Лорел Гамильтон - Incubus Dreams

It wasn’t Primo’s size that was the problem. It was the waves of power that radiated off of him. Most vamp power, and even lycanthrope power, filled a room like water rising, until you drowned in it.

Primo’s power literally pulsed and flowed. Every time he smacked someone with his big open hand, the power spiked and tightened along my skin. His power seemed to feed off his own violence. But he was keeping his big hands open, just slapping them around, which was, of course, insulting the college students’ manhood.

One of the biggest of the group jumped onto Primo, hanging on to his shoulder and arm. Primo grabbed him by the shoulder and peeled him off like he was nothing. He tossed him into the coat check booth and earned a scream from the holy item-check girl that worked there.

Primo’s power was thick enough to walk on, but only for a second, then down it went. He couldn’t sustain it.

“Enough,” Buzz said, and he sounded unhappy to have to say it. He motioned, and that one motion ended the security guards’ hesitation.

The other black-shirts moved in and started helping the college guys move toward the door. They made some progress, but the guys didn’t want to leave their buddies ass-deep in giant vampire. I couldn’t really blame them.

Again, this was outside my skill set. I could have drawn badge and gun and stopped it, if I was willing to arrest, or kill Primo, but I didn’t know how to tone it down. As Buzz had said, their job was not to make it worse, but to make it better. I didn’t know how to do that.

Not really.

Buzz was yelling, “Primo, Primo, stop fighting back. We need to get this out of the club.”

Primo’s answer to that was to pick up two college students by the throat, one in each hand, as if he meant to bang their heads together.

But while his hands were busy, another enterprising young man, with short brown hair and shoulders nearly as wide as Buzz’s, hit him in the face. He knew how to throw a punch. It rocked the vampire’s head back, and blood blossomed at his mouth, like a crimson flower on all that white skin.

The music from the stage died abruptly, and into that sudden silence Primo screamed. A huge rage-filled battle cry. He dropped the two men in his hands like they were nothing and went for the man who’d hit him. I expected him to throw him around like he had the others, but he didn’t. He picked him up by the front of his jacket until his feet dangled off the ground, and he was probably choking on his own collar. But instead of those big pale shoulders bunching to throw the man, Primo’s hand went back, and this time he closed his fist. From that close up, with that kind of strength, he was going to snap the man’s neck.

I drew the Browning, but truthfully without a court order of execution, I was in the same boat as a police officer. I couldn’t shoot him if I thought he was only going to hurt someone. How did I argue in court that I knew how strong a vampire was and how fragile the human body could be? And call it a hunch, but I figured once I shot Primo, I had to kill him. I did not want that level of muscle and magic touching me. I was harder to kill, not immortal.

I aimed down my arm, because court and explanations would come later, and that kid was about to die. I was about to take a shoulder shot, because it was my best bet with this many people around, when everyone else got brave, too.

Clay was closest, and he jumped him. Primo tossed the shapeshifter into the first row of tables. Women screamed and scattered. Clay was getting to his feet, but that big fist was pulling back again.

Buzz was screaming, “No, Primo, no!”

I had the gun pointed at the floor, because when you’re tense, your fingers are tense, too. If I shot someone, I wanted it to be on purpose. I started to move closer and to one side for a better shot, when the black-shirts swarmed him, and I had no shot at all.

If I’d been ready to kill his ass, I’d have yelled for them to get away, but I was still hoping to avoid it. I moved closer, and to one side, farther away from the tables, where I thought I had a better chance at getting a clear shot. I’d never tried to shoot anyone in the middle of a bar fight. Just the tumble of bodies was intimidating. It was like trying to hit a target with civilians flying around it.

Primo tossed them around like they were dolls, while still holding the man straight-arm. The more they fought him, the stronger his power spiked and billowed, as if every blow, whether his or theirs, powered him up. He was lost behind a mound of black-shirts, then I felt his power draw in like an atom bomb breathing, and I had time to yell, “Everybody down!” I wasn’t sure what was coming, but it was going to be bad.

I hit the floor like I’d told everybody else to do, though I put myself flat to the ground. I glanced at most of the women and waiters behind me and saw them crouching on the floor. Jesus, didn’t anyone know how to take cover?

Primo didn’t use his body to throw them off in a burst of black shirts, he used his magic. It blew them airborne in a spray of black shirts and falling bodies. If I’d been crouched like the people I’d complained about, I could have moved faster. But flat on the ground, I had a split-second to decide whether I was going to cover my head and hold my ground, try to roll farther away, or get to my knees and scramble for it. Flat to the ground doesn’t help when things as heavy as bodies are falling. I got up to scramble away, and a body smashed into me. I had a moment to be quietly stunned, and then another one landed on top of me.

I’d been hit, I’d been thrown, I’d been a lot of things, but I’d never had two adult men land on me from the air. All the breath was crushed out of my body, and if I’d been as human as I looked, things would have broken. I laid there for a second, stunned, and the two men on top of me weren’t moving at all.

The first thing I moved was my head, back to look over my shoulder to where Primo had been. He was still there. Still standing. He’d picked up a different college student and was dangling him in his hand. His big fist was cocked back again. Fuck.

I realized two things at once. One, I could move my hands, two, my gun wasn’t in either of them. My body was pinned underneath several hundred pounds. I was strong, and I could get out, but it wouldn’t be quick, and I had no idea where my gun was. No one that he’d thrown off was moving. Primo’s fist started forward, and there was one of those moments where the world slows down. I had all the time in the world to watch him land that blow, all the time in the world to watch him snap that man’s neck and know I couldn’t stop him.

I reached out toward him and screamed, “No!” I didn’t expect it to help, but I had to do something.

Blood spurted from Primo’s arm, and he hesitated, staring around the room as if he didn’t know where the scream had come from.

I wasn’t sure either, but I’d spent months learning how to control what power I had, and I’d felt something. This was the second time I’d done something like this, both times when I was desperate. The question was, could I do it on purpose?

Primo raised the man upward again, as if he’d set his goal and nothing would turn him from it. I reached out with my hands, and I thought about it. I thought about what it had felt like. Like my thoughts hit something around him, formed it into glass to hurt him.

Primo raised the man higher and seemed to be saluting someone behind me, but I didn’t glance back, there wasn’t time.

I reached out not just with my hands but with that power I had over the dead, that link I had with two vampires, and I slashed at him. Blood flared along his arm again, more red to join the first. It wasn’t as much blood, and I didn’t know why, because I really didn’t understand what I was doing. A few bloody cuts were not going to distract him for long.