Blood Trade

“It might work,” he said. “What are you going to be doing?”

“I’m going to put on dry clothes, run by Walmart for supplies, and then go talk to a preacher.”

CHAPTER 25 Cat Reflexes, One; Blood-Servant Reflexes, Zero

I buzzed the secretary from the security door, staring into the security camera and asking to speak to the preacher. She didn’t want to let me in, this motorcycle mama in leather, with dark circles under her eyes and a look of death and danger about her, but I told her to tell Preacher Hosenfeld that the little girl with leukemia needed his help. Moments later, I saw the older guy coming down the hall to the door. He was wearing a cheap suit, white shirt, and tie, even on a weekday, his gray hair combed back with some kinda goop like they wore in the fifties, though he couldn’t be old enough for that style to have been around in his formative years. He studied me through the windows before I heard several locks click and the door opened. “I hope I’m not being foolish opening the door to you, young lady.”

“I kill vamps for a living, including the one who has Charly’s mom. I intend to get her back.”

“Charly. That is the little girl from Sunday,” he said, hesitant.

“Yeah. A vamp put her mother, Misha, into a charmed circle and it’s killing her.”

Hosenfeld looked confused. It cleared up fast. “A circle. She’s a witch, then, this woman you want to save.”

I felt my heart shrivel. A lot of Christians felt witches were of the devil. “Yes,” I said tersely.

“Are you a Christian?”

“Baptized in a river when I was a teenager. I go to church most Sundays. My favorite Bible verse is ‘Jesus wept.’”

“Because it’s the shortest?” He almost smiled.

“No. Because it says that Jesus knew what it meant to grieve. He’d just let his best friend in the world die of illness when he could have gotten there in time to save him. I’m thinking he was between a rock and hard place, and the hard place let his friend die. He grieved. Then, when he could, he went and raised his friend from the grave, and he knew that if he did that, he’d die himself.”

“That is a very complicated scenario.” His smile was wider now, and his shoulders had relaxed. “And do you pray?”

This man was an elder. He was asking me questions, and one did not lie to an elder. I blew out a breath and tried to find an answer to his question. “I think about God. I confess. A lot. But at the same time, it’s been a while since I . . .” I shrugged, uncomfortable, “since I got on my knees.”

“I have never met a Christian warrior such as yourself.”

I opened my mouth and closed it. I had no idea what to say about that and no desire to debate it either. “Here’s the deal,” I said. “I want to use the church’s baptismal water to flush out the vamps,” I held up the empty vials I had bought from Walmart. “and I don’t have time to play word games. But it isn’t like I can steal the water.”

“And you want me to help a witch,” he clarified.

I shrugged and settled on, “People of all faiths are responsible to help the weak, the downtrodden, the sick, and the helpless, especially children. And of all the religions in the world, Christians are the only ones that are commanded not to judge, yet we do every day—gay people, ethnicities different from our own, people in mixed relationships, people with gifts they were born with, power they were born with, genetic mutations they were born with, illnesses of the brain and body. I’ve got a little girl’s mother to save, and, yes, she’s a witch. Are you gonna make it possible for me to save her?”

Herman Hosenfeld’s face wrinkled up in a smile. “Of course. How do we do it?”

“We?” My voice squeaked just a tad on the word.

“Of course. I’ll be there for prayer support, and”—he held up a hand to stop my reply—“I promise to stay out of your way. There are no other options, young lady. I have a daughter who is a lesbian and married to her witch partner for the past fifteen years. My wife and I lost her years ago through misunderstanding and judgmental attitudes and sheer, blind stupidity. I am no longer so foolish to think God sees her lifestyle with greater ire than he does my judgments.”

“The name is Jane Yellowrock, I am not young, and I am not a lady. And you are not what I was expecting.”

“You are a surprise in my day too.”

•   •   •

We had a small parade of vehicles all idling in front of an empty lot, wasting gas. It had started to rain again, spats of sprinkles hitting the windshield, making the cars behind us waver through the Earth’s tears. Eli opened the driver’s door and climbed in. He was slightly damp, and his hands were empty. He turned on the wipers and said, “Canisters discharged. But without a better idea of the cubic feet of space—”

“I know,” I interrupted. “I understand.” There hadn’t been time to do the necessary research, even for whizzes like the Kid and Bodat. We had no floor plans or maps of the lair under the house. Most important, we were even guessing that Big H was still in his Clan home, having based that assumption on the fact that I had given him the plague vaccine at dawn and he would have been too tired the following night to move to another location. Guesswork and assumptions. Crap. Eli tilted his neck to the side and his cervical spine made a rapid series of cracks. “How’s it going?” I asked over my shoulder.

The Kid and Bodat were in the backseat of the SUV, computers in hand, monitoring everything from police and emergency responsiveness to the weather, and keeping eyes on the inside of the house we were about to attack. “Piece of cake once we drilled into Big H’s security system,” Bodat said. “The vamp has cameras all over the place.”

Excitement sparked down my nerves and worry pulled at my mind. This could go wrong in so many ways—not least that my theory about the copper necklace was wrong and the pendant was something else.

Or that the holy water wouldn’t work. I rearranged the vials of holy water attached to my jacket. I had it in plasticized glass, so I didn’t risk them cracking or shattering. But it still sloshed. I had never carried so many vials before.

I checked the gun in my lap again. It was a U.S. model M32, a lightweight, six-shot, 40-millimeter launcher that could be a grenade launcher or a riot gun. It was loaded with six rounds of rubber bullets and, while it was a pain in the butt to reload, it gave me a chance of keeping my promise to Soul to not kill humans. I adjusted the military combat helmet with ear protectors and the built-in com unit. It felt weird on my head.

“We are live,” the Kid said into the headset he wore. “Flash headlights if you can hear me.” Lights flashed behind us. Eli and I raised our hands, thumbs up.

“The security system is in my hands,” the Kid said, his voice all business.

“Alarm system is off,” Bodat said. “Elevator is shut down.”

“Feed is now being sent to your cell phones,” the Kid said into the headset, “so use them if you get separated. Doors to the basement stairs are unlocked and will not alarm.” His fingers clacked on the keys of his tablet, and he took a breath that hissed into my earpieces. “Totally cool underground escape passageway is sealed. No one can get in or out through it.”

“Eli, time?” he asked his brother.

Eli, his eyes on his chrono watch said, “Now. Air should be clear.”

Alex shouted into his mic, “Go, go, go, go, go, go, go!”

Eli rammed the transmission into drive and took off with tires spitting debris, even with the extra load and the rain.

We pulled up to Big H’s fancy-schmancy house outside of town, but we didn’t stop at the curb. We squealed into the drive and then straight up to the front door, ruining the vamp’s perfect green lawn and squashing a patch of azaleas.

Moving fast, Eli and Bruiser met at the back of the SUV while I pounded up the steps and into the house. I paused in the middle of the ornate foyer and took a quick, exploratory breath. I could smell fumes, but nothing we