Damian's Assassin

He sensed the presence of the vamp before they exited the elevator. The sense grew stronger as she led them down the hall past a waiting room and nurse's station towards the quiet hallway lined by patients' rooms, each housing four to five patients. She slowed to look at the room numbers.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose as she stopped in front of one and pushed the door open.

"Jonny?" she called, entering the well-lit room. Dusty followed her, a familiar tension filling him as he looked at the lone person in the room.

"Hey, B," her brother responded in a groggy voice.

Her brother was a vamp. Dusty resisted the urge to draw his hand cannon from the small of his back. Jonny sensed him as well and looked up, confusion and fear crossing his face. Bianca hugged him, and Dusty resisted the urge to pull her away and snap the vamp's neck. Instead, he sat down across from him, his penetrating gaze on the young vamp. His blood quickened with bloodlust at the thought of ending the life of another miserable vamp. His phone vibrated, and he withdrew it.

Just wait, Sofi's text read.

Damn Oracles, he typed back before putting it away.

Bianca looked at him, and he ignored the sense she wanted to be alone with her brother.

"I'm so sorry," Jonny said, horror crossing his face. His gaze went from Dusty to his sister. "I never meant to drag you into this, B."

"We'll talk about the drugs or whatever later," she said. "Are you okay?"

"Not really."

They both looked at him. He didn't move. She sighed and reached out to her brother, resting her hands on his cheeks.

"No, B," Jonny said, pushing her away. "I screwed up. I'll make it right."

"Stop it," she ordered in her soft voice. "You're acting like a kid."

He relented and closed his eyes.

Dusty felt the slow change in the air around him and tensed. It was a subtle shift, an undercurrent of cool energy that brushed by him, like when Sofi used her voodoo fortune-telling powers around him. Until that moment, he hadn't really cared why Sofi saved the life of the woman before him. Talon's work on her arms pissed him off, but he hadn't considered the wounds were as recent as yesterday.

Healer. It was Sofi's whisper in his mind, a new trick she'd picked up from Darian. Dusty straightened. The spidey senses that warned him when a vamp was around calmed until he no longer sensed Jonny.

Bianca drew away from her brother, eyes glazed. Jonny opened his eyes, and the red ring around his irises was gone. She'd just turned a vamp back into a human. Dusty had never heard of such a thing!