West Coast Witch (17 page)

“An actor? Any of those genes work their way down the line?”

“Are we seriously flirting while we approach a house we’re about to break into? Damn,
woman.”

She gave me a fanged grin. “What can I say? I get in a good mood when I hunt.”

We moved towards the house, and I could hear movement inside. I’d never heard vampires
move before. Either there was a non-vamp in there, or someone was just a clumsy idiot.

I kept my pistol out. I racked the slide, chambering a round like Teresa had instructed.
I walked behind Teresa, and a little to the side. I kept scanning the house, looking
for any signs of movement.

I didn't know where the first shot came from, only that it kicked up sand near us.
“Son of a gun!” I

I ducked down. “They're shooting at us!” I hissed.

Teresa dropped to a knee, firing off a pair of shots. “Yes, I am quite aware of that!”
A low growl ripped through her throat. “Fangless bastards.” She brought herself up,
and moved forward. “Eric, you need to follow my directions, all right?”

“Sure thing.” I moved up with her. “Just tell me what!”

“We're going to press on!”

“advance?” I called back. “You're insane.”

She looked back, but only for a moment. “Maybe. But you need to be a little crazy
in this line of work. It's charge or die, all right?”

And so, there I was, a step behind a vampire, about to run up to a house and charge
in while people shot at us. All this, with only a few minutes of training and the
directions of a vampire.

I know some seriously crazy women.

The first thing that went through my mind was to think of any relevant tactical knowledge.
The only experience I had was reading accounts from World War 2 and Vietnam, and some
experience playing video games with Matt.

It was a survival skill that, when shots came at you, you got behind the first piece
of cover you could find. Put anything to stop a bullet between you and the guy shooting
at you. That seemed like a solid plan, with one problem. The only other thing between
me and the house was Teresa, and I wasn’t going to hide behind a meat shield, especially
one that had asked me out on a date.

So, I did the stupid thing and charged ahead. I’m sure this is the kind of thing that
got you killed. But, as we ran ahead, neither of us got shot. Bullets flew in our
general direction, but I got the sense that they either weren’t very well trained,
or maybe they were trying to scare us off.

Teresa ran up to below the deck of the house, and I got in under it a second later.
The house was raised up, to prevent it from going underneath in some freak storm.
The deck was, thankfully, between us and the bullets.

“How’s your throwing arm?” Teresa asked.

“My throwing arm?” I shrugged. “Decent, but I wasn’t exactly first-string quarterback.
Why?”

One of the pockets on Teresa’s vest came open, and she handed me
 
something that I recognized, from Hollywood, as a flash bang grenade. “Pull the pin,
toss it through a window. Then, we go up.”

“Uh, okay. Gotcha.” I nodded, and I accepted the grenade when she gave it to me.

Teresa smiled, and she kissed my cheek. “You’re doing great, Eric. Just keep being
insane and fearless. I like it.”

I peeked my head out from beneath the deck, and thought about how I’d have to arc
the throw. It wasn’t a baseball, and the weight wasn’t exactly balanced. However,
with such a short range, I figured I could do it.

I shifted the pistol to my off-hand, and stepped back into the open. I didn’t even
think about it. I just pulled the pin with my teeth and threw. I scurried back under
the deck just as a BAM filled the air.

Teresa was already moving. “Go go!” She whispered loudly.

My ears were ringing, and I knew it had to be hell for Teresa’s vampire ears. We moved
to the front of the house, and I adopted the two-hand grip on the pistol as we went
up to the front door.

On my mark.” Teresa said, and held up her fingers. She counted down from three in
a second, barely giving me time to register she actually was counting. When she hit
one, she hissed. “Mark.”

She kicked open the door, and we moved into the main room of the house. There were
two men on the ground, covering their eyes and ears.

“Are they vampires?” I asked.

She nodded. “They look like weak ones, probably newborns. That flash bang must have
damaged their senses.” Out of another pocket came some zip ties. “Tie them up. I’m
going to look for Darius.”

I took the zip ties, and went to bind one of them. He hissed at me when I did so,
but I whipped him in the face with a pistol. It took me a few seconds of struggling
and wrestling, but I was able to bind his wrists eventually. When I went down to bind
his feet, I got a bare foot in my face. “Son of a bitch!” I growled, and eventually
sat on the vamp's legs to get his wrists bound.

“Teresa, where-“ I was about to ask, but she was already gone, searching through the
rest of the house. I stood up, looking around, and saw, out of the window, a figure.

The figure was running towards the stairs we’d come from. “Teresa? Teresa!” I waited
a moment. No response came back. Maybe she couldn’t hear me, from the flash bang’s
effects.

I ran out to the front door, onto the deck of the house. I racked the slide on the
pistol, chambering a round. I yelled to the running figure. “Freeze, jackass!”

The figure kept running, faster than I would have expected. Probably another vampire.
I didn’t think about what I did next. It was the last thing I did the night that was
stupid, not thought through, and totally reckless.

I focused, slowly, and closed my eyes. I reached out with my senses, searching the
air around me. Like a beacon in front of me, the vampire's energy faintly pulsed.

I lined up the shot, and I took a deep breath. On the exhale, I squeezed the trigger.

The bark of the pistol filled the night air, and I felt the gun kick in my hand like
a car on the worse roads in California. A moment later, I saw the figure topple over,
like someone had cut the strings of a marionette.

I made a fist and pumped it. “Hell yea.” I hissed. “Teresa, we got someone on the
beach!” I yelled.

I made a run for the body, flipping the safety on the pistol so I wouldn’t accidentally
shoot anybody or anything while I was running. My entire body was humming with adrenalin
as I ran up to the figure, lying face first in the sand.

I put my foot on the figure’s back. “All right, asshole, just stay where you are,
and I’ll consider not blowing your head of. Got it?”

The man underneath my foot grunted. “Who are you?” I recognized the voice immediately.
Darius.

“I’m the guy who you attacked Wednesday night, jerk.” I hissed. “What comes around,
goes around.”

Teresa found me a few minutes later. She’d been unable to hear me, from the flash
bang’s effect, and had found me when I was still standing over Darius, with my gun
trained on him.

We dragged him up to the house, and tossed him on a couch. I looked to the other two
vampires. “So, what do we do with those two?”

“Cut them loose. If they know right, they’ll head out of town, and find a new court
to submit themselves to. Am I correct, boys?”

Both vampires nodded furiously. I flipped out my knife, and cut their bonds. They
scurried out the front door, and I turned back to Darius. Teresa had tied him to the
chair using the zip ties. In the light, he wasn’t by any means as scary as he was
in my memory.

Darius had slicked black hair, with dark beady eyes. The sunken look wasn’t cosmetic.
It looked more like malnutrition. I grabbed a chair from the kitchen, a plain wicker
thing.

I would let Teresa take the lead on this. I had never actually done an interrogation
before. My experience with questioning was mostly on the receiving end.

Teresa started. “So, Darius, is it?” She grabbed him by the jaw, forcing his head
to turn to me. “You’re dead to rights. This human here? He’s said you fed off him,
unwillingly.”

He laughed a little. “This human? He’s lying.”

I nearly shot at him. I hate being called a liar. However, Teresa butted in. “The
human does not lie. I would smell it if he does. You, however, reek of guilt.”

“I do not, bit-“

She slapped him across the face.
 
“Finish that word, and I will drain every drop of blood from you onto this floor.”

Darius rolled his head, grunting. He looked at her, and said. “At least I’ll die knowing
I got the better of you. You’re a little, legal, synth-drinker.”

“Synth-drinker? You think that is an insult to me?” She laughed. “I don’t take humans
by force. It makes the blood run sour in my mouth. You are nothing. But you have questions
that I need answering. Do you confirm or deny attacking and drinking of this man?”

“I confirm it. I drank the witch’s blood. And it was delicious. So empowering.” His
lips peeled back to show rotted fangs. “If I didn’t have this silver in my leg, I
would rip you both to shreds.”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Teresa nodded. “But you’re just a little fanged boy who’s bound,
shot, and silvered. It really depends on how you want to take things from here. Either
you answer our questions here, or I take you to Ishmael, and he will be far less forgiving,
Darius.”

“Forgiveness? I have no desire for your petty mercy.” Darius hissed. “But let us see
what questions you ask?”

I decided to speak then. “Why are you so interested
 
 
 
 
 
 
in Sam Coolidge?”

“Had to know what you knew, witch.” He hissed. “What Francis knew about the
 
girl.”

“Who took her?” I asked. “Who hired you?”

“Human, go fuck yourself.” He laughed, though a wheeze made his way into it. “I’m
not telling you nothing.”

“Can I put another slug into him, Teresa?” I asked, aiming the pistol at his head.

“No, that may kill him. I’d like to have him alive.”

“Do it.” Darius sneered at me. “Just do it, you little witch. You’re just a pathetic
little weakling. Just like the bitch Coolidge. She whimpered, begged us not to hurt
her.”

“Eric, stop.” Teresa said. “He’s baiting you. If he’s dead, we can’t get anything
from him.”

“Can’t you just drink his blood then, get the information?”

She shook her head. “Vampires don’t drink other vampires’ blood. It’s...unnatural.
And we can’t gain knowledge from the blood of the dead.”

My mind sprung to something. “Is that why you drank from me, Darius? You said you
needed to know what Francis knew. But he was dead.. How did he die?”

“Fuck you.” He spat blood on me.

I responded by whipping him across the face with the butt of the pistol. That felt
good. Better than it should have.

“He snapped his neck.” Darius coughed.

“Who snapped Francis’s neck?” Teresa growled
 
in response. “Answer, or I start pulling teeth out. We’ll start with the molars.
One by one. The fangs will come last. You won’t grow those back. No, you will end
up defanged...”

He swallowed. “I never got his name.”

Teresa patted his shoulder. “That’s a good man. Who is he?”

“He wanted her. He thinks the fox is a Scion.” I didn’t know what he meant, so I figured
I’d ask Amy or Teresa later. “He wanted her blood. And he gets what he wants.”

“Describe him.” Teresa said.

“Tall. White hair, uh…He’s a vampire. Old too, a master vampire, he had to be. And
he wore an eye patch over his right eye.”

“Shit.” Teresa hissed. “I know who we’re dealing with.”

“Care to share with the rest of the class?” I asked.

“Later. For now, I have business to wrap up.” She looked back to Darius.

“No,” He shook his head. “Please, no.”

Teresa centered her pistol. “Darius, for the crime of forced feeding, there’s only
one sentence I can pass on you.”

He tried to break free of his bonds, but he was too weak from the silver. “No, please
no.”

“Any last words?”

He shook his head, and I remained silent. I watched as Teresa disengaged the safety.
She put the gun to his chest, right over where his heart was. The sound
 
of the gun filled the air, and I didn’t look away as his blood spilled onto the hardwood,
and Darius died his second death.

We sat in the car afterwaDrd. We weren’t driving, we were just sitting there. I didn’t
really know what to say.

We had been sitting for about ten minutes when Teresa spoke. “I had to do what I did.
It was justice.”

“He died because of me.” I said, almost immediately.