Shifty Magic (2 page)

My shoulder picked that moment to demand
attention by giving the impression that a hot poker had been shoved
into it. I pulled a med patch out of the front pocket of my jeans.
Tearing open the thick foil wrapper with my teeth, I took out the
quarter-inch thick, thumb-sized square and pressed the button for
medium. The patch expanded, thinning out to about three inches
square—Band aid, coagulant, antiseptic and numbing agent all in one
miracle. I slapped it over the wound on my arm.

The prostitute's eyes widened with fear as
she stared at the alley. "Aren't you going after it?"

Behind us, a wheezing hiss came from the big
vamp I'd downed first. The leg of the one next to us twitched and a
moment later, his eyes snapped open, unfocused and disoriented, but
a normal human brown instead of the blood-engorged red of a hungry
vamp.

"Of course," I said, gripping the woman's
arm and moving us back out of range. "In the high-powered rocket
cruiser you see parked beside me."

She pulled out of my hand, and her lower lip
stuck out in an annoying pout that customers probably found
alluring. "You don't have to be so mean."

"Fun is where you find it." A siren echoed
in the distance, coming toward us fast. "Hope your license is up to
date."

A black and white careened through the
broken gate of the loading area and came to a stop, splashing a
steady pulse of bright red light across us and the bodies of the
twitching, groaning vamps. The driver got out first, a
good-looking, clean cut guy who looked enough like the actor, Bruce
Lee, to be his twin.

"Addison Kittner, I should have known," Jim
said, his expression turning friendly and appreciative the way a
man's did when he'd gone out with a woman once and hoped to
again.

"Officer Norton," I said, emphasizing the
formality. I liked Jim, but not in the way he hoped I would, and I
didn't want him thinking otherwise.

His grin widened, then he noticed my arm and
concern replaced the flirting. "You're wounded."

"Not seriously. The third grazed me and took
off. Officer Foster," I added, ignoring Jim to acknowledge his
partner as he got out of the cruiser. Kyle Foster was taller than
Jim, closer to six feet, with the kind of pleasant, boy-next-door
face that mothers approved of when they saw it coming through their
door. Unfortunately, his good looks were paired up with a tedious
personality.

"What happened?" he asked as he studied the
vamps lying on the ground. With a moan, the skinny one rolled over
and threw up a half liter of blood—not a pretty sight. Apparently
temporarily human stomachs couldn't tolerate the delicacies of the
vampire diet.

"I heard an altercation and came to
investigate," I said.

"And subdued two vamps?" Kyle's expression
reflected his doubt.

"They were getting ready to feed. I took
advantage while they were distracted."

"Uh huh." He focused on the girl for a
moment and then switched back to me. "You got your scanner on
you?"

Suspicion tightened across my shoulders.
"Why?"

"Our iC's nearly out of juice," Jim said
pleasantly as he moved past Kyle to stand just a little too close
to me. "We were on our way back to the precinct when the PRC call
came in. There's only enough charge left to get a download from
your scanner."

I unclipped the device from the left side of
my belt and handed it to him. "Be my guest."

Unlike theirs, at five years old my
paranormal scanner was considered ancient technology. It consisted
of a chunk of black metal an inch bigger than a deck of cards all
around and a half-inch thick with a couple screens on the face of
it. Not as sexy as the stuff they built into the iCommunicators
now, but it was tough and ran twice as long on its energy chip.
When you're out all night without access to a recharger,
good-looking doesn't mean crap to you.

Jim fiddled with the unit for a moment,
finally locating the "on" button at the bottom. "Sorry," he said as
he aimed the energy sig bar on the top at me and swept the device
down the front of my body. "Gotta follow policy."

The scanner beeped and the narrow Species
Type strip on the front showed yellow. Below it, a bigger screen
displayed a list of pertinent information like licensing, birthdate
and so on. "Human," Jim reported to Kyle, per police procedure.

I enjoyed watching the girl's expression of
shock.

"Addison Kittner, nineteen. Recently," he
added, giving me a wink. "Five-eight, one hundred thirty-five
pounds, black hair, dark blue eyes. Licensed private investigator
and bounty hunter since 2032."

Jim saved my scan and went through the same
steps with the Kitten chick. The bar flickered between purple and
yellow, and he gave the device a couple of smacks against his palm.
"How old is this thing?"

"Old enough to handle a dunking in the
Ballantyne fountain and keep working," I said smugly. The night
we'd met chasing the same arsonist, his fancy pants iC hadn't fared
too well.

After a second, the species reading settled
confidently on yellow, and Jim's amused gaze flashed briefly at me.
"Human," he said to Kyle. "Kathy Wagner, twenty-four."

At that age, she should know better than to
put herself in danger and not to pout about it if she did, I
thought.

"Five-three, one hundred and forty, brown
hair, blue eyes," Jim continued. "Licensed for solicitation in
Charlotte, 2031, Zone 9. Expires in two weeks." He gave Kathy a
pointed look.

Jim stepped over to the lumberjack. He
squatted down next to the vamp, who after fifteen minutes in the
collar was curled up in a fetal position drooling. With the
suppression of the PRC, the scanner wouldn't give an accurate
reading, so Jim pushed the device against the vampire's neck and
pressed another button that shot a sterilized needle into the skin
to get a sample of blood.

He gave a low whistle as information
scrolled up the scanner's screen. Glancing at me, worry flashed
across his features. He stepped over to the other vamp who had his
teeth clamped together refusing to give in to the nausea and pain
the collar caused. Jim repeated the procedure and the concern
tightening around his eyes deepened.

"Well?" Kyle asked, pulling a thin, sleek iC
out of his pocket to receive the info.

"We'll have to call this one in so they can
be ready for us." Jim inched back from the two vamps and unclipped
the holster lock on his gun. "Addison's caught herself a couple of
High Church renegades."

Kathy Wagner burst into tears.

* * *

The closest station that was equipped to handle
non-humans was the one everyone called Tryon Bird. Nine years ago
it had been an art museum. Since then it had been gutted and
renovated to hold paranormals. Something about being built over a
ley line, I'd heard. Whatever. I liked the silver bird sculpture
that still stood in front of the building.

I remembered the way this part of Charlotte
had looked when I was a kid, all buzzing with shops, restaurants,
and upscale offices. Like the rest of the city, it had taken a
beating during the 2024 attacks, and now it was where all the worst
of everything lived and did business. The cops stayed busy here,
and tonight was no exception.

When I walked in behind Jim, Kyle, and the
stumbling vamps, three officers were on one side of the broad
entrance hall trying to pin a collared teen against the wall. Two
more cops had another one pushed into the corner with their guns
pointed at his chest. From the shouting and name calling, it
sounded like the two guys had gotten into a fight over a girl in a
bar.

Their PRC indicators showed blue, which
meant they were Weres. They couldn't turn with the dampening effect
of the collars, but they were just as strong as any other fit,
pissed off eighteen-year-old guy. Maybe a little more so, since a
PRC can't neutralize hormones and Were males produced fifteen
percent more testosterone than humans.

As Jim and his partner hustled their
prisoners through the gap, the Weres' nostrils flared and both men
zeroed in with hot, hostile glares on the vamps. The two species
had a history of hating each other. It didn't help that vamps
smelled something like dead skunk to Were noses, at least that's
what I'd heard.

The Were boys sneered, lifting the corner of
their lips back from their teeth into a snarl as their noses
wrinkled up. The hostility against each other slid off and fastened
onto the vamps, the tension level skyrocketing.

The cops studiously ignored each other's
prisoners, staying diligently focused on their own share of the
problem, but I noticed even Kyle hurried his steps a bit as we
passed down the middle of the entrance hall.

Kathy stuck close beside me as we trailed
behind the prisoners, her eyes wide and bright. I guess she thought
I increased her chances of survival if the Weres broke loose and
attacked. In a police station, my gun was useless, but I had a
steel knife sheathed in my boot that was coated in oregano oil and
powdered moonseed, so she wasn't far wrong.

"I'm sorry I freaked out on you," she
whispered, her voice a little jumpy. "It was dumb to take the job.
It's just that...I...want to go back to school and...a thousand
dollars...." Her features crumpled a bit with distress, but then
she seemed to get hold of herself. She straightened her shoulders
and put on a brave face. "I shouldn't have done it."

My first impression of her eased off from
"self-centered twit" to "desperate," and I softened towards her a
little. "I get it," I said. "Money means something when you don't
have any." Sadly, I had personal reasons to know that was true.

"Yeah." She released a relieved breath. "I
still can't believe you're human. You moved really fast when that
vamp attacked."

I shrugged. "Got lucky. He tripped just as
he lunged at me."

She looked unconvinced, but let the matter
drop. I was glad about that. I'd started to like her and didn't
want to have to get annoyed about excessive nosiness.

We escaped the danger zone by the front door
and cruised through the hodgepodge of desks cluttered with officers
hunched over their computers. Finally, we reached the intake
station in the far right corner of the precinct's main room. Kathy
shrank back at the sight of the two vampire authorities sitting
motionless in two of the chairs strung out along the wall to the
left. I was glad to see that she was finally showing some common
sense. These particular vamps looked high up on the food chain,
which made them deadly on several more levels than the scum she'd
tried to hook up with.

They reeked of wealth: Italian, custom-made
suits and shoes, the flash of gold watches on their wrists,
expensive haircuts, and the thick, elaborately carved gold rings on
their left hands that marked them as Deacons or higher. Even
without the fancy trappings, you could tell that they held high
positions. The tight, arrogant expressions and cold eyes they
turned on us as we stopped in front of the caramel-skinned female
intake officer said it all.

The sickly pale faces of the prisoners
turned whiter than the fluorescent lights above us, and I almost
felt sorry for them. The Church controlled its members with an iron
and unmerciful fist. Once the renegades were turned over to these
High Church officials, they faced two long nights of humiliation
and torture followed by a horrible death in the morning sun.

I probably should have cared. Except I
didn't. I hated vamps.

There were a lot of reasons for my feelings.
One was the egotistical way their guilds called themselves Churches
and how their leaders were named accordingly. Another was the way
they addicted the people they fed on. It wasn't politically correct
to call their acolytes drug-dependent slaves, but they were, and it
made me furious to think about it.

Unlike most of the human population, I saw
vamps for what they were—tyrannical, dangerous thugs who were
convinced they ruled the world. As long as they maintained the
appearance of civility and benevolence toward everyone who wasn't
dinner, vamps believed they were within their rights to do as they
pleased. Those who chose to join them tended to be after only one
thing: power over others.

Shifters were different. You could only be
born a Were, you couldn't be turned despite all the old stories.
Nature herself decreed what they were and their society reflected
that fact. Like the vamps, they lived by strict codes and unbending
traditions within their community, but unlike them, those customs
included deep loyalty to family and pack, a love of children, and
most of all, respect and appreciation for all living beings.

While I felt only disdain for vampires, I
respected their capabilities. They were a powerful and deadly race,
so most of the time I kept my opinions to myself. Who said I
couldn't be discrete?

The vampire Deacons rose from their seats
and glided toward the intake station. As they approached, the
renegades shrank back. The lumberjack caught himself before he took
his second step and planted his feet on the floor as he
straightened his back. He looked the taller, dark-haired vamp
leader in the eye and his mouth tightened.

"Lord Bellmonte," the lumberjack
snarled.

"Still so arrogant, Taggert?" the vamp
replied in a smooth, cool voice, and I decided he was higher up
than a mere Deacon. His gaze moved to the dark-skinned vamp and his
gray-blue eyes narrowed. I thought we were about to see some fang,
but he kept control of himself, confining his show of displeasure
to a closed-lip sneer.

"You I will enjoy seeing boil," he said, his
tone as condescending and slick as his silk suit. "Tell me where
Danny is, and I may award you with a quick death instead."

A fierce, reckless smile spread over the
other vamp's dark face and the blonde Deacon behind Lord Bellmonte
sucked in a shocked hiss from the insult. Apparently, the tall,
skinny dude had no problem showing the gaps where his fangs
retracted.