Mason, on a split screen, was standing in front of trees, emergency vehicle lights blinking in the distance. “The older ones don’t
“Those attacks were brought to an end by Jane Yellowrock, the local vampire hunter, and a coven of local witches, right?”
I felt myself flush and an electric shock shot through me.
“Janie is famous,” Brandon said, laughing.
“For our viewers, here’s some footage shot by an amateur videographer, the morning when a local sheriff detective, Paul Braxton, was killed trying to take down the vampires in the cave system of the old Partman Place.”
“I remember that, Marcy,” Mason said. “The Partman Place was a nineteenth-century homestead until gemstones were discovered and the land was sold to a mining company.”
Marcy said, “The mine closed down when the gems ran out. Last year, a blood-family of young rogue vampires took it over and local residents started to disappear.” A poor quality feed ran. “When a camper saw two blood-covered females walk out of the mine he took a short video.” On the television screen, his feed zoomed in on my face, my peculiar amber-colored eyes seeming to glow, an effect that had been blamed on the golden sunrise. What else could it be, right? But it was Beast. And people might not be so sanguine about Beast in my eyes now.
“According to some sources, Jane Yellowrock is back in the area. What does she say about these attacks?” Marcy asked.
“We have people tracking her down now. But in unconfirmed reports, she told one law enforcement officer that no vampire caused the wounds.” Mason’s voice sounded skeptical. “Of course, one source suggests that she went to New Orleans to work for the vampires. So that might have changed her perspective.”
“Weird, to go to work for your enemy. But I guess money talks,” Marcy said.
I frowned. On the screen, Molly and I were both covered in blood, the sunlight hitting us as we came out of the mine, into the dawn light, me carrying Brax, Detective Paul Braxton, over my shoulder. Or what was left of him. One of the young rogue-vamps had killed him. The scar on my throat was clear in the video, the angled sunlight of early dawn catching on the raised, ridged, raw, partially healed, red scar. Back then it was four inches wide, brand-new, left over from a near beheading by an enraged young rogue. I had survived by shifting into Beast. And Beast had saved us all by taking down the last rogue-vamp. Dang Internet.
Brandon looked at my neck, still scarred, if you looked closely. “You heal up good.”
I grunted. Swung the backpack over my shoulder, and left the room. On the other side of the hotel, I raised my hand to knock at a room door. Inside, I heard the same announcer, still talking about me, and the rumors surrounding me. She said, “Some sources think it’s possible that Jane Yellowrock may not even be strictly human herself.”
I knocked and Derek opened the door. Fast. As if he had been expecting me. He was still wearing his suit from the night’s work and he held a handgun at his side. His gaze whipped over me and settled on my throat. In my peripheral vision, I saw him unlatch the safety, his finger moving smoothly. Not good. I tensed, knowing that even drawing on Beast-speed, I wasn’t faster than a bullet fired at point-blank range by a trained killer. “What happened to the scar?” His voice was low, emotionless, an interrogator, who intended to scare the crap out of his witness.
A knot rose in my throat, but my voice, when I spoke, was steady. “I took six months off after that kill. It took me that long to heal.” Which was the truth, as far as it went.
“Skin grafts?”
“Something like that.” Actually shifting two or three times a week, letting my body heal from the wound that had nearly decapitated me, but I wasn’t sharing that with him.
“And your eyes in the film? You got an explanation for that?”
“No.”
Suddenly Derek chuckled. “Injun Princess, did I ever tell you I was Creek Indian on my mama’s side?”
“No.” I wondered if Creeks had a skinwalker mythos. I wondered if he guessed about me.
He laughed again, slanting his eyes at me as he reset the safety. I remembered to breathe. “Watchu want Injun Princess?”
“Keys to one of the SUVs. Preferably one fully trucked out.” Meaning one full of com gear, an onboard computer system, GPS, some extra armor plating built in, weapons, and all the other bells and whistles that Leo had provided. Though he didn’t ask, and as the titular head of security on this gig, I didn’t have to volunteer, I added, “They don’t know it yet, but I’m joining the cops and the SAR team this morning.” When he raised his brows, I said, “SAR, park service and civilian-speak for Search and Rescue.”
Derek holstered his weapon and walked across the room. I heard metal clink against glass. “I’ll call for valet parking to bring it around. You need backup?” He tossed a set of keys to me. I caught them one-handed.
“No.” I stepped from his room and closed his door, moving fast, down the hallway. I knew Derek wasn’t exactly a friend, but the sliding safety-off move had caught me off guard. It showed what our relationship was. And wasn’t. In front of the hotel, I slid into the driver’s seat of a partially armored SUV and closed the door. On the way past, I studied the protestors from behind the heavily tinted, bullet-resistant windows. Their signs were not particularly innovative, but they communicated their desires well enough: STAKE ALL VAMPS. VAMPS DIE! CUT OFF THE FANGHEADS. GOD GAVE THE WORLD TO HUMANS. That kind of thing.
I initiated the GIS, merged that info with the GPS as I drove. Buncombe County used GIS, the Geographic Information System, which was part of NC OneMap, a sort of geospatial backbone, mapping, and information project of the state, used by law enforcement, park rangers, realtors, and others who wanted to pay the fee. It allowed info about GPS positions, addresses, parcels of land, individual mountain peaks, etc., to be downloaded onto a spreadsheet or printable map, and was especially helpful in the steep, mountainous land of the county. Leo had provided us access to the system, making my job a lot easier and finding the cops nearly effortless.
It was after eight a.m. when I arrived at the location shown on early morning TV. If this new attack site had been a media zoo so early, it was a circus now. There were seven vans with satellite dishes on top: national broadcast news, local cable, and national cable. A dozen cop cars from different agencies were parked haphazardly among them: Asheville PD, Buncombe County Rescue Squad, a truck with the logo RRT, which was the interagency Regional Response Team, as well as sheriff deputy vehicles. There were maybe forty privately owned vehicles, mostly trucks, and most with stickers on the windows proving them to be owned by trained rescue volunteers. I saw two rescue support trucks, emitting strong odors of burnt coffee and greasy fast food. There was one ambulance, the paramedics sitting in the shade of a tree, chatting. Three trucks had cages in back for canine search units. Which meant that the cops were having trouble finding either the camping/attack site, or had found it and were hunting whatever scent the dogs had discovered. People milled everywhere.
I exited the SUV away from the cameras, tossed my prepacked backpack over a shoulder, and melted into the trees to find the sheriff standing in the shade, shielded by heavy foliage from the view of the cameras. He stood with three other men and a woman at a makeshift portable table, a series of aerial maps in front of him, a laptop open to the side. Sheriff Grizzard had been in office for several years, surviving into his second term, and was already running for a third. He was a hale-fellow-well-met politician, a savvy back-slapping elected official. He didn’t exactly hate me and all I stood for, but at one time he had blamed me for Paul Braxton’s death, and had done everything in his power to put me in jail. There was no evidence against me, but Grizzard’s detective, and Molly’s friend, had been killed on my watch. I had survived. I could understand his animosity.
I stood, half-hidden behind a tree, drawing on Beast’s better hearing, listening to the murmured conversation. From it, I gathered that the search area had been divided into grids early on, the campsite discovered just after dawn. The injured had been hauled up the mountain in rescue baskets and medevaced out. The dead were still in place. Crime scene investigators were working the site, which was widely scattered. And the dogs were tracking the things that had attacked the campers. Things. Multiples.
“I say it’s fangheads, maybe with some sorta spell to hide their footprints, or maybe like that weird thing that killed those people in Louisiana.” The speaker was a short fellow with a full brown beard. He spat to the side,
