Crimson Death

Flannery’s jacket fit too tight across his shoulders, so his shoulder holster printed, worse on his left side where the gun sat. It looked like either the jacket was borrowed or he’d gained body mass since he bought it. I caught a glimpse of the extra ammo magazine under his right arm held in a leather pocket. Most people wouldn’t realize what that glimpse of dark leather was, but then we weren’t most people.

Mortimer—Mort—was the shortest of the team at five-six, but he moved like he had springs that propelled him forward, energy contained in a body that was honed down to muscle and compact flesh. In a jacket bulky enough to hide the guns, he looked delicate the way that Micah did in sloppy clothes, but I knew physical potential too well to believe that he was as dainty as he looked; I was betting that a lot of bigger men had underestimated him, and regretted it.

I knew this wasn’t all Nolan’s team; Donahue had said she was Donnie because there was a second Donahue on the team. Flannery explained that they would be accompanying us pretty much everywhere from this point on. “One of us for every two of you,” he said, still smiling, but his brown eyes were smiling with him, as if he couldn’t think of anything he’d rather do than babysit armed strangers while they hunted vampires in his city. Of course, maybe Nolan hadn’t shared all the intel he had, and there might be more going on than he was sharing with us. Military who have worked black ops for too long not only know how to keep a secret but start doing it even when they don’t have to, or maybe that was just how it had affected Edward. My experience with people in this line of work was actually pretty limited when I thought about it. I just felt I knew more of them, because the ones I did know I knew so damn well.

Griffin had thrown one of the body bags over his shoulder, and Donnie had the other one. I didn’t know which teenage vampire was which, but it didn’t really matter. They were both going to the same place: a cell here at the “warehouse” that was apparently the headquarters for Nolan’s new group. The fact that we hadn’t seen any of the drive here meant that we didn’t know where the hell we were, or how to get here, or how to leave. I mean, we knew to go out one of the doors, but beyond that we didn’t know which way Dublin was, or the airport we’d landed at, or anything really. I’d seen so little of the country that it was like any other business trip out of town. Throw in the hotel later, and add a cemetery, and me being able to actually hunt vampires, and it would be like Old Home Week. Nathaniel was still hoping to have a few days at the end of everything to actually play tourist; me, too.

Nolan had left the last body bag behind when he took Edward off for their secret squirrel talk. The body bag lay on the concrete floor where Nolan had left it after he and Brennan dragged it out. They had treated it like you treat the dead, like they had no feelings to worry about and no flesh to bruise. Come nightfall the vampire in the bag might have both. It depended on how long she’d been undead and how much control she had. Whoever had made their daughter a vampire should have been able to call all of them out into the night to do his or her bidding, but it was like the “master vampire” was just making vampires sort of willy-nilly. If there was a plan, then neither the police nor Nolan and his people could figure out the logic of it. Maybe there was no plan; maybe it was just a vampire that was doing whatever the hell they wanted to do in Dublin.

“Nolan said to secure the prisoners,” Griffin said.

Brennan grabbed one end of the body bag. Jake grabbed the other end and helped him lift. “Allow me to help you.”

“I can carry it.”

“Of that, I have no doubt, but it is the heaviest bag and we are here to help you.”

“Are we putting vampires in the cells without testing them first?” Donnie said.

“We’re following orders,” Brennan said.

“Are you saying that Nolan pushed to have you guys take the vampires as prisoners, or whatever, but you’ve never actually had a supernatural anything in a cell to see if it will hold them?” I asked.

Brennan scowled at me. He really wasn’t handsome enough for the sour disposition, but then I didn’t think anyone was worth it anymore. “We know our job, Blake.”

Fortune flashed him her best smile, which was a pretty good smile. “But isn’t part of why we’re here to help you test things out?”

His face had started to soften as he looked into her blue eyes, but he fought it off and scowled even harder. I wondered if he’d learned the technique from Nolan.

“They were supposed to help us test the cells before we used them for actual prisoners,” Donnie said. If she was having any trouble holding the body in its bag, it didn’t show. I realized she was built a lot like Magda and Fortune, tall and athletic-looking. Even with more women on the “team,” I was still the short, delicate-looking one. Even Echo was inches taller than me, so having all our vampires up and running wouldn’t change that I was sort of the runt of the group. I didn’t normally worry about it that much, but I suddenly realized that this was the most women I’d ever worked with at one time and I was still the short one.

“Then maybe we should do that before nightfall,” Nicky said.

“They feel like dead bodies now,” I said, “but once the sun goes down they won’t be.”

“What am I supposed to do? Say Oh my and drop the bag because it’s supposed to be full of scary vampire?” Donnie asked.