“Yeah, and he hasn’t fed, so he’s not showing up well.”
“You need me to spot him.”
“Yes,” Hill said.
“Spot him how? How can Blake see better than the infrared?” Brice asked.
“Explanations later,” I said to Brice; to Hill I said, “Has he got control of the hostages using vampire mind tricks?”
“Doesn’t seem to; we’re hearing crying and some small screams from the wife and kids. They sound aware and unhappy.”
“Good that they’re not on his side, so they won’t fight us, but shooting him in front of the wife and kids is going to be traumatic. She could lose the baby; the kids could be fucked up.”
“It’s a last resort.”
“Why isn’t he controlling them with his eyes and mind?” Brice said.
Yes, I’d told him to shut up, but that wasn’t the most diplomatic thing to say, so I answered a question as I tightened the last few straps. “It doesn’t work automatically, and extreme emotion can keep you safe from mind tricks. She probably hates and fears him. He’s a baby vamp; he can’t control the situation.”
“But…”
“Enough.” To Hill I said, “I’m suited up, let’s do it.”
Hill didn’t bother to question; he just trusted that I had everything I needed, and he trusted in something else. He started out at a jog down the street. I paced him easily. We were both carrying between twenty-five and fifty extra pounds of equipment, depending on the kind of operation, the speed at which you needed to move, and dozens of variables. He glanced over at me, smiled, and started to run. That was why they’d sent Hill. They were all in damn good shape, but Hill was in exceptional shape, and he ran, not just for exercise, but for endurance. If I’d been human, just human, female and my size, no matter how good a shape I was in, I probably couldn’t have kept up with him, but I wasn’t human. I was one of the monsters, and my jogging partners were wereanimals. Hill was good, but he was only human. My pulse and heart rates were still even, a bit faster, but not much. We ran down the lighted street together, me having to push my pace only because his legs were inches longer than mine.
Hill led me into the first yard. I just turned with him, following the minute tells his body gave for the movements. It was the same way a lion follows a gazelle on the plains, or the way a fighter knows that the next fist is coming at his head; you see micromovements that tell you what the next big movement will be. The grass was harder footing than the road, but I dug in and kept with him. There was a light in the yard, but the yards beyond were more shadows than light. He vaulted the first fence, one-armed. I used two, and had plenty of breath to say, “Show-off.”
He gave a low, growly laugh. It wasn’t a beast rising, but the testosterone rising. He was male, and he was in an adrenaline rush, and he was finally able to really push his body physically and expend some of that waiting energy. There are things besides lycanthropy and sex that make a man’s voice go lower. He hit the fence on the other side of the yard. We went over it, and we kept going over them. We left the lights behind and ran, and climbed, in the suburban dark. I trusted that this was the best way in, and that Hill knew any obstacles, and that we could handle any surprises. I trusted that SWAT had cleared all the houses that needed clearing. I trusted that everyone had done their job before I got there, and all I had to do was mine.
18
HILL AND I arrived behind the house, pulses in our throats, hearts beating, slow and thick, bodies slick with sweat. Sutton and Hermes were waiting for us, lost in the blackness of underbrush and night. I didn’t see them in the dark, but I smelled the oil on Sutton’s big fucking gun. He’d brought the Barrett.50-caliber, good for stopping charging rhinos, stray elephants, and any kind of preternatural that bullets could harm. In a neighborhood packed this tight with houses I wouldn’t have wanted to use it, because if the big bullet missed its intended target, it would keep traveling until it hit something. A.50-caliber bullet would take out most of the chest on a vampire or wereanimal; on a normal human it would take out the upper part of the entire body. To bring the big gun here said something about Sutton’s arrogance about his own abilities and his teammate’s confidence in him. He’d already put the Barrett on its little tripod stand, so he didn’t have to hold the six-foot barrel. He was kneeling on the spread blanketlike surface of the drag bag that he’d carried the gun in; now it was a nice little shooting platform thick enough you didn’t have to worry about twigs, rocks, broken glass, or whatever. It was like a picnic blanket but without the basket of edible goodies.
Hermes had put some sort of liniment on a joint, probably his knee, because the scent was lower down than the arm. It was a faint, sharp undersmell. Would I have noticed the scents of Sutton’s gun oil or Hermes’s bum knee if Hill hadn’t told me the sniper would be waiting for us? I wasn’t sure; maybe not. Hill and I knelt with them in the planted tree line that bordered the Bores yard and the one behind us. There was no light in either yard. It was the thickest dark that I’d seen in any yard. I had a moment to wonder if SWAT had helped the lights to be out, but it didn’t matter. We knelt in a pool of darkness and second-growth bushes and small trees, with Sutton, and were as hidden as if we’d been in deep woods. Even if the vampire looked out the window he would miss us. It wasn’t his eyes we had to worry about.
I was almost shoulder to shoulder with Hill, so the fact that I could hear his heartbeat, his pulse thudding faintly in his throat, was almost to be expected. I tried to hear Sutton’s and Hermes’s bodies, and it was more that I could feel the vampire like heat in the dark. I just knew he was there, but again, would I have been so certain of it if I hadn’t known it? I hoped not, because that was the real problem with supernaturals; they had other, better senses than normals.
Lincoln’s voice whispered in my ear, “Kids and dog are coming out.”
Sutton asked, voice low, “Did perp send the dog out, or did the kids insist on taking it?”
“Perp sent it.”
“Shit,” Sutton and Hermes said together.
Hill said, “Crap.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“He either sent the dog and kids out so they won’t see him kill Mom, or didn’t want the dog to bite him,” Hill said.
“Either way,” Sutton said, “it’s not good.”
“Spot him for us, Blake,” Hermes said.
I didn’t argue; I just looked at the side of the house and lowered my control. I used to say that I lowered my metaphysical shields, but I could keep my shields that protected me in place and still strike out through them. It was like having a shield and sword; you could use the sword and still hug your shield to your body. I tried to do that now, with my necromancy. To use my ability with the dead, but not open myself up so that the vampire inside could spot me metaphysically. I’d only recently learned how to use my power and stay more hidden from the undead in a given area; before this it had been like lighting a bonfire every time I used my abilities. Great as a distraction, an attraction, or if I was positive that I could take out whatever was coming to get me. Being able to do it quieter made my psychic gifts way more useful for police work.
I reached out toward the vampire; toward that particular vampire. Again, I used to just reach out to the dead, but now I could “aim” better at vampires that weren’t tied directly to me metaphysically. If a vampire was tied to me in some psychic way I could reach out to them pretty easily, but strange vampires were harder. I reached out toward the house, and as silly as it sounded, reaching out with my hand toward the wall of the house helped me aim. It wasn’t like pointing and shooting with my finger, but more like my hand was a line of sight so I could look down it, and follow the line of it toward the house. It was just a visual help, something that helped my eyes get out of the way for my mind.
I felt a vampire in the house, but with one I’d never met before I couldn’t honestly tell you that it was
