Carrie Vaughn - Kitty Steals the Show

“Yes, sir,” she said.

Along with Ben and Cormac, Tyler and I moved to the door and waited. Cormac opened it wider, looking out. The SUV from the security footage was parked outside. A hundred yards away, lurking like a mountain in the dark, a freight ship was docked on the river. If they’d gotten him on there, Tyler would have just vanished.

Caleb left Flemming lying against the wall in handcuffs. The scientist seemed relieved, somehow, as if assured that the werewolves weren’t going to tear him apart on principle.

He caught me looking at him. “Who is Gaius Albinus?”

How to explain, in a sentence or less, without shouting? How to tell Flemming just how far in over his head he was without realizing it, so that I could savor his reaction? My lips turned in more of a sneer than a smile. “Dux Bellorum. Do you know what that means?”

“Leader of war. It’s a title for a general,” he said.

“That’s right. Same guy, and he’s collecting allies. Servants.”

“That sounds very dramatic,” he said. “But I work with people. Not for them.”

I laughed bitterly. He’d probably been telling himself that his whole life. In our last encounter, he’d had help catching me. No way he could have pulled that off on his own. He’d made a deal with a vampire, Alette’s lieutenant in Washington, D.C. He caught me, and in return Flemming gave him a security contingent to help him destroy Alette and take over the city. I don’t think there’d been any question in Leo’s mind who came out ahead in that bargain. Too bad it had backfired. Even Flemming saw that in the end. But he hadn’t learned a damn thing since then, and here he was, working with vampires again.

“You don’t even know how much you don’t know,” I said.

“The police will let me go,” he said. “I won’t be extradited. I won’t be tried. I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Haven’t done anything—only if you believe that werewolves aren’t people.”

The expression he turned to me was so matter-of-fact, my breath caught. So, that was where we stood.

Tyler and I went to stare out the door with Cormac and Ben.

“That’s what you get for baiting the guy,” Ben said, putting his arm around me and pulling me close. I snuggled against his warmth.

Caleb and the others seemed to take forever with the car. Then I remembered they had Michael’s body to retrieve.

“This Dux Bellorum,” Tyler said, his voice low, weary. He still smelled ill, the tranquilizer lingering in his system. “Am I going to have to keep worrying about him?”

“Probably,” I said, leaning my head on Ben’s shoulder. “But knowledge seems to be the best defense. He won’t be able to sneak up on you again.”

All of us were running on next to no sleep, frayed nerves, and spent adrenaline, and we fell into silence. Even the room behind me had become especially quiet, as if Flemming had fallen asleep.

But when I looked in on him, he was gone.

At my shocked gasp, the others turned.

“Where’d he go?” Ben said.

Tyler went on the move, pacing this room and into the next, examining it, sheltering behind the doorway before glancing into the third room.

“He couldn’t have gotten away without making any noise,” the soldier said.

“Then where is he?” I asked. I took a slow breath, smelling. We should be able to track him, even with the diesel stink of the place. But all I sensed was a horrible, unnatural chill …

“Kitty,” Cormac said, pointing out to the street.

Tonight, Mercedes wore green, a lacey camisole that set off her creamy skin and blood-colored hair, and loose silken slacks that fluttered in the breeze coming off the river. She was such a contrast to the surroundings, managing to remain haughty, imperial.

Standing across the wide street between warehouses, she held Dr. Flemming braced beside her. He was dead weight, seeming to hang on her arm like a sack of potatoes. The effort didn’t strain her at all.

She waited until she knew we were all looking, then tilted her head to give Flemming one of her charming, winning stage smiles. “You are a miserable failure,” she said, and dropped him. He fell in a heap.

I would have sworn that she turned and casually strolled away, high heels clicking on the asphalt. But when I ran after her, shouting, she was already gone. She’d turned a corner, transformed into a shadow, or simply vanished.

The others’ footsteps pounded behind me, catching up. I stopped at Flemming’s body, turned him over on his back.

He blinked at me and grasped weakly with still-handcuffed hands. His mouth worked, but he had no air left. A ragged, three-inch gash tore into his neck, opening a major artery. Scarlet lipstick smeared the skin around it. She hadn’t drained him completely. But she hadn’t left him enough to survive on. Bastard had finally dug himself in too deep. He had just enough life left to look me in the eyes as he died. He seemed … confused.

“Kitty.” Ben touched me.

“I was so angry at him,” I said weakly.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ben said. “Maybe we can take Caleb up on his offer to go for a run somewhere.”

Somewhere far away from this concrete pit. Someplace with trees, grass, wide open spaces, wind in my fur.

The sound of an engine echoed, and Caleb’s car pulled around, headlights off. He left the engine running, got out, and looked around. “Well. This is a mess. Not to mention the pile of unconscious mercenaries we found by the main road—that’s where all the guards went. Ned’s doing, no doubt.” Bemused, he hitched his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the direction.

I hardly had the energy to be relieved at the news. “We should go looking for her,” I said. We had to stop her. Somehow. I couldn’t seem to find the energy to stand.

Ben’s hand squeezed on my shoulder, and he pointed behind us, to the corner of the building we’d found Flemming in. A different corner, a different shadow than the one Mercedes had disappeared into. This time, Ned emerged. The chill of his being was almost indistinguishable from the nighttime chill in the air.

“Look who we found,” Ned said, stepping into the open, illuminated by a streetlight. He seemed to have chosen the spot, as if walking into the circle of a spotlight on stage. Marid and Antony followed him. Between them, gripping his shoulders, they dragged Jan. They wouldn’t let him get his feet under him, and he scrabbled ungracefully to keep his balance. Marid had a grip on the captive vampire’s hair and wrenched his head back.

Ned considered the scene around us. “Oh, you’ve all been busy, haven’t you? Sergeant Tyler, I presume?”

The soldier, standing nearby, raised his brows in a question.

“You got him,” I said stupidly, nodding at Jan.

“Yes, we did.” He beamed.

“What about Mercedes? She was right here. Did you see her? She killed Flemming.” I pointed at the body, as if they hadn’t seen it.

Marid shook his head. “Only Jan and his hangers-on. Mercenaries, a handful of lesser vampires. Are you sure it was her?”

I growled. Ben’s hand closed on my arm, a gentle warning.

“If it was her, she’s gone now,” Ned said. “And you know what they say about a bird in the hand.” He leered at Jan, who flinched back, but Marid and Antony held him fast and seemed happy to do so.

“But—” Mercedes was the mastermind. The direct lead to Roman. If he was the general, she was the master sergeant.

This was exactly how she’d planned it, I realized. Mercedes sacrificed Jan. Like a herd of deer leaving a weaker member behind for the wolves, she’d let him get taken, a distraction, while she made her escape. And the vampires thought they were so much better than us. I could almost feel sorry for the merely decades-old vampires who kept taking metaphorical bullets for these old bastards.