Both Ways Page 8

  Cold.

  Dark.

  I sit up.

  Water laps my chest and stomach.

  Huh?

  A hand slaps over my mouth.

  Terror slices through me. Icy, dagger-sharp panic locks the breath in my throat.

  “Quiet.”

  Can’t.

  Too confused. Need to stand. See. Think.

  “There’s someone here.”

  That voice. I know it. Soft and hushed, but familiar.

  Frigid water sloshes around me.

  I flail, catch flesh. Yes, punch, kick, fight back.

  Attack.

  Escape.

  Survive.

  Loud thudding fills my ears. My skin prickles with goosebumps.

  Combat lessons flash across my memory, every training exercise, sparring match, and test.

  Move. Now.

  I plant my feet and push, but the ground is cold and slippery.

  Water sprays across my shoulders and face. Into my eyes, up my nose.

  “Stop it—”

  Again I thrash about, aiming for that voice. My fist catches hard flesh and draws a grunt of pain. Punch again. Again. My hand strikes air.

  They’ve gone?

  No, the hand is still on my mouth.

  “Agent, please, stop hitting me.”

  What?

  “Rayne?” I whisper into the fingers mashed against my lips and teeth.

  Silence. The hand lifts.

  “Yes. Are you okay now?”

  The thunderous thudding eases off. It’s my heartbeat, slowing as the eruption of adrenaline ebbs to a mere gush.

  “Rayne?”

  A gentle hand grips my shoulder. “You need to climb out of there.”

  Climb out? Where the hell am I?

  I stand. Water sluices off my body.

  Wait, I’m naked?

  Memory returns, and with it, recognition of the lap of cold water around my shins.

  I’m in the bath. I’m naked in the bath. I’m naked in the bath with a vampire standing over me.

  “What are you—”

  “Shh!” Rayne puts her fingers to my lips. “There’s someone here.”

  I vault out onto the non-slip mat. Freezing. How long have I been here?

  I open my mouth again, but Rayne is on the move, pushing a towel into my hands. There’s no fumble or hesitation, which reminds me that vampires can see just fine in the dark.

  Hands shaking, I wrap the towel about my body. “Rayne—”

  “They’re sneaking around, trying not to make noise.” Her voice hardens.

  “Where’s Norma?”

  “Who?”

  “My chittarik. She’s usually better than a guard dog and—”

  “I’ve not seen a chittarik.”

  My gut clenches. “I’ll check it out.”

  “But—”

  “I’ve got this. Stay put.” Balanced on the balls of my feet, I slip through the door and close it behind me.

  The bedroom is dark; long shadows stripe the bed and the faintest gleam of moonlight shows through a chink in the curtains. Empty, though, which is good.

  I reach beneath my mattress and pull out my kaiken, a short, slender blade with a gleaming edge. I’d prefer a gun, but this will do.

  Suitably armed, I creep into the living room.

  Also empty.

  Shreds of shiny black fabric dot the floor. Soft, pale dust. Clothes. DVDs. My usual junk.

  Norma lies on the sofa, legs drawn tight to her body, one wing crumpled beneath her.

  “No—”

  Something hard and heavy cracks off the back of my head.

  I fall.

  The dagger spins out of my grip.

  A growl ripples close to my ear.

  I throw a punch over my shoulder, but the angle is off.

  Someone grabs my wrist and twists my arm at the elbow.

  I sprawl, face flat to the carpet, a scream caged behind my teeth.

  Can’t move.

  Hot breath on my back. Drool slides down my neck. “You’re weaker than I expected. But I’ll still kill you. I’ll kill you for her.”

  More pressure on my arm. Weight across my butt and legs.

  Can’t move.

  My free hand scrabbles across the floor. The dagger is close, barely an inch from my fingers. If I can just stretch—

  My captured arm twists. Bolts of agony race up and down my ribs and shoulder.

  A dark shape streaks across the sofa. It flies overhead, collides with a thump and…the weight on my back is gone.

  I roll clear.

  Rayne grapples with a man I don’t know, one with the hard eyes and sharp teeth of a vampire.

  He bests Rayne with a sly right hook and steps over her fallen form to lunge at me.

  I dodge.

  Clawlike fingers snag my towel. It sticks on my damp skin then jerks free.

  My kaiken lies several feet away, beyond the vampire struggling to free his nails from my towel. Can’t go that way. Behind, my kitchen and a joyous assortment of knives and other pointy things.

  I run.

  He follows.

  Three steps from the door he has me again, nails digging into my shoulder. The pain is intense, but fear is stronger and the battle rush has me fired up. Anyway, no bloody vampire is getting away with attacking me in my own house.

  I drop to my knees and twist left. Carpet burn—ow—but I’m free and out of reach.

  For now.

  Up again, run. Dodge. Duck.

  He’s fast. Nearly lost a hunk of hair to that swipe.

  I need a weapon.

  Can barely see in the kitchen, just the shine of sharp teeth and the glitter of silver eyes. The vampire kicks out, catching me in the stomach. I fly back, bounce off the sink and sideboard. Cookware rattles above me.

  Weapon.

  My hand whispers across the surface, seeking something, anything of use.

  Frying pan.

  Clang.

  The vampire stumbles aside, snarling and spitting. Then it comes again. I twist right, end up in the corner against my hob and washing machine.

  Nowhere to go.

  He grabs the fridge and heaves. The whole unit tumbles sideways and down.

  I drop, hook the frying pan over my head, and dive forward on my bare belly.

  The fridge slams into the wall unit and lodges there at an angle. Junk I usually keep on top showers the floor around me: papers, spare keys, cereal boxes, and a large pile of plywood shards.

  More snarling. Shrieking.

  Rayne reappears with a great leap. She lands on the vampire’s back and wraps her legs around his ribs, slashing with her fingernails. Blood flies through the air like rain.

  I’m up again, frying pan in hand.

  Clang.

  The vampire falls, Rayne beneath it, crushed and stunned. She moans.

  I snatch a piece of plywood and dart in, sharp point aimed for the creature’s chest.

  My foot flies from beneath me, skidding on a piece of that waxy black fabric. Down again, on my back, head cracking off the floor.

  Stars. Buzzing. Blurs.

  Pain.

  The frying pan is gone, but I still have the plywood. My stake. Must use it.

  The vampire crawls over my body to sit on my stomach. He wraps one hand about my throat, the other around a fistful of hair.

  No…can’t breathe…

  I shove up with the jagged spike, but the strike lacks power.

  My tongue thickens in the back of my throat.

  Again.

  It swats my hand aside.

  Darkness tunnels my vision.

  Again.

  The wood slips from my fingers.

  Stars are brighter now, the buzzing louder.

  This isn’t fair. If I could reach a weapon. Even the frying pan…

  Rayne slides into view like some crazed, fanged angel and lands a stunning blow with the base of a tall saucepan.

  Freedom. Air.
Light.

  The vampire slumps against the fridge, eyes crossed, head bloody. He roars.

  I roll left, catching another piece of cupboard shelf on the way.

  The vampire wobbles upright.

  I follow, arms out-thrust, all my body weight behind the fresh stake.

  The point sinks through flesh like a skewer through lamb and bursts from his back in a stinking gush of black ichor.

  Direct hit. Yay.

  Flesh bubbles and blisters, inky sores erupting across exposed skin. More of the dark substance spills out, spreading, dripping, oozing until nothing remains but a pool of sticky black gunk and the echoes of a scream.

  I flop to the floor, panting, one hand on my chest.

  A moment later Rayne slumps beside me, still holding the saucepan. She exhales. “Agent?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Would you care to explain why I woke in your cupboard?”

  Chapter Eight

  Rayne perches on the end of my bed, staring at her cuticles. Though motionless now, she’s been busy because my clothes are sorted and folded in neat piles on top of my pillows.

  How domestic.

  Beside them is a pile of the shredded black material that I finally identify as the body bag.

  Weird to see Rayne here, in my room, on my bed. She looks like a normal person, rather than the blood-drinking, throat-munching kind.

  Norma is there too, curled up on the bed beside her. Unharmed, just pissed from the crumpling of her wings and a little dozy from the knockout. Well…more dozy than usual. In fact, dozy enough to have no complaints about a stranger on my bed.

  Wrapped in a fresh towel, I pause in the doorway and clear my throat.

  Rayne’s nostrils flare, but she doesn’t look up. “You’re bleeding.”

  I take quick stock of myself. Aching shoulders with five deep indentations from the vampire’s nails. Back and ribs, sore and bruised. Oh yeah, and the slashes down my shin and calf, bleeding again inside my towel.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “You should dress it.”

  “I will.” When alone. Without a vampire in the room. “Thanks, by the way. I completely misjudged the strength of that thing.”

  “I didn’t want you to get hurt.” She trails a finger across something square and yellow on the end of my bed.

  She even emptied my pockets? My cheeks warm a little.

  “Are you going to pay this?” She waves the parking ticket.

  “I have other things to worry about right now.”

  “You committed a crime.”

  “I parked with one edge of my wheel hanging over a set of double yellows. Hardly crime of the century.”

  Silence.

  I shuffle back and forth in the doorway, scraping my toe over the line between bedroom carpet and bathroom tile. A thin line of red dribbles down my leg. More blossoms on the white towel. “Rayne…I need to get dressed.”

  An instant later she’s on her feet and at the bedroom door. Didn’t even see her move.

  “Sorry.” Still she avoids meeting my gaze, but her voice has become light and breathy. “Sorry. I didn’t mean—I don’t want—I’ll wait outside.” Gone.

  My shoulders drop as tension flows out of them.

  I clean and bind my calf and mangled shoulder, then work on the rest of my body. Super comfort now makes up for last night’s torment: black jeans under a long T-shirt, finished with a cropped shirt and ankle boots. My hair, I hike into a ponytail.

  Now I feel like me.

  “Norma?”

  “Son, son?” she mutters.

  I stroke her head. “Don’t worry. Stay there. Get some rest.”

  “Karson.”

  I find Rayne in the kitchen, scooping lumpy vampire ooze into a bin bag.

  “Gross. You don’t have to do that.”

  She shrugs. “Least I can do.”

  I watch her, stooped low, head bowed. Can she still smell my blood? Her control is incredible, the best I’ve come across at such a young age. Especially if she hasn’t been drinking regularly.

  “What now?” Still no eye contract, just tidying.

  “We talk. More specifically, you finish telling me about these unregistered vampires.”

  “But I don’t know anything. I’m a youngling—no one tells me anything.”

  “Bullshit. What were you going to tell me this morning before the sun hit you?”

  She hunches up, gnawing her bottom lip like a scolded child.

  I wish she’d stop. For some reason, the little dents her teeth make on the edge of her lip send my pulse galloping, fangs or not. She also has a dimple in her left cheek, small, deep, and cute as hell.

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “So I should send you to SPEAR? Let them execute you for attacking a human?”

  “No, please—”

  “I risked my neck getting you here. If anyone finds out, I’m done, understand? Make all this worth it. Tell me what you know.”

  “I…”

  I snatch her hand and shove it into the slick black muck. “This used to be a vampire, Rayne, like you. If you’re no good to me, this is what you’ll end up when SPEAR get hold of you.”

  The hand begins to shake. “I can’t. They’re all I have. My family. They need me.” Her eyes shimmer, wavering between that pale amber and the bright silver of vampire anger. “You don’t understand. You don’t know—”

  “Hey, calm down.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down.”

  I scoot my foot left, closer to a large shard of my busted shelf. “Rayne—”

  A long, low growl spills from her mouth. Her fingers flex.

  Shit, shit, shit!

  I dive for the plywood and grip it tight, crouched low and ready to fight.

  She scrunches her eyes shut. Fists tremble.

  “Rayne?”

  Both eyes snap open. Silver flares before the usual colour returns. “They attacked you. It’s not right. You’re only trying to help.”

  “The bounty?”

  She nods.

  “What the hell did I do, anyway?”

  “You’re very good at your job, Agent.” She gestures to the plywood gripped tight in my fist. “We all have reason to be scared of you.” Her lips part slightly, showing off the gleaming points of fangs.

  I tighten my grip on the stake and take a second to remind myself: no matter how cute that dimple, Rayne is a vampire, capable of popping my head from my shoulders and using the neck hole as a champagne flute.

  * * *

  One good thing about Quinn’s dick move is that I no longer need to report to HQ. Working with the civvie bashers leaves me free to act as I choose, with check ins by phone at the start and end of my shift. I make the first call, inwardly curse the smug voice on the other end, then return my attention to Rayne.

  She’s on the sofa, playing with Norma who seems delighted at the attention. More of those growling, gurgling purrs and playful flicks of her tail. She bats with her paws, but her claws are always retracted, clearly intending to tease rather than harm.

  What the hell?

  “What do we do now, Agent?”

  I loop my utility belt around my waist, check my gun, then start to slide knives into various hidden sheaths. Hip, left thigh, right calf, forearms, lower spine…

  “I’m expecting more information from a source in The Bowl. We’ll go there first.”

  “We?”

  “I’m in enough trouble as it is. No way I’m letting you out of my sight.”

  “Is this your chittarik? She’s very friendly.”

  I eye them both. “Not usually. This is…odd.”

  “How so?”

  “She hasn’t tried to jab your eyes out.”

  Rayne giggles, a sweet, lively sound. “She’d never do that, would she? No, never, you pretty little thing. She’s just like my chittarik, Princess.”

  “You called a scaly, cat-sized, mini dragon Princess?”

  She shru
gs. “I was fifteen.”

  I stop secreting weapons and turn to face her properly. In profile, Rayne’s face is less doll-like, with a finely defined jaw and straight nose. Her eye corners have the faintest uptick which blends seamlessly into the shadow cast by long, thick eyelashes. Even her mouth from this angle has an adorable pout and a tint as if her lips are smeared with strawberry gloss.

  What. The. Hell.

  I scrunch my eyes shut. What’s wrong with me? She’s not a she, she’s a vampire. A demon. A monster.

  Isn’t she?

  Rayne laughs again and turns Norma onto her back to rub the scaly belly.

  Never, in all the time I’ve had her, has Norma allowed someone else to touch her that way.

  I whistle, a sharp burst of sound through my teeth.

  Muttering her reluctance, Norma leaves Rayne’s attentions and swoops onto my shoulder. She brushes my cheek with her tail and nips at my earlobe. “Karson?”

  Nice try, traitor.

  Rayne straightens. The smile is gone, her gaze now serious and deep. “We had all sorts of supernatural creatures back home. A few pixies, a water sprite. There was a gnome at one point, though that disappeared when the brownies showed up. For some reason they don’t get along.”

  I know my mouth is hanging open, but I can’t help it. “Are you a Rancher?”

  “Dad was. Then my brothers took over. Well, three did. Most of my sisters and the other two joined the police.”

  “How many of you were there?”

  “Fourteen.”

  My hand freezes, part way through stroking Norma’s back. “Your poor mother.”

  Rayne smiles. “We’re a foster family. Eight sisters, five brothers, and Mum and Dad living on the ranch. We had mundane pets too, dogs, cats, ferrets, and horses on the wild scrub at the back.”

  I try to imagine Rayne surrounded by animals and family. It’s weird. But nice. “I had no idea.”

  “I loved them so much. They were as wonderful as any real family—no, they were my real family.”

  Despite myself, I’m intrigued. “Were? What happened?”

  She gives me a level look. “I died, Agent.”

  Shit. When will I learn to keep my foot out of my mouth?

  “I need to sort some things and make a phone call. Wait here.”

  She frowns but stays on the sofa, watching as I stride away.

  Norma dives off my shoulder and back to Rayne, calling the whole way.

  Traitor.

  I retrieve my kit bag from the cupboard as I dial and inspect the contents while waiting on the connection.