Biting Nixie (15 page)

Julian didn't startle or stutter. But his eyes narrowed suddenly on mine. “Cutter works for the Coterie. Ruthven is second-in-command of the Coterie. Who are the Lestats?”

“Oops, sorry, my mistake.” I traipsed off toward the warehouse.

Julian spun me back. “Where did you hear that name? The Lestats?”

“Somewhere. I don't remember.”

“Nixie. Don't. This is far more dangerous than you know.”

“Is it?” I finally lost my temper. “That's what people keep telling me, but I wouldn't know, would I? Because no one will
tell
me anything, not really. Oh, they say something
bad
will happen. Or that it's
dangerous
. But they don't give me details. They don't tell me why.” I grabbed Julian by his cashmere lapels and looked up pleadingly into his eyes. “Why, Julian? What's so dangerous about this gang? What's so bad? And why do people say ‘gang' like it's something
unnatural
?”

“Nixie—”

“
Don't,
Julian.” He was going to say that I wasn't prepared for the truth. Or, worse, that I was imagining things. “Don't lie to me and don't treat me like a kid.”

He set down my amp, brushed back my curls from my face. “I'll try not to. But it isn't easy to explain. And isn't safe to speak about it in public.”

“Public? We're outside an abandoned warehouse—”

“Which is rumored to hold the very gang we're talking about. Nixie, I'll tell you, I swear. But not now. Okay?”

I gazed up into his eyes, wanting to believe him. Wanting to believe he trusted me enough to not treat me like a kid. Wanting to believe he cared enough not to lie to me. “All right, Julian. I'll wait. But not forever.”

Chapter Twelve

Boards covered the warehouse windows, high overhead. Boards had also been nailed over the door, but one was askew, revealing a child-sized hole. Julian pushed my guitar and amp through. Then he folded his big frame and slid deftly in.

Julian's big, hard body fitting small holes made me pause for a moment and fan myself. Whew. I ducked in after.

As Julian straightened, all points alert, I looked around with interest. The lights were on. Maybe that meant someone was home. Maybe the mystery wouldn't have to wait for Julian to explain. Maybe I'd see the gang “where they slept” right now.

I trotted forward. Julian picked up my equipment and glided after me. The concrete floor was disappointingly empty. Not even sleeping bags. About midway a set of spiral stairs led up to a platform.

Bo and Elena were just disappearing into a single-room office on the platform. We had crossed halfway there when they came back out. “Nothing here,” Bo called down.

“No,” Julian said. “I would have smelled them.”

I found that a little hard to believe. “Smelled them? Is this the BO gang? Haven't showered since 1852?”

“They're a bit younger than that,” Julian said with a smile. He seemed more relaxed. “This was a false alarm. We can go home after all.”

Home? With Julian? I was just absorbing the possibilities when a scream shattered the night.

Bo streaked down the stairs. “Outside.” He went almost supernaturally fast, Elena clumping behind.

“Stay here.” Julian dropped my amp and guitar and streaked after.

Julian dropped my baby! I immediately fell to my knees to throw open the latches and check on poor Oscar. Thankfully my Strat was okay.

I was relatching the case when Elena reached me. “We're supposed to stay here,” I said, rising.

“The hell with that.” She unshouldered her SMAW. “Samuel and I have work to do.” She patted the large tube.

Samuel? Elena had
named
her bazooka?

But if she was going, I was going. “Okay, let's kick some gang butt.”

Elena flashed me worried eyes. “Nixie…you're not armed.”

“Oh, not you too. I'm
not
a kid, and I'm
not
helpless! I know what I'm doing, Elena. I study Taekwondo with Mr. Miyagi three times a week!” Yeah, really. Mr. Miyagi Park, actually, but he even looked like Pat Morita from
The Karate Kid
.

“But Nixie…this gang is, well, monstrous. It takes more than guts and hand-to-hand technique to stop them.”

“We can stand here all day arguing, or we can go Bruce Lee some Lestats. Which is it, Elena?”

The worried look turned to shock as she stared at me. “You know about the Lestats? You
know
, and you're going into combat
unarmed
?”

The incredulity in her voice should have clued me in. But I was too mad at everyone treating me like a kid.

At that moment, I was a kid, and a stupid one at that. “Enough fapping, Elena. Are we women or are we wimps?”

Elena stared at me a moment longer. “All right,” she said finally. Let's go.

I climbed through the hole in the door, into the end of the world.

 

Chaos. Violence. Screams.

Gaunt, fiery-eyed men rampaged outside. Skull-headed, unnaturally fluid men with teeth like jagged glass. Evil-looking men, seemingly hundreds of them. A knot of red fire and flashing knives, surrounding…shit.

Surrounding Julian and Bo.

Bo held a limp bundle in one arm. The bundle had two blonde heads. I realized it was two people, one a child. They seemed unconscious…or dead.

Bo fought ferociously with one hand. He wielded what looked like a long knife, or a sword. The blade whistled through the air, forcing the gaunt men back.

One man dove forward, under Bo's blade. The man came up swinging a wicked-looking knife.

Bo dodged and spit him on the sword like a pig.

I shuddered.

Julian fought by Bo's side. Like Bo, he slashed at the masses with a long blade, spinning with deadly grace and speed. Lightning fast, almost savage.

I almost didn't recognize lawboy Julian. His face was sharp and hard, skin like bladed armor. His eyes glowed red. His mouth opened in a horrific roar. Revealing—revealing—

Fangs.

Foot-long fangs, or so they seemed to me. Like a sabertooth tiger's. Roaring through those monster fangs, Julian whirled his lethal blade—and sliced through an attacker's throat.

Geysers of blood sprayed from the gaunt man's severed neck. So much blood. Fountains, that became rivulets and finally stopped. That was actually worse. He had to be dead.

But that wasn't the end of it. Instead of dropping the body, Julian grabbed the man by the hair. Yanked him in. The head flopped like a rag doll.

Foreboding lanced me. Julian seized the man in the crook of his sword arm. He slapped a palm on the man's head. Pushed…twisted.

To my horror I heard a series of wet pops. Like ripping off a turkey leg. Through the roars I could actually hear the
chock
of broken vertebrae as the man's neck snapped.

Julian lifted the man by the hair, body dangling limply. He raised his sword.

I wanted to shout
wait, stop
! But my throat wouldn't obey.

With a fierce, inhumanly powerful stroke, Julian sliced the man's head completely off.

I spun away, dizzy. Julian Emerson was chopping off heads. I fell to my knees and was violently ill next to a broken board.

It seemed like that nightmare took forever, but in fact it was only a few moments. Elena was just emerging behind me from the Roller-Blayd factory. She stopped. Screamed, “Gretchen! Stella!”

Dripping spit, I pulled my head up. The limp bundle in Bo's arm—the blonde heads. Bo held Elena's sister, Gretchen. And her five-year-old niece, Estella.

Elena ran into the fray, her SMAW blazing. She stopped for an instant and turned sideways as she shot. If I had been in my right mind I would have wondered why. As it was I saw the reason. The payload exploded in front, the recoil blasted behind. Swaths of men flew in both directions. Bodies exploded, burned.

Elena cut a path through the attackers. A path of exploding death.

I didn't understand the wholesale destruction Elena was delivering. Oh, I understood her anger, her fear. The gaunt men were attacking her husband, her sister. Her small niece.

But it seemed extreme. Elena blew great burning holes in skeletal torsos. Bo stabbed and hacked, ripping open bellies and throats. Julian slashed and sliced, severing throats and even limbs.

None of my friends seemed to care that they were slaughtering
people
.

It was not over quickly. Later I knew there weren't that many attackers. But it seemed for every creature who fell at Bo's hand, for every one who crumpled at Julian's feet, ten more came to replace them. The attackers boiled up around Bo and Julian like a monstrous football huddle.

No matter how many were killed, the circle of gaunt men rose up again. Undeterred. Jumping over the corpses of their fallen.

Sheer numbers must bring my friends down.

I shuddered, wondering what I should do. What I
could
do, unarmed as I was.

As I knelt there, undecided, one of the gaunt men stumbled from the pack toward me. His hands were pressed to his neck. Blood soaked his shirt.

He fell to his knees just a few feet from me. Collapsed to the ground with a
whump
.

I crawled over to the man. His head was canted at an unnatural angle. His hands fell away from his neck.

His throat was almost completely severed.

I shuddered, covering my mouth. A scream rang in my head but all that came from my mouth was a terrified little hiss.

And then—the unthinkable happened.

The head
moved
. The neck started to straighten.

The throat…started to close.

Before my eyes, the muscle and gristle knit. Became whole. Over it, the seam of skin fused. Like clay smoothed shut.

Soon not even a scar marked where the man's throat had been cut.

The body
sat up
. The body…man…corpse…God, I don't know what he was…he cricked his neck with a loud pop. Grinned and rose to his feet. Joined again in the attack.

I freaked. All my cocky self-confidence vanished. This wasn't kind-of-weird-but-sexy Julian biting me. This wasn't sitting in a bar with Bruno whispering conspiracy theories.

This was blood-splashing
horror
. This was shambling hordes that kept coming and coming. This was fighting the battle over and over until you just gave up and lay down and died.

I ran back into the warehouse. Grabbing my guitar case to my chest I huddled, eyes tightly closed. Shivering. Wanting to throw up but only choking on dry heaves. “Shit, Oscar. It's real. V-v-v…they're real. Hordes of vam…vampires…they're out there. I'm dead. We're all dead.” In his case, Oscar hummed a scary little threnody.

I don't know how long I stayed like that. I know at some point I cried because when Julian came, Oscar's case was wet.

Julian didn't say a word, only knelt and gently wiped my face. Put his arms around me. Held me and rocked me. Eventually I felt safe enough to open my eyes. I wouldn't let go of Oscar. Julian seemed to understand, simply lifted us both into his arms. He must have picked up my clarinet and amp, too.

He took me home. Undressed me like a child and put me to bed. Settled Oscar in bed next to me. Found my stuffed Jimi bear and put it in bed on my other side. Only then did he leave me, and then only long enough to get some cocoa.

He brought the hot cup to me and made me drink. He had to hold the cup because I was still trembling.

After I finished all of it, he set the cup on my night stand. Sitting next to me, he brushed my hair back from my face. “Do you want to talk about it?” It was the first thing he'd said since telling me to stay put.

“Were those…were those what I think?” My voice was thick and the words garbled, but Julian understood and nodded. I blinked back tears. “But there were hundreds of them! How did you survive?”

“Not hundreds. Maybe thirty.” He took a deep breath. “And we survived because we're the same as them, Bo and I.” Julian watched me carefully, as if judging my reaction. “But you knew that.”

“No,” I whispered. I hugged my Jimi bear tight. “I thought maybe…I suspected…but not really.” I had thought v-thoughts. But my picture was Count Chocula. Dapper and pointy and part of this complete breakfast. Not even light-years close to reality. I looked into Julian's face for the first time. Seeing his blue eyes soften, I said, “Will I…will I become one now?”

“Oh, Nixie. Of course not.” His fingers brushed gently over my cheek. “Only dead people can turn. You're very much alive, sweetheart.”

“Then…what are you going to do to me? Now that I know?”

Julian took in another deep breath, let it out. Giving him time to think, or maybe giving me time to adjust to the worst. “Nixie…we can induce a certain forgetfulness. But only in cases of brief exposure. And only when the memory isn't set. The trauma works in your favor, but…” His eyes shifted away from me.

Meaning the worst. “But Elena knows. She does, doesn't she? That's why the bazooka.”

“Yes. Elena is part of our world, now.”

“Meaning what? That she's Bo's slave?” I could have slapped myself for being such a blind idiot. “She is, isn't she? Bo's blood slave.”

“She's Bo's
wife
,” Julian said gently. “She gives Bo blood, but it's voluntary. All Bo's donors give by choice.”

“Donors.” A shudder went through me. “A damn blood bank. People are a blood bank to you. No, it's worse. We're food, aren't we? Like a smorgasbord.” I pictured rows of steam tables, but with people under the gleaming silver lids.

“I said donors and I meant it.” Julian paused. “Would you like me to explain?”

No,
my mind screamed. “Yes,” I whispered.

“Vampires can't make their own blood.” Julian caressed my hair. “Like people whose bone marrow fails. So we need transfusions.”