Cat Adams - Blood Song

close, it stank badly enough to make me want to vomit. In the background I could hear the manager’s

swearing and the prince’s laconic response.

The only light was from the doorway behind us and the distant glow of a halogen streetlight past the

al ey entrance some twenty yards away. The odd lighting made the shadows deeper, so that every

recessed doorway seemed sinister, every Dumpster perfect cover. I kept my eyes moving, scanning

not only ground level but also the metal fire escape ladders and the tops of the flat-roofed buildings.

The door we’d come out of was the fourth down in the row of buildings, giving us about twenty yards to

traverse to the main street if we went right, almost a hundred yards if we turned left.

I stared down the al ey, catching a glimpse of the front of the building reflected in the porn shop

window display across the street. I didn’t see flashing lights reflected in the glass or any sign of a

police cruiser. Before I could piece together what that might mean, a sound made me turn.

A rat skittered. It was bigger than some of the more fashionable dogs, and had been startled by

something. I didn’t fire, but it distracted me, costing me a valuable second of concentration.

As I turned back there was a wet, tearing sound … then a grunt of pain. A shot rang out as a warm

rain splattered my face and I smel ed raw meat and fresh blood. Just that fast, Bob was down. I fired

into the eye of his attacker that was visible above the throat where he was feeding. The entry wound

was deceptively smal , but blood, brain, and bone splattered against the wal behind him, sliding in

runnels down the rough surface of the brick. The vampire dropped Bob, lunging for me with (literal y)

mindless rage. I fired two more shots directly into his chest until he went down for good and I was sure

there wouldn’t be enough heart left to stake.

“We’ve got bats!” I could barely hear my own voice shout the warning to the other guards as I turned

on instinct to fire at a shape moving at me with blurring speed from beside a Dumpster. The vampire

shrieked but kept coming, swinging a clawed hand at my head. I ducked the blow and waited for that

split second when the momentum would swing his body around, then fired a pair of shots through the

back at an angle intended to take out the heart.

He fel , like a puppet whose strings had been cut. I fired into his head. My last shot in the Colt.

My hearing was almost completely gone now, too much gunfire echoing off the metal of the

Dumpsters and fire doors, but if there were more vamps, they were holding off. I cal ed for the others

to cover me, holstered the Colt, and grabbed Bob’s body under the armpits. I started dragging him

backward toward the light stil coming from the door to the strip club. He was hurt badly enough that he

was going to die in minutes without help. A pair of dark shapes were closing in from either end of the

al ey, moving with that eerie grace some of the older vampires have.

I was almost to the base of the stairs. Bob’s body wasn’t moving, but blood was stil pumping, leaving

a wet trail in our wake that was dark and al too visible as I backed into the light.

I risked a glance backward. There was a scuffle going on inside the door. I couldn’t see the young

bodyguard, but I caught a glimpse of the prince. As I watched, the royal body began to shimmer,

features moving as if made of badly molded clay until another man stood where the prince had been.

He and the manager were firing steadily into the doorway where the refrigerator was stil upright,

despite the explosions of flesh and blood from his back.

Time slowed to a crawl. I had al the time in the world to watch the huge black man fal backward in

slow motion off the stairs to slam into the Dumpster. As his body bounced lifelessly to the floor of the

al ey, the fire door swung solidly closed with an echoing clang.

With the disappearance of the light and my escape route, the vamps grew bolder, two of them moving

forward as a third dropped from the fire escape of a nearby building, landing soft and silent as a

snowflake.

Fuck a duck.

There was no time for a stake, my remaining squirt gun was literally a one-shot, and my backup gun

was a Derringer. Two shots. None of it was going to do me a damned bit of good against these

numbers. Then Bob shifted, struggling against my attempt to keep him stil . He grunted in pain from the

effort, and while he couldn’t talk, the movement showed me he had a backup gun he hadn’t shown me

earlier.

Bless you, Bob.

I set him onto the ground and drew his weapon. Stepping back, I settled into a shooting stance, my

back against the fire door.

The vampires were moving in slowly. I didn’t think it was from caution, although they knew what silver

bul ets can do. It was more to savor the moment, revel in the scent of my fear. Because in the end,

even the toughest human is afraid of the monsters.

I fired, and the loads in his gun were hot enough that the textured grip tore at the skin on my palm.

Instead of a clean shot to the heart, the barrel pul ed up and right, so that the bul et sliced through the

vampire’s neck. It took out his spine, and blood sprayed in a fountain from the severed arteries.

Too many deaths in too smal a space. The smel of blood and meat fil ed the al ey, overwhelming

even the stench of rotting garbage.

It hadn’t been intentional, but it was at least graphic enough to stop the other bats in their tracks for a

second. I kept firing, adjusting for the pul from the loads, trying for heart shots in the hope of breaking

the pack or at least slowing them down.

It didn’t work. The tal est, a lanky male with red hair and freckles who looked like Opie, bared fangs.

Apparently he was one of the leaders. One look from him and they moved, circling like a pack of

animals on the hunt. He hissed, baring fangs at me a second time. It was an inhuman sound. Every

hair on my body stood at attention. My pulse thundered in my ears. But I held my ground and fired

again.

The first shot missed. He’d moved fast: too damned fast, launching himself at me with everything he

had. I kept firing, even as his body slammed into mine, driving me into the door behind me with a force

that drove the air from my lungs and fractured ribs. My head slammed into the heavy steel hard enough

that for just a second I saw stars. The gun fel from my hand, but at least he was done. I’d taken his

heart. Hel , I’d taken most of his damned chest . I was soaked with blood. I struggled to move, but I was

pinned by the mass of his lifeless body. The others used that to their advantage. The ones who hadn’t

stopped to feast on Bob and the other guard closed in on me. There was no more time. I twisted and

ducked, managing to break loose long enough to pul one of my knives from its wrist sheath. I slashed

at random, cutting at anything and everything that came into range—praying al the while that the magic

in the razor-sharp blades would work as advertised but knowing that the first time I used them would

probably be the last.

As the vampires closed in and I went down in a flash of intense pain, I heard a scream and realized it

was my own voice.

Dying was going to suck.

3

Voices floated over me from a distance. I could hear them, knew I should recognize them, but I

couldn’t make my eyes open, let alone focus my mind.