Skinwalker

CHAPTER 10 Semper fi

I trailed the young vamp while half unwrapping my turban to retrieve Beast’s travel pack. I strapped it around my waist with the extra crosses now hanging out, before re-wrapping the turban. The vamp was moving fast through the near-empty streets, showing a familiarity with the alleys and narrow passageways. He was leaving a trail so strong that I didn’t need to shift to follow it.

From the travel pack, I pulled my cell phone and speed-dialed number five, the head of the vamp council. Not that I wanted to be talking to Leo Pellissier, but as council head, he had to be informed about the attack of a human by an uncontrolled vamp. The Bruiser answered.

“This is Jane Yellowrock,” I said softly, so my voice didn’t carry on the still night air. “Let me speak to Leo. Vamp council business.”

“It’ll have to go through me first,” Bruiser said. “Mr. Pellissier’s policy. Sorry.” He didn’t sound sorry.

I dodged into yet another alley. The scent of the Mississippi was fading, the slightly sour scent of Lake Pontchar train growing. I had left the Quarter, heading north. I could smell slum close by. “Fine. I’m on the trail of a young, un-mastered vamp who just attacked a female in a bar bathroom. I’m about to finish what I started in the bar and shove a stake in him. This is the obligatory notification of a vamp hunter to the blood-master of the city.”

“Mr. Pellissier and I are on the way. Give me the location,” Bruiser said. I spotted a street sign, its pole bent in two as if a car had hit it and no one had repaired the damage. I had no idea which of the two streets I was on so I just gave Bruiser both names. “When you reach the corner, whichever direction you’re coming from, follow the sharp-pointed, two-night moon.”

Bruiser said, “Say what?”

I was speaking Beast-talk. I shook my head to clear it. “Follow the moon.”

Moon different every night. Never same, Beast thought at me. I ignored her. “I’ve gone two blocks. I’m getting close to his nest.”

“And how do we know that?” he asked.

I could smell him everywhere now. Couldn’t tell Bruiser that. “Gotta go,” I whispered. I hit the END button, the MUTE button to kill any ring, and closed the phone, tucking it back into the travel pack. I melted into a shadow, a vacant house’s wall at my back.

Beast’s and my skills and strengths are different. Usually, Beast found a lair; I came back by daylight, when vamps’ activity level was inhibited, going in human form for the kill. Her tracking skills were better than mine. My fighting skills were better than hers—only because I had hands to grip a stake and cross, as she often assured me.

No vamp had ever considered Beast’s spoor a threat, so I didn’t mind leaving her scent on vamp territory. But I was leaving human spoor on the vamp’s terrain. He could hunt me now, if he wanted. Follow me home. Unless I killed him, true-dead.

I stopped and shook out my arms, stretched my neck. Wished I was wearing boots. And clothes that covered more skin. Jeans. Leather. My mail collar. Crap. I was dressed all wrong. I unstrapped the vamp-killer and its sheath from beneath my skirts, reached between my legs and pulled the back hem of my skirt up and tucked it into my waistband in front, making trousers. The vamp-killer I strapped back over the fabric, on the outside of my thigh, the strap holding the skirt hem in place. Uncontrolled young vamps had one thing on their minds. Dinner. Though some preferred other sites to feed from, this vamp was a neck sucker, so the extra crosses went around my neck in plain sight. I was hoping the crosses would deter him for a single, crucial instant if he attacked me and went to feed.

I adjusted the two full-length stakes in my turban—one tacky with vamp blood—and tucked the collapsible ones into my jog bra. Holding the vamp-killer in my right hand and the cross in my left, I moved into shadow, following the scent.

The broken and pocked street had no streetlights; shattered glass littered the roadbed; spent cartridges had fallen here and there. Large housing units were dotted close together, chockablock, along the road. Some of the individual apartments had glass in the windows. Most of those had bars over the glass. Unpainted wood trim. No trees, no grass, stripped cars on blocks. The stench of mold was everywhere, maybe left over from Katrina—worse in the empty units that were damaged in the hurricane and never repaired. Not in this part of town. The smell of an old fire came from ahead. A house fire. Nothing else smelled quite so bad.

Music blasted from almost every occupied dwelling, a mismatched cacophony of bass and drums. Lights poured into the night. The smell of fried food. Humans. And everywhere the vamp. It had been here a while. Had hunted a while.

I stopped, nostrils flaring. I swiveled to the left. I smelled another vamp. Its mate, Beast thought. It has made itself a female. A stick snapped to my right. A faint rustle came from the left. The scent of female vamp shifted with the sound.

“Oh, crap,” I breathed. They had me surrounded, one to each side. They were hunting me.

I could take down one vamp alone. I had done it before. But not two attacking together. And like an idiot, I had given chase without proper equipment.

A door in one of the units just ahead opened and three young men left the light, stepping into the dark, closing the door and the music behind them. Black men, lightly clothed. Heavily armed. I smelled sweat and steel and gun oil and ammo and beer and marijuana. “You out there?” one called. “Lady huntin’ a vamp?”

“Mr. Leo said we was to come out and assist you,” another said. I heard the sound of steel hitting flesh, a kind of come-get-it taunt.

“What’s my name?” I asked.And quickly slipped through the shadows into the protection of an empty porch, away from where I had spoken. The position put the men and the male vamp in front of me, the female behind.

“Jane. Jane something stupid.”

I chuckled. “If you’re the center of the clock, and my voice is six o’clock, then we got a young male vamp at one and an even younger female coming up along seven, behind me. You know what ‘young’ means?”

“Wild. Bloody,” another one said. There was a tremor in his voice.

“You think you three can take the male?”

“We can do it,” the first one said.

“What you got?” I hated to ask, knowing that the vamps could hear anything I could. They were that close. But I needed to know what kind of weaponry my helpers had. I heard a faint crackle and knew the male vamp had turned his attention to my new pals.

“Crosses. Holy water from Father John. Concentrated garlic oil from Sister Selieah. She a voodoo root doctor.”

“We all got vamp-killers,” the first one said. “And I got a shotgun.”

“Aim away from me, how ’bout it.” Before they could laugh, I said, “Yours is here.”

The female was rustling grass nearby. I bent my knees and moved toward the sound, away from the three men. Behind me now, the male vamp attacked the men. The shotgun roared. A vamp and a human screamed. Silent, I rounded the house. A thump sounded from somewhere close, but I couldn’t place it in the aftermath of the shotgun blast. Dull moonlight lit a dry yard, dead grass in the corners and along the foundation, a fence mostly gone, wood planks still standing here and there. Something white and rusted in the dirt. A washing machine? Otherwise, the yard was empty.

A whisper of sound alerted me. Air displaced. Drawing on Beast’s reflexes, I ducked. Whirled the stake up. A weight crashed into me, driving me down. The stake caught her side, too low. Fangs latched on to my forearm, biting into muscle as I hit ground. My left arm and the cross were pinned beneath me. We rolled. She was feral. Gnawing on my arm. Agony like fire. My blood splattered over me, hot and tangy. Her eyes were vamped, bloody and black, crimson and darker than night as they caught the faint light.

Beast rose in me. I could shift now if I had to, but it was harder, pain like death itself, without the ritual. I held her off, but took the strength and speed she shared.

My turban fell, bounced, fell apart. The stake went with it. My braids tumbled around me, tangling. I undulated, a dance move. Brought up the cross and slapped it onto her chest. Steam and crackling of burned vamp flesh misted the air. She didn’t notice, gulping my blood with desperate hunger. I released the now-glowing cross, leaving it in her skin. She ground down with her teeth. Pain sizzled into me like lightning. Hand useless, I dropped the knife.

She settled, sitting on my torso, sucking my arm. A parasite /predator/nonhuman thing. My skin crawled. I slid my left hand into my jog bra and pulled out a stake. Awkwardly slapped it open. She didn’t react. Too busy feeding. I rammed the stake into her side. She stiffened. If she had been even a few days older, she would have rolled away. I adjusted the angle of the stake and shoved it in. Hard. She gasped. Released my right arm, her fangs clicking back, snakelike.

Her eyes focused on me. The vamp eyes bled away into human white. Just for an instant. “What . . . ?” she said. Slowly, the life eased from her eyes. Her vamp-black pupils contracted to human size. In the night, I couldn’t see the color of her irises, except that they were pale. Gray, maybe. In a café au lait face that had once been beautiful.

Without a sound, without a human exhalation, in a silence that always left me nonplussed, the vamp died. She fell toward me. Using the momentum of her fall, I pushed her to the side and rolled from beneath her, to my knees and to my feet. Crap. She had bled all over my new shirt. Beast hacked a laugh deep in my heart.

I looked at my savaged arm and tried to make a fist. Three of my fingers wouldn’t close. Tendon damage. It didn’t hurt as badly as it should, which meant nerve damage too, though blood wasn’t pulsing from the wound. She’d injected enough vamp saliva to spasm most of the arteries and veins closed. I turned my arm over, inspecting it, still breathing hard. A human would require major surgery and months of rehab to recover from such an injury. As soon as I could shift, I would be healed. But I had to live long enough to get to someplace safe.

Unlike in fiction, real-world vamp saliva doesn’t cause clotting. It causes a spasm of the artery or vein, sealing it tight around vamp teeth, and when the teeth are removed, the same spasm seals the wound shut, so it can clot and heal. The same effect happens on the skin, a localized spasm sealing a flesh wound so tight it’s no larger than a pimple. Well, unless the victim has been chewed by a newbie. Of course, vamp predators’ evolution didn’t require that the prey of the young ones stay alive for long.

But the pain was growing. I had to get out of here and shift. I found my turban and unwound it onto the bare ground, clumsily refolding it into a pressure bandage.

“Need help with that?”

I stiffened. Palmed the stake that had rolled away from the turban.

“It’s okay, Jane with the weird last name. I’m cool.”

He was behind me. A scuff let me know another one was back at the battle scene. I breathed in the night air. The male vamp was dead. I smelled human blood as well. And human feces. One of them had crapped his pants in fear or in death.

Afraid that Beast had bled into my eyes, I kept my face turned away, forcing her down sufficiently for me to appear completely human, but keeping her close enough to the surface to use her reflexes. I listened for the slightest sound. “You’re cool?” I said, my tone asking for clarification. “You mean you won’t jump me?”

“Right.” A flashlight came on with a sliding click. The beam hit me, landing on my injured arm. The man cursed. He crossed the space between us. “You hurt anywhere else?”

“No,” I said, closing my eyes against the glare when it hit me in the face.

“Here. Hold the flash.” He knelt, set a weapon on the dirt at his side, and closed my good left fingers around the flashlight, aiming the beam on the wound. It looked a lot worse in the light. I swallowed, heart rate tripping, breath too fast. He was older than I thought, and when he folded my turban into a passable field dressing and tied the bandage with the right amount of pressure, I upped his age again.

“Medic?” I asked.

He glanced at me above the flash. “Marine. Two tours in Afghan, one in Iraq. You learn to do all sorts of shit when you’re in the line of fire.” His tone was bitter and his smile was full of shadows and mockery, from the night and the military. “Thought I’d be safe when I came home to the United States of America.” He made the country sound worse than a war zone. “Instead, I find my hood is fulla bloodsucking vamps, and I got to go back to war just to keep my family safe.”

“You got it, though?” I said, turning it into a question at the last moment. “The vamp.”

“Staked, belly opened, head a few feet to the side of where it used to sit. True-dead.” He paused, then added, “I knew the kid. Fifteen when I left for my first tour.”

Not knowing what else to say, I said, “I’m sorry.”

He snorted softly in laughter and shook his head as if to say, Life sucks. “Yeah. Kinda gripes my ass too.”

“You lose any men tonight?” I asked, craning my neck back. I could see only lumps at this distance, in the uncertain light.

“One hurt. Mr. Pellissier can fix him.” He took up his weapon, rose, and held a hand down to me. “Can you stand?” I took a breath, steadying myself, and nodded. I took his hand and let him pull me to my feet. “Nice dress.” He ran the flashlight up and down me. My skirt had loosed from the makeshift trousers. “You always hunt vamp in a dress and party shoes?”

I couldn’t help my laugh. “No. Tonight was a surprise. I usually hunt in better garb.” Pelt, Beast thought. And claws. He still held my good hand, so I increased the pressure, turning it into greeting. “Jane Yellowrock. The girl you just saved from being dinner.” Which he had. I might have killed two vamps alone, but not without serious injury. Caught up in the bar fight and the chase, I had miscalculated tonight. A rookie’s mistake. I was ticked off at myself.

“Indian name?” he asked. I nodded as he shook my hand, holding it a bit longer than necessary. “Derek Lee. Nice to meet you, Injun Princess. Mr. Leo say you hunt vamp for a living. Kinda strange to hear that from the city’s head bloodsucker.” He dropped my hand and looked around at the night. A soldier’s alertness. I followed his gaze along the street.

Even with the gunshots, no one had come out to see what was happening. Or maybe because of the gunshots. But the music had faded away and the night had gone silent. I was surprised not to hear sirens. “No cops?” I asked.

“Not after dark,” he said, the bitterness back in his tone. “They’ll respond in daylight if there’s enough of them available and if they’re in the mood to look for trouble and knock heads. But they stay away after dark.” I had nothing to say to that. “You think we got ’em all?” Derek asked, changing the subject.

“I don’t know for sure. But the smell of blood usually draws out any in hiding. Especially the young ones.” I cradled my arm to my waist. Adrenaline faded; I was hurting. Throbbing. Bad. “I haven’t decapitated the girl,” I said. “You want to do the honors?” I picked my vamp-killer up from the dirt and handed it to him hilt first. I could have done it myself. I had done it before. But this was his turf. His true-kill, if he wanted it.

He took the hilt, reached into a pocket with his other hand, pulling out a small, vibrating cell phone. Glancing at the display, he flipped it open. “Mr. Pellissier.” He sounded exactly like a Marine reporting to headquarters. Beast perked up, listening. Derek strolled away, but not far enough to give him privacy. Unlike a human, I could hear both sides of the conversation.

“Two encom down,” he said softly. “One of my men wounded and needing assistance, life threatening if he doesn’t get to a hospital or get an infusion from one of you, sir.”

I understood that Leo or one of his family could and would heal the injured man. Interesting. I knew vamp blood could heal, but had never seen it happen, the vamp-on-vamp scene between Katie and Leo notwithstanding. I heard Leo say, “And Miss Yellowrock?”

“The girl’s injured. It’s non-life threatening but she’s lost blood and use of one arm, sir. She needs a surgeon or one of you. She took one vampire down single-handedly. She’s a good soldier, sir.” I felt like I was being recommended for a medal, which might make me one of Derek’s men. Funny idea.

“Keep the girl there. I wish to speak with her.”

“Yes, sir. How far out are you, sir?” Derek asked.

“Ten minutes.” The connection ended and Derek put the phone in his pocket. He looked at me. I sat down heavily on a curb, trying to look weak, light-headed. Not difficult under the circumstances. I put a hand to my head and then to my wounded arm.

Derek said, “You okay?”

“Not really,” I said. “I feel kinda sick to my stomach. I think I might throw up.” Beast sent me an image of a big cat with her tail flipping, amused.

“Normal reaction. Combat hits some guys that way. Just take a break. I’ll finish off your vamp for you.”

“Thank you,” I said, sounding frail and feminine. Beast hacked a cough and gathered herself for flight. Right. I would not sit here waiting for Leo, no matter what he’d ordered. Moments later Derek walked back, his booted feet agile, his tread soft on the dry ground. He handed my knife back. Though he had cleaned it, I could smell vamp blood on the silver, corrosive, like sulfur and nitric acid or something equally caustic. I hadn’t paid much attention to chemistry in school. Now I wish I had. If I ever went to college, I wanted a Chemistry 101 class.

I sheathed the knife. “Thank you.” When he didn’t answer, I tilted my head up and studied his face. It was hard, closed. “You knew her, too, didn’t you?”

He nodded once, the action crisp as a weapon snapping shut. “Jerome’s sister.” He bit off the words. “She was twelve. I saw her last Saturday.” I heard a car engine in the distance. “Seven days . . .” His voice trailed off. “Seven damn days. And she’s a vamp.” He looked into the distance. “The other one we took down, he made her?” I nodded. “So who made him?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t—” Smell another vamp on him. Right. I substituted for that, “Leo might be able to tell.”

“I’m goin’ after whatever made him.” The words were low and hard: a vow. I had heard a few in my time, and knew the tone. His eyes were bleak. “No matter what Mr. Pellissier say.”

Well. That was interesting. I’d love to dissect the relationship between the Marine and the vamp leader, but I wanted out of here before Leo got close. I didn’t want to be beholden to the city’s head bloodsucker for healing my wound, and I didn’t want him to know that I could heal from something this bad on my own. And I wanted to take the girl vamp’s head; my blood was on her mouth, and I wasn’t keen on Leo smelling my blood for reasons that had everything to do with his dark right of kings. I had no intention of making myself look interesting to him. I shifted my feet under me, prepared for the moment when Derek’s head was turned. I needed only a second, but I hesitated. “Just a suggestion,” I said, gesturing at my clothes. “Vamp hunting’s dangerous. Dress the part.”

Derek laughed shortly under his breath. “I’d take you with me if I could. But I can’t wait till you’re a hundred percent.”

I accepted the compliment with a small nod. “Leo has my number if you need anything. And hey. If there’s a bounty on these two, it’s yours.”

He accepted and turned. The car engine was growing closer. A powerful motor, finely tuned, sounding heavy on the night air, as if the vehicle it powered was massive. I pushed my feet under me and stood, let myself sway in the night. Derek caught my good hand to steady me. The pain from the other arm pounded through my veins. Beast had better resistance to pain; I drew on her reserves. But I knew my arm was bad. Real bad. “Thank you,” I said. “For coming out here tonight. I’d be dead, or close to it, if you had stayed inside where it’s safe.”

“Ooh rah,” he said, and shrugged.

“Semper fi,” I said, wondering how many medals he had in his junk drawer.

He laughed, the sound derisive and harsh.