Blood Trade

one, and insectoid. Ick.

The first one latched on to the barrel of the shotgun as if she intended to use it as a straw. Taking her head was easy, and had the added benefit of peppering the vamps behind her with silver flechettes. It didn’t kill them, but it made three of them jump back. I put a hole in the two still moving forward and slammed the door shut. I had counted only four rounds, but the shotgun was empty and I broke open the M4 to reload from my handy-dandy shell holder. I could hear the creatures screaming inside, even over the concussive eardrum damage from the shotgun. They might not look like vamps, but they had the vamp death scream down pat.

To the others, who had gathered close, I said, “I count five,” like it was a game we were playing or something.

Eli removed a metal shim from his go-bag and rammed it under the latching mechanism, effectively sealing them in, and the ease of it had me laughing. “That’s the easiest vamp trap I ever saw.”

He gave me that little no-smile of humor. “After the last time we were in Natchez, I started carrying extra equipment. Let’s clear this place and come back,” he added to Syl.

“Yeah.” I loaded the six additional rounds fast, and moved out behind the happy, courting couple.

There was only one revenant vamp still loose, and he was chewing on a dead security guard. Eli took the vamp’s head with his vamp-killer, a silver-plated machete. He used it like he’d had plenty of practice, and made me wonder about the scars on his chest and neck and face. Not that I’d ask. But I did wonder. And I wondered what he’d tell Sylvia, if anything. The cause of his wounds was classified, so it wasn’t likely.

The guard was propped against a locked door, an empty can of mace in his lap. “Yeah,” I said. “Mace is gonna do a lot of good. It might make the vamp’s sense of smell less acute, but it won’t stop a brainless killing machine.”

We turned away, but I heard a whimper and grabbed Eli’s arm. “What?” he asked. I paused, releasing his arm so he would have full range of motion. He stepped behind me, pushing Sylvia nearer me and protecting the womenfolk, the idiot man, but still covering my back, as Sylvia and I studied the hallway. And this time we all heard it: a whimper. Coming from the guard. “No way,” Syl said.

I saw a sliver of bloody cloth that had once been white sticking out from under the guard’s blood-soaked navy pants. “Crap,” I whispered. Silently, I stepped back and bent my knees, wedging my hands under his flaccid arms and standing, pulling him away from the corner. A little girl was curled into a ball behind his body, eyes closed tightly, a thumb in her mouth. Whimpering softly with each breath, a rhythmic moan of fear. I dropped the guard to the side and lifted the girl in my arms. “It’s all right, sweetie,” I murmured. “The bad men are gone.” I stepped over the guard, mentally saluting him, cradling the child. She was dark-haired with death-pale skin and a heartbeat I could hear, racing and bouncing. “It’s all right, sweetie,” I repeated. “The bad men are gone.”

Eli moved in front, guarding our passage out. I handed Sylvia my shotgun and she fell behind, scanning our trail out, walking halfway backward. In the main room, back at the fridge, Eli pulled a flashbang off his vest and nodded at me. “You’re faster than Syl. Give her the girl.” Understanding what he wanted, I switched the child for the M4. The smaller woman cradled the little girl gently, carrying her out of sight of the bodies. “Stay close,” Eli told her. “Just in case.”

To me, he said, “Make it fast. On three. One.” He activated the stun grenade. “Two. Three.”

I pulled out the shim and yanked the door open as he tossed in the grenade. Using Beast’s speed, I slammed the door shut, catching the top of a vamp’s head and part of a hand before they jumped back again.

The flashbang went off with a massive thump, the concussion and intense wattage muted by the thick walls of the cold room, and followed almost instantly by the pealing, nearly ultrasonic screams of vamps in agony. I jerked the door open again and took out three revenants while Eli took three more. I had no idea where the sixth one had come from. Maybe newly risen since the last time I peeked.

Even though I could practically feel Sylvia’s disapproval, which I ignored, I took pics of the cold room and each of the vamps—or what was left of them—and then left the gore-spattered place and took more pics of the other true-dead. Proof for payment. When I was done, Sylvia handed me the child and started making calls. Lots of calls. Carrying the little girl, I walked outside and sat in the SUV. I turned on the engine and the heater, wrapped the child in a blanket I took from Eli’s emergency supplies, and cradled her on my lap.

Beast sighed at me, murmuring, Kit. Love kit. She lay her head on her paws and looked up at me, her eyes lonely. Want kits. Too long since I suckled kits. She blew out a breath and twitched her ears, smelling the child. Want kits.

Her desire for family stormed up through me, bringing tears to my eyes, tears that rolled down my face and dripped onto Eli’s blanket. I wiped them off, my palm rough on my skin, pulling, hurting, my breathing loud in the SUV. I couldn’t give her kits without being in Beast skin for a long, long time. I couldn’t have a child without staying in human form for a long, long time. There was no easy answer to her need.

Minutes ticked by as I murmured endearments to the little girl. She fell asleep, her breathing soft and regular. She was so exhausted that she didn’t stir when the parking lot filled with emergency vehicles, sirens sounding, lights flashing. Uniformed men and women ran for the building, and most came back out, anger in their postures, faces hard. Their comrades had fallen and there was nothing left to kill. I understood the need for vengeance, and the impotence produced when that was denied.

The SUV was warm by the time Rick drove up, a woman from social services following him. The two stood in the chill night air, talking about the girl, from what I could make out. I turned off the SUV and let the silence cover me as my arms involuntarily tightened on the sleeping bundle in my lap. I was glad I was hidden in the vehicle, so no one could see the anguish I felt over giving her up.

I/we saved her, Beast thought at me, her voice a low growl. She is ours.

“She has a family,” I whispered. “We have to let her go.”

They were not here to protect her.

The security guard protected her, I thought. That makes him family. And his family her family. She isn’t ours.

Molly’s kits are ours. Angie Baby is ours.

“No,” I whispered aloud. “Not anymore.”

Beast growled and paced away to hide deep in my mind, her eyes slit in displeasure.

The girl was asleep in my arms when the social worker came toward the vehicle. I opened the door and turned in the seat, letting my boots hit the parking lot. The woman was short, stout, and motherly. And took the little girl away. I watched the social worker carry her to her car and drive away, my arms feeling heavy and empty. The darkness I’d been hiding from for days rose in me like a storm cloud, looking for something or someone to take out my fury and despondency on.

Instead of a revenant I could kill, Sylvia spotted me sitting in the dark and walked over, her hand on her gun butt, that angry-cop look lurking in her eyes. She said. “Cops are dead in there, and you were taking pictures. So you could get paid.”

She was right. What could I say? It was a stupid waste of time, but I tried logic. “You take crime-scene pictures. So do I. And, like you, I study them later to see what I missed, what I could have done differently. And, like you, I get paid because of those pictures.”

“Don’t compare us,” she snarled.

And I realized what she really wanted. I smiled, showing teeth, and reared back in the bucket seat, half in and half out of the vehicle, crossing my boots at the ankles. I laced my fingers across my midsection, going for irritating snark in both expression and body language. From the way her mouth tightened, I’d say I’d succeeded.

“Why not? You’d stay on the job if the county said you had to serve for free?” I asked.

“It isn’t the same thing.”

“No? If our country was attacked and our marines were cut off from supplies and pay, they would keep fighting, no matter what. They take an oath. You were elected,” I goaded. “Pay stops, I bet you’d stop doing the job too.”

“You don’t know me well enough to insult me.”

“Back atcha, Syl.”

It took a moment for her eyes to register her understanding, and when they did, her mouth turned down as if