At one entrance to the foyer, I rushed to the left behind one column, then darted back right, behind another, getting a full view of the foyer. Wrassler was down, just inside the security nook, lying on his side.
From behind the column, I fired three shots at the vamp pinning Wrassler down. As I fired, Koun leaped ahead, barely out of my line of fire, a sword flashing. He beheaded the vamp.
Tex on my six, I rushed to Wrassler. I was deaf from the weapons fire. I had no headset. But Tex shouted into his comms, “An asshat got in. Maybe more than one. Cowbird is among us.” We had enemies mixed with our loyal.
I fell beside Wrassler, checking him over, feeling for blood.
Wrassler pushed me away, his chest jerking in laughter. Loud enough for me to hear, he said, “Watch the handsy stuff, Janie. That part of me belongs to Jodi.”
“Sorry,” I said.He wasn’t shot.Relief flooded through me.
The shift rammed into me. Hard and fast as an avalanche. My hands popped and shook. My spine arched back. Snapped forward. I rolled on the floor in a writhing ball. Breathless. I threw back my head and screamed.
Thirty seconds later, I was half-form. Gagging. Retching. With a blinding headache and double vision. I pushed myself into a sitting position. My boots were off. Wrassler stood holding them. My clothes were ragged where I had clawed them, but the girly bits were covered.
He helped me up to my paw-feet, and I breathed hard,trying to throw off the shakes. From the tiny store of edibles kept in the nook, Wrassler offered me a Gatorade, and I drank it down. He opened a new box of PowerBars, and I tore three open, chomping down with puma fangs. As I ate and the pain eased, we studied the scene out front. There was a firefight taking place out there.
“Headset.”
Wrassler looked at the position of my ears, up high and furry, and chuckled. He pulled a headset out of a box on a shelf and adjusted its shape, adding two rubber bands and a bread tie to hold it on me. I put it on and let him adjust it, twisting the bread tie into my hair. There was another rubber band in the box and I put my hair back in a tail to keep it out of the way. I heard shots fired.
On the screen, two of our vamps went down. A familiar form appeared on the edge of the screen—Bruiser’s body mechanics. My heart clenched. He was pinned down.
Koun shouted, “Open the airlock doors, you whoremongering goat!” He was standing outside the security nook door shouting at Wrassler.
Wrassler had seen Bruiser too. He reached for the controls.
“Wait!” I banged open the weapons locker to our left, grabbed up a second nine-mil semiautomatic with an extra-large grip, and slammed home a full magazine marked in silver for silver-lead loads. Vamp killers. Stuffed two extra mags in my jeans pockets. I handed Wrassler a shotgun, which he placed beside his Taurus Judge. I gave him a nod and led the way to the front airlock.
“Now!” I said.
The airlock doors opened, though the outer one was heat-warped, and it stuck midway open.
Koun pressed down on my shoulder and ordered, “Stay here. You will not die.”
“If Bruiser dies, I’ll die,” I said, my voice like the doom of a funeral bell.
Koun cursed in a language probably long dead.
I raced through. Dropped off the porch into a corner, falling into the dark. I landed on top of a dead vamp. Stumbled off the body. Caught my balance. I was protected on two sides. A vamp raced out of the dark, raising a weaponat me. I shot her. Koun landed beside me and took her head.
Three vamps raced across the circular parking area from the vehicle. I knew one of them. From Asheville. From the winter war. He had attacked Eli in the snow. My brother had nearly died, hanging in a tree.
“Center,” I said, claiming my victim. I took him down. It took six shots and he wasn’t dead. Not yet. He struggled to his feet. Still kicking. That made him old. “No mercy,” I directed. The other two vamps were already down.
“My Queen,” Koun said. He raced out and beheaded the vamp.
Tex took the heads of the other two. I had three shots left and changed out the mag. Wasting shots to his chest had been stupid. I should have aimed two to the chest and one to the head. Shift-nerves.
Three humans raced out of the dark. Tex and Koun took them down.
Another vamp sprinted toward the open car. She was shot down. Thema darted out and took the vamp’s head.
And it was over.
I stood in the shadows, shaking again. I remembered the feel of the holy water on my fingers. Mercy was a tenet of my belief system. And I had just denied it. “Bruiser?” I murmured.
“He is well, My Queen,” Koun said.
