Blood Trade

“Yeah. Sounds like our critters.” Eli grunted, and it sounded like cursing. “Silver?”

“Won’t kill them. They—” I stopped and sat up in the seat. “The whole Naturaleza thing has always resulted in stronger, faster, harder-to-kill vamps. Maybe the spidey vamps are Naturaleza revenants, are a way to make vamps immune to everything. Silver, stakes in the heart, even partial beheading. Traditionally, less than three percent of staked vamps rise as revenants. Maybe the Naturaleza leader is experimenting on scions, making them into revenants, trying new magics forced from the missing witches to see what works. Some have seemed like rogues, newly risen and unintelligent; others have been in control of their faculties. Maybe the spidey vamps are a stepping stone to vamp perfection, or a mistake along the way.”

“I don’t really care where they come from or who their mommies are,” Eli said. “I just want to kill the suckers.”

“Yeah. Okay,” I said, thinking. “Me too.” But even I could hear the lack of real interest. For once questions about vamps were more interesting than just killing them.

“This might help.” He handed me a brown paper bag. It was heavier than I expected, and I nearly dropped it. I looked from the bag to him and back, and reached in. I pulled out a shotgun-shell holder, already loaded with rounds.

I felt my heart lighten. “Swuuueeet.” I unsnapped the strap and drew the Benelli from its spine holster. Eli opened his tool kit, flipped on a tiny tight-beamed light, and quickly mounted the device on the left side of the receiver while I watched. I now had quick access to an additional six shells. “I like. How much do I owe you?”

“Not a dime. Consider it a belated birthday present.”

I felt odd and didn’t know what to say, like maybe . . . shy. Or something. So I drew on my Christian children’s-home manners and said, “Thank you. It’s really, really nice.” Eli snorted, and I ducked my head, realizing that nice was probably not a good description for a weapon accessory, but it was all I had. I turned the holder over, admiring it from every angle, figuring out how the holder would affect the way the gun rested on my body from the strap, and how I’d handle it in the holster, and how the slight change in weight might affect firing. The draw would be different, and I worked through the mechanics of it. “Really nice,” I said happily.

I turned as a shadow caught my attention and watched Sylvia Turpin approach the car. “She’s pretty,” I said.

“She’s a knockout. And she likes guns almost as much as you do.”

I gave a half smile. I wish my love life was so uncomplicated. And then I thought about the two together as a couple. Instead of a white picket fence, these two would have a gun range and a fallout shelter with enough food to hide out for a whole year. Right. There was uncomplicated and then there was Eli and Sylvia. Not uncomplicated; just a different kind of complication.

Eli rolled down his window. Sylvia bent down and rested both arms on the window ledge. She was wearing makeup again, and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. “Hiya,” she said. “The doc’s getting ready to start another autopsy. Come on in.”

“Coffee anywhere?” Eli asked, opening his door and stepping to the pavement.

“The cafeteria has a coffee bar this month. Something new they’re trying to beat back the competition. It’s not real coffee—you know. the burnt sludge from the bottom of the pot after it’s been sitting all day—but it isn’t bad. It’s horribly fresh, with all sorts of icky flavorings. And the espresso is made while you wait.”

“I’ll buy you some of this horrible coffee,” Eli said.

Sylvia laughed, and I figured all was okay now with their weird relationship. “The doc’s all excited about the vamps’ external characteristics. He can’t wait to get them open.”

“Get them—” Eli grabbed her arm. “You did take their heads already.” At her wide eyes he added, “Hell. You didn’t get my text. Did you?” Sylvia shook her head. “There’s a good chance the new-style vamps will rise as revenants unless you take their heads.”

I heard a beepbeepbeep. The sheriff went from dead stop to a sprint in a half second, pulling her police radio. She shouted back to us, “That’s man down! We got trouble in the morgue!” She shouted into the radio as we dashed down the sidewalk, “Take their heads! It’s the only way to kill them!” Over the radio, we heard gunshots and screaming.

No one stopped us as we entered a side door that had been propped open with a pencil. Sylvia kicked the pencil out of the way and we raced down a hallway as the door closed behind us, took a right down another hall, and flew down a short flight of stairs. We heard muffled screams and more gunshots. Sylvia rammed open the door at the bottom while drawing her service weapon. I reached up and pulled the M4, adjusted the vamp-killer on my left hip, and let out some of Beast as we ran. Her strength and speed flowed into me like a drug, and I laughed shortly, showing my teeth.

We spun around a corner and stopped. Two cops were lying in a pool of blood, service revolvers out, throats torn away.

And the first thing landed on Sylvia.

CHAPTER 18 The Bad Men Are Gone

Eli let out a war scream and jumped in front. Stupid man. I nearly shot him. Instead, I adjusted my aim, braced the M4, and fired point-blank at the next thing. They were spidey vamps all right, but next-gen spidey vamps. Faster than lightning and nearly as deadly. The one I shot took the blast midcenter and didn’t even pause except to change direction by shoving off Eli’s back and leaping at me. I fired two shots in rapid sequence. Not gonna get chewed on twice.

The spidey vamp landed on me, gasping, and I let her slide down me to the floor. I put the shotgun to her head and fired. She stopped moving, so I pulled the vamp-killer and took her head. Eli was lifting Sylvia to her feet. She was covered in gore, and my heart fell. “How much of that is yours?” I asked.

“None,” she said, and smiled at Eli.

Young love is so cute, I thought. And then realized I’d said it aloud. I shook myself and jogged away from them toward the sound of screams.

Most morgues these days don’t use the pull-out, refrigerated, coffin-sized beds, except for new arrivals or bodies still being processed. (That’s what they call it. Processed. Not slicing and dicing, measuring and scooping.) Most modern morgues use a cold room—a walk-in refrigerator where they can store bodies one of two ways: stack them on bunk-style ledges that look like prison beds, but without the charm or the pretense of a mattress, or on roll-in gurneys. In the autopsy suite, I stepped over the body on the floor. Someone had taken the liberty of beheading a spidey vamp, second gen. He was naked and had a hard carapace, like a spider’s, over his chest—or, rather, it was part of his chest. The carapace was brown and covered with coarse hairs, spiked and barbed. If he had ever been human, he’d lost it totally.

Farther in the room was another one, still alive, her head only half removed. She was sitting on top of a human, her face buried in his belly, slurping. For creatures who had a rep for physical speed, their mental abilities were more along the lines of brain-dead. I reared back with the vamp-killer and yelled, “Hey, fanghead!” The vamp looked up and focused on me. Multifaceted eyes bulged from her face. Fly eyes. I hurled my arm forward with all my strength behind it.

Though I cut with anger rather than skill, I took her head, the blow sending it spinning, and I could have sworn she stared at me the whole time, until her head whapped into the wall. At my feet, her body was reaching for me. I kicked it away from the human beneath. It was the pathologist, and he was way too dead for any help.

Reaching for the handle of the cold room, I had a moment’s memory of the building today with the refrigerator and the white witch circle painted on the floor. This fridge was empty of witch circles, but the moment I opened the door, I was charged by more vamp things. I caught half a breath, pulling the M4 into firing position as they flowed across the space like centipedes, a swirling yet jerky motion. The musk they exuded was dry and ammoniac, and they moved so fast I had only an instant of impression before the first one was on me. Naked, every