mask in place and tested it by breathing deeply before Eli released the foul-smelling smokeless bomb in the confines of the limo. Stink filled the car. I didn’t smell a thing, though breathing wasn’t easy and the mask was hot and uncomfortable. But I smelled nothing gross and gave Eli a thumbs-up.
Eli had informed us that sleeping gas didn’t exist, but the military had something that worked short-term on humans. He’d be using that on the building. I didn’t ask what it was or where he got it, and he didn’t volunteer. I vaguely recalled that the Russians had tried something on a theater full of people once and managed to kill most of them. I just hoped the U.S. military stuff worked better.
Thanks to Derek’s suppliers and the truck that had followed us up here, we were all dressed in night camo with Kevlar vests, combat boots, utility belts, shooting gloves—the kind with the knuckles and fingertips bare—ear protectors that doubled as radio receivers, and enough gear to start a small war. Bruiser had guns holstered everywhere and carried the pump shotgun borrowed from Esmee. Wrassler had a totally illegal, fully automatic, compact machine gun and enough magazines to shoot for fifteen minutes at full auto. Enough ammo to melt the barrel of his gun, assuming the heat buildup from firing didn’t jam it first, which was all too likely.
I had all my blades and stakes—including two new, longer, special-made ones—in sheaths and loops, and my Walthers holstered at my spine and under my left arm. One was loaded with silver for vamps and the other with standard ammo. My M4 Benelli was loaded for vamp with seven silver fléchette rounds, and I had another seven in special loops in a thigh pouch. But if I needed to reload, I would likely be dead before I could finish. The shotgun was slung at the ready and strapped in place under my right arm. The positioning was Wrassler’s idea, and though I’d never fought with the M4 strapped there, it felt good. I wouldn’t have to pull the shotgun from its spine sheath and ready it for firing. I just had to stabilize, point, and shoot. The webbing left me room to maneuver the weapon enough to aim and fire, and was relatively easy to pull free for full manual positioning.
“Com check,” Derek said over the radio. Instantly, we could hear the helo in the radio system background. He called our names or monikers out one at a time, and when he said, “Legs,” I replied, “Got ’em.” Everyone laughed. It was hard to see his expression with the mask in the way, but I thought Bruiser’s eyes were twinkling.
“Canisters?” Eli asked Bruiser and me.
I touched the three canisters at my belt; they were marked CS. It was the new pressurized colloidal silver stuff for use on vamps and I didn’t know how they would work. No one did. When the canister was activated, it would spew an ionized silver mist into the air. Every time vamps took a breath—if they did before it dissipated— they’d get a lungful. It wouldn’t mean instant death, but it might slow them down and poison them.
“On my go,” Eli said. This was his gig. I had no training for paramilitary raids. My combat style was more along the lines of stake ’em and run. Eli pulled his mask off, grabbed a black mesh bag, and slid out of the car. He disappeared into an alley at a fast jog.
He had reconnoitered the alley earlier and found some old wood back stairs on the two-story building adjacent to the three-story one, housing our target. He was going to ascend the steps of the two-story building, make his way to the roof, toss a grapnel across to the adjacent walled roof, and then haul himself up to the roof next door. The last part was an eighteen-foot climb. Which I would like to see, but I wasn’t part of the roof assault.
Six minutes later he said, “I’m in. Gas is a go.” Which meant in six minutes he had climbed up the fire escape, then to the roof adjacent, found an access for the air conditioner, removed its air intake panel, and started the gas. Go, Rangers, go, army.
Based on estimated cubic feet, Eli had calculated the number of canisters needed to knock out the building, and how long it would take. Then he added two canisters. Waiting sucked. I looked at the time. Sunset was in fourteen minutes. In fourteen minutes, the vamps could take an attack into the streets. We were cutting it close.
I could hear the helo’s rotors beating the air. The helo got closer, the noise louder. Leo’s helicopter wasn’t a sleek, modern, quiet-operating model, but an older helo, a refurbished Vietnam Era Bell Huey, with heavy armament and retrofitted with lots of modern bells and whistles. I was pretty sure that most of the bells were not entirely legal, and owning the whistles was likely a felony but well worth the risk. If we had to shoot the vamps with missiles, the helo had the capability, I thought dryly.
The helo was directly overhead, the tail rotor over the alley. Dark blobs dropped out—Derek Lee and his buddies. I wondered if Angel Tit was among them, and knew he must be, the Tequila Boys as well. There were too many men for just the Vodka Boys cadre. I wondered which one was Rick.
If I thought it was weird to have so many men I was interested in all in one place, my inner cat was just happy about it.
“Go. Go. Go,” Eli said over the com, and Bruiser, Wrassler, and I leaped from the limo. Because of his injury, Wrassler’s job was to cover the back entrance and make sure no one got away or came in to help the bad guys. Bruiser and I raced through the alley for the frontal assault, my breathing doing that whole Darth Vader wheeze inside the mask. I pulled on Beast’s speed to keep up with him. We rounded the front together, and sent two women screaming away. I had a glimpse of a sleeping baby in a backpack.
Bruiser took out the front window with a ball-peen hammer. Glass shattered and fell, the sound muffled by the ear protectors. Bruiser raked the glass out with the hammer and leaped through. I followed, glass still falling. He disappeared behind the silver velvet draperies. My first job was to yank the draperies down and let in sunlight. The velvet came down fast, along with the metal track that supported it, flooding the space with light and revealing only an entrance to a hallway that opened both left and right.
Bruiser had disappeared to my right. I entered the hallway to the left, sliding my spine against the wall. I heard nothing except my heavy breathing, smelled nothing except the filtered air, and saw even less, thanks to the mask. On the upper floor, the guys were clearing rooms: I could hear it through the communication gear. On the roof, Eli was supposed to be doing his magic and reversing the powerful AC fan to air out the gas from the building so the guys could pull off the masks and pull on low-light-vision gear, but it would take time, and every second would just be pissing off the vamps. Fortunately, I didn’t need low-light gear. I had Beast.
She rose in me like a wraith, and my vision sharpened, turning the world silvery bright. My heart pounded steadily in my ears. I moved down the hallway. There were no doors except at the ends, which was odd. I was hearing nothing. Except the radio chatter of the men. No one was on the third floor. No one at all.
I stepped through the doorway at the end of the hall into an open room. It looked like a reception room, and a woman was facedown at a desk. I raced over and checked her pulse. Steady, if a little slow. I secured her hands behind her back with two zip strips and moved around the desk to a door in the back. Carefully, I opened it. The room beyond was pitch-black except for tiny red and green lights, like on computers when they’re asleep, or on battery backups. But I couldn’t use my nose to smell vamp, which I hated. I was head-blind.
I pulled a flashbang and tossed it inside. Turned my head away and closed my eyes. It exploded, the flash white through my closed lids. I raced in and stopped, listening, hearing nothing. I had to get out of this headgear. As soon as I could breathe.
From nowhere, I took a blow to my chest that threw me across the room. I rolled to my feet and pulled two blades. I couldn’t fire a gun—there might be sleeping humans in the room. I felt, more than saw, movement and struck out with the blades, cutting in a figure-eight pattern. I hit nothing. And I took another blow. This one to my head. It knocked my mask askew. I took an involuntary half breath and smelled sleep-bomb and vamp. The scents were vaguely like boiled eggs and vamp-spice tea, an unpleasant combo to my Beast-enhanced nose, though the humans the vamp hunted probably liked her spicy scent. Holding my breath, I pulled the mask back in place. I yanked loose a CS canister, set it on the floor, and activated the nozzle. Hit the halogen light on my vest.
The room lit up like stadium lights and revealed a vamp right in front of me. She gripped my right arm and snapped down, around, and would have pulled me off my feet, except I knew that move and I followed her, dropping with her. I grabbed her ankle, threw it into the air. Dove under her legs. CS mist coated my mask, further depleting my view of the world. I wiped at it, smearing it worse. The halogen light bounced around the room, revealing and hiding, illuminating and throwing bizarre shadows dancing drunkenly on the walls. It was disorienting and Beast hurled more speed and her spatial awareness into my bloodstream.
The light hit the vamp in the face. She was vamped out, two-inch-long fangs and pupils like black saucers. Her face was bleeding. Her eyes were bleeding and watering. She took a breath and started coughing, the action so unexpected to her that she fell to her knees. She looked up at me, her face shocked. I wondered how many centuries since she’d had to cough. The CS was working in ways I hadn’t expected. The vamp rolled to her back,
