How to Elude a Vampire (VRC Vampire Related Crimes #2) - Alice Winters Page 0,1
you are,” Karsyn growls.
“My one true love?” I ask Marcus.
“Huh?”
“After this… can we go to the park and have Karsyn push me on the swing?” I ask like I’m very hopeful that this will actually happen.
It’s finally spring, so children have flocked to the park, even though the air is slightly cool with the wind cutting through it. The overcast sky allows the vampires out, but they’re still wearing dark clothes and sunglasses. Since the light isn’t too bright, my sunglasses are hooked on my shirt. Anytime the sun comes out, I have to slip them on since the bright light also bothers my eyes. But no one besides Marcus really knows why.
“Next?” the cashier calls out.
Karsyn steps up to her, a scowl still on his face.
“Good afternoon, how can I help you?” the young woman says with so much cheer that it hits Karsyn’s impenetrable brooding bubble and tumbles off.
“I’d like a cup, no ice cream, nothing in it at all for the human. No sprinkles, definitely no spoon. Just a cup,” Karsyn says.
She looks confused as she stares at her notepad. “Just a… cup? Like to share?” she asks.
“Do you see him?” I ask as I press into Karsyn even closer, but my height difference makes it hard to see much of anything. Karsyn is taller than me, but Marcus has about three inches on him and can actually see past him.
“He’s in the back, right there. Jeffry Thompson, you’re under arrest!” Marcus shouts.
When the man peeks over a shelf to look at us, I finally get a good look at him. Then I get a very good look at his back as he bolts, slamming through the door of the tiny ice cream place and out into the street, but Briar has been waiting on that side and DeGray on the other for a moment just like this.
Jeffry is a vampire we’d pinpointed to this location after a string of break-ins and assaults. He’s also very well known for getting away from his pursuers, so the five of us decided to tackle it together, even though I generally work just with Marcus out in the field.
“Can your tiny little legs keep up?” Karsyn asks.
Marcus waves at him like he’s going to defend me. “Shh, Karsyn. He doesn’t like it when you make fun of his speed. You’re like a cheetah, baby,” Marcus encourages. Sadly, he doesn’t see me flipping him off as he and Karsyn zoom off, leaving the struggling human behind.
Jeffry slams into Briar who latches on to him. He socks her in the face with an elbow and she tucks her head away as we rush toward them. He yanks something out that looks like a small handheld canister, but it’s hard to see with them struggling with each other. He brings it up, and just as he goes to press down, she catches his hand and turns it before pushing it herself.
What Briar must have forgotten is that the wind is viciously whipping our way, so when she presses down on the canister, I realize exactly what the canister is.
Especially when it hits Marcus, Karsyn, DeGray, and me right in the face.
The pepper spray immediately attacks my senses. My eyes burst into tears as I accidentally breathe it in and begin coughing. I’ve been hit with pepper spray before but there’s no way to ever get used to the feel of it.
“Holy shit!” DeGray cries out as Jeffry pulls free of Briar who’s stumbling away screaming something like “My eyes!”
Marcus is heaving next to me and tears are pouring from my eyes, obscuring my vision. Seeing as they’re vampires and their senses are heightened, it seems that their ability to detect pepper spray is magnitudes above mine.
“I can’t see him. Where’d he go?” Marcus yells as he rips his sunglasses off and crushes them in his hand like the sunglasses caused this issue.
Thankfully, because of my “tiny little human legs” I was far enough behind that I got the aftereffects of the spray.
“Maybe if you were like a cheetah, baby, you wouldn’t be so slow!” I say as I run past the heaving and sobbing vampires.
“Dammit, Finn, don’t take on the vampire alone!” Marcus yells.
“I can’t hear you over the sound of my speeding legs,” I shout as I watch the vampire dodge right into traffic. He hits the side of a moving car, careens over the top of it, lands on his feet like a cat and takes off again only to be