Anita Blake 20 - Hit List (16 page)

There was nothing to shoot at; they were out of sight, but one was wounded. The question was, how hurt was he?

Edward was on his feet; I climbed up the other side of the ditch to stay by his side. He had his gun up and ready and was moving in that shuffling, bent-legged walk that most of the special forces and especially SWAT used. It was supposed to help you move well, but keep you as steady as possible for shooting. I’d never been trained, but I’d grown up in the woods, and hunting. I knew how to move in trees.

I heard the other police behind us, crashing through the trees like a herd of elephants. I knew they weren’t actually that loud, but they seemed thunderous behind us, so that the noise seemed to make it even harder to search the shadowed trees for the Harlequin, as if the noise masked everything. I fought the urge to turn and yell at them to be quiet.

“Cover me,” Edward said.

I moved until I was almost over him, looking out into the ever thickening shadows as he knelt down. “Blood,” he said.

I glanced at him, still trying to keep a peripheral sense of the trees and the growing darkness under the trees. There was more light on the road behind us, but here in the thick trees night would come early.

“You wounded them?” This from Tilford, as he came up on the other side of Edward. He had his own M4 pointed out into the trees.

I said, “Yes.”

Edward said, “We follow the blood trail.”

“It’ll be dark soon,” Tilford said.

Edward stood up. “It will.”

Newman was with us now. “I’ve never seen anything move that fast.”

“We need them dead before full dark,” I said, and was already moving through the trees.

“Why?” Newman asked.

“Because the vampires will rise,” Edward said.

“How do you know there will be vampires?” Newman asked.

Tilford answered, “Wereanimals don’t wear masks and cloaks. They don’t sneak around. They just attack. The only thing that makes them behave like this is a vampire master. Night means we get to meet their masters, and I’d rather the shifters be dead before we have the vampires to deal with.”

Edward and I exchanged a quick look. We both thought better of Tilford in that moment. I said,

“What he said.”

We followed the blood trail in the ever-growing dark. We followed the fresh blood even though every molecule in my body was screaming for me to run. Run before dark. Run before the vampires came. Run. But I didn’t run, and neither did the other marshals. We followed the trail, because that was our job. We followed the trail because if they got away and killed more people, none of us wanted to look down at the body and explain why we’d let shadows and maybe a threat of vampires scare us off. We were U.S. Marshals. We hunted and killed the monsters. We did not run from them.

IT GOT DARK enough that Edward and Tilford turned on the flashlights that were attached to the barrels of their M4s. It was a mixed blessing. It allowed us to follow the blood trail but ruined our night vision. I finally kept my gaze away from the lights. One of us needed to be able to see what the deepening shadows might hold. Following the blood trail was important, but if the Harlequin that were bleeding found us first, there’d be more blood, and some of it would likely be ours. Was that pessimistic, or realistic? I had trouble telling sometimes.

Newman followed me ahead into the creeping gloom. “Do you see something?”

“Not yet.”

“Saving your night vision from the lights?”

That made me glance at him. “Yes, how’d you know?”

“I was raised in the country. I’m okay in the dark most nights.”

“Me, too,” I said.

“Country girl?”

“Something like that.”

“I’d have pegged you for a city girl,” he said. All the time we talked we looked out into the coming dark, searching the trees for movement. He had his gun at his shoulder just like I did. I was beginning to like Newman and I didn’t want to, because I’d liked Karlton and now she was in the hospital breathing with help. The shapeshifter had collapsed one of her lungs. They were waiting to see if her body would heal it without operating. If she had caught some version of lycanthropy then she’d heal as good as new, so they waited. The waiting meant they thought her blood tests were going to come back contaminated with the virus. With deep puncture wounds, lycanthropy was usually a given.

“I’m a city girl now,” I said.

Edward came to us, the light pointed at the ground, and finally turned it off before he got to us.

Even that much light for that small an amount of time seemed to make the thick twilight thicker.

One look at his face and I asked, “What’s wrong?”

“The blood pattern has changed. One of them is carrying the other, and he’s running with him.

He’s been running through the woods while we crawled after them; that’s why we haven’t heard them.”

“They’re gone,” I said.

“Good as,” he said, and there was still enough light for me to see how disgusted he was with it all.

“If we can’t trail them, then Tilford is right—we need to get out of here before full dark.”

“We don’t have enough people to move the truck, Anita.”

“We can move the tree,” I said, “and we can all fit in our SUV.”

He nodded. “Done.”

Tilford didn’t argue, and Newman didn’t try to argue with the three of us. He was learning. If we could keep him alive, maybe he’d actually be good at the job.

THE TREE WAS an old deadfall. It wasn’t as heavy as a fresh tree would have been, but it was heavy enough, and big enough that the four of us had to think about how best to use the muscle we had available.

Tilford keep glancing up as well as out into the trees, while we decided where best to grab hold.

“Why do you keep looking up?” Newman asked.

“Sometimes they fly,” Tilford said.

Edward and I just nodded.

Newman started glancing up, too. He was a quick study; I hoped he didn’t die. And the moment I thought it again, I realized I was being morbid. Crap.

We put Tilford and Newman at the front of the tree, and Edward and I took the back. That part was bigger, a little heavier, but there was less of it to shove across the road. Edward counted,

“One, two, three,” and they pulled, and we shoved. I’d never really tried to use every bit of the new strength I’d gained through vampire marks and lycanthropy. I tried now. Our end of the tree moved, really moved, and it startled me and Edward. He slipped in the leaves a little. I slipped forward and scraped my arm on a jagged root. It was sharp, and immediate, and I knew it was going to bleed before I felt the first trickle. I cursed under my breath.

“How bad?” Edward asked.

“Keep shoving,” I said.

He took that to mean it wasn’t bad, and we shoved. The tree trunk was onto the road completely now. I felt the vampires wake like a jolt down my spine. It was still light enough that they couldn’t come for us, not yet, but we were minutes away. I dug my feet in, put my shoulder down, and prayed. I prayed that if I had any super-strength, I would use it now. I prayed, “God, if I can move this tree, let me move it now.”

I breathed out in a yell, the way you do sometimes in the gym when you’re lifting something heavy, something that you’re not sure you can move. But it moved. Edward put his shoulder beside mine, and the other men pulled, and the tree moved. I yelled again, and the tree slid across the road as if it were on wheels. It just gave. I fell to my knees, because I hadn’t expected it to move like that.

“Anita . . .” Edward started to help me up.

“Car, start it now.” I said.

He didn’t argue with me. He just did what I said. I liked that. I moved my gun around on its strap so it was in my hands and ready.

Tilford crashed through the trees on the other side of the road, with Newman behind him. I pointed at the car, and my right arm glistened with blood, black in the moonlight. “Car, now!”

“They’re coming,” Tilford said.

“I know,” I said. I got to my feet. The SUV roared to life. The three of us ran for the car. I felt the night fall around us like something warm and thick and velvet. I pushed the thought away that it felt like Her. I was just scared, just freaked. It wasn’t Marmee Noir. It was just nerves.

I felt the vampires, felt them freed of the last bit of daytime paralysis. I felt them like distant thunder trembling along my skin, rushing toward us through the trees. It made me run, and I was suddenly ahead of the men. Like moving the tree, I didn’t run human-slow.

I was the first one to the door. I opened it and turned, looking past the other two men, searching the dark shapes of the trees for something that wasn’t trees.

I yelled, “Hurry, damn it!”

Newman slipped and went down, face first into the gravel. Tilford opened the door on the other side, saying, “I’m in.”

I heard him shut the door. I saw Newman scramble on all fours as he got to his feet. There was blood on his face. He’d fallen hard, but I kept an eye behind him, above him. They were coming.

Moving like wind that never stirred a leaf, or brushed a twig, like a silent movable storm that was coming just for us.

I yelled, “Newman!”

I moved at the last minute so I was farther away from the open door but he could go straight into the car without fouling my line of sight. He fell into the car.

Edward yelled, “Get in!” I realized he had his window down and the barrel of his gun searching the darkness. Windows would mess up the first few shots. He knew we weren’t going to get out of here without a fight; so did I.

I put my back against the open door, searching the woods, trying to hear something above the engine’s thrum. I thought,Where are they? And just like that, I could feel them on the other side of the road. They were just inside the tree line, hiding in the shadows and the night.

I breathed, “Shit.” I climbed into the truck, shutting the rear door behind me. I had time to say,

“Drive!” Edward put it into gear and started backing up at speed. I made Newman move over so I could try for a seatbelt as the SUV slithered across the gravel. I knew right where they were; I felt them standing there watching us drive away. Why were they just watching? My pulse was in my throat. I was suddenly more afraid than I had been a second before.

“They aren’t chasing us, Edward. They’re just watching from the trees.”

“You saw them?” Newman asked.

I ignored him.

“Why are they just watching?” Tilford yelled from the front passenger seat.

“I don’t know.” I slid the buckle of the seatbelt home just as Edward found the four-way with its stop signs. He turned the big SUV in a circle of flying gravel. He got us facing the right way around and hit the gas. The car jumped forward. He had a moment where I could feel him fighting to keep us on the road, and then we were speeding away from them.

Almost at the edge of even my night vision, two figures stepped out from the trees. They stood and watched us go.

“That’s them, isn’t it?” Newman asked.

I nodded, watching the two figures as if afraid to look away, for fear of what would happen if I took my eyes off them. It was silly, almost superstitious, but I watched them stand there until even I couldn’t see through the thickening dark.

“Why didn’t they chase us?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I don’t care why,” Tilford said, and he turned around in the front seat so he could see us both,

“I’m just glad they didn’t.”

“They didn’t need to chase us. They blocked the road again,” Edward said.

We all looked, and this time it looked like they’d pulled up half a dozen trees and formed a wall.

“That took time,” Tilford said, “and more manpower than we thought they had.”

Edward slowed the car. “Tilford, you’re driving.”

“What?” Tilford asked.

“Anita, cover me. Newman, help her.” He was already climbing out from behind the wheel.

Tilford cursed under his breath as he fought to slip behind the wheel before Edward was completely out from behind it. The SUV swayed, but we stayed on the road.

Edward was climbing past us and into the far back. “What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Shoot them if they get too close. Shoot anything that moves around that barrier.” He was rummaging around in the back in some of the weapons that were too big or too cumbersome to carry easily. It always scared me when Edward started getting into his big stuff. The last time it had been a flamethrower, and he’d damn near burned a house down with us in it. But I did what he asked. I rolled down a window and divided my attention between the barrier on the road and the way we’d just come.

Tilford had stopped the car. “What do you want me to do?”

“Move forward, slowly,” Edward said. His upper body was mostly below the back of the seat.

I did my best to ignore him and do my part of the plan. Edward had a plan, and I didn’t, so he was in charge until either he ran out of plan, or the plan turned out to be too crazy. Though right that second, I couldn’t think of anything crazy enough to make me say no.

Newman said, “Holy Jesus!”

It made me glance back at Edward. For a blink, I thought it was just a bigger gun, and then I forgot to watch the dark or hunt for vampires. I took a few seconds to stare at what he had in his hands.

“Is that . . .” I said.

“Light anti-tank weapon,” he said.

“It’s a LAW,” I said.

“Yes,” he said. He rolled back over the seat so he was kneeling between Newman and me. “Open the sunroof,” he said.

“If you had this, why didn’t you use it on the tree?” I asked.

“It’s the last one I have,” he said.

“Last one,” Newman said. “How many did you have?”

“Three.”

I said, “Don’t argue, just open the door. Watch the road edge and the sky and be ready to jump back in when Tilford guns it.”

“Why not just aim through the windows?”

“Because we can’t watch the sky as well from the window.”

“But . . .”

“Just do it,” Edward said.

Newman glanced at me, then at Edward, and opened his door. I did the same on my side. When I was standing with one foot on the ground and the other on the running board, MP-5 snugged at my shoulder, I said “Edward.”