Brand tensed beside me, wicked grin already in place. He reached for his katana but I stopped his arm.
“Not here. Outside, after.”
“Hey! Cut it out. No trouble or I’ll call security.” The girl sitting behind the counter glared at Brand. He winked back at her.
The three silently took their place in line behind us. No customers came in after them. I imagined a vampire or maybe a couple Watchers stood outside convincing any customers to come back another night.
The vampire’s skin deflected the fluorescent lights overhead while her dark hair drank it in. The Watchers flanked her – a burly guy on the right and a slender woman on the left. We shuffled forward as customers claimed their goods. The female Watcher leaned forward and spoke in my ear.
“Relax, Kelly Chan. Tonight, we’re allies.”
“Then why did you try to kill us on the road?”
She looked perplexed. “That wasn’t us. What happened?”
“One look at my truck will tell you. Are you the Watcher who found the sick vampire?”
“I am.”
Brand turned and faced her. “How is he now?”
The vampire placed her hand on the Watcher’s shoulder, silencing her. “Worse. That’s all I’ll tell you until we know more about what’s on that claim check.”
The customer in front of us cleared out, carrying a canvas backpack containing something that squirmed and actually yodeled. Between the yodels came crunching noises as a red stain blossomed across the bottom of the backpack.
“Ok, trouble, you’re next. What do you want?” The clerk eyed Brand.
“Not him, me.” I slid the claim check through the slot in the plate glass.
“Shit. Of course it’s you, Kelly fucking Chan.” The girl rolled her eyes before looking at the claim check. Her eyes skimmed the blank slip as if she could see the letters without moonlight. “Um. This isn’t yours.” She opened a drawer and tossed the paper in.
“It’s part of an investigation. I suggest you tell me what the receipt’s for and what needs to be claimed.”
“Or? You and bohunk gonna slice me up?” She tapped on the glass and it shimmered and crackled. “Try it.”
The vampire shot forward, grabbed the girl’s arm and pulled it through the slot to the shoulder. Color drained out of her cheek where it pressed against the glass.
“Don’t mind if I do.” I drew my katana.
“Neither does the bohunk.” Brand drew his.
“You don’t know who I am.” The clerk glared up at the vampire.
“And you don’t know who I am.” The vampire met her stare with a look that could freeze magma.
I waited for the steel door behind the clerk to open. We should have drawn a couple of security guards by now.
Brand raised his sword. “Last chance. What’s on the receipt?”
“I’m not—”
My blade came down cleanly through her forearm. The vampire staggered back but regained her balance almost immediately. The girl’s chair rolled backward a few inches. She kicked off the floor and the chair rolled the rest of the way to the closed metal door behind her. She banged on it with the stub of her arm.
The curiously non-bleeding stub of her arm.
The vampire hissed and I turned. She held the rest of the arm by the wrist. And the arm was having none of it. It thrashed and twisted around until it gripped the vampire’s wrist and squeezed. Her hiss turned to a howl as I heard both radius and ulna snap like dry wood. The slender Watcher grabbed the arm and tried to wrench it off her master.
“Let it go! It’s only squeezing harder!”
I turned my attention back to the real threat. The clerk sat grinning in her chair as I waited for the metal door to open up for a pack of demons or at least a basilisk. She pointed her arm at us like a cannon. Where there should have been bone and blood and gristle, there was only a pitch-back hole.
A moth crawled out of the hole. Then another. Two gray-brown millers.
“Brand.” I touched his shoulder as he watched the vampire and her Watchers struggle with the severed arm. “We’re leaving now.”
“What?” He followed my gaze back to the clerk. Six, seven, eight moths crawled along her arm. One took flight.
“Now.” I took two steps toward the door.
Too late.
Moths shot out of the girl’s stump like water from a firehose. They flew at the glass where the last thing to go through most of their furry little minds was their asshole. But not all hit the glass. Thousands more made it through the hole by the time I reached the door.
The warded door that wouldn’t open. Brand slammed his fists against the glass as the first wave of moths reached us. They landed on every inch of our bodies, and the little fuckers had teeth. Pinpricks of blood dotted my skin after I slapped them away. Moths tried their best to climb into my nose and mouth, to chew my eyelids off. Brand spat out moths and swore next to me, slapping at his arms and face.
All at once, the moths stopped coming. I turned to see that the male Watcher had his body pressed against the hole in the glass. I watched a million moths crawl over each other on the other side. He smiled at the vampire – problem solved.
Until his face twisted in agony as the first few moths who chewed through his body erupted from his back. Blood-soaked, these pattered to the floor around his feet. The rest came through clean and fast.
I charged the glass, hoping to break it and stop the girl. I kicked the pane with everything I had, but I couldn’t make the smallest crack.
And then the moths started pouring out of the severed arm on our side to join the others. They filled the room in seconds, until we were in a blinding storm of wings and gray powder and tiny biting mouths. I pounded on the glass until I felt Brand’s arms go around me as he pressed a cloth against my face. He pulled me to the floor where we curled into a ball, trying to protect each other from the carnivorous moths crawling all over our bodies. All I could think was, Death by moth. How embarrassing.
“What’s going on out here?” A man’s voice cut though the living storm, followed by two sharp hand claps. “That’s enough of that.”
Light reappeared as the moths vaporized into smoke that quickly dissipated. Brand and I were covered in a thin sheen of blood. Lucky for us, our skin healed almost as quickly as we were bitten. The Watcher lay curled up at the vampire’s feet. She resembled an old wool suit forgotten in an attic for the moths to find. Her skin was chewed through in patches. The vampire stood in the middle of the room looking unharmed. Bitch. There was no sign of the other Watcher.
“I want my arm back.” The clerk sounded more annoyed than upset.
“All in good time, my dear.” The man’s voce came from the opposite side of the glass.
I stood up and saw Santa Claus in a dapper gray suit. The man was short, stocky though not fat, with a neatly-maintained white beard flowing over his chin that just brushed his chest.
The way he smiled let me know I was on his naughty list. “Kelly Chan. Remind me to ban you from my shop.”
“No worries. The service here sucks anyway.”
“Mr. Tally.” The vampire bowed. “My apologies to you and your clerk.”
“Miranda.” Tally nodded. “I would have expected better manners from you.” He looked down at the girl. “And you, Tia.”
Tia rolled her eyes, an obviously practiced skill. “They started it. Did you really want me to turn over someone else’s goods to them, Uncle Iver?”
Miranda’s eyes widened just a fraction. “We only wanted to know what the receipt said. We’re not thieves.” Miranda aimed her charming and fangless smile at Tia.
“Just vandals.” Tia glared at me. “My arm, please, someone?”
“Of course.” Miranda toed the Watcher. She groaned and sat up. A perfect bodyguard, the Watcher had thrown herself on the arm. She picked it up, staggered to her feet and carried it to the window.
Tia wheeled her chair back to the slot, took the rest of her arm and pressed the cut ends together. An errant moth tried to wiggle out between the ends as her skin knitted itself whole. “Oh, no you don’t.” She bent and snapped up the moth in her teeth.
Miranda’s smile showed the tiniest bit of fang this time. “Now that we’ve made amends, may we please have what we’ve come for? What’s on the receipt?”
Tally patted his niece on the shoulder. “No.”
Miranda pouted. “Mr. Tally. Iver. You know we have an agreement.”
“Which is the only reason you’re still alive. But, the agreement’s been made null and void by abusing one of my own. You know the rules.”
“It’s unfortunate, but we didn’t know—”
“Out of my shop. Now. All of you.”
“But—”
“Let it go, Miranda.” I put my hands up, palms out, showing Tally I meant no further harm. “Like I said, the service here sucks. Come on, I have a better idea. Brand?”
The whole time, he’d stayed curled in a ball on the floor.
“Brand?”
“If he’s dead, we can use him.” Tia looked down through the glass. “Even if he’s not all dead.”
I bent down and touched Brand’s back. He flinched. “You got a thing about bugs, sweetie? One too many times watching Temple of Doom?”
“Not bugs. Sandstorms.” Brand stood up. Under the blood, I could see how pale his skin has gone. He looked at me, embarrassed. I took his arm as we made our way to the door.
“Don’t forget,” Tia sounded cheerful behind us, “here at Tally’s, we keep score.”
Outside, Miranda clamped her grave-cold hand on my shoulder. “Now what?”
Before I could remove her hand permanently, a familiar black Hummer pulled up, blocking the way to the truck.
“Now that.”