Fangtastic (9 page)

“Now can I touch?”

“Knock yourself out.” I pulled my lips back from my teeth to give him access to my fangs and shivered as he touched them. It wasn't so much the touch that affected me, but the closeness of all that blood just beneath his skin. With his fingers resting on my lips, I could feel his pulse, smell his scent—spicy, like he'd had Indian food earlier in the day. Yes, I'd helped myself to that bottled blood back at headquarters, but it was nothing next to the fresh stuff straight from the vein. With a will of its own, my tongue crept forward to taste his flesh. Ballard closed his eyes, breathing hard.

“
Hello
,
remember me?” Bobby cut in.

“We can share,” I offered.

Ballard drew back, the spell broken. “What?”

“Nothing. Thank you for your help. We'll be in touch.”

His hand dropped to his side. “Hunter does nice work,” he said. “Maybe I'll have him do mine.”

I almost laughed—here I'd thought I was giving my true nature away. I looked at Bobby to see whether he'd planted the suggestion in Ballard's mind that my fangs were permanent dental implants, but he shook his head slightly. Apparently Ballard, for all he was nicknamed after a writer, couldn't even
imagine
the reality of us. One less loose end to worry about.

Bobby was busily texting the new names and addresses
to Sid.

“Come on,” I said to Ballard. “I'll walk you out.”

He looked disappointed. “What about Elise?”

“Call us if you hear from her. Or see her.
Do not
let her into your place or meet up with her in any dark alleys, okay?”

“You think she's one of them now? Dion's crew?” he asked.

“I think you're better safe than sorry.” I gave Ballard my number and closed the door on his shell-shocked look.

“Sid wants us to check on Elise's mother.”

“
Check on
,
not ‘interview'?” I asked. Bobby was usually
so precise.

“Well, given what happened to Kelly Swinter's family when she apparently joined up—”

“You think it's some kind of initiation?”

“Not enough of a sample to draw a conclusion.”

“Ah, geek speak. I'm not asking you to stake your reputation on it. I'm just asking what you
think
.
”

“It's possible.”

I checked the readout on my phone. There was plenty
of time before my appointment with Hunter. “Okay then, I'll drive.”

“But—”

“You'll do that Goody Two-shoes obeying-the-speed-limit thing.”

“It's safer—”

“Someone's life might hang in the balance,” I said, with my usual flare for the dramatic.

“I'd say definitely, the way you drive—”

I blew him a raspberry, shoved Elise's Dionysus book into his hands to keep them busy, and frisked him for the car keys. Predictably, the distraction worked. Bobby was totally mesmerized by the book, flipping pages as he followed me out to the car. Now, if I tried to walk and read at the same time, I'd probably break my neck, but I had the feeling it wasn't the first time for him. Unfortunately, it had the side effect of slowing him down just a bit, so that I had the car in gear before his door was even shut. I took off the second his foot cleared the pavement, the forward thrust slamming the door shut for him.

Bobby nearly toppled into my lap and came up cursing—or as close as he ever came to it. “Darn it, Gina, a second more or less—”

“Might mean everything to Mrs. R,” I finished for him.

“So might solving this whole mystery. How much of this book did you read?”

“I, uh, skimmed. It's all about a cult, right? Sounds totally relevant.”

“Yeah, you did good. Dionysus was the Greek god of wine, fertility, and basically lack of inhibitions. His rituals were … bloody doesn't even begin to cover it. He had female followers called the Bacchae who would go into religious frenzies, ripping people apart with their bare hands. All part of the fertility thing. You know, life from death. A lot of religions have it. Native Americans have Corn Woman; Ancient Egyptians have Osiris's dismembered body fertilizing Isis and giving birth to Horus. Christianity has Jesus and Lazarus both rising from the dead … ”

“Fascinating,” I said, “but what does all this have to do with us?”

“Think about it … what else rises from the dead?”
he asked.

“Well, duh,
vampires
, but—” I had the sudden urge to bang my head against the steering wheel. “
Of course
!
Vampires feed on blood. They rise from the dead. Do you think Dion's got his cult convinced that from death comes life?”

“It's a theory.”

Which meant “Yes.”

8

Fire trucks and police cars flew past us as we approached the Radner place, and I started to get a very bad feeling about what we'd find when we got there. Bobby white-knuckled the dashboard, but didn't complain as I slipped in close behind an ambulance and let it clear our path.

“Damn, damn, damn,” Bobby chanted under his breath; the language was so unusual for him, it nearly shocked me into an accident. “Dead ends everywhere.”

“Let's hope not.”

“Slow down!” Bobby yelled suddenly.

I slammed on the brakes in reaction, even though I wasn't about to hit that hydrant. Really. I swear.

“That's Kelly Swinter's car,” he said in explanation, pointing at a little blue hatchback.

“How do you know?”

Bobby looked at me in disbelief. “I read the file.”

“Oh, well … sure.”

The police already had the street around the house blocked off and the firefighters were firing up their hoses. But we couldn't wait for the flames to be subdued. Not if Mrs. R might be burning up on the inside, along with any evidence needed to track down the firestarters.

I double-parked, blocking Kelly's car into its spot, and Bobby and I were out within milliseconds and racing toward the house. A police officer saw and tried to stop us, but we were too fast for him.

“My aunt!” I yelled as cover. Not that it mattered. We were getting into that house and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

Bobby kicked in the front door and the flames roared out at us, hungry for the inrushing oxygen, but he didn't even stop. He dashed right through and I followed behind him, the heat so bad I was instantly flush with blood sweat. It dripped into my eyes, and I wiped it away with my sleeve. My white shirt would never be the same again, but I didn't count that as much of a loss.

“Which way?” Bobby asked, when we were immediately faced with a staircase and several pathways off the foyer—one that led to a sunken living room, the rug already aflame, the kitchen beyond that, and a hallway off to the right.

“You go up, I'll go back,” I ordered.

He nodded and ran, and I loved him for it. He respected my auth-or-it-TAY, as Cartman would say.

I dashed for the back of the house through the living room, which was empty of life. I hit the kitchen, thankful I didn't need to breathe. The smoke was thick like low-lying fog, but I pushed my way through it, and … stopped dead in the kitchen entry. There was a body, but it was still breathing, and held upright by a teenaged guy. Dion, aka Nelson Ricci, in the flesh. All five feet eight inches of monobrow menace and Roman nose (roamin' all over his face, my mother would say). I sensed it would all work for him when he grew into it, but I wasn't inclined to give him that chance. Right now he was accessorizing with a barely breathing body. It wasn't doing anything for him.

Bobby, kitchen!
I called mentally.

“I know that look,” Dion said, voice gravelly beyond his years. From the smoke? “But he won't reach you in time, Gina.”

I didn't know which to process first—the threat, the way he'd guessed about the mind-speak, or the fact that he knew my real name.

Then I heard the movement behind me. I ducked and whirled, one leg out to sweep anyone sneaking up on me straight off their feet. I almost didn't recognize the girl jumping my outswept leg like she was skipping rope. She came down hard, a manic gleam in her eye, clearly hoping to land all her weight on the leg, but I was already up and launching myself at her with my fingers together, hand bladed, aiming straight for the soft spot on her neck between the collar bones. One powerful blow there and she'd drop like a stone, with about as much breath. Big blue eyes widened above her button nose as she saw me coming and stumbled back.

Just as I made contact, something hard and heavy hit me in the back of the head. My blow still fell on the girl—Kelly Swinter—but it lost something in the execution as my skull cracked and pain shot through me.

I caught sight of my sneak attacker, Elise, just as my vision blacked, and another blow caught me as I was still reeling from the first. I fell to my hands and knees, but my pain sensors were already on overload and I didn't even feel myself hit the floor.

“We've got to get out of here
now
,
” Kelly choked out, her attempt at speech causing a coughing fit.

“Grab the girl,” Dion ordered.

Behind me, something hit the ground hard, but I couldn't see who or what. My world narrowed to darkness and pain and threatened to wink out altogether. But I wasn't going down without a fight.

I lashed out a hand to grab … something … to pull myself upright. Whatever I caught cried out. Kelly? Elise? Definitely female. Flesh gave under my fingers, and whatever I held buckled under them. I collapsed back onto the floor with my failure, losing my grip.

“Gina!” someone called. The sound ricocheted through my head like a bullet, ripping through my brain, blowing apart what was left of my mind. Bobby. He'd come at my call. Must have been the cause of whatever had fallen beside me.

I blinked frantically to clear away the dark veil over my vision. I needed to see what was going on. To help Bobby and … someone. It was all so hard to
think
.
Too many blows to the head. The scene wouldn't resolve itself into any more than a blur of shadows. I saw someone tall and broad-shouldered—had to be Bobby—and a blur of bleached blond hair sailing at him like a guided missile. When Bobby knocked her away with ease, Dion launched Mrs. R's unresisting body at him, only it fell on me instead of him, blotting out my world.

There was blood everywhere. I could smell it, even if I couldn't see. My teeth extended, and before I'd even formed a thought, I rolled, trying to throw off Mrs. R's body. I
wouldn't
drink from her, but all the others were fair game … anyone I could reach. My hands became claws, scrabbling at the kitchen floor to propel me forward, toward the nearest blood-scent. Something flew past me and landed with an
oomph
, teeth clacking together—a sound I knew well from recent experience. I didn't hesitate or wait to see who I had. I struck blindly, my bloodlust leading the way. My teeth sank into flesh. A thigh? A calf? Either way, not hairy enough to be Dion's. It didn't matter. Blood flowed just the same, hot and tangy. Life itself. I lost myself in the release of blood flooding my mouth with a rush that was equal parts pain and euphoria—the pain as my body came back online, my bones reknit, and the bleeding into my brain reversed itself.

I'd have passed out or spontaneously combusted or just died from the overload of pleasure/pain to my system if I hadn't been tethered to life by, literally, the skin of my teeth. It was only when I realized that the flood had slowed to a sluggish stream that my fangs retracted. Horrified, I blinked my vision clear, but now the storm clouds of smoke inside the house were making that difficult. I could barely make out paling skin and scads of hair, beneath which I sought a pulse point. Someone grabbed me under the arms suddenly and hauled me away before I could find it.

“I've got you, Gina.” It was Bobby. Thank God.

“But—”

“We've got to get
out
.
The place is fully engulfed.”

“But the body!” I said, my tongue barely cooperating.

“Mrs. Radner is out. I took care of her first.” He sounded ashamed of that, like I should have been his first concern, even though I was a vampire and could handle everything better than poor Mrs. R. It was kind of sweet.

A zing of fear went through me at the thought. Had I killed? I remembered not being too concerned as I fed in my haze of hurt, but now …

“The others?” I asked.

I had a horrible feeling about all this. If I hadn't killed my victim, the fire would. I'd surely left her too weak to escape. I couldn't live with that, especially not for all eternity.

“There's no time!”

As if to punctuate his sentence, a beam or railing fell somewhere in the house with a great crack. Bobby pulled me toward the exit. Despite the fact that I was recovering, I didn't have the strength to resist.

“We've got to talk to the police,” Bobby said.

“Turn myself in, you mean?”

Bobby turned so that he could look into my eyes.
“What?
Gina, anyone left in there is there because of the choices they made, not because of you.”

“But—”

“But nothing. I saw. You fed. It's what we do. You
wouldn't have taken so much if they hadn't ambushed and hurt you, right?”

I nodded, not truly believing but lacking the will to argue.

“So it was self-defense. Someone was going down. It was either her or you.”

It made sense; I just didn't buy it. I'd needed to feed, but
so much
?

“Look, I've got to get Mrs. Radner to the paramedics. We'll talk more later.”

He hefted Mrs. R from the ground outside, where he'd laid her to go after me, and carried her cradled against his chest in a honeymoon hold. I didn't want to talk more. I wanted a do-over on the night. I followed after Bobby, barely remembering to cough and wheeze as if I'd inhaled all that thick smoke. The EMTs came forward right away, one shoving an oxygen mask over my face and another grabbing a gurney for Mrs. R and getting straight to work on her. I was relieved that the mask meant I didn't have to talk to anyone yet. I wasn't ready. The way I was feeling right now, I'd confess to murder. That wouldn't help anyone, and I had a personal score to settle with Dion. He was going down.

Bobby gave our statement. I saw him flash credentials, something I didn't have on me. Then he waved toward our car, probably describing the Swinter vehicle beside it. In another minute and he and his officer friend were coming toward me.

“Ma'am, I'm going to need your statement as well,” the officer said when they reached me.

I cringed and removed my mask. The oxygen continued to hiss out, with the weird plastic smell it had picked up going through the tubing.

“Agent Crandall here says you got a tip that led to this house.”

I licked my lips and prepared to lie through my teeth as
Agent Crandall
had done. “The tip said Mrs. Radner was in there, but it turned out to be an ambush. When we ran in, they were waiting for us. I can't tell you much more than that. I got clipped in the head and blacked out. When I came to, Agent Crandall was pulling me out of the burning house.”

He nodded. “Have the paramedics checked you out?”

“I've got a very hard head.”

He nodded again and I tried not to picture him as a bobble­head, but it was tough. I think my mind was desperately trying for some comic relief. “Anything you can remember would be a help.”

I described Dion in all his monobrowed menace and as much as I could remember about Elise and Kelly. I'd seen the latter's picture during our initial briefing, but the psycho eyes she'd been sporting had turned her all but unrecognizable. They didn't really go with the button nose and bright blue eyes. Elise hadn't changed a bit, except for the absence of her cat's-eye contacts.

My cell phone interrupted the questioning, and I grabbed it out of my pocket to check the readout.
Hunter
.
Crap, I'd forgotten all about him.

“I've got to take this,” I told the officer. “Confidential informant.”

He nodded like he understood and courteously turned away, but he didn't go far. He was talking to the EMTs about Mrs. R. The firefighters were still battling the blaze, but it didn't look like much of the house would be saved. Poor Mrs. R.

“Hello,” I said, answering just before it kicked over to voicemail.

“Where are you? We said ten o'clock, right?”

I pulled the phone away from my ear to look at the time. Almost ten thirty. Crap again.

“Sorry! I ran into some … trouble. Can you hang tight another half hour? Bar tab's on me.”

He didn't answer for a second and I was afraid I was losing him, but finally he said, “Okay, but if you're not here by eleven, I'm gone.”

I hung up and Officer Bobblehead met my eyes. “We have to go,” I said. “My informant's not going to wait all night.”

He … wait for it … nodded. “I know where to find you if I have any more questions.” That was news to me, but I supposed Bobby must have given him a card or something.

I didn't want to go to a wine bar … or anywhere but bed. It had been a busy night. I wasn't just tired, I was completely drained. This spy stuff sucked. Death sucked. Destruction sucked. And I sucked most of all. The girl I'd fed from—I wasn't going to think about it. I could beat myself up later, when I had time and privacy. For now, I had to pull myself together.