Laurell Hamilton - Affliction

Bush said, ‘Don’t hurt her anymore.’

I looked at him and his face was growing slack, like Henry’s. ‘So beautiful,’ he said staring at the rotting corpse.

I hit him in the face with the stock of my shotgun, and Becker put her shotgun to the back of my head. ‘Can’t you see how beautiful she is? We have to help her.’ Her voice sounded dreamy, like she was half asleep. The gun was nice and solid against the back of my skull. If she pulled the trigger I was dead.

My cross flared into white-hot light, and so did all the other holy objects. The glow blazed so bright I was half-blinded by it, but the gun fell back from my head, and I heard Becker say, ‘What the hell?’

I aimed at the rotting vampire, but she was gone. I stepped away from the officers and their holy objects, trying to see where the vampire had gone. I got a glimpse of her racing into the trees back the way we’d come. I started toward her, but Little Henry collapsed and I caught him without thinking about it. He was conscious and muttering, ‘Beautiful, she’s so beautiful.’ Then he passed out, and I was suddenly holding the full body weight of someone who outweighed me by about two hundred pounds. Lucky I was stronger than I looked.

There was a cackling, growling sound that raised the hairs at the back of my neck. I glanced in the direction of the sound. Ares’ body was a tangle of limbs and flowing fur, golden and spotted in the flashlights that were shining on him. I assumed he was shapeshifting so his wounds would heal. A spotted hyena the size of a pony stood shakily to its feet and then did that all-over body shake like a dog getting out of water. Then he raced across the clearing toward the trees.

I yelled, ‘Ares, no!’

He kept running in a mile-eating lope, a blur of golden fur that vanished around the edge of the building. Then a second shadow streaked after him, and the black panther vanished, too.

‘Nathaniel, no! Damn it!’ I laid Little Henry in the waiting arms of the cops and started running after them. I pulled out my cuffs and handed them to Al. ‘These are strong enough to hold the vampire.’

He took them. ‘Can’t we kill him?’

‘We don’t have a warrant of execution. If he dies before we have one, it’s the same as any suspect dying in custody.’

Becker said, ‘That thing doesn’t have rights.’

I pulled the AR from the MOLLE straps and shoved the shotgun back into its place. I said, ‘Yes, he does.’ I ran toward the trees.

Al yelled, ‘Don’t go out there, Blake!’

Horton yelled, ‘It could be a trap!’

I yelled back, ‘I know!’ Ares I might have left to his stupidity, but I couldn’t leave my panther out there.

Nicky yelled after me, ‘Anita, wait for me!’

I yelled, ‘Catch up,’ without looking back. I was well into the trees before Nicky fell in by my side. I ran full out back through the slapping branches of trees, the uneven ground, and that damn thin air. I heard the hyena give its unnerving call, and the panther shriek just after it. Fuck, fuck, fuck!

I promised myself that if Nathaniel went unhurt all night I would never, ever bring him to a crime scene again. The panther screamed again, and we ran until the world was just black blurs and the punishing slap of tree branches. I dropped my shields enough to sense him up ahead, and thought, What the hell , and dropped more of my shielding so I could reach out and try to sense the vampire. Sometimes I could, sometimes I couldn’t, but tonight it was a could. I sensed her like cold fire up ahead near where Nathaniel’s heat pulsed in my head, but there was something else. I sensed another vampire near them. There was a second vampire, and neither of the shapeshifters would know it before it was too late.

I found speed I didn’t know I had and came up even with Nicky. He glanced at me and without a word sped up. I stumbled, but I stayed with him. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to breathe, let alone fight, when we got there, but by all that was holy I would get there.

My vision was spotted with gray-and-white starbursts, my breath strangling in my throat; my chest was so tight I felt like I was having a heart attack, but I could feel the vampires close. I saw the dull gold of the hyena first, and then the blackness beside him moved and I knew it was Nathaniel. The vampire was in front of them, standing with her back to a huge, dark tree. They had run her down and bayed her like a pair of hounds.

I slid to my knees in the pine litter, the AR snugged to my shoulder, cheek resting against it as I fought to see through the exhaustion miasma enough to aim. The world swam in streamers. Apparently, my psychic abilities did not make me immune to altitude sickness. If I hadn’t had to threaten a vampire with a gun, I would have been happy to throw up.

I felt the energy of the second vampire and tried to see where the hell it was, but my ruined vision was barely able to keep track of the one against the tree. ‘There’s a second vamp, I can feel it.’ My voice was breathless and panting, but Nicky heard and understood, because he scanned the darkness under the trees for another figure.

‘I don’t see anything else,’ he said.

‘Nathaniel, Ares, do you smell another vampire?’

Nathaniel growled at the vampire in front of him but then raised his head and scented the wind. Ares did the same. I kept most of what I had left looking at the vampire, but had swimming glimpses of the panther and hyena sniffing up into the air. The panther drew its lips back from its teeth in a flehmen, to get as much scent as possible to the Jacobson’s organ in the roof of his mouth. He’d described it to me as tasting the scent.

Nathaniel lowered his head and made a sneezing sound and shook his head. He was letting me know that he didn’t smell a second vampire. So why did I still feel it?

The vampire stood up straight, pushing away from the tree. Her entire demeanor changed; even in the dim light she looked different. Her long, dark hair seemed fuller and moved in the breeze, except there was no breeze.

My cross burst into light like a white beacon. Now my night vision was ruined on top of the exhaustion miasma. Fuck. ‘Cut the vampire powers crap, now!’ I said.

‘But it will be so much more fun if I don’t.’

‘Nicky, let her know I’m serious; aim just above her head,’ I said.

‘You usually do your own shooting,’ he said.

‘I can shoot her, but I don’t trust myself to shoot close to her.’

He didn’t argue, just did what I asked. The bullet buried into the tree above her head. The shot wasn’t as loud as it could have been, a combination of my pulse in my ears and too much gunfire all night. My ears were a little dulled.

The hyena began to pace, and the leopard screamed. Their hearing was way more sensitive than mine. I couldn’t imagine how loud everything had been to Nathaniel during the fight.

The vampire’s scream was nice and loud. ‘Please, please don’t kill me!’ She had her hands out in front of her as if to ward off a blow, or as if her spread hands would protect her from bullets. They so wouldn’t.

My cross began to fade. ‘Then stop trying to fuck with us,’ I said, my voice still breathless. Stupid altitude.

There were flashlights swinging through the trees. Some of the police were running toward the dying glow of the cross and the sound of gunfire. I like that about cops; they run toward the problem, not away from it.

‘One more vampire trick and I’m telling him to shoot you,’ I said.

‘Shoot to kill, or shoot to wound?’ Nicky asked.

I’d rather he not have asked it out loud, but I guess it was an important difference and a misunderstanding would be bad. ‘Wound. We can always kill her later, but once you kill someone, wounding seems a little pointless.’