Authors: Christine Cody
Bloodlands (34 page)
A stretch of near-silent night.
Then the kid spoke, and he sounded even closer. “I’m focused on only you right now. A dirty abomination. A
vampire
.”
vampire
.”
“No. I’m as human as anyone.”
Gabriel said it with all the conviction he owned, because he’d started half-believing the lie, and hearing Stamp define him as a monster when he’d made such strides away from it caused him to clutch the butt of his revolver even tighter.
“Come out in the open and prove me false,” Stamp said.
“So you can take a potshot at me with a gun?” Something like anger screwed into Gabriel. “Listen—if you’re keen on exacting an eye for an eye because of me taking out some of your crew as they were killing Zel, that’s one thing. I’d understand your ire. We might as well make this a fair fight without an ounce of cowardice involved.”
Unbidden, Gabriel realized that he wasn’t even halfway through making up for what Stamp and his crew had done to Zel. But that wasn’t why he was here.
Reason, he thought. He had to see if he could reason with Stamp.
He could hear the kid’s vital signs getting closer, the measured thump of his heart the most ominous sound in the . Gabriel’s fangs itched to come out, but he pushed the defensive urge back.
“What I did to Zel Hopkins was necessary,” Stamp said. He’d halted his progress where the acoustics were deceiving, where his words bounced off the gully walls, making Gabriel think he was here when he could’ve been there.
Gabriel didn’t stir. He only waited, just as Stamp had been so patiently waiting.
The kid said, “She attacked us first, and, insultingly, it was just after we’d come to you with white hankies waving. The only way we could initially stop her was with a weapon that a member of the crew had at hand. My employee had one of the knives we’d tried on the demon earlier.”
The blade sticking out of Zel’s back . . .
But . . . that knife had been used on the demon hunt? And what did Stamp mean when he said that using it was the only way they could initially stop her?
Before Gabriel had time to figure anything out, he heard a scrape over the dirt—footsteps that caused reverberations under Gabriel’s own boots—and a shift of what sounded like hard leather against soft. Suddenly, Stamp was in the open, twenty feet in front of Gabriel, framed by the loom branches.
He looked . . . different.
Part of it was the clothing he wore. Leather armor that caught the glower of the moon, long gauntlets, heavy boots. The other part was the weapons he was carrying—the guns holstered at his hips, the bandolier of bullets worn over a shoulder and across his chest . . .
. . . and the complicated mass of steel peeking up from the sling on his back.
Gabriel recognized the last piece of equipment, just from the design. He’d heard about chest punchers before.
A Shredder, Gabriel thought, the hair on his skin rising. It was said that only a Shredder who hunted vampires used punchers to anchor to a monster’s chest, rip it open, then mangle and burn a heart in one fell swoop.
It hadn’t been only the monsters who were undertaking an exodus from the hubs, Gabriel thought. It was the out-of-work hunters, too, and Stamp . . . yeah, Stamp . . . must’ve been one of the young ones the government had recruited without shame.
Gabriel’s spine arched, just like an animal that’d been cornered. But it’d be the end of him if Stamp saw him now.
Again, he realized that Stamp had no scent, but now he knew why. The kid had neutralized himself with Shredder expertise. Still, Gabriel acted as a human would, refusing to run or beg for his existence. If he could fool Stamp, it might work, because Shredders were supposed to have strict codes about killing only monsters. . . .
The kid’s arms arced by his sides, as if he were ready to draw at the slightest hint of Gabriel’s vampire. In turn, Gabriel strained under the urge to spring at Stamp and tear him apart before the Shredder could do the same.
“The knife,” the kid said, clearly taking up the conversation about Zel again, “was silver. You should know all about silver and how it affects you as well as how it tamed Zel Hopkins.”
“Zel was no demon,” Gabriel said, even though the words sounded weak. He was recalling how those two men Zel killed had died with their faces mangled. . . .
“You’re right,” Stamp said. “Zel Hopkins wasn’t a demon. Thanks to my security cameras, af heard my men screaming outside and I saw their faces being ripped off with Zel Hopkins’s freakish claws, I had a pretty good idea of what she was.”
Claws?
Stamp turned his head so he was assessing the spot where Gabriel still took cover with a sidelong look. Then he laughed.
“If I didn’t know any better,” he said, “I’d think you had zero idea.”
Everything was falling in on Gabriel now—Zel disappearing so quickly, Zel’s strange death screech . . .
Stamp added, “And the longer I stand here, the more I do believe it, Gabriel. Then again, your ignorance makes sense. You were masterful at keeping your monster from me, but Zel Hopkins was, too—were-creatures can contain themselves much better than your sort. They’re absolutely human when the moon or emotion doesn’t pull at them, but when they change . . .” The kid laughed freely now. “How was it that the community didn’t tell you what she was?”
Gabriel was speechless, and Stamp was enjoying taunting him too much to stop.
“I never caught a vampire living alongside a were-creature. Both species would run with their own kind out of preference, and vampires used to be a bunch of loners, to boot. Of course, there’s ancient lore about alliances between the two groups, but this is rich. You and Zel Hopkins, in the same community. Did she know about
you
?”
you
?”
“There was nothing to know,” Gabriel finally said.
Laughter again. The more Stamp found this amusing, the more Gabriel burned, his gaze flashing deep red until he had to close his eyes so Stamp wouldn’t see the glow through the branches.
The kid obviously knew he was getting to Gabriel, even without a weapon, and he put more verbal firepower into his attack.
“Know what my crew told me? They said that Zel Hopkins appeared from behind the hill, stalking over it, her clothes in shreds because of the change from this to that form and back again after she flew to us from your place. But we only figured that out afterward. At first, she was aiming her pistols and calling me out, just as if she wanted to do this the human way, without giving up her true identity. A couple of my men told her to back off, and when she didn’t, they got out the guns.”
Stamp’s words sounded as if he were saying them with a tight smile. “She was so outraged that I suppose she couldn’t help what came next. She turned, Gabriel. Turned into a were-owl—a cross between a bird and human, something whose systems underwent mutations until she became a creature of blood appetite. I hear it happens to all those weres, even what used to be plant eaters. That’s how they get their water out here when they’re in animal form, I suppose. Accidents of nature, just like a lot of things out here in the Badlands.
“She winged into the air in that awful half-human, feathered body, flew around, then gained momentum, attacking with her claws extended, her wing-arms spanned. She mauled my men but good with her claws and beak until that employee who’d been on the demon hunt earlier got her with the silver knife. The silver gave Zel Hopkins a decent shock, weakened her enough to take away her preter powers, and she turned all the way human again, yelling for me to come out and face her the entire while until I did emerge. I just had enough time to fit a silver bullet or two into my revolver before you rode to the rescue and I terminated her.” He shook his head. “A monster. A thing way out here where I least expected to find any more. I thought you all were extinct.”
Gabriel had been sieving Stamp’s comments, taking what he needed and letting the rest fall away. It was the only course he had left if he wanted to restrain himself.
“Is that what you did with your life?” Gabriel asked. “Killed?”
Stamp’s amusement seemed to disappear, his tone going flat. “I did my duty to humanity. And I’ll keep doing it until your kind presents no more problems to the good of the world.”
Thinking he’d calmed enough to open his eyes, Gabriel did, relieved that his sight was normal. He’d done it—gotten through Stamp’s verbal assault.
He’d taken it like a man, too.
Now he stepped away from the tree, confident in the good he knew he had in him.
They faced off, Stamp ready to draw, Gabriel willing to do it, as well, his hand just above his revolver. The longer he didn’t change into his vampire, the better his chances for survival, and he could see that in Stamp’s expression as it went from utter cool to containing a shade of doubt about Gabriel’s monstrosity.
He was thinking that Gabriel should’ve turned into a vampire by now, not be squaring off in a fight with just a bullet as an ally.
“I’m going to be departing this place soon enough,” Gabriel said, “but I won’t do it until I know that you’re going to leave my friends alone.”
The oldster. Sammy. Hana.
Mariah.
Some kind of emotion must’ve come over Gabriel’s face, because Stamp was still hesitating. Then a sympathetic yet pitying expression consumed the Shredder.
Gabriel knew what it meant. Stamp was thinking how naïve his opponent was. He hadn’t changed his mind about Gabriel’s vampirism at all. . . .
Instead of fearing Stamp’s perseverance, Gabriel’s anger at Zel’s death rose up, inflaming him just enough to provide courage for what needed to be done now.
He went for his revolver, and Stamp drew, too.
But the kid wasn’t raising his firearm—no, he flicked up a hand and a cross snicked out of the wrist of his gauntlet.
The silhouette of the holy symbol was black against the gloom of night, and before Gabriel’s body jerked into itself, he reached for his revolver, skinned it, and fired.
He fell to his knees right before he heard Stamp dive to the side, dodging the bullet. With the cross out of sight, Gabriel rolled behind a tree.
Then he heard the eerie whirring sound coming at him.
Automatically, he sprung up to the branches of an adjacent tree, grasping the weave of them and flipping himself up into cover in the mass of darkness just before Stamp’s bullet zipped by.
A Shredder bullet. The professional killers had gotten their nicknames from the projectile that would open into ripping blades upon impact, shredding a vampire’s heart at longer range than a chest puncher required. If it didn’t disable the heart thoroughly, it’d at least give a Shredder enough advantage to descend on the incapacitated vampire and behead it to ensure termination.
Gabriel stayed still in the hive of branches, waiting to see what Stamp would bring at him now. Next to his hand—the one nto wasn’t still gripping the revolver—he felt a tiny pinch. When he glanced over, he saw a little jaw bird opening its sharp-toothed beak to take a bigger bite of him.
Gabriel flicked it aside and bent down to get a view of where he thought Stamp had gone, behind another loom tree.
When he saw the nose of a weapon peeking around the bole, he knew Stamp was there, using a corner shot gun, which boasted a screen that extended away from the weapon, showing the target, even from around a barrier.
“Come on out, Gabriel,” Stamp yelled, his voice echoing. “I’m going to get you in short order, anyway. You might as well not prolong the exercise.”
“I’m not what you think I am.” The statement surprised even Gabriel. But here he was, still trying.
Still believing.
Stamp didn’t answer right away. Gabriel could see him scanning around with that corner shot gun.
Then the kid said, “Fair enough. I’ll admit, the vamps I met back in the hubs would’ve turned full monster by now, just out of a desperation for survival. But you . . . You’ve got some discipline for a preter.”
Gabriel knew why that was. Mariah. What she’d given him when he’d shared his sway with her. It was with him, even vaguely.
“Yes, sir,” Stamp added, “you did react to the cross.”
“You drew on me, and I thought it’d be a bullet, not a tired religious symbol.”
He could see the corner shot gun’s nose lower, then pull behind the tree.
Gabriel leaned forward. Stamp
did
have doubts.
did
have doubts.
But then the corner shot gun appeared once again, and this time it was focused on Gabriel’s branches, as if the weapon had some kind of close-up mechanism that would unmask him.
Stifling a curse, he quickly slid down the bole, hitting the ground and slipping to another nearby tree. Then another. Then more . . .
Stamp’s voice came from way back now. “Just make this easy.”
Gabriel listened for the Shredder, but the kid was stealthy, and it wasn’t until he saw Stamp’s corner shot gun poking around the tree two down from his that Gabriel targeted his own weapon and fired.
Other books
Emma: Lights! Camera! Cupcakes! by Coco Simon
GEN13 - Version 2.0 by Unknown Author
A Happily Ever After of Her Own by Nadia Lee
The Perfect Temptation by Leslie LaFoy
Seduced by Darkness by Alex Lux
Beneath the Stain - Part 1 by Amy Lane
His to Hold (Regency Scoundrels Book 1) by Mathews, Marly
The Witch's Key by Dana Donovan
Naked by Megan Hart
