Blood and Bullets Read online

  “Shut ...” BANG!

  A squeeze of the trigger and the Hispanic vampire’s brains flew over her sisters and her body slumped to the ground.

  “... the hell ...” BANG!

  Another squeeze and the redhead flipped back to the doorway as the bullet took her in the cheek, turning her into a red mess inside her red hair.

  “... up.” BANG!

  The black girl’s eyes were wide when the third slug went between them, taking with it the burden of the back of her head. Stepping around Larson, I delivered three more shots, the bullets ripping holes in the chests of the corpses where the heart was. With the heart shots, each vampiress exploded into dust. If you leave a vampire you shot just in the head to heal, then you could wind up with a mindless, rampaging killing machine. I definitely didn’t need three of those.

  Gregorios screamed an animal cry of pain and despair. He began thrashing around on the St. Andrew’s cross. Spittle flew from his mouth and he gnashed his fangs together chewing air. Long hair whipped around his face, strands of it getting stuck in tears of blood that ran down his cheeks.

  “They were mine! I created all of them and I will kill you for what you have done! I’ll have your blood! Your death will be mine!”

  Gregorios kept ranting and screaming and thrashing. His voice climbing into a shrill scream that rivaled the hell-bitches I had just put down. That once-handsome face stripped away into a bestial mask, all pretense of humanity vanished in anger and pain. His power roared out, filling the room, compressing the air around us.

  It wasn’t specified or aimed at anyone, it just was. He was 600 years old, and that was a lot of power to unleash. It pressed on the skin like hot matches, but it had weight like snaps from a whip. It should have been frightening. Hell, it should have been bone-chilling, heart-stoppingly terrifying beyond belief.

  I didn’t fucking care.

  I wasn’t scared or even angry. God, this had been a long fucking night. I was simply tired, bone tired, down-in-my-marrow tired. I wanted nothing more at that moment than to shoot him in the head and be done with it, but I had to know for sure if he had been the one behind the attempt on my life. If Gregorios hadn’t set me up, then I didn’t know I could relax. If I assumed and relaxed, I might not see the next time coming.

  Flipping the Desert Eagle over in my hand, I held it gripping the barrel. As I walked over to Gregorios, my thumb flipped on the safety. Little tip, if you are going to pistol-whip someone, make sure the safety is on and never use the barrel.

  Once, twice, three times I smashed the butt of the gun onto his face. The skin over his eyebrow and the bridge of his patrician nose split, shooting little droplets of blood over the handle of the pistol. It got his attention and stopped his screaming.

  “Tell me why you set me up to be killed earlier tonight,” I demanded.

  The red swirled in his pupils with rage and he shook his head violently. That raw power of his still weighed heavily on my limbs, pushing me like gravity.

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.” He spat the words and glared at me with those red, red eyes. Blood dripped from his eyebrow onto his cheek and ran into the tears on his face.

  “Tell me who you think might have done it, then.”

  He continued to glare at me. Damn, I was tired of hitting him in the face. I needed answers, and I am not opposed to violence, but I get no real joy out of it. If my world had never been destroyed by the monsters, I swear I would have been a nice, normal person. Really. If they had left me and mine alone, I would not be where I am today. I’d probably be raising puppies and painting sunsets.

  Setting my shoulders, I prepared myself to hit Gregorios again. My arm drew back like it had before. He didn’t even flinch. He didn’t hiss, or move at all. Then I felt it. A new power was flowing into the room. It wasn’t moths in my head this time, though. It was bats. The new power had the weight of the ocean to it. It smothered the power Gregorios had been dumping into the room, snuffing it out like a candle in the night wind. The rising tide of it threatened to crush every one of us in the room.

  Gregorios’s eyes grew bigger and his skin began to crawl before my eyes. You’ve heard the expression “make your skin crawl,” but this was the real deal. The flesh on his neck and face rippled, moving like it had insects under it. Convulsing violently, he vomited black blood on his chest and then went as rigid as brittle steel. Dark eyes rolled back in his head and then closed. Lolling forward, his chin hit his blood-covered chest, and when his lids parted to look at me, Gregorios wasn’t home anymore.

  Someone else had joined the party.

  Gregorios’s eyes bled from a brown so dark it was almost black to a bright yellow, honey color. A color so bright they shone like there was a light inside his skull. Those sharp masculine features took on a softer feminine cast. They didn’t change or morph besides relaxing, but his expression was now rawly feminine. It was delicate, haughty, and predatory. He looked at me like a woman would. A woman with sin on her mind. I took a step back and turned the pistol around in my grip.

  “Who are you?”

  Gregorios’s head flipped back and he laughed. It was a throaty laugh that was also not masculine in the slightest. What it was was creepy as hell, but not manly in any way, shape, or form. The voice that slithered from his throat purred at me.

  “Why, I am Appollonia. Are you the infamous Deacon Chalk I have heard so many stories of?”

  Somehow I just knew I had found the vampire responsible for the hit on me. That was not good. Newly made vampires can be controlled by their makers for a while. Gregorios was 600 years old and nothing, I mean nothing should have been able to control him. Hell, this wasn’t even control, it was complete possession—subjugation of his body and personality.

  “I take it you are the bloodsucker who tried to have me killed earlier tonight?” I am nothing if not thorough.

  Appollonia laughed again through Gregorios’s throat. “I see now I may have been too hasty in that. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.” Those blue eyes traveled from my face, down my body, to linger on my crotch. “I am sure I can do something to earn your forgiveness.” The word something spilled from Gregorios’s mouth like a dirty piece of candy, sweet and filthy. She sounded like a phone-sex operator.

  From hell.

  “No can do, sweetheart. There is no room for forgiveness where you are concerned. I will find you and kill you for trying.” No way in hell could I let this pass. If she didn’t try again, word would get out and someone else would. I have killed too many monsters for someone not to want revenge. If word of any softness got out, I was a target from then on.

  The smile on Gregorios’s face was sly and playful. “Oh, goody, do it now. I can give you directions, you can come now.” Appollonia arched the back of Gregorios’s body that was still chained to the St. Andrew’s cross. She thrust his chest out as if she were used to having breasts instead of pecs. I stepped away to keep her from brushing up against me.

  “Oh no. I’ll come when you least expect it. You will get no more warning than I had tonight, but trust me, I will see you soon.”

  Appollonia was staring at my face. Gregorios’s features still held that flirty smirk of hers. I know she didn’t flinch when she dropped the bomb. I was staring in his eyes when she spoke again.

  “We have your family.”

  Those words struck me like a fist in my chest. I took another step back and put my gun away. Turning, I found Larson staring at me. Still white from his earlier encounter with the three disco sisters of the undead, his freckles stood out like they were painted on his face. Wispy red hair was rumpled and there was a streak of something dark on his cheek. It could have been dirt, it could have been lipstick. Hell, it could have been blood. Crossing the distance between us put Gregorios/ Appollonia at my back. His hands rose to rest on my chest.

  “What are you doing, man? She has your family.” Concern radiated off of him. He still had my back just like earlier. �
��What are we going to do about it?”

  My hand fell heavy on Larson’s arm. It looked huge compared with his thin bicep. A layer of sweat and dirt covered his skin. Blue eyes were earnest and his thin red eyebrows stitched together in concern for me.

  He just didn’t get it.

  Damn.

  “I have no family, they were taken from me over five years ago.” I softened my voice but couldn’t soften the blow. “She’s talking to you.”

  His eyes slid past me and looked at Appollonia in horror. The arm I was holding began trembling. “What? I, I don’t understand.”

  Appollonia’s voice piped up over my shoulder. “Let me clear it up for you, human. We have your mother and your sister. They are here with us. If Deacon does not come to me, then I will kill them.” I threw a glance over my shoulder. The smile on her face was evil. Pure and simple evil that was unrepentant. Child molester evil. “It will not be fast. It will not be easy.” She sounded sultry. If she hadn’t been casually talking about killing Larson’s family, it would have sounded sexy. As it was, it sent chills down my spine.

  Gripping Larson’s arm, I squeezed it. He looked at me sharply. My voice was low, even though I knew the vampire could hear me. “Hold it together. We will do what we need to do.” I let him go and turned to face Appollonia/Gregorios. She had his head tilted to the side, looking at me. Looking at me the way a cobra looks at a wounded sparrow on the ground. “Tell me where to go.”

  “I can only share the information psychically. Have Larson,” she paused with a small giggle, “or should I still call him Nyteblade?” More giggling. “Have him touch this vessel and I will insert the destination in his mind.”

  “First tell me how you knew to find me here. Was Gregorios your stalking horse all along?” I was fishing for information. I needed to know just how far this bitch’s power spread.

  “Oh, I have been looking for Gregorios since he went into hiding. I felt his power flare and call out to me a few moments ago, so I came to fetch him.” Gregorios/ Appollonia looked at me again. She licked his lips. It was really unnerving. It was a male face, but the look and the mannerisms were so feminine it was alien. “Imagine my pleasure to look through his eyes and find you standing in front of him.” His eyes took on a darker tone; the gaze she gave me through them was heavy. It was full of promise and heat. The look was all bedroom. “It was a very pleasing sight.”

  This vamped-out bitch was flirting with me, through the body of the male vampire she was possessing. Really? Could my night get any more messed up than this?

  Knowing my luck, probably.

  “Look, lady, if you wanted to ask me out for a date, you have a fucked-up way of doing it. Or were you just trying to get my attention earlier by sending your vampires to that alley?”

  The voice from Gregorios’s mouth trilled out a giggle. “I was told you were a threat to my plans. Looking at you now, I am glad you survived.” Gregorios’s bottom lip pouted out. “Don’t be cross with me.”

  “Cross? You tried to kill me earlier. Who told you I was a threat to you?”

  “An old friend of yours. He knows you quite well. It was his plan that was played earlier. I stole it from his mind.” She cocked Gregorios’s head to the side, making his hair fall, a tiny smile on his lips. “Did you know that you have friends who have plans to kill you if you ever go evil? Does that make you sad?”

  She had to be talking about another monster hunter. When you fight evil for a living you know that the worst thing that could go wrong is not that you die. No, the worst thing is that some Big Bad could take control and turn you into a monster. A danger. Someone to be put down. We are a wary bunch, but once you find a fellow monster hunter you can trust to back you up when things get scary, then you trust them to take you out if you ever get turned evil.

  So she had followed one of my friend’s contingency plans for taking me off the game board. Weariness crashed on my shoulders. I wanted to be done with this. I waved my hand to Larson.

  “Go touch him and let’s get this over with. Stay away from the teeth and the hands.”

  Larson nodded and took a step over to Gregorios/ Appollonia. He was still holding the cross from earlier. I snapped my fingers to get his attention and took it from him when he looked. However powerful Appollonia may be, she was still a vampire. She could not work through the protection of the cross.

  His hand trembled as he reached out to touch Gregorios’s chest. I moved close to him, at his back like I was protecting him. Just as his fingers closed in to skim the surface of Gregorios’s silk shirt, I lightly brushed my hand on his shoulder, hopefully out of sight of Appollonia. I felt her power stab into him as she gave the location in his mind. It was thin and sharp, like a long needle. A quick, painful jab and it was over.

  Larson jumped back like he had touched a live wire. His back hit my arm and he scrambled away, wiping his face. Crimson smeared across his mouth and chin. His nose was bleeding.

  No, his nose was gushing. Appollonia’s smile on Gregorios’s face brightened and fangs slid into view. His nostrils flared wide as she inhaled the scent of Larson’s blood.

  “Ahhhh, intoxicating.”

  My fingers closed on the heavy red drapes. They were made of a velveteen material. It took only one quick snatch to pull them from the wall. Larson caught it when I tossed it his way and began trying to staunch the flow from his nose. My attention swung back to the vampire chained to the X.

  “All right, we’ll be on our way to see you. Now get the hell out of here.”

  Appollonia tilted Gregorios’s head again. She was still smiling, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile anymore. “We have talked too long. I feel the press of dawn and you will not arrive before then. Come at sunset tonight.” Those cobra eyes locked back on me. “If you come before the sun has left the sky, my renfield will kill the humans.”

  I shoved the cross I had taken from Larson into Gregorios’s face. Appollonia hissed and threw his head back away from its glow. Steam rose from the skin on Gregorios’s face as blisters formed. I leaned in close, locking eyes with the bitch.

  “Listen to me. I’ll come to you. I’ll follow your rules. But ...” Anger pushed my power out from me and into those possessed eyes; something clicked between us and I knew she could feel it. My power pushed down that line and pressed against her. “If they are not alive and unharmed when I arrive, then all bets are off and I will burn you to the ground and salt the earth behind me.” Anger made my power pulse through that connection. “Are we clear?”

  Appollonia hissed and then burst into laughter that echoed across the room and trailed off as she left. Gregorios lurched against the chains that held him. He hung limp, as if his bones were made of water. Sweat poured from his face and bloody tears ran thick down his cheeks, dodging and darting around the blisters from the cross. If he wasn’t a monster, I would have felt pity for him. I spoke softly. “Tell me about Appollonia. Who is she and what do you know about her?”

  The 600-year-old vampire in front of me began sobbing. Great, heaving sobs that wracked his body and shook him in his chains. I had never seen something that could break a vampire of his age. He was broken, though. Fear rolled off of him like a stench. I snapped my fingers in his face. “Gregorios, tell me about Appollonia.”

  He drew in a deep, quivering breath and rolled his eyes up to look at me. They were back to being an almost black–brown. The whites of them painted crimson with burst blood vessels.

  “Don’t you see?” His voice was strained and his eyes danced wildly in their sockets like two drunken sailors. “We cannot resist her; she takes over and consumes you. She has become to us what we are to you!” His voice got higher and higher as he strangled out the words. “I can’t, I can’t be consumed by her! It would be torment!” His voice cut off in a gurgle and Gregorios began sobbing again. It was pitiful. Fear of Appollonia and her power had broken him. That fear had destroyed the fragile balance that is a mind held by vampiric power far past when it shoul
d have died.

  The barrel of the Desert Eagle made an impression on his forehead. His eyes crossed focusing on it, but they were glazed over and not seeing anything in this reality.

  “Don’t worry, I will keep her from consuming you.”

  He closed those fear-fevered eyes. I took a centering breath—in through my nose, out through my mouth.

  I pulled the trigger.

  12

  My brain would not turn off.

  Inky blackness swirled on the edges of my consciousness. I was tired, exhausted actually, but I couldn’t shut my brain down long enough to go under. It had been a long night. A really long fucking night, and I had another one coming up at sunset. There were things I had to do before then, hours before, but sunset was when everything would go down.

  I was in my room at Polecats. It was still the safest place to be. Freshly showered, I lay on my futon on the floor. It was comfortable and molded to my body. The low whirr of the fan sent a cool breeze of air over my naked skin. A sheet tangled across my groin, but that was all for modesty. Nothing else blocked the soft air from my body. My eyes were closed, but that did not matter since the room was pitch-black anyway. It was an interior room with no windows and a towel under the door. The Desert Eagle lay on the floor beside the mattress, loaded with one in the chamber. I really do sleep better with it there.

  Rest. I needed to rest. I needed sleep because I had to rescue Larson’s family tonight. I still didn’t know for sure why he was even involved. It appeared he really was just bait. Bait and leverage if I wasn’t killed. He couldn’t rescue his family. He didn’t have the strength or the skill, but he wanted to. His anger when I told him we were not going from the brothel to the place in his head threw him into a fit. I could understand why.