Blood Trade

Eli scratched his chin and said, “We’re supposed to be partners of a sort. How about we buy in to Yellowrock Security. Alex and I have a little money from our parents’ estate.” He named a figure that made me blink. And then mouth it, trying to blend that six-figure number into my lifestyle. You coulda picked me up with a spatula. I had no idea what to say, so I said nothing. Taking my silence as a positive response, Eli went on. “If you agree, we could actually organize this company legally instead of flying by the seat of our pants, Jane style. Get tax stuff and insurance stuff handled, Liability insurance.”

Which I had never thought to need, but if I was going to have partners and hire humans to work with me, I guess I needed it. All of it. Crap. I never intended to be a part of big business.

So I thought about that a while too. About not being in charge, not making all the decisions, not having my way all the time. And about having backup all the time. And having the boys stick around.

“I’m not saying yes.” But my mouth went on as if part of my brain had been thinking about this for a long time. “But if I was, I’d be thinking that I get sixty percent,” I said. “You two split forty. I handle all legal matters, with your input. Salaries to be decided, commensurate with company earnings, and expenses to be discussed at a later date. And you can stay with me as long as you like.”

“Done,” Eli said, as if the division of the company that had recently been mine alone was exactly what he had been considering before he made his offer. A glow moved out from my torso, making me feel light and kinda weird. I realized I was happy. Content. For all intents and purposes, I had just sold forty percent of my company. And my life. And I was happy about it. A small smile started and I let it take over my mouth all by itself.

We made it halfway back to Esmee’s before Eli said, “So. All of your meetings go like that? The one with Hieronymus, not the one with me.”

“Pretty much.”

“How much of that was bullsh . . . malarkey?”

I laughed under my breath. “Not all of it.”

“Good. Because that means it isn’t a hidden lie that has us being tailed.”

“Crap.” I looked over my shoulder and saw three cars in the distance. “Which one?”

“All of them.”

CHAPTER 5 Four Dead Vamps Under His Tree

I started pulling and checking weapons, and wished I had been paranoid enough to bring the M4. I didn’t place the guns on the seat, but reholstered them. If Eli had to do any fancy driving, I didn’t want them slinging around the interior. “What do you have with you?” I asked.

“A dozen flashbangs, which are essentially useless in open space. Six frags, and in the back enough nine mil and .380 ammo to kill off a small tribe of werewolves or vamps.”

“Silver, then.”

“Yeah. If we’re being followed by humans, that changes things. You want to call it in?”

“If we call in the cops and the people behind us are drunken rednecks out for a little fun at the vamp hunter’s expense, we’ll look stupid. Looking stupid is dangerous in a town full of vamps. It makes us look like prey.” I repositioned all my spare magazines into my pockets and crawled over the seat back. There was a midsized tote bag full of boxes. Heavy boxes. Ammo. I stuck extra mags into my pockets and waistband, but I didn’t take any boxes of bullets. Chances were, if we needed to reload the magazines we had on us, we’d already be drained.

“And if it’s Naturaleza vamps out for a little blood at the vamp hunter’s expense,” Eli said after a moment’s thought, “we’ll look dead.”

“True. You want me to call it in?” I asked.

“No. There’s an open field a mile ahead with a shed full of hay. If we can make that, we can make a stand from the woods or the shed. Decide later how serious our tail is.”

“Works for me.” I said. I remembered the location he was talking about. The shed was at the back of the field, about a hundred yards off the road, near a stand of trees. A shed full of hay was moderately good at stopping bullets. So were trees. Options were nice to have.

My foot hit something on the floorboard. I bent and lifted it into the faint light. “Did you know there’s a shotgun back here?”

“Huh. I wondered where that thing had got to.”

“Yeah. Mine runs and hides too. What’s it loaded with?”

“Your rounds. More in the ammo bag.”

My rounds meant the weapon was loaded for vamp with silver flechette rounds. Vamp killers. Expensive vamp killers I hadn’t known I had paid for, but under the circumstances, I wasn’t about to protest.

“Hang on,” he said. I gripped the leather handhold over the door as Eli whipped the wheel. The SUV crossed the shoulder of the road before leaving the paved surface, tilting down and back up. I felt the steel frame give, heard the suspension twang and the tires spit dirt and gravel. My head slammed against the SUV roof, grinding my hair-stick stakes into my skull. And then we were up and over and bouncing across the grassy field. I grabbed handholds and seat backs and glanced through the back window to see three trucks following, bouncing over the low ditch. Headlights passed through truck windows, and I counted three or four heads in each. That meant more than nine, though less than twelve, opponents, which were not good odds. If they were all Naturaleza vamps, we might be screwed.

“Hang on!” Eli shouted again. The brakes slid and caught with an antiskid shudder. I slipped across the seat, tightening my grip on the overhead handhold at the last second, seeing the shed whip by. And then I was out the door, into the woods, Eli on my heels. He had left the engine running to cover the sound of our movement, the exhaust to hide our scent, and the SUV’s bright lights on to damage the pursuers’ eyes.

Beast was close in my mind, her claws a steady pain on my brain, her strength and speed flooding me. I raced into the night, her vision brightening the dark, turning the black into silvers and grays and shimmering greens. Where the moonlight filtered between the leafless trees it lit up the ground like daylight. Eli was slower than I was but fell into place behind me, trusting me to see in the dark until he got his low-light vision eyewear over his head. He moved to my side when he could see.

Behind us I heard engines and doors slamming and then silence as all the vehicles were turned off, including ours. There were no voices, no sound of running feet, no flashlights. Vamps have excellent night vision; they didn’t need flashlights. Crap.

The night was hushed, no bird sounds, no nearby car sounds. The air was still and cold, as if waiting for something to happen. Ahead I could smell standing water, stagnant with rotted vegetation, and a mixed bag of strong chemicals. Fertilizers. Herbicides. Bug spray. Over it all was the stench of drying cow manure. A stand of young live oaks, maybe fifty years old, stood in even lines, the only trees in sight that still had their leaves. We were in the back of a plantation home, in an area used as a nursery.

I stopped at the second tree and grabbed Eli, pulling him close, my mouth at his ear. “Get up in the tree. I’ll take a tree a row over and down a few. Let them get between us, then shoot down on them. Pincer style.”

He looked up and shook his head. I understood what he was thinking. He didn’t have time to climb that high before they were on us, but he’d forgotten about my skinwalker strength, now augmented by all my new muscle. I laced my fingers and made a cradle of my hands. He put a booted foot into them and I tossed him up into the tree, holding my place until he was situated, his face just a little stunned. Then I raced across and down, choosing a tree about thirty feet away on the diagonal. I bent into a crouch and leaped, grabbing the lowest branch and hoisting myself up. All the months of exercise paid off as I muscled myself halfway up the tree and straddled a branch. On the rising breeze, I smelled vamp and sickness and a beery stench. And human blood. A lot of blood. These were Naturaleza. And they were here.

They poured into the wide space between trees. Three in front; two behind. Others farther back in the trees were closing fast. The three in front dropped forward, feet and hands to the ground, and raced into the clearing