that,” Jo said.
I switched back to para freq in time to hear Rick say, “Local LEOs have three limos full of Mithrans under gunpoint. Tennessee plates. Get someone to make sure it’s Shaddock and convince the locals to let him and his people through. He has humans and vamps who can feed our wounded.”
T. Laine said, “Kent here. Dyson and I can handle that.” Their car spun out of the lot, throwing gravel in the glare of the headlights.
I hadn’t even noticed that my teammates were onsite. Yummy didn’t notice that they had left. Her black and scarlet eyes were focused solely on Occam. “Feed me and I will heal you,” she whispered.
“Not. Happening.”
In the earbud, Margot said, “If you need backup to get Shaddock free, let me know.”
Gonzales shouted, “Where’s medic? We have multiple injured. Two bodies in the shrubbery, condition unknown. More in the back bedroom. We need uniforms deployed to keep the house secure so we can expand our perimeter.”
Rick said, “Officers on the way. Local LEOs are moving in to your location and encircling the location of the disabled panel vans in case the vamps show there.”
More cars and vans began to pour in, both here and on the site of the shooting. News vans were being stopped at the perimeter. Yummy’s talons were slowly piercing the steel of the limo door. She stepped from the limo, exposing her torso and abdomen. Occam swore.
Yummy had been shot multiple times, open wounds dripping. Her clothing was drenched scarlet in the glancing lights from the cars all around. She was staring at Occam and … smiling. It was enough to make me wither inside, even as I licked my lips in need. Occam said, “We need humans to feed an injured vampire, at my twenty, now!”
I focused on her neck wounds. Blood dribbled out, looking fresh, though I knew it was cold and watery. My body reacted to the blood on her clothes, the blood splattering on the ground. Bloodlust that been a low, slow need rose and thrummed through me. It moved the way sound waves move along a stringed instrument, humming, a prolonged and varying noise of need.
I wanted to feed the earth. Soulwood was awake and needing.
“Huuunger,” Yummy said.
Huuuunger, I thought.
“Shaddock’s on the way,” Rick said. “He’s dropping off his people at the house and coming directly to your twenty. How badly is she injured?”
I swallowed down my hunger. “Bloody with open wounds. And vamped out.”
“Feed me,” she whispered, leaning toward Occam. Reaching.
“Can you contain her,” Rick said. It wasn’t exactly a question. Contain. Not kill.
I drew a stake. I had never staked a vampire. I’d been taught how at Spook School, but training and combat are very different things. I placed the stake in Occam’s lap and opened my car door. Shoved the low-light/IR headgear off. Raced around Occam’s car, knees bent, my service weapon at the ready. It was loaded with silver rounds. Yummy wasn’t very old. Silver rounds might kill her. But regular rounds would only make her mad. Yummy was a friend. I might have to kill her.
She was focused on Occam, her pupils black and wide, the whites the color of blood. “Cat,” she whispered. “I have missed the taste of your blood.”
My hunger focused on the bloody vampire. “Hey, Yummy,” I shouted. Her head whipped to me. Need ached through me. “You control yourself or you’ll wish you had,” I whispered.
“Maggot,” she hissed.
“Yeah. I’ll consume your dead flesh,” I whispered, barely a breath of sound.
Yummy laughed, the laughter the devil might make while he tortured lost souls. She leaped. At Occam.
ELEVEN
My finger began to squeeze the trigger.
She was illuminated, leaping through the air. A pop of displaced air sounded. And she was gone. Just disappeared. Something thumped on the ground to my side in the dark.
The shock stole my need away. I released the trigger and whipped around, spotting a rolling, hissing, moaning something in the darkness. “What just happened?” I asked the empty space in front of us.
“Lincoln Shaddock happened,” Occam said. “He tackled Yummy into the weeds. Saved our butts.”
I sat down on the ground hard. And just breathed. Mosquitoes buzzed around me. If they had been here before, I hadn’t noticed. I finally holstered my weapon, fighting tears and bloodlust. Occam squatted near me, his knees spread, his hands dangling between them. I could see officers in the dark staring at his scars, but he just looked like Occam to me. He handed me my stake