Ghost Soldiers (32 page)

Chapter Thirty-Two: Hack and Slash

Maria nearly clipped the cinderblock wall when she screeched to a halt in front of the warehouse, and didn't care. Karl had grown even weaker on the short ride back, her sense of him fading, as if the last of his strength were bleeding out. She jumped out of the car and ran to his side. She slipped an arm around him and helped him climb out. He tensed and drew away to stand on his own until she whispered, “Let me do this. Let me help you. Please, Karl,” into his ear, and he allowed it.

Xiesha made him lay on the couch in the office and came back with a black leather case and an armload of glass bottles. She began to set up, moving with practiced precision, though Maria could see the worry tightening her mouth into a thin line. Bailey watched from the corner of the room, chewing at a claw tip, her face drawn.

“Strip him down,” Xie told Maria. Maria pulled off his boots first and carefully used her claw to cut the shirt off his body and peel it back. The burns on his right hand were bad, but the werewolf bite and the gouges in his back had closed up and looked to be healing, albeit slowly. The bullet wound in his arm was the worst. His flesh was torn and blackened from where he'd dug out the slug, and she could see deep inside the wound where the bullet had shredded his muscle and the silver aura had prevented him from healing. She cut away his black fatigues, leaving him in boxers.

He stared at her with his deep blue eyes and a smile quirked his lips. “Kinky.”

The joke was so unlike the usual Karl that she coughed laughter despite the fear for him yammering away in her mind.

“Master,” Xiesha said. “Shut up, please.”

His skin appeared lusterless—pale, yes, but no longer marble—simply cold and white as a corpse trapped beneath a frozen pond. She yearned to lie against him, give him her heat, until she remembered her days of warmth were long gone.

Xiesha glanced at her, expression grim. “He needs to feed. His body's destroying itself trying to heal those wounds without enough power.”

“I'll give him some of my blood,” Bailey offered in a very quiet voice.

Maria slowly turned her head to look at her. Bailey flinched as if Maria had just picked up a knife and sent it spinning across the room. “I'll be the one to feed him.”

He lifted a hand and set it on her arm, squeezing gently. She turned back to him. His lips had pulled back in a near snarl, his fangs clearly visible. His hand trembled. “I need too much blood. Must have human blood first. You have to stay strong, Maria. I can't drain your power.”

“I'll bring someone back.”

He stared at her, his eyes burning. “Remember the rules.”

“I remember.”

He let go of her and leaned back. His eyes closed. His right hand lay on his thigh, palm upward, and she stared at the wounds and scars. It hurt her heart to see it, so she looked away. She left him, headed back into the night and again on the hunt.

 

Maria fingered a scumbag dealer named Danny “Floyd” Boyd for death. Leo Antonelli had been bitching about him working the Bunker Hill projects, slinging crack, white lady and cotton while not paying protection money. She already knew Boyd's address and knew his car. She'd been about to give the go ahead to have him clipped when John made his move and Boyd ceased to be her problem anymore. John might've had things taken care of already, but sometimes these things slipped through the cracks. She'd do him a favor.

She went in search of Mr. Floyd Boyd, cruising past the granite spike of the Bunker Hill Monument down nearly empty streets in Charlestown at three thirty in the morning. The Bunker Hill projects sprawled south of Mystic Channel, northwest of the Navy Yard. A rough place churning out high rates of every kind of crime. Little traffic, but the chance of the Benz attracting attention and being remembered was high, although people here had a reputation for keeping their mouths shut. Still, she had to bring Boyd back to Karl, and for that she needed wheels.

As she drove, the tension twisted tighter in her neck and back. She only realized she'd started to clench her teeth together when her jaws began to ache. Guilt still gnawed at her for her little princess tirade about Bailey while Karl was barely holding himself together. Karl needed her, and she was damn sure going to come through for him.

She was wound so tightly she had to circle around twice to find the specific red brick three-story building she wanted. And look at that. The bastard's beat-to-shit Monte Carlo right out in front, with Boyd himself sitting inside, likely waiting for a customer. She knew his face because she had an inside man at the DMV who handed over addresses, car info and driver's license photos, all for a disgracefully small fee.

She pulled in behind Boyd's car, got out and walked toward him. His eyes widened as he caught sight of her in the side mirror. His hand dropped from the steering wheel and he reached for something. She blurred across the remaining distance with vampire speed and wrenched the door off the hinges. He swung a 9mm toward her, but she caught his hand and broke his fingers. The gun thumped to the dirty floor mats, lying in a drift of ancient French fries and soggy soda cups. Boyd shrieked. She dragged him out of his car, shrugging off his fist as he beat at her with his unbroken hand. Lights started to come on in windows. He screamed and cursed her as she manhandled him over to her car and pushed him through the driver's seat into the passenger seat. She pinned him down while she drew her Glock and shoved the barrel under his chin. He stopped fighting and the fear-scent streamed off his skin. She started the car and raced off, keeping the gun on him as she drove back to the warehouse.

Boyd started sobbing, and snot ran out of his nose as he alternately begged and made absurd promises. She clamped down on her pity and didn't let herself feel any for him. Some fuckin' guy with no problem stringing out fourteen-year-old girls would weep and plead like a little kid when he stared into the flat emptiness of a gun barrel.

She stopped in front of the warehouse and hauled him out of the car. He filled the air with more promises, one after another, but she didn't listen. He tried to run. She yanked him back so hard his button-down shirt choked him, half-tearing in her hand, before she yanked open the warehouse door and shoved him into the darkness. The slam of the metal door behind her made her think of the executioner's axe biting into the chopping block. She dragged Boyd up the iron steps to the offices, not listening to the echoes of his sobs because her resolve might waver, and she hated this enough already.

Karl descended on Boyd so fast she almost didn't see him move. One instant he'd been sitting on the couch as Xiesha mixed something with her mortar and pestle. The next he'd vaulted the couch and pinned Boyd against the wall—so fast, so goddamn fierce, deadly and implacable, a bolt fired from a crossbow. Karl drove his fangs into Boyd's throat. She smelled fresh blood, the metallic tang drifting in the air. Boyd flailed, but Karl's hold could not be broken.

Maria kicked the door shut behind her. No one spoke. No one moved. Even Boyd had ceased his struggles, his breath sipping in and hissing out in short little gasps. The only other sound was a soft sucking noise.

When Karl finished, he staggered backward and dropped the corpse, though his eyes blazed like coals. He leaned against the wall. His thumb smeared a small curve of red along the cinderblock and left a smile of blood upon the wall.

 

Later, she went to him.

After Xiesha had finished dressing his wounds, Karl had disappeared into one of the back offices they used as rooms. Maria didn't bother to knock on the fake wood paneling, which had a dozen nail holes pock-marking its surface, but every nail gone. She turned the handle and pushed it open.

Karl sat in a chair near the bed. He turned his head toward her when she stepped inside. He wore no shirt, but he'd pulled on jeans. Strange. She couldn't remember ever seeing him in jeans. She wouldn't have guessed he owned any in the piles of his clothes Xiesha had brought along. His skin appeared less pale and his vampire aura stronger, despite his wounds. He shifted, sitting straighter, and his muscles rippled beneath his skin.

She walked to him slowly, and he watched her come. Neither of them smiled. Neither of them spoke. She settled carefully into his lap, and his arms came up around her, holding her. She kissed the top of his head softly, clutching him to her body, loving the feel of his hair against her face. For a time they stayed that way. Then she pushed out her claw from her index finger, a sharp comma from her fingertip. She dug the claw into her wrist, gouging deep, and winced at the pain. She turned her wrist over and presented it to him. He leaned back a little, enough to look into her face. His eyes seemed so blue. The color of a sky at the very edge of a storm, the no man's land between storm gods and sun demons.

Human blood—human death—had stabilized him, but she suspected he'd already burned through it all to fuel his healing. Vampire blood was far more potent. He touched her wrist just below the wound, still looking at her in silence. At first she feared he'd turn her down, and stubborn male pride or fear of appearing weak would stop him. She pleaded silently with her eyes.

Gently, he lifted her wrist to his mouth. His fangs pressed against her skin. Memories of lovemaking, of biting and licking and a thousand, thousand kisses, fluttered in her mind and vanished. He drank her dark blood. She rested her cheek against his head again, idly running the fingers of her free hand through his hair.

It stayed very quiet. She did not think of Bailey. She did not think of John the Cleaver, or the Thorn, or Cojocaru. Or any of the threats which constantly shadowed them, never leaving them alone. Her mind drifted in the now. Karl in her arms. The man she'd feared would never return to her side. Hers again.

For now, it was enough.

Chapter Thirty-Three: A Wolf for the Sheep

“She said she dreams, Xie.” Karl leaned against one of the warehouse's cement support columns. The column, nicked and gashed by forklifts and pallet jacks, sent waves of cold seeping through the fabric of his shirt. Still, the cold made his shoulder wound ache less. Three nights had passed since he'd disembarked. His wounds still pained him, despite the man he'd drained and despite Maria's blood.

“I know.” Xiesha didn't look up from her work. An overhead fluorescent and two trouble lamps threw harsh light halfway across the empty expanse of the building, but seemed to make the shadows darker. Her tools and reloading supplies were laid out beside her on the table surface or hanging from pegs. As he watched, she secured Bailey's long sword in a vise with rubber guards on the clamps and tightened down. She wore no gloves because silver had no effect on her.

“I'm worried about her.”

Maria had been very quiet since he'd returned, which bothered him more than he could say. She'd driven off an hour ago to meet up with one of the Ricardi capos, though she'd been vague about details. He'd wanted to go with her, guard her back, but she'd refused, telling him to stay and heal. He'd almost followed her anyway, but in the end he'd let her go, choosing to trust her when she said things would be fine.

Xiesha had pliers and a wire cutter out and peered at the grip of the sword with its thread of silvered wire. “Handling this sword wasn't very intelligent, Master.”

“My options were limited.”

She glanced at him. “As for Maria, she might be tapping into the Dreamtime rivers. Those are shaman powers, as far as I know. Perhaps she's displaying traits of the ancient vampire sires.”

“I've never heard of it before.”

“If she can learn to force herself into a trance state and access the Dreamtime, it could give us a huge advantage against our enemies. Nostradamus supposedly had the talent, among others. The same with the Oracle at Delphi.”

“A prophetess.” The standard cliché claimed such gifts turned out to be more curse than blessing in the end. His hands clenched into fists. He couldn't protect her in dreams, damn it.

“Perhaps a prophetess. Or just a dream corsair.” Xiesha cut into the wire on the grip and bent it away from the hilt. “Are you familiar with long swords?”

A change of subject. Maybe it disturbed her as much as it did him. “I trained with a saber in the dragoons.”

“A long sword isn't a saber.”

“Same general principle.”

She grunted. “If you insist on using this, I'll rig up a harness so you can wear it along your back. If it rides your hip, it will interfere with your agility. I'll improve the sheath so you don't blister your skin. We can't have the Master's fair skin getting chafed.”

“I certainly missed you, Xie.”

“Of course you did.” She continued to work, not looking at him. Very pointedly not looking at him. “I would like to know about Bailey. Did she really coerce you into Turning her?”

“Yes.”

“I suppose it's also true that she stopped Maria from telling you Cojocaru was aware you hunted him.”

“Yes.”

“Do you hate her?”

“There's no point to hating her. She's a different creature now than she was then. And in the end, we all pay.”

“Ah, karma.” She nodded, then paused. “But still, she has changed you forever. You swore you'd never be a Master. You hated Cade.”

“I remember exactly how I felt about Master Cade.”

Silence seeped between them like mist from the water. Xiesha concentrated on the sword. “Do you trust her?”

“The Thorn wants her dead. I'm all she has.”

“I suppose that must suffice.” She looked at him. “You hurt Maria.”

“I know.” He wanted to say something else, to make excuses, justify, but he said nothing instead.

“Do you remember when she begged you to make her your sireling, to save her from Delgado?”

“Yes.” He hadn't been able to do it, though. Once she'd been Turned, she'd belonged to Delgado body and mind until she'd shoved that knife into his unbeating heart and freed herself.