My other two captains, Dave and Juan, fanned out to comply. Tate picked me up and carried me out of the house. With jagged breaths I gave my instructions.
“One got away but don’t chase him. He’s too strong. No one else is in the house, but do a quick check and then pull back. We have to leave in case he comes back with reinforcements. They’d slaughter us.”
“One sweep and then fall back, fall back!” Dave ordered, shutting the doors of the van I’d been taken to. Tate pulled the knife out and pressed bandages to the wound, giving me several pills to swallow that no regular pharmacy carried.
After four years and a team of brilliant scientists, my boss, Don, had managed to filter through the components in undead blood to come up with a wonder drug. On regular humans, it repaired injuries such as broken bones and internal bleeding like magic. We’d named it Brams, in honor of the writer who’d made vampires famous.
“You shouldn’t have gone in alone,” Tate berated me. “Goddammit, Cat, next time listen to me!”
I gave a faint chuckle. “Whatever you say. I’m not in the mood to argue.”
Then I passed out.
MY HOUSE WAS A small two-story structure at the end of a cul-de-sac. The interior was almost spartan in its bareness. A single couch downstairs, bookshelves, some lamps, and a minibar loaded with gin and tonic. If my liver wasn’t half vampire, I’d have expired from cirrhosis already. Certainly Tate, Juan, and Dave never complained about all my booze. A steady supply of liquor and a deck of cards was enough to keep them coming back. Too bad none of them were great poker players, even when sober. Get them drunk and it was funny to watch their card skills drop by the second.
So, how does one sign on for this life of luxury? My boss, Don, found me at twenty-two when I got into a little trouble with the law. You know, the usual youthful stuff. Killed the governor of Ohio and several of his staff, but they’d been modern-day slavers who sold women to the undead for food and fun. Yeah, they deserved to die, especially since I was one of the women they’d tried to sell. Me and my vampire boyfriend, Bones, had delivered our own brand of justice to them, which left a lot of bodies.
After I was arrested, my funky pathology reports tattled on me for not being totally human. Don snapped me up to lead his secret “Homeland Security” unit by giving me the quintessential offer I couldn’t refuse. Or death threat, to be more accurate. I’d taken the job. What choice did I have?
But despite his many flaws, Don truly cared about defending those the normal law could never protect. I cared about that as well. It was why I risked my life, because I felt this was the reason I’d been born half dead but looking all human. I could be both bait and hook to what prowled in the night. It wasn’t a happily-ever-after, true, but at least I’d made a positive difference for some people.
My phone rang as I changed into my pajamas. Since it was almost midnight, it had to be either one of the guys or Denise, because my mother was never up this late.
“Hey, Cat. Just get in?”
Denise knew what I did, and she knew what I was. One night while minding my own business, I’d come across a vamp trying to turn her neck into a Big Gulp. By the time I killed him, she’d already seen enough to know he wasn’t human. To her credit, she hadn’t screamed, fainted, or done any of the things a normal person would. She’d simply blinked and said, “Wow. I owe you a beer, at least.”
“Yeah,” I answered. “Just got in now.”
“Uh, bad day?” she asked.
But she didn’t know I’d spent most of the day healing from a self-inflicted stab wound with the help of Brams and the dubious benefit of having gutted myself with a knife coated in vampire blood. That in itself had probably done more to heal me than Don’s magic pills. Nothing but nothing healed like vampire blood.
“Um, the usual. How about you? How was your date?”
She laughed. “I’m on the phone with you; what does that say? In fact, I was just about to defrost a cheesecake. Want to come over?”
“Sure, but I’m in my pajamas.”
“Don’t forget the fluffy slippers.” I could almost see Denise’s grin. “You wouldn’t look right without them.”
“See you soon.”
We hung up and I smiled. Loneliness was put on hold. At least until the cheesecake ran out.