Xenofreak Nation (15 page)

He started to tell Mouse he’d solved the door problem when he noticed she’d gone very still. He followed the direction of her gaze and immediately moved in front of Bryn, who clung to the back of his hoodie.

There were five of them, not surprisingly. Four men and a young woman who’d appeared from the hall on the opposite side of the reception area. The man in front was short, bald, and had the palest skin Scott had ever seen—so pale he could make out the blue tracing of the man’s veins along the sides of his face. His white hands clutched the edges of a floor-length wool cloak, inch-long fingernails filed to a point.

“Nosferatu,” Mouse said in a derisive tone. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

“’Ello, delicious,” the man in front, clearly the leader, drawled in a Cockney accent. His upper lip curled when he talked, revealing a set of yellowed, vampire-like fangs. He flicked the tip of his tongue against his lower lip before leaning to the side to address Scott. “Is that your wife? What a lovely throat.”

His black-garbed minions began to fan out, surrounding the three of them, all except the young woman, who hung back in the shadows of the hallway. Scott felt Bryn’s cold hands slip under the back of his hoodie. She gently pulled the gun from his waistband. He slid his hands down the length of the broom and held it up defensively.

Nosferatu laughed. “You gonna sweep us under the rug, Mate? That, I’d like to see.”

Minion number one produced a switchblade and number two a billy club. The third man was huge, fully a head taller and fifty pounds heavier than Scott. He stood there with a look that said, ‘I don’t need no stinkin’ weapon.” Scott considered the man with the knife the most dangerous, so he hefted the broom briefly to test its balance before raising it like a lance and hurling it, brush-end first, into the man’s face. Billy club guy let out a disconcerting war cry before charging forward, arm raised to strike.

“Get down!” Scott shoved Bryn out of the way. There was very little likelihood Scott would win against three experienced opponents. He’d begun learning how to fight from a young age, and even though by seventeen he’d won his first junior extreme-fighting championship, he’d come to realize that the learning never stopped. He’d studied offensive and defensive maneuvers from just about every discipline there was. In a real fight, the moves he’d learned on the street—the dirtiest, most effective ones—were the ones he usually fell back on.

Billy club guy went down with a kick to the groin, but strong guy was right behind him and the broom had only delayed knife guy for a few precious seconds. Scott’s claws came out, but they weren’t much use against fully-clothed opponents. He risked ripping them out at the nail bed if they got caught in tough fabric like jeans or leather. He ducked a sluggish punch from strong guy, but the big man backed him into the boarded-up windows and with a deep-throated chuckle, body-slammed him. Scott’s head struck the metal frame with a ringing sound that reverberated through his skull. He lifted his knee, targeting the groin again, but strong guy had already backed off. Scott barely ducked the ham-sized fist that came at him, gratified when it clanged into the same metal frame his head had struck moments before. Knife guy moved in, elbow raised back; the four-inch serrated switch-blade pointed right at Scott’s midsection. Strong guy got in the way, though, by thrusting his other forearm under Scott’s chin and pinning him to the boards by the throat. Both of Scott’s arms were still free. He could barely see past Strong guy’s arm, but when knife guy struck, he still managed to deflect it with a simple karate chop to the wrist. The blade penetrated the board next to his abdomen with a thunk.

Scott had been forced onto his tiptoes with Strong guy’s face inches away—the big man was chortling wetly through teeth that looked like they hadn’t seen a toothbrush in years. Scott was almost glad he couldn’t breathe; the guy’s breath would probably wilt a stalk of garlic. As his vision began to fade, he reached around the beefy arm at his throat and raked his claws down the side of his opponent’s face.

Strong guy let out a rather girly shriek and fell back, giving Scott time to take a much-needed breath of air. But knife guy tugged the switch-blade out of the board and pulled his arm back for a second attempt.

“Stop or I’ll blow his head off!” Bryn yelled.

Startled, Scott and his two combatants spared a glance in her direction. She held the gun in a steady hand, aim dead center of Nosferatu’s chest.

With a convincing smirk, she said, “It’s not a wooden stake, but I bet a bullet through the heart will slow you down.”

Chapter Twenty-seven

Despite her terror, Bryn was experiencing exceptional clarity of thought. She hadn’t acted as soon as she should have, but the situation was controllable because she had the gun. The man at the lethal end of it wanted everyone to think of him as inhuman or he wouldn’t be living his life as a modern-day vampire. It made it easier for her to accept the fact that she might have to squeeze the trigger. If the thugs started pounding on Scott again, she was determined to overcome her fear and shoot the pasty-faced Nosferatu in the leg and then attempt to pick off Scott’s opponents one by one.

With bravado she didn’t feel, she waved the gun briefly in the direction of the door. “Open it.”

Getting Nosferatu to walk over to unlock the door also placed his men in her line of sight. Scott, breathing heavily, rotated his shoulders and stretched his neck briefly as he moved to join her. Bryn gratefully relinquished the gun to him and hid her shaking hands in her pockets. He examined it, flicked a little switch on the side of the snub-nosed firearm and said, “Safety’s off.”

Nosferatu reached into an inside pocket of his cloak. Scott said casually, “A lot of people don’t have much respect for the accuracy of these short-barrel handguns, but I know you won’t make that mistake.”

Nosferatu hesitated. When he pulled his hand out, he held a set of keys. With the door open, Scott gestured for Bryn and Carla to precede him. When she stepped outside, the bright sunlight lanced into her eyes and blinded her. She wondered what it would do to Nosferatu. Just as Scott appeared in the doorway, she heard, “Wait!”

It was the girl. She appeared next to Scott and said, “Help me!”

Bryn could no longer see inside the dark interior, but she did see Scott raise the gun. At first, she thought he suspected the ghoulish-looking girl was trying to trick him, but then she noticed he wasn’t aiming at her, but past her, presumably at the four wanna-be vampires.

“I want to go home,” the girl cried. Bryn saw her face more clearly now. She was young, not more than fourteen years old. Scott only nodded, holding the door so the girl could run out—right into Carla’s waiting arms.

Before he let the door swing shut, Scott said coldly, “The first one of you steps outside gets a bullet in the brain.”

They were facing a dusty, deserted street, one of many all across Coney Island. The buildings that were still standing looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie, and Bryn wouldn’t be surprised if their next encounter was with a bunch of flesh-eating zombies. Carla led them west and then south, through an alley that came out on a stretch of old boardwalk. The girl clutched her hand the entire way.

“Okay, I think no one’s following us,” Carla said before turning to the girl. “What’s your name, Sweetheart?”

“Abezinga,” the girl replied. “I mean…Ellie.”

She was thin, the unnatural kind of thin that came from starvation. She wore a short, tattered black dress that looked like it had been taken off the corpse of a flapper from the 1920’s. Fishnet stockings didn’t hide the bruises on her legs, and her feet clumped around in huge combat boots. Her eyes were sunk deep into her face, framed by dark half-circles underneath. Behind those eyes was a blankness that said nothing and everything about the things Ellie had seen and done—and had done to her.

Carla spoke gently. “There isn’t a police station here anymore and the subway collapsed. We’ll have to take the bus.”

Ellie stiffened up and shuddered all over her body as tears spilled down her cheeks. Her breath came in great, gasping sobs. Carla wrapped her arms around the girl. Over her head she said, “I’ll meet you in number nine later,” referring to the bungalow Scott had mentioned. “Go.”

Bryn reached out a hand, but didn’t touch Ellie’s fragile shoulder. She exchanged a sympathetic look with Carla and continued with Scott down the boardwalk. When the sounds of the girl’s heart-wrenching sobs had faded to nothing, Scott said, “You should cover your head.”

She pulled her scarf absently into place. The beauty of the day, the blue sea and bright sun, barely intruded on her consciousness. So much had happened in the last 24-hours, but her thoughts were disjointed. Nothing specific presented itself for her to contemplate. Instead, her mind replayed random events, like a collage of memories. Her father’s burning eyes as he told her about his plans. The white mouse nestled in Carla’s cleavage. Ellie’s face as she remembered her real name. Scott’s furry fingers caressing her in the dream. And his voice when he said he’d shoot those men if they came after them.

Bryn wouldn’t have been able to articulate how she felt if someone tried to torture it out of her. Like a pendulum without a plotted course, her thoughts swung wildly back and forth. She wished everything were normal, but that was impossible. She wanted her life back—the exact life she’d had before her father had betrayed her—again, impossible. Her choices were limited to bad and worse, and for the life of her she couldn’t say if home was the better of the two options, or if the path she was set upon—becoming an XBestia and trusting Scott to protect her—was more acceptable. And that was really the crux of it all: trust. Her father had lost hers forever, and Scott had done less than nothing to earn it. Bryn wasn’t sure how to live in a world without trust. She wasn’t sure how to go on when every fork in the road was unacceptable.

For now, all she could do was put one foot in front of the other.

They walked past a hotdog stand just opening for business and the savory smell brought her to an abrupt halt. “I need food. I can’t think straight.”

Scott obliged her by buying each of them a dog smothered in toppings and a couple of cold sodas. By the time they reached the former ball field with its row upon row of falling down bungalows, she’d eaten every bite, never once considering how many calories she was consuming. He unlocked the door of number nine and seemed cautious as he entered. There was no electricity and only one window, covered in aluminum foil to block out the light. Someone had mounted a series of eight battery-powered LED lights on the low ceiling, however, and Scott went down the length of the place tapping the lights to turn them on. The one-room structure was cleaner than Bryn expected after seeing, and smelling, the refuse outside. It reminded her of the inside of an R.V. with the narrow bunk beds at one end and compact bench and table combination at the other. Cupboards lined the walls. It appeared to be empty, but when Scott went poking around, he found linens in one cupboard and a manila folder in another.

“Here,” he said, tossing sheets, blankets and two plastic-wrapped pillows to Bryn. “Make yourself useful.”

Bryn assumed they were to occupy the bunk beds that night, so she was content to make them up while he sat at the table and read whatever was inside the folder. Once she’d finished, she lay down on the bottom bunk. Scott looked up from his reading and said, “Don’t get comfortable.”

As if the quills would allow it. “Why not?”

“We’ve got a job to do.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

Scott didn’t want to take Bryn with him, but he’d seen the eyes watching them from the other bunghole units as they’d made their way to number nine. If he left without her, he doubted she’d enjoy the time waiting for him to return. She was already turning out to be a huge liability. But then again, she had done an admirable job back there with the gun, except for not knowing how to use it properly and waiting until he’d gotten his head knocked around before bringing it into play. And the short encounter with Mouse had given him more of a potential lead into Fournier’s whereabouts than anything he’d accomplished thus far. Mouse wouldn’t have loosened up without Bryn’s obvious attachment to him.

That very attachment might be problematic though. He couldn’t decide whether he should encourage it or keep his distance. Professionally speaking, there were arguments both for and against. Personally speaking, he found he liked the idea far more than he probably should.

He finished reading Abel’s notes on the job. They were written in a combination of English and Yiddish, a special ‘code’ Abel developed to thwart snoopers. It was how Scott had ingratiated himself with Abel in the first place. The XIA knew about Abel’s code, knew his grandmother had been an Orthodox Jew. Scott had taken an immersion course in the language and pretended to have had a Jewish neighbor lady that babysat him as a kid. Abel’s one big weakness had been his beloved ‘Bubbe.’

It was strange to think of him as dead. The man had been a big part of Scott’s life for the last six months. Scott wasn’t mourning his loss—opportunistic sadists never impressed him much—but Abel had been a character. Any second now, Scott expected to hear those jangling spurs and that on-again off-again southern accent interspersed with the occasional “Oy!”