“Clearing the southern side of the house,” Gonzales said. Seconds later he said, “Main room. Clear. Multiple bodies, human and vamp. Some alive.” His tone changed.“Son of a bitch!”Three shots fired. “Get medic in herenow! And blood donors for the fangheads.” He fired three more shots. And three more.
“Copy that,” FireWind said. “LaFleur—” His voice disappeared beneath gunshots from the house.
Yummy stood slowly, dragging herself to her feet. Her dress had been gray. Or maybe green. There was so much blood on it the original color was hard to discern in the poor light. “Huuuungry,” she whispered. Her blood formed a small pool on the soil. Soulwood opened inside of me.Wanting.
“Uh-oh,” I said.
Occam raised his weapon and placed it on the window opening. “Nah-ah-ah,” he said, almost playfully. “Keep it together, fanghead. I have silver-lead ammo.”
“You would killme?” she asked, a soft accent on the last word.
I raised a hand to my mic and shifted to a private channel. I whispered, “Jo. Yummy’s hurt. Vamped. Get me a donor.”
“Roger that,” Jo said.
I switched back to para freq in time to hear Rick say, “Local LEOs have three limos full of Mithrans under gunpoint. Tennessee plates. Get someone to make sure it’s Shaddock and convince the locals to let him and his people through. He has humans and vamps who can feed our wounded.”
T. Laine said, “Kent here. Dyson and I can handle that.” Their car spun out of the lot, throwing gravel in the glare of the headlights.
I hadn’t even noticed that my teammates were onsite. Yummy didn’t notice that they had left. Her black and scarlet eyes were focused solely on Occam. “Feed me and I will heal you,” she whispered.
“Not. Happening.”
In the earbud, Margot said, “If you need backup to get Shaddock free, let me know.”
Gonzales shouted, “Where’s medic? We have multiple injured. Two bodies in the shrubbery, condition unknown. More in the back bedroom. We need uniforms deployed to keep the house secure so we can expand our perimeter.”
Rick said, “Officers on the way. Local LEOs are moving in to your location and encircling the location of the disabled panel vans in case the vamps show there.”
More cars and vans began to pour in, both here and on the site of the shooting. News vans were being stopped at the perimeter. Yummy’s talons were slowly piercing the steel of the limo door. She stepped from the limo, exposing her torso and abdomen. Occam swore.
Yummy had been shot multiple times, open wounds dripping. Her clothing was drenched scarlet in the glancing lights from the cars all around. She was staring at Occam and... smiling. It was enough to make me wither inside, even as I licked my lips in need. Occam said, “We need humans to feed an injured vampire, at my twenty,now!”
I focused on her neck wounds. Blood dribbled out, looking fresh, though I knew it was cold and watery. My body reacted to the blood on her clothes, the blood splattering on theground. Bloodlust that had been a low, slow need rose and thrummed through me. It moved the way sound waves move along a stringed instrument, humming, a prolonged and varying noise ofneed.
I wanted to feed the earth. Soulwood was awake and needing.
“Huuunger,” Yummy said.
Huuuunger,I thought.
“Shaddock’s on the way,” Rick said. “He’s dropping off his people at the house and coming directly to your twenty. How badly is she injured?”
I swallowed down my hunger. “Bloody with open wounds. And vamped out.”
“Feed me,” she whispered, leaning toward Occam. Reaching.
“Can you contain her,” Rick said. It wasn’t exactly a question.Contain. Not kill.
I drew a stake. I had never staked a vampire. I’d been taught how at Spook School, but training and combat are very different things. I placed the stake in Occam’s lap and opened my car door. Shoved the low-light/IR headgear off. Raced around Occam’s car, knees bent, my service weapon at the ready. It was loaded with silver rounds. Yummy wasn’t very old. Silver rounds might kill her. But regular rounds would only make her mad. Yummy was a friend. I might have to kill her.
She was focused on Occam, her pupils black and wide, the whites the color of blood. “Cat,” she whispered. “I have missed the taste of your blood.”
My hunger focused on the bloody vampire. “Hey, Yummy,” I shouted. Her head whipped to me. Need ached through me. “You control yourself or you’ll wish you had,” I whispered.
“Maggot,” she hissed.
“Yeah. I’ll consume your dead flesh,” I whispered, barely a breath of sound.
