Corbin forced a smile. “In my profession moving comes with the territory.”
“Where to this time?”
“That’s my business, if you don’t mind. Now drop your gun.”
“You won’t shoot her. She’s too valuable to you.”
An evil grin spread over Corbin’s face. “The bullet won’t kill her, but it’ll hurt nevertheless.” He lowered his gun to her shoulder.
Realizing that Corbin wasn’t bluffing, Oliver dropped his weapon to the floor.
Then he watched in panic as Corbin took a couple of steps backwards toward the door, keeping Ursula pressed closely to his front.
“One last question before I leave: how did you know it was me?” Corbin asked.
“You shouldn’t have said you only went to the blood brothel once. When I realized you were lying about that, I figured you could be lying about other things too. Like the new address of the blood brothel. Particularly since nobody else got an email with the address. Funny that you would be the only client who did.”
Corbin lifted an eyebrow then shrugged. “Ah, well, next time I’ll know.”
“There won’t be a next time,” Oliver prophesized.
But Corbin reached behind him and opened the door. Ursula stared at Oliver, her eyes wide with fear, her hands trying to pry off Corbin’s arm, to no avail.
Oliver perceived a movement behind Corbin in the hallway when the door swung open wider. “Corbin, you made one other fatal mistake.”
For a second, Corbin stopped in his movements. “Nice try.”
“You assumed I came alone.”
A shot rang out. Corbin’s right arm, holding the gun, dropped as he cried out in pain, blood seeping from his shoulder. Ursula wrenched free of him, falling forward in the struggle. Corbin’s face distorted into a grimace, but it appeared that the bullet had exited his shoulder and was therefore doing no further damage.
Aided by his left hand, Corbin raised his gun arm again, aiming at Ursula as she tried to crawl to safety.
“You’ll never get her or the other girls.”
Oliver lunged and barreled into Corbin, knocking him to the ground. As Corbin hit the floor with his injured shoulder, he lost the gun. It skidded underneath the bed, out of reach of either one of them. Oliver was on him in an instant. They struggled, exchanging blows and punches too fast for the human eye to follow.
Oliver repeatedly pounded into Corbin’s wound, but the bastard was strong, and his left hook whipped Oliver’s head to the side. Using the momentum he had, Corbin rolled, and Oliver suddenly found himself underneath him, being pounded by the evil vampire’s fists.
Oliver kicked his leg up and managed to drive his knee into Corbin’s thigh, making him pull back for a moment. It was enough to get out from underneath him and roll to the side.
Corbin’s next blow missed, and Oliver knew his enemy’s strength was waning. Corbin knew it too. Oliver pinned him down with one arm against Corbin’s throat. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a stake. Corbin’s hand moved, jerking something from his pocket. From the corner of his eye, Oliver saw what it was: not a weapon, but a cell phone. Corbin’s arm pulled back like a pitcher, even though his range was limited.
“You’ll never find them!” he vowed and tried to smash the phone against the wall.
But Oliver slammed the stake into his heart and whipped around in vampire speed, catching the phone in mid-flight before it could hit the wall and smash to pieces. Beneath him Corbin disintegrated into dust.
Breathing heavily, Oliver clutched the iPhone tightly and stared back to where Corbin’s dust settled. “Maybe I should have mentioned that I was the catcher for my baseball team, asshole.”
Cain burst into the room, still holding his gun. “Guess I’m a worse shot than I thought.”
“Should have waited for me,” Thomas admonished on rushing into the room behind him.
“What took you guys so long?” Oliver growled at his colleagues, but didn’t wait for an answer and instead rushed to Ursula. “Ursula, baby. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
She reached for him, and he pulled her into an embrace. “I’m okay,” she whispered. Then her hands fisted in his shirt. “There’ll be a dozen vampires waiting for you at the warehouse in Oakland.”
“We’ve got it under control.”
She took a few deep breaths. “The girls. He said he’s taking them away. They were being loaded up somewhere. But he didn’t say where.”
Oliver raised his hand that held Corbin’s cell phone, then turned to face his colleagues.