SNAP: New Talent (19 page)

Bless you, my love.  I wasn’t up to being an actual participant in the battle, but these would let me know how it was progressing.  I slipped them over my head and the world became an eerie greenish place, the lighted windows of the house so bright they hurt my eyes.

As I was getting used to the strange, new world, I caught a movement at the side of the house.  It looked like a large dog, leaping over bushes and heading for the back.  It disappeared around the corner into the back garden and suddenly I heard a long howl.

The demon in the car with me grunted in satisfaction and I realized that it had been a Huszar shapeshifter, a were, this one a wolf.  I hoped the howl meant he’d run into one of our demons and lost the encounter.

The other action the howl meant was that four more shapes came across the garden, otherworldly large beasts who glowed green, with flashing red eyes.  They streaked into the back garden and I heard low growls, soft ppffts, high-pitched yelps of pain and saw flashes of yellow-orange light. The sounds of battle wound down and two very large figures, black against the black night even with the goggles, crept around the corner and headed for the side door.

There was a brief flash of light that blinded me.  When I could see again, the figures were gone. 

“Went in house,” the demon observer said.  I glanced at him.  No night-vision goggles, just tremendous night vision.  Plus he’d probably been in battle lots of times and knew what to watch for. 

“Shapeshifters gone.  Now we wait.”  I trusted that he was right about the shapeshifters.  They terrified me, huge wolves weighing upwards of 150 pounds, all bone and muscle whose only purpose was to hunt and kill. Between them and the feral pigs, it was a toss-up which was worse to meet at night in the forest.

The battle in the garden may have ended, but the one in the house was still raging.  Figures were limned against the candlelight before they fell or were pushed through the windows.  This time the guns weren’t silenced and the continual fire told me that somebody was using full automatic weapons.  There were grunts from the demons, keening shouts in a language I didn’t recognize and abrupt explosions.

I looked at the demon for translation.

“We use weapons set on full auto, so do Chechens. Big bang is grenades.  Blowing down doors or wall maybe. Fire.”

“I know they’re firing, I don’t know who the targets are.”

“No, fire there,” and he pointed at a window where flames were licking up an inside wall.  Probably candles had been tipped over in the fight.

Oh God, somebody’s going to report this!  They’ll call the fire department who’ll bring the police and...and...I didn’t know.  At home they’d arrest everybody and haul them off, planning to sort it out later.  Here, it was anybody’s guess.

There were at least four bodies in the garden, shot with silver bullets from automatic weapons; automatic weapons and grenade fragments littered the inside of the house; there had to be five or six bodies on the ground floor and maybe other upstairs and, if Jean-Louis and Nik were right, the ten missing women.  Who at this point were probably bodies as well.

I started to open the limo door when I heard Jean-Louis.  “NO, stay where you are.”  I jumped, slammed the door shut and frantically looked for him.  He wasn’t there.  I knew I’d heard his voice, though.  Maybe it was my imagination.  My first instinct was to go to him, but it was suicide to go into that burning house so I was imagining what he’d say to me.

The fire was working itself up the outside walls, the second floor was starting to burn and it wouldn’t be long before the roof caught, taking the whole building with it.  I certainly didn’t need the night- vision goggles now, Leonid’s burning house was lighting up the black night sky and must have been visible for several kilometers.

Against the flames, I could see figures moving around.  An awful lot of figures.  Maybe we hadn’t inflicted as much damage as I first thought. The figures moved toward the back of the house and then the front door burst open, Jean-Louis and Nik flew out, slammed themselves into the limo, shouted “Now,” and we peeled out.

I was beginning to get used to these demon drivers slinging me around and this time I smashed up against Jean-Louis’ chest.  He gasped and it sounded like pain.  I managed to back off and brace myself but I couldn’t see anything, so I flipped on the interior light and gasped myself.

His chest was covered in blood, he had a gash across the top of his left cheek and his right hand, the one he was holding against he chest, was flaccid as though he had no bones.

I started to scream, but his good hand covered my mouth, stifling any sound.  “Hush, it’s not as bad as it looks.”  I heard his voice but I swear his mouth never moved.

He finally looked at me. “If you love me, please just stay silent.  I need to get to Nikoly’s, get cleaned up and start to heal before I’ll be able to tell you what happened.  Just know it’s all right.”  He must have passed out.  He was motionless and barely breathing, but it looked like the blood wasn’t seeping out as fast. 

I was horrified.  In my limited experience, people with chest wounds like his were usually goners and if all the bones in his right hand were broken, he’d probably lose the use of it.

I wanted to cry.  I wanted to scream.  I wanted to throw up.  I wanted to jump out of the car, find who or whatever had done this to this beautiful vampire and tear his head off.

I settled for a keening moan while hanging onto his left hand so tightly I’d probably break all the bones in that one, too.

Nik was having fast conversations on his cell with people and the demon wasn’t saying anything, just driving at what felt to be a hundred miles an hour with the headlights off through deserted streets.

If this kept up, we’d all be toast.

Chapter Thirty-four

We wheeled through the gates at Nikoly’s house, a demon ran to lift Jean-Louis out of the car and I tagged along, not able to keep up the pace but needing to be as close to Jean-Louis as possible.

He was carried upstairs and into a room equipped as well as some trauma rooms at home.  Two other demons stripped his clothes off and began sponging the blood away and then I saw the full extent.

Jean-Louis had been shot in the chest, twice.  The bleeding had stopped, but there were still ragged tears in his flesh.  The doctor, who’d taken care of Nikoly before, came bustling in giving rapid orders in Hungarian, and the demons turned Jean-Louis over as I was protesting “Don’t move him!”.  They started an IV with life-giving blood, brought in a portable X-ray machine for his hand and that was all I saw when Nik came in and led me out.

“But I want to stay with him.” I cried.  “I’ve never seen such awful wounds.  Is he going to die?  It that why you won’t let me stay?”

“The way to best help him is to stay calm.  Look at you, you’re covered in as much blood as he is.  Go get cleaned up, a maid will help you bathe, and then come back.”

“He’s going to die, isn’t he?  That’s why you want me gone!  It’s the family, isn’t it!”

If Nik hadn’t been so polite, he would have slapped me to stop my blubbering hysterics.  “No, he’s not going to die!  You don’t understand how vampires heal.  Get a hold of yourself, go do as I say.  When you’re clean and calmer, come back and we’ll tell you what happened.”

With Nik and the demons acting as gatekeepers for Jean-Louis, I didn’t have much choice.  One of the maids had set out my clean clothes, a shower was running and towels were warming.  I caught a reflection of myself as I was getting in the shower and had a moment of panic.  Nik was right, my face, hands and arms were covered with blood from where I’d been smashed into Jean-Louis’ chest and then when I tried to told his hand.

I washed my hair twice and scrubbed with the bath sponge until I felt cleaner and calmer, then toweled off, dressed, ran a brush through my hair and twisted it, still wet, up with a clip.  The entire ritual hadn’t taken me more than 20 minutes and I tore down the hall to the trauma room. 

He wasn’t there.  Two demons and a housemaid—masked, gloved and wearing scrubs—were cleaning up blood and dumping everything into biohazard bins.

I screamed and fainted.

I came to lying on a chaise in a dimly lit room.  “Hello, feeling better?” Nik’s voice was sardonic. “Jean-Louis says you over-react sometimes.  I guess he’s right.  I told you he was fine.”  He motioned to a bed across the room from the chaise.

I stood slowly, not trusting my legs, and went over to find Jean-Louis, pale, bandaged and alive.

He looked up at me, his wonderful, expressive eyes now a deep violet shining in his almost translucent face.  “My love.”  It was so soft it came out as a sigh.  I didn’t dare cry again.  I knew I had to let him heal.  “Tonight we’ll talk.  Nik and I will make sure we answer all your questions.  For now, I need to rest.”

“Of course.  I’ll do whatever you need to get well.  I’m overwhelmed that you’re alive.  I love you.”  I leaned over and kissed his undamaged cheek.

He looked over to Nikoly.  “Do you think you can find the doctor and get a Valium or something for Maxie?  Knowing her, I suspect she’ll be having bad dreams and may wake the whole house.”  He was able to manage a grin at me.

I’d been dismissed.  Although I wanted to stay with him, be with him, the adrenaline was leaking out like air from a faulty balloon and I knew I was going to crash.  Jean-Louis waved his good hand, a demon came in, picked me up and carried me off to my own room.  One of the maids found an old t-shirt that I could use, I got a Valium and five minutes later I was gone.

I didn’t remember much of what I dreamed.  I did remember everything was red.  When I opened my eyes, I was surprised to find that everything wasn’t red, it was a washed-out gray, the color of a winter sunset.

Things were hazy.  It was comfortable to lie there, starched sheets and duvet making a warm nest.  I let my mind float until it finally landed on “Where am I?”

And with that, last night came rushing back.  I threw my legs over the side of the bed, rummaged around until I found the cord for the drapes and looked out on a cloudy day sinking into sunset.

I’d slept all day.  I found the lamp and checked the clock by the bed.  It was almost 4 p.m. Time to take a shower, get dressed and plan for whatever the evening would bring.

In half-an-hour I opened the door to the hall and roused the demon standing guard.  “I’m going to see Jean-Louis.”  He nodded, said something in his communicator and Sandor came out of a room further down the hall.  I almost cried seeing a familiar face.

“How is he?”

There was no need to use a name, Sandor and I both had the same person in mind.

“He is healing.  Come and have some coffee or tea.  One of Nikoly’s house demons will bring him up when he wakes.”

“Where did he sleep?  Did someone move him in his state?  They could have made his wounds worse.”

Sandor would have given an eye-roll if demons were capable of frustration.  Instead, he said, “We have been caring for Kandeskys for many years.  We would not hurt him,” and led me down the room where Jean-Louis had been last night.

A bed was made up and coffee and tea pots sat on a credenza against one wall of the large room.  Comfortable chairs flanked the bed, ready for conversation or stories.  Sandor poured me a coffee and I sat by the bed, waiting for my love.  And when he walked in I almost dropped my cup.

“What are you doing?  You shouldn’t be walking! You were on the verge of dying last night.”

“And it’s wonderful to see you, my love.”  He had a faint glimmer. “I’m going to rest on the bed while we chat.  Nik will be along shortly.”

I was stunned.  Last night, or about 15 hours ago, this man was fighting off a close-to-fatal chest wound.  Now he was standing, moving, breathing as though he’d never been shot.  His right hand, so mangled that I thought all the bones were broken, was in a contraption that looked like a glove, blown up to keep his fingers straight.  And the gash on his cheek?  A slight red line held by butterfly bandages.

True, his skin still had a pallor, his eyes were surrounded by great, dark circles and he was moving more slowly than usual, but there was no resemblance to the dying man I’d left.

As he settled on the bed, he looked at me and a big grin split his face.  “I really don’t like being unwell, though if it keeps you quiet, I may use it again.”

My fears of him being at death’s door were instantly replaced with rage.  “You rat!  OK, tell me.  Was that fake blood last night?  What did you guys do, lay in a supply of movie props to scare to the women?  How can you pull parlor tricks...?”

By this time he was laughing, just as Nik came in.  “What’s so funny?  I wasn’t sure I’d see you well enough to laugh yet.”

“This one.” Jean-Louis waved his good hand at me.  “She’s accusing us of using fake blood and parlor tricks last night.  Do you think it’s time we told her what really happened?”

Chapter Thirty-five

“It came off better than we’d hoped.”  Jean-Louis’ eyes were half-closed as he recreated the scene.  “One of the Huszars opened the door.  He’s now in the basement, waiting for us to kill him, which we won’t do.  We’ll use him as a hostage.”

Nik nodded.  “Jean-Louis went left, I went right and we took out two more shapeshifters.  There was a contingent of Chechens stationed at the back of the house and some of them opened up with automatic fire.  For the life of me, I can’t fathom why the Huszars didn’t give them silver ammo, though.  If they had, Jean-Louis would be gone now.”

Thank god for stupidity!

“He got the worst of it.  There were four Chechens barreling into that area of the house and Jean-Louis took two shots to the chest.  It slowed him some, but our demons had breached a door by then.”

Ah, that must have been the two large shapes I saw before being blinded by the light when they opened the side door.

“I must admit, those hits hurt.   Maybe we should look into some body armor if this keeps up.”  Jean-Louis grimaced at the memory.  “We’ve never had to fight like this.  Usually just speed, agility and strength have been enough   Kevlar wouldn’t help against silver poisoning but if the Huszars hire from the gangs, the gangs might not think to ask for silver ammo.  And I’m not even sure the Huszars tell them who the quarry is.