“Best route?” Eli asked, punching in a street map and navigation of the city on the SUV’s computer system.
“Traffic is minimal with the rain. Recommend you stay on St. Louis, to Chartres, and right onto St. Peter. Brute is speeding up. Dead run through the water, up past Jax to the top of the levee. Lost him.”
Eli gunned the motor and the heavy vehicle shoved water out of the way as we sped downtown, river side. All of us checking weapons, silent but for the click and schnick and clack of guns. Edmund passed water to each of us and we hydrated. I pulled the Benelli and reloaded with silver fléchette rounds. Loaded the holder attached to the barrel.
Eli spun the wheel right and onto St. Peter Street. Muddy water from the river rushed down the street, flooding the lower level of buildings in the old Jax brewery. There were no lights in this part of town, the storm having unleashed its fury on the electrical grid. The night was thick and wet and threatening. Rain shattered through the darkness and pounded on the SUV like thousands of frenzied fists. We bumped over the railroad tracks and up across the grass to the top of the levee. Without waiting for the vehicle to stop, I shoved open the door and stepped into the rushing water, icy, above my ankles. My claws extended and pressed into the mushy, eroding soil. I pulled on Beast’s night vision and spotted Brute, downstream, fighting the debris-filled current. Someone in his jaws. Another form stood over him, a handgun extended, firing at him. The gunfire was muted in the roar of pounding rain, rushing water, screams. Even in the darkness, it was clear the werewolf was badly wounded.
Close in, the mud-brown water was white-capped and boiling. I caught sight of a tree, moving in the current, faster than I could run, only a few feet out. It was bigger around than a whiskey barrel, its limbs broken and sharp. I raced through the overflowing river, slipping twice, knowing that if I fell in, I might be swept away.
About thirty feet out in the dangerous current, a small boat fought upstream. A familiar man was at the motor at the back, steering, muscling the boat against the current. Vamped out. Trying to get to shore but spinning in the flooded river. This was their getaway plan. Dumbasses.
The shooter aimed carefully at Brute’s head. I gathered myself and leaped. Twisted in the air and shoved forward with my feet, back with my body. The shooter fired a last shot at Brute. The werewolf staggered and fell on top of the person in his teeth. I landed on the shooter with both paws. Screaming. Took him down. Removed his head with a single cut of the vamp-killer, seeing only afterward that I’d killed a human. One of the Cardonas, Macario or Gualterio.
I fell to the water, rolled up from my hip, and engaged his brother, slashing with pure, instinctive strength, no finesse. Cut off his hand, his sword and fist dropping into the Mississippi. Swept beneath the waves. Took his head too, his body falling.
Behind me, someone fired. In front of me, people fell. I took a shot to my upper arm. Eli was gonna be pissed off when he discovered he’d shot me.
Beast shut off the pain receptors and I engaged a vamp, the man from the still shots who had brought Madam Spy to shore in a dinghy. I felt two cuts, midchest, the force and the cutting power decreased by the leathers. He was good. His arms were long and his reach with the flat swords was longer. I was sneaky, which beat perfect form anytime. I threw a vamp-killer. The hilt slammed into his face before the blade spun into the night. I followed it up with a slash across his throat. And then I was inside his reach. Pulled a silver stake and shoved it between his ribs and into his heart. He fell. I went after another vamp. And another. None I knew.
I sliced the wigged-out woman’s face, and she backpedaled into the river, where she fell beneath the muddy water. Where was Katie’s sister? Where was Katie? And Leo?
And then I saw him. Unconscious or true-dead. I fought toward Leo, Bruiser at my side. I blocked a sword, ducking a second strike. Falling against my honeybunch. Bruiser pushed me back upright and took on two vamps. I kicked out. Struck a knee. Felt the bones snap. Saw my opponent fall away. Saw Leo’s hand clench.
“Get Leo!” I shouted. “I’ll cover!”
Bruiser ducked under two swords striking and rolled to Leo. I pulled the Benelli and fired twice. Point-blank. Two vamps dropped into the mud. I fired twice more as Bruiser hefted Leo to his shoulder and raced from the battle, into the night.
I spun, seeing forms moving in the dark and the rain. I took two steps toward them.
Bethany leaped onto my back, wrapped her arms around me, and said, distinctly, “You are mine, Skinwalker.” She sank her huge fangs into my throat. I smelled Leo’s blood on her breath. Her fangs ripped through my flesh. I fell. Toward the water. Toward a long limb that spun in a mini whirlpool.
Inside me, I heard Bethany’s voice. You are mine. I claimed you before my Leo did. I claimed you before the angel did. I claimed you long before the Cherokee woman showed you the place you call your soul home. I claimed you before my George chose you in my place. You are mine.
“Jane!” Bruiser, screaming. He grabbed her hair and yanked her back. I twisted, her fangs ripping deeper into my flesh.
Everything happened fast, yet in that slowed battle time, where every detail is crystal clear.
Bruiser’s blade sliced across Bethany’s throat.
My feet slipped. Still twisting, I caught sight of Callan, in the dinghy only feet offshore. I landed hard on the slope. In the edge of the water. Bethany on top of me.
Lightning brightened the sky. My blood spurted into the night.
With her last strength. Bethany tore her fangs away, taking flesh with her. She pushed me. Down. I slid deeper.
The current caught me. Yanked me under. The water closed over me.
And then there was only darkness. Sucking me down.
• • •
I woke on a boat, lying in three inches of water. The sun was overhead.
My eyes were crusted with salt and gunk. I blinked but my vision got no better. I’d have wiped my face, but my hands were cuffed behind me. My shoulders, back, and butt ached.
I pushed to a sitting position. Remembered the fangs buried in my throat.
Looked around. I inspected my surroundings and myself. Storm clouds were on the northern horizon. The sun was setting in the west. Land was invisible. Around me was nothing. Water, water everywhere. I had been in a storm in the Mississippi. Now I guessed I was in the Gulf of Mexico. I had been bitten by a master, crazy, outclan priestess vamp. The water I was sitting in was red with my blood. I kicked the gas cans that were connected to the motor. Both rang hollowly, empty. Not good. I was still pelted, still fanged, and I was alone.
I tested the cuffs. The chain holding the wrist bracelets was the weak link. I chuffed out a laugh. Weak link. I braced my shoulders and spine, took a deep breath. And jerked. The cuffs abraded the flesh over my wrist bones, but nothing else happened. I tried again. Again. I smelled my blood; the pain in my wrists was terrible; my left fingers went numb. I tried it one last time and the metal gave way. I fell forward, into the bottom of the boat, taking in a mouthful of bloody, salty water. My arms dropped to my sides. I fought back to a sitting position and as quickly as I could, I started slow stretches to get my muscles moving and to get feeling back in my fingers. I started bailing out the boat.
Beneath the hull, something scratched, and my first thought was sharks. Then I thought, fanghead, hiding from the sun, instinctively reacting to the presence of blood in the water. I paused, remembering Callan in this very boat, in the river, trying to make it ashore. Good odds he was under the dinghy.
I touched my throat. It was heavily knotted and rippled with scar tissue. Healed. Not well, but well enough to not be dead. My skinwalker magics? Or the thing under the boat? I went back to bailing, ignoring the possible vamp under the boat, for now.
There was nothing useful with me in the boat. No cooler, no water, no food. I wasn’t sure how I’d gotten aboard. I wasn’t sure what day it was. I pulled my cell to find it was soaked and dead. I had a feeling that my people thought I was dead too. “Well, this sucks,” I said, my voice hoarse. Thirst dragged through me. I desperately needed to pee, but I also needed to save the urine in case I needed to drink it. Gag. Fortunately or not, there was nothing to pee into. For the moment, holding it was the wiser choice. My clothes were ruined, the leather damaged by salt water, gray and crusty white and stiff. I kept bailing out the boat. It took a while, but the blood in it was starting to smell.