Ryder flicked his head back and met my gaze. “Research, hey? Maybe this enforcer gig is rubbing off on you.”
I fought the urge to reach across the seat and smack him in the back of the head. I might be a tad on the lazy side when it came to researching—it was always the job I hated the most when I was stuck in the call center—but when things interested me I was all over them. I was like a ninja private investigator with a degree in Google.
“Deliverance has risen and fallen over the years,” Ryder said. “Under many names and banners. Originally they were known as God’s Voice.”
Shit, I had actually heard of that religious sect. When I was young there had been a lot of violent events linked to them, which had scared my mom. But then the news stopped reporting on them and everything had gone back to normal.
Ryder continued. “In those earlier days they had a strong voice, when there were many who feared that the Anima Mortem virus was the first stage of the apocalypse and that it was the end of days. They used this fear to create a small army of gatherers. But as the years have gone on, and the human governments have learned to work with the Hive Quorums, the voice of Deliverance has died off. Now they’re mostly pains in our asses, creating a lot of paperwork and headaches for the leaders.”
I swallowed hard. If they ever got a cure in their grip, I had no doubt their voice would rise strong again. There were still plenty of humans who feared the night. Right now they had no power and no legal rights to hunt the vamps, but imagine if they could cure them back to human. All of those families who had lost members to the virus, or who wanted to return humans to the top of the predator pyramid, would come out in force.
This could not end well for me. Not well at all.
Ryder must have been thinking the same thing. His voice deepened as he broke the silence again. “They will never touch you, Charlie. We look after our own, and you’re one of us now.”
A sense of resolve seemed to fill the car then; the men all wore identical expressions—very serious expressions. These guys needed a holiday or something. They hardly ever relaxed, and with everything happening now they were ten times worse than when I’d first met them.
I looked out the window to distract myself and saw a familiar landmark. Alberta Street was a mishmash of quirky shops and ethnic restaurants. Not to mention the scattered line of open-sided deli trucks with every kind of food imaginable—gluten free, non-GMO, vegan, Thai, you name it. My stomach rumbled just thinking about it. The food in the Hive was okay, but I missed my usual haunts. As the Humvee turned onto Alberta from 23rd avenue, I immediately saw the commotion.
“What the fuck?” It was Kyle who let the F-bomb fly, not me this time. Although the curse word had been on my tongue also.
In front of a Vietnamese food truck, an ash was strung up and nailed to a giant cross, humans—Deliverance I’d guess—standing around him chanting and spraying the tied-up ash with water. Of course that had to be holy water; there was no other insane reason to douse him. We weren’t made of sugar. Water did not hurt us.
I strained forward in my seat and was able to see there were five other ash hogtied and face-down on the concrete, gun-toting Deliverance holding weapons to their heads.
Markus made the sign of the cross over his chest, then looked at me. “I’m a Roman Catholic and this shit is whack.”
Whack was an understatement. How the hell was it even possible for humans to be able to overpower five ash? More of the Deliverance stepped into our line of sight then, standing near the back like guards, holding handguns. The one in the center had a really large, odd shaped gun. Its barrel looked wider and shorter than any firearm I’d seen before.
“They’ve got tranqs,” Oliver shouted. His window was the side closest and he had as good a view as I did. “Bet they’ve finally managed to brew up some more of the AT20.”
“AT20?” I asked.
His voice lowered slightly, but he was still pretty much angry-shouting as he explained: “The human government created a weapon to use against us, shit … years ago now, during the war. They decommissioned it once we reached peace agreements. Well, on paper anyways. Every now and then the zealots and Deliverance nutcases get their hands on some, or a version of it. Things get serious then.”
Great, just what I needed, a freaking dart in my ass and lights out for a week. Well, there was one thing I knew for sure. If I woke up with nails in any part of my body, I was killing some humans.
Chapter 3
As soon as we closed in, Ryder gunned the gas and hopped the curb. No fucking around for the lead enforcer. The humans dowsing the ash with water turned as he slammed on the brakes, stopping the Humvee inches from the cross. I could see now that they had actually tied up the ash with razor wire and his arms were bleeding badly.