Darkness Returns (17 page)

Teresa scuttled backward, this time in actual retreat.

Scud approached her, his member waggling like a finger ahead of him.

“Time to make puppies.”

Teresa flipped onto her hands and knees, into a sprinter’s stance, and tried to launch away from him. A clawed and furry hand clasped her around the ankle and dragged her back. The concrete floor scoured her naked breasts.

“No,” she cried. “No.”

She kicked back with her free leg, aiming for his exposed genitals. He twisted sideways so her heel struck his thigh harmlessly. Then he grabbed her kicking leg as well, holding her by the ankles like a wheelbarrow.

She thrashed. She fought.

But being a fighter, even one as fierce as Teresa Stevenson, never guaranteed a win.

Chapter Twenty-One

The sun proof outfit Wertz gave her was cool and all, but damn did it get toasty when she ran. Wertz had said the inspiration for the getup came from a cross between motorcycle leathers and steampunk. She got the steampunk reference from the aviator goggles with the tinted lenses, but the rest of the thing made her look like the freakin Gimp from
Pulp Fiction
, all the way down to the zipper over her mouth. Not a speck of sunlight would get through, Wertz guaranteed. He made no mention of comfort or style.

Those she passed while she ran through the streets in broad daylight must have thought her an escapee from
Cirque du Soleil
. Though most people probably saw more of a black blur than anything since Jessie was traveling at full vamp speed.

She did not have a destination in mind. She knew her way around Las Vegas and the surrounding areas about as well as the surface of Mars. Instead, she followed that tug, the thing that had struck her square in the chest right before the demonic soul inside of her had tried to devour her. The tug had worked like a life line. She had grabbed hold and rode that sucker clear out of the darkness and back to the outside world.

What she’d discovered on the outside was that she could still feel that tug, and she knew it belonged to Craig. She also knew Dad had gotten into trouble again.

So it didn’t surprise her much to find the Hummer tipped on its side and a trio of werewolves on top, smashing through the windows. Jessie’s bet? Dad was inside.

Sure enough the sound of a gunshot boomed from inside the Hummer. One of the wolves dodged, then went back to pawing his way through the glass.

Jessie came to a halt a couple dozen yards from the scene. She’d come up behind the wolves and they were so wrapped up trying to get into the Hummer, they never saw her. She made a quick calculation.

Three werewolves.

One vampire.

No mojo.

A head-on attack would get her killed. She would have to distract them long enough to give Craig a chance to make his own escape. With her mouth literally zipped shut, she couldn’t give a whistle and deliver some pithy line. Bummer, because she thought something like
You dogs wanna play fetch?
might sound kind of badass. Maybe a little too cheesy, like late Schwarzenegger or that god-awful last
Die Hard
sequel.

Jess, stay focused, will ya?

Well, without the witty shout out, she’d have to settle for something more medieval.

Wertz had attached a sword sheath to the back of her sun proof outfit, equipped with a wicked blade, the one thing that made her look kinda like Snake Eyes instead of the Gimp. She drew the sword, tested its weight in her grip. She didn’t actually have any training with swords, but the basics seemed pretty simple. Slash. Stab. Repeat.

Only, since she was opting out of the head-on attack, she wouldn’t get a chance for a full test.

So long, sword. Maybe we’ll meet again.

With all her vampire strength and precision, she tossed the sword like a spear and stuck the blade straight through the back of the head of one of the wolves. A lucky shot, for sure. The wolf went stiff for a second, then rolled off the Hummer and flopped to the ground like a rolled carpet.

The other two wolves stopped growling into the Hummer and looked around at her, their heads swinging in unison, ears twitching like mini—and hairy—radar dishes. Their black eyes flashed.

Forgetting about the zipper, Jessie waved and said, “Hi boys,” which came out sounding like “Ha boofs.”

The wolves bounded off the truck, their lips rippling away from their teeth, sunlight caught in the glistening spittle flinging from their mouths.

Jessie turned around and ran.

The problem with men—and apparently this applied to Alpha werewolves just the same—was once they had their dicks out, they stopped thinking much farther than the tip.

Skin full of abrasions that felt similar to the burns that had finally healed, Teresa drove the Lincoln. The bloody ball wrapped in plastic she’d taken from the warehouse sat on the passenger seat and rocked gently when she came to a stop at a red light. She swam in a pair of coveralls she found in a small locker room off the warehouse’s central office. The gray fabric was spotted with sweat stains and scratched at her naked skin underneath. A patch on the front read, “Quint,” with another patch on the opposite side of the middle zipper that read, “Bane Inc.”

She knew she had blood in her hair. She’d done her best to wash what she could off her face with a box of wet wipes from the glove box. Obviously, appearance didn’t matter. She had a situation to bring back under control. And with the plastic-wrapped item beside her, control was exactly what she planned to get.

With her window cracked, all she had to do was listen for the sirens.

Jesus, even out in a warehouse district in the middle of nowhere, Lockman had managed to make a scene. She only hoped the wolves hadn’t finished him off yet. She still needed him to get to the monster, the one who had started all this, driven Teresa to this place, a place where she had let herself be so humiliated all in the name of protecting her country…her
world
.

She pulled to the curb a couple blocks down from the scene. Three police cars and a Hummer tipped on its side. A FedEx truck with the side smashed in. A trembling, weeping man in a FedEx uniform trying to describe something to one of the uniforms who had a notebook out but his pencil frozen above the paper, unable or unwilling to write out whatever the delivery man told him.

No sign of Craig.

But two wolf corpses lay on the street in plain sight.

What a fucking mess.

Something prompted one of the uniforms to look down the street in her direction. The windows were all tinted, still Teresa felt as if their eyes met across the distance. The cop wrinkled his brow and started an easy stroll in her direction. The sight of a Lincoln Town Car with all the windows tinted black raised his suspicion. The cop had a good eye.

Time to move on.

She pulled a U-turn and drove away from the scene, making sure to match the speed limit, not give the cop any more fuel to want to investigate further. Let him think she was just a gawker. He’d forget all about her in a bit. Especially once he got a close look at the wolves. Explaining that mystery would probably consume the rest of his life.

The package on the passenger seat started to roll away during the U-turn. Teresa rested a hand on the plastic, which crinkled under her touch, and under the plastic something made a sucking sound, like a wet kiss.

Teresa patted the package. “You can kiss me, Scud. You can kiss my fucking ass.”

The second the wolves cleared out, Lockman climbed out of the Hummer. He stood on the tipped vehicle for a moment, surveying his surroundings. From some of the nearest buildings a few people had wandered out to learn what the commotion was all about. A few gaped with wide, horrified eyes at the pair of giant wolf corpses on the ground. Others looked up at Lockman, hands over their eyes as visors against the sun.

The sound of police sirens wailed in the distance.

Lockman tried to figure which direction the wolves had run off to. He wasn’t sure what had drawn them off, but the sword through the head of one was a clue. He tucked the Mossberg under his arm and climbed off the Hummer. He crouched by the wolf with the speared head, but the sword didn’t tell him anything useful.

One of the onlookers had worked up enough courage to come within speaking distance. He had a long white beard and skin the color and consistency of rawhide. “You okay, mister?”

Nodding, Lockman wiped some blood off his cut lip. “Thanks.”

“These animals escape from one of the casinos or sumthin’?”

“Or something,” Lockman whispered more to himself. He grabbed the hilt of the sword in the wolf’s head and yanked it free. Then he faced the old guy with the questions. “You got a vehicle I can commandeer?”

He thought about flashing his fake FBI credentials, but figured the sword worked as well.

The old guy nodded and dug keys out of his pocket. He pulled one off the ring and held it out, hand trembling. “It’s the white pickup parked at the curb there.” He tilted his head to the kind of truck Uncle Jessie from
The Dukes of Hazzard
might drive.

Wheels were wheels.

Lockman wiped the blood on the sword off on the wolf’s pelt, slid the blade under his belt to hold it like a sheath, then took the offered key. “Probably won’t be able to get it back to you. Tell your insurance company a federal agent needed it for official business.”

The old guy snorted. “Sure, right.”

The pickup smelled like exhaust before Lockman ever got it started. The white cloud that coughed out the tail pipe held a tinge of sulfur to it, like the smoke of hellfire.

Lockman chugged out of there, passing a police cruiser with lights and sirens going in the opposite direction.

Good luck with that
, he thought.

He took a casual, circuitous route through the warehouse district that eventually led him back to the warehouse where he’d left Teresa and Mica behind. The Lincoln that had been parked next to the Hummer was gone. But a new vehicle, an ‘86 Mustang in perfect condition, sat in the lot now. The side door Lockman had escaped from hung open, and though it was hard to tell from the road, looked like some damage to the hinges kept it that way. As if whoever left last had hit the door so hard, they had nearly knocked it loose.

He puttered past in his commandeered hillbilly mobile and circled the block. A second pass revealed nothing more. Just the Mustang and the open door. He debated going in, weighing the benefit of whatever intelligence he might gather against the risk of running into more wolves. Decided it wasn’t worth the chance.

He made a final pass, then drove north, until he found a gas station and could get a map, find out exactly where he was and how to get back to the doorway to headquarters. He pulled into the alley behind the karaoke bar and used the back entrance to avoid any questions about the shotgun or the sword. Hopefully, the hillbilly mobile and its ruddy owner would find themselves together again.

The fella guarding the broom closet with the doorway in it looked mortal enough except for all the metal shit piercing his face, and the tattoos covering every inch of visible skin. He recognized Lockman, but still crossed his arms and stood in the way, gaze going to the sword.

“Where is she?” he asked, accent a little Spanish with a southern drawl mixed in.

“Where’s who?”

“The little ninja that sword belongs to. The vampire girl.”

A stone dropped into Lockman’s belly. “Jessie?”

“She not make it?”

Lockman didn’t bother answering. He turned around and went out the way he came, back into the pickup, started the engine and held his breath against the exhaust stink. He added a little burnt rubber to the smell when he over accelerated and peeled out of the alley.

Jessie.

The wolves had gone after her.

She was the distraction.

And who knew where she was now?

He didn’t know where to begin to look, so he headed back to where he’d crashed the Hummer. Hopefully he could pick up her trail from there.

But he was no wolf, couldn’t smell her out like one. They might have already caught up with her.