Nancy Holder - Daughter of the Blood

“Take the stairs,” she told him, gesturing behind herself. “Don’t take the elevator.”

He gave her a wink and said, “Oui, ma guardienne. Merci. ”

Izzy jerked. What the hell? That seemed familiar too, being called ma guardienne . Part of her life.

She realized with a start that she had seen this hallway before, too. She looked to the left and spotted the fire extinguisher, just as she’d expected to see it in that location. There was the deep, jagged crack in the wall.

Her heart skipped beats as she remembered when and where she had seen it before:

In her vision in the restaurant.

At lunch she had watched her father as if by remote camera, only it was all in her mind. He was on a detail, walking along this exact same corridor—also during a fire. She had been sitting in a deli blocks away, but she had seen him as clearly as if she’d been there with him. She had known someone in the hall was raising a gun and taking aim, and she had shouted, “Hit the floor! ”

In her head.

And Big Vince had heard her in his head, and obeyed. The shooter had missed, and her father had lived to tell the tale, labeling it a miracle from heaven.

Big Vince wasn’t here now, but if the rest of the vision held true, there was a perp hiding at a hallway intersection off to her right, his gun pointed at her skull—and she was certain now that it had been Esposito, and that he had lured her here so he could enact the same ritual execution he’d planned for her father.

She dove to the floor and rolled onto her side, aiming her gun at the appropriate angle, aware that there was no safety on a revolver, and the last thing she wanted to do was shoot an innocent bystander.

There! She saw movement…seconds before the sconce in the wall above her head went out. Now the intersection plunged into darkness, but she still knew there was definitely someone there.

She drew another breath, keeping her arms outstretched. Her muscles began to quiver with fatigue. Her Medusa was heavy, fully loaded with six cartridges in the cylinder…

No, there are five , the voice said in her head. You used it, remember?

She blinked. She hadn’t used it. If she had, she’d be facing hours of paperwork and at least a couple of Internal Affairs interviews. Discharging a weapon while on duty was a huge deal.

Despite the darkness, she glanced downward, in the direction of her gun. Her eyes widened and her lips parted in sheer terror as little sparks wicked off her hands.

I’m on fire! she thought, as she rolled over on her side. But she wasn’t in any pain. The sparks multiplied. She was glowing .

Then the light vanished, and she wondered if she had imagined the whole thing. Maybe it was some kind of taser aftereffect.

A voice called, “Iz?” as a tall, rangy figure stepped from the smoke and shadows, into the light of the central corridor.

It was Pat. He was holding both a flashlight and a gun—a .357 Magnum. His deep-green eyes glittered in the soft yellow light that burnished the planes and hollows of his face.

“Jesus, Iz.” He set down the flashlight as he gathered her up with his left arm. “When I heard it was Esposito…”

“I’m okay,” she said as he laced his fingers through hers, easing her to her feet as he swept the area with his gun. “I don’t know where Torres is. Did he call it in?”

“Must have,” he said. “Captain Clancy told me to get my butt over here. She didn’t need to tell me twice.”

Her leg buckled as she put weight on her injured ankle, and he kept her from falling, his face creasing with concern.

“I’m okay,” she said again, then realized that she had to be honest about her injury. They were on a mission. She confessed, “My ankle’s sprained. It hurts.”

“You stay here, then,” he ordered her as he retrieved his flashlight and clicked it off—a wise precaution, one she would have taken herself.

“No way,” she insisted, coughing as the smoke seeped back into her lungs. “I think he took her toward the back.”

He gazed at her and shook his head. “Don’t go all Jane Wayne on me, Officer. I’m getting you out of here.”

“He wants me to follow him. If I don’t take the bait, he might shoot her,” she argued.

With the stern expression of a detective who could make hardened gangbangers break down and cry after ten minutes in an interview room, Pat said, “You’re out, Iz. I’m on it.”

Coughing harder, she fanned the smoke away from them both with her hat.

“She’s on my watch,” Izzy insisted. “I’m thinking the fire escape. Let’s go.”

As she stepped forward, there was a loud ripping noise overhead. She gazed up, just as an enormous section of the ceiling dislodged and crashed to the floor. The impact threw her into Pat’s arms and he dragged her along the hallway as another section cracked free and smashed inches from her back.

An illuminated Exit sign buzzed and winked about ten feet ahead of them. Pat reached it first and pressed his hand on the metal door beneath it.

“It’s cool,” he reported. Meaning that there was no fire on the other side. Then he yanked it open.

Their feet clanged on metal; they had reached the fire escape, a metal rectangle from which ladderlike stairs angled upward and downward. Reflexively, they both looked up. Far above them, flames danced on the roof.

Then an eerie purplish-black light bloomed from below and streaked toward them like a missile. They both dropped to the floor of the fire escape; as it bobbed dangerously, the black light exploded against the open door and tore it off its hinges.

Bricks broke and flew outward; Pat threw himself on top of Izzy and bellowed, “Cover your head!”

A fragment of brick pelted her forearm. She heard a shower of pieces ringing against the metal floor. Pat grunted.

“Are you hurt?” she cried.

“No, I’m okay.” He gripped her shoulders. “Stay down. Here comes another one.”

“What’s going on?” she demanded, trying to jerk up her head. But Pat was in the way.

“It’s Le Fils,” he said into her ear. His breath was moist and warm. “Esposito’s down there, too. They’re attacking, and they have Sauvage.”

“Le Fils?” Izzy suddenly felt very dizzy. The world canted left, right, as if the fire escape had pulled from the building and was swinging freely. Le Fils, Le Fils…

It was all there, in an instant. Everything they were doing right now could not be happening. If Le Fils was down there, they could not be in New York. And she had never told Pat about Le Fils. Le Fils du Diable—the Son of the Devil—was the king vampire of New Orleans, terrorizing both Gifted and Ungifted alike. She hadn’t known about Le Fils until the day she had left New York…

Oh, my God. I left New York. I never went to the Police Academy. I’m not NYPD.

She felt another wave of vertigo.

The floor beneath them was not metal. It was wood. As Pat shifted his weight, she lifted her swirling head and saw men in tuxedos and women in gowns rushing past the two of them. A leathery creature in a hood bobbed past. It had been at the dinner, when Jean-Marc had presented her to the family.

Jean-Marc…where is Jean-Marc?

Another explosion rocked the floor. She smelled smoke. She heard screaming.

“Let me up,” she woozily ordered Pat.

“No, stay down, darlin’,” he told her. Pat’s face was backlit by a shimmering curtain of blue. The curtain darkened with purple; then another bolt of purple-black burst through and hit the white wooden wall behind them. “He’s attacking.”

He already did attack. Le Fils and his accomplice, Julius Esposito the voodoo bokor, attacked us last night. Here, in New Orleans. Why is it happening again? This is more than a dream. Is this a vision?