed to get the big man unstuck from between the stalagmites cradling him.
What came up that rope looked half dead, and that was the good half. Battered and bruised, Thomas’s arm had an extra elbow and he had so much blood leaking from so many places that he looked like a bloody human sieve.
Winnie produced another gem—a sapphire—and, after setting the big guy’s arm, went to work on the rest of him. It kinda weirded me out seeing flesh knit so quickly, like God had hit the Fast Forward button. Within a few minutes Thomas was able to stand on his own.
“Stay safe you guys,” he muttered owlishly. “And kill that damn thing.”
Canton and I nodded.
Winnie pronounced BB able to be moved and his snores echoed through the cavern like an affirmation. “He’s okay,” she said, worn-down and pale. “I’ve put him in a healing sleep. A nuclear blast wouldn’t wake him.”
After that Thomas and Will, who carried the snoozing BB in his arms, left with Win in tow while Canton and I continued down the cavern, ready to bag us a fang-faced monstrosity.
Slowly following the ribbon of concrete, we came upon five smaller caves at various points along the route. At each opening, Canton produced an aquamarine and, after whispering the activation word Frogcheese, tossed it in. Each exploded into a ball of brilliant light that lasted for nearly a minute. Each cave turned out to be a dead end. Thanks to Thomas and BB, though, we had plenty more aquamarines.
Our HUDs led the way to the largest cavern yet, the Cathedral Room. If I hadn’t been so scared that a vamp would jump out and bite me in the ass, I would’ve marveled at the arched ceiling, the enormous humped formations along one wall like giants frozen in the act of rising and the long pool, dark and mysterious, fed by a waterfall that spanned thirty feet.
“Jesus, Canton. That thing could be hiding anywhere. It’d take us years to find it.”
He grunted, dug into a pocket and handed me two aquamarines. “You take the trail above the pool; I’ll take the middle. One at a time. I’ll go first. If you can retrieve them, do so.”
Slowly I eased down the path, .44 in one hand, blackthorn stake in the other, nerves a-jangling. I was halfway along the edge of the pool and twenty feet above when Canton told me to stop.
A hundred fifty feet away, he dropped a gem behind him and I averted my eyes. The harsh light lit the cavern in a stunning display of brilliance, washing over every geological feature. For a full minute we twisted and turned, waiting for a steam whistle howl of pain. Nada.
“I was sure it’d be here,” he sent, bewildered.
“So was I. It’s a perfect place to hide out. Close to the exit tunnel and plenty of water …” I looked down at the pool. No way … could it?
Holstering the .44, I lifted an aquamarine, whispered the trigger, and dropped it into the pool. White light illuminated the crystal depths. Something deep down moved with eerie speed.
Then a geyser of water erupted from the pool’s placid surface, a vampire at its head, clawing its way up from the light. Amazingly, it reached the ceiling of the Cathedral and hung there like a spider, hissing in pain, fingers and toes literally imbedded in limestone. It ratcheted its head around, its pink eyes finding my goggled face, and hissed.
It was a female.
And very pregnant.
Stunned, I stared. Maternity jeans, loose blouse, distended belly and white hair hanging down at least five feet. My hand wanted to grab the .44, but a girl. A bloodsucking, albino fiend of a girl, but a girl nonetheless. How could I kill a girl, and a pregnant one at that? Could I turn myself into that kind of monster?
That decision was taken from me. Its back exploded with four holes, thick black blood spraying into the water. Shrieking, it launched at me, stone splintering behind as Canton missed with two more shots.
As she/it flew at me, I knelt almost by reflex, sweeping the blackthorn stake up in a savage arc to punch into the vamps chest. Those honeycomb ribs, normally so hard, so resilient, gave sickeningly to the wood, allowing it easy access to the dark heart within.
The thing impacted my shoulder, spinning me around and knocking me down before slamming into the cave wall behind, bones snapping.
“Kal! You okay?”
“Did you see that? DID YOU SEE THAT?” It’s impossible to shout subvocally, but I gave it a damn good try.
“I saw it, white boy … Still can’t believe it, but I saw it.”
“A freakin’ pregnant vampire? Did you know that was possible?”
The wiry Native American knelt over the body and drove a rosewood stake into it. I guess just to be sure.
“Hell of a shot, Canton. Hell of a shot.”
“Thanks, white boy. It looks like we bagged our limit. Let’s round up the bodies. There’s a spell that will get rid of the evidence.”
“Oh god …” I moaned out loud, horrified, pointing at the body.
“What?” asked Canton, turning around. His eyes followed my finger. “Holy crap …”
The body was moving.
Or, at least, part of it was. The belly—that distended, pregnant belly—heaved and billowed like a sheet in the wind. Something was moving inside that female vamp and we both knew what it must be.
Canton put a hand to his mouth. “This can’t be happening, this just can’t be happening,” he babbled, horrified.
The sound of rotten cloth ripping came from the corpse, followed by a spot of blood that appeared on the belly of its blouse. Something was coming. Something was eating its way out of the female.
I reloaded the Glock with more rosewood bullets and emptied it into the belly of the monster. Then did it again. And again.
Canton vomited into the pond. Whatever was inside the female stopped moving.
Without a word we each took an end and carried the damned thing down the tunnel to the bodies of the other vamps and the Renfield. Canton produced a wax-sealed silvery vial and opened it, setting it near the corpses. Dragging me into a side tunnel, we waited there until a blue/white flash came. He explained that the spell worked only on organic material and had a range of thirty feet. After the flash we gathered what bits of metal and plastic that remained and headed out, tired and numb from the horrors we had witnessed.
“Not bad for your first mission,” he said, as the sun hit our faces. “Let’s not do that again.”
Done up in gold and burgundy, the Presidential suite embodied opulence, decadence and elegance. With a few more ‘ences’ thrown in. This was the scene for our rager of a party where champagne and bourbon flowed and somewhere, somehow, Canton managed to get us hot and cold running babes. Not to mention a few good-looking guys for Winnie to drool over.
Everyone was having a fine old time, except for BB, who remained at the office preparing the report for the Director, confident that we had a brief respite until the next Supernatural occurrence.
“You did good today, Kal,” Thomas remarked drunkenly, a giggly brunette hanging on one massive arm. “Real good.”
“So no more Green Pea?” I asked from the comfort of an overstuffed couch. By the looks of it, I was the only sober one in the suite. A can of Coke kept me company, even though a couple of girls who were way too young for me had offered to cure my loneliness, making the animal part of my hindbrain stand on its back legs and howl.
A momentary look of sobriety passed over his face. “Seriously, Kal, that was fine work. Welcome to the team.”
“Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”
The big man nodded and led the giggling girl away. Over at the piano, Win started up a merry little tune, Camptown Races. Stephen Foster would have been proud of her skill. A young man with more muscles than brains sat next to her on the bench, tongue lolling in near unrestrained lust.
Eventually couples drifted away to do what came naturally while I watched ESPN amid the odds and ends of the party lifestyle: empty beer cans, champagne bottles, and greasy pizza boxes. All in all, a good time.
Sometime around 2 a.m., BB came back, looking like death warmed over, and went directly to his bedroom (kicking Winnie and her boy-toy out). Smirking, I took a pull from a can of Mr. Pibb and continued my channel surfing.
“Whatcha dooin’?” slurred Win as she came up from behind, sans boy-toy.
“Can’t sleep, too keyed up.”
Her forearms thumped against the back of the couch as she brought her head level with mine. “How did you do that?” Her beer-soaked breath shriveled my lung tissue and I resisted the urge to retch.
“Do what, Winnie?” I asked patiently.
“Move so fast. And you tore that vamp’s head clean off! How did you do that?”
How did I do that? All I remembered was the fury and the terrible need to kill, to harm before I could be harmed. Rage and need fueling the machine that was my desire for revenge.
“I dunno,” I said finally.
“You don’t know?” she mumbled. “You don’t know? Well, kid, we sure as hell should know. We need to get you tested and right away.”
That put me on my feet fast. “You nuts? Really? There’s no way I’m gonna get tested by anybody.”
A vague mist filled the space behind Win, who still leaned over the couch staring drunkenly at me. All I could do for a second was cock my head to the side and think, What the heck?
Maybe I was tired, maybe confused or maybe just inexperienced, but that one second of hesitation cost us.
When the vampire sprang into being from whatever dimension it used to phase in and out of our reality, I saw that it wore new, almost black, jeans, a dun colored button-down shirt and a long tan leather duster, the ensemble topped off by a brown fedora. If Indiana Jones had come from the bottom most depths of the abyss, he’d look like that thing.
Before I could move, it grabbed Win from behind and grinned at me, tipping me a pink-eyed wink. I never wanted to see that kind of smile again. It spoke of things dark and damned, of shrieking madness.
I’m never far from a weapon, one of the things drilled into my head during weeks of training. Win barely had time to scream before the Lahti was in my hand. Only problem was, no wooden bullets, and she was in the way.
Win’s scream cut off as it tightened its grip around her throat. Staring at me with eyes full of liquid hate, it spoke in a voice like broken glass in a blender, “You took mine; I take yours.”
It must have heard something, a scuff, a whisper of breath or even the beating of another heart because it took a long step backwards and swiveled slightly, eyes darting to the side.
“You got him, Kal?” BB asked softly.
Somehow I kept my voice steady. “Yeah, I got him.”
It hissed and raised Win higher, her feet dangling inches from the floor.
“Kal, I still have blackthorn.”
Okay, I admit it took me a second to get his meaning, but when I did, my stomach tied itself into knots. But I didn’t hesitate, not with a monster in the room. Two shots, center mass, and Win went limp in the creature’s arms, bleeding like a stuck pig. Startled, it dropped her.
Three shots in rapid succession from BB’s revolver. Three blackthorn bullets raced toward a target that was no longer there. Instead, the bullets passed harmlessly through a grayish something that looked like the mist I’d seen earlier and buried themselves in the drywall.
It rematerialized in time to catch two from the Lahti, but phased out—or whatever you called it—when BB fired again. It knew. It knew who had the wooden bullets and it knew who to fear.
It should’ve feared me.
When it phased back, my first punch took it in the nose, which broke with a loud snap. Before my next punch could connect, it had already begun to heal. That didn’t matter; I kept at it, maintaining my distance, kicking and punching, keeping it occupied so BB could reload.
One punch in the throat took. It bent under my knuckles and I started to feel the rush, the frisson in my blood that accompanied my rage. Faster and faster I punched and kicked while it futilely tried to defend itself against me.
It retreated, first one step then two, then a third. I grinned savagely in anticipation of beating it to death.
It lashed out—a kick that shouldn’t have connected—but it was so fast that, even though my reflexes were heightened, its size-ten cowboy boot smacked me solidly on the hip, sending me flying across the suite. Fortunately, drywall stopped me from going too far. By the time I rose unsteadily to my feet, it had grabbed Win’s wrist as she lay moaning on the floor. Meanwhile BB peppered it with shots from his .45, the wounds healing almost before any of its turgid blood could flow. BB must have run out of blackthorn.
Pushing myself from the wall, I started for it—intending to deal some world record damage—when it misted again, this time taking Win with it. The mist sank out of sight through the floor.
Thomas burst into the room, still drunk and only half dressed, as I rounded on BB. “Did you know they could do that? Take people with them?” I yelled, still under a full steam of mad.
“What happened?” Thomas asked blearily.
“No, I didn’t,” BB replied, mouth set in a grim line. “We don’t have time for this. Thomas, go back to bed. Kal, come with me.” He ran for the door and I followed, determined to catch up with the thing that had taken Win.
But they were long gone.