The first bloodsucker went down easy enough with a quick blast from Jo’s Glock, which gave her hope that these were old school Vampires, the kind that died quickly with a bullet or two, not the reengineered kind that had showed up a few days after the Revealing, and certainly not the pesky Souled kind that they’d discovered the year before Jo was born. No, with any luck, all of these dirt bags would turn out to be good ol’ fashioned bloodsuckers and fall down dead like good boys and girls with a blast of her weapon. She’d find out quickly enough.
A spray of ash from the first one, and a scream from a few others who were either so startled at her sudden appearance or just timid by nature, gave Jo the few seconds she needed to aim at the shadows and send a woman with long, scraggily black hair into oblivion.
From her right, a thin specter rushed her, his long claws reaching for her face. Jo whirled around, raising her knee and catching him under the ribs while she pointed her Glock, shooting at him quickly and then taking aim at another form flying in her direction. This one, an older woman with gray hair and a few extra pounds, almost made contact before Jo could aim her gun again. She shot twice, but the granny didn’t go down. An elbow to the throat, and a fist to her face sent the monster flying into a metal shelving unit, her arms flailing and her dress showing her large white panties beneath the floral print. Jo fired again, turning the would-be matronly murderer into black char.
The other guy was down but not out. He lay groaning on the ground, holding his shoulder. “Damn, I missed,” Jo muttered, placing her thick black boot on his neck and ignoring his pleas as she fired into his head. “Not this time,” she said as the sole of her boot thunked on the dingy, off-white linoleum, skidding in the pile of ash that occupied what used to be the outline of the Vampire.
Turning her head, she surveyed the store. It was dark, and while her eyes cut through shadows better than humans’ and most Vampires’ she still had a feeling she wasn’t alone. In the distance, she caught the wail of sirens and muttered another curse word, thinking someone must’ve heard the struggle, though they wouldn’t have detected the gunfire, not with this silencer on. She hated to leave her business unfinished, especially if there were a Vampire in the building who could ID her, so she took a chance and headed toward the swinging doors near the soda machines to have a look around in the back.
It didn’t take her long to find what she was searching for. Crouched in the corner, his arms over his head, a Vampire knelt in what smelled like a puddle of his own urine. “Get up,” she insisted, pointing her Glock at his head. It wasn’t that she needed to see his face before she shot him; for some reason, she felt the need to, the longing to make eye contact with every single one of these bastards she laid out. There was an atonement in that she couldn’t quite put into words; it was almost as if looking into their eyes before she killed them gave her a small part of her own soul back.
He didn’t look at her though. Keeping his arm over his balding head, he whimpered. “Please....” His voice broke. “What you’re doing is illegal.”
“So is sucking the blood from innocent humans!” Jo retorted. “Or at least it used to be! Before President Crimsoncrotch and his cronies took office. Look. At. Me.”
Slowly, the monster lowered his arm, revealing the steel grey eyes that assured Jo one pull of her trigger would end him. She didn’t hesitate. As he opened his eyes to make another plea for his life, her finger flinched, pulling back the tiny piece of metal that let fly a larger projectile, this one exploding between his eyes and leaving him staring into her own blankly for a half a second before he dissipated into a pile of black ash, mingled with piss.
Jo took a deep breath, glad the uneasiness in her gut was settling down. She was alone now, all of the Vampires sent to wherever the hell Vampires went when they were ended. At one point, she thought she knew where that was, but with everything that had happened over the last ten years, she had long since realized she had no idea. And there was no time to stand there and contemplate it either.
The sirens were drawing closer, and that ominous red and blue light reflected off the formerly shiny, silver surfaces outside as Jo punched her Glock back into its holster and sprinted for the door and her waiting bike. She was much faster than any human, thanks to a second and then third round of Transformation serum (the latter of the two something she’d decided to give herself one day while she was fooling around at Scott’s parents’ house, an act for which her father would’ve probably killed her if he were capable of doing so) and her engine was souped-up to the point it would be able to outrun anything the cops or the military had available. That didn’t mean she wanted to stand around and scratch her ass and wait for them to get closer.
She was on her bike, tearing out of the parking lot, headed the opposite direction from where she’d seen the lights in a matter of seconds. Just when she was about to slow down and breathe a little, she realized she was headed toward what appeared to be an unmarked, black SUV. “Son of a bitch,” Jo muttered, wishing she had bothered to take the time to put her helmet on so that, if that was in fact a cop—or worse—headed her direction, they wouldn’t be able to identify her. But with her long black braids and blue eyes that seemed to glow in the dark, if the occupants had gotten a glimpse of her through any sort of scope or magnification device, they’d definitely know who she was. She didn’t dare get any closer. Instead, she skidded around the next corner, a full block ahead of them, and gunned the engine, praying they didn’t turn down the same dark street she’d chosen.
Behind her, Jo heard the squeal of tires and cursed again. A quick turn of her head let her know the SUV was coming—and fast.
Even though it was late, there was a busy crossroad ahead of Jo, and she knew she was going to have to at least bring her bike to a low throttle, if not stop completely, in order to safely make her way across what used to be an Interstate Highway. Since the Vampires had basically claimed much of this part of town, most of the humans who lived here didn’t ever come to these parts, or if they did, they did so in the daylight. Still, no matter who or what was driving the cars up ahead, there were more of them than Jo had collectively seen in the last few minutes since this was a major artery that cut through the center of Denver, so she couldn’t rush into oncoming traffic despite the fact that the black SUV behind her was closing at an ungodly rate.Taking her eyes off of the asphalt ahead of her Jo looked over her shoulder. How was it the SUV was possibly closing? “Goddamnit!” She whirled back around and considered pressing even har
It was no surprise that Aunt Cassidy was already sitting in her living room by the time Brandon found a parking spot in an inconspicuous location a few blocks away from Jo’s apartment building. Cassidy had no doubt parked in Jo’s parking spot in the garage at the rear of the building whereas the three of them were forced to traipse through the streets a good distance. They’d been hampered by the fact that they had to walk like regular people, rather than the superbeings they were. Although, if anyone peeking through the windows wanted to look carefully enough, they might notice there was something different about their weapons. Not that everyone wasn’t armed these days. Humans tried to protect themselves from Vampires, since it was okay to kill them if they attacked. Vampires didn’t need guns but they often carried them anyway. And then there were people like Jo and her family who would be taken in without question the second law enforcement
Jo’s mouth gaped open, and she was certain her eyes were wide enough to resemble dinner plates. Elliott’s words hovered around her mind for a few seconds before they slowly began to sink in, and her mouth managed to connect. “Dad… he’s… back?” She shook her head, still trying to process. “How long? He never called me.”“Maybe that’s because the last time you spoke to him, you said you hated him and if he ever tried to find you, you’d pull out the special titanium bullet you’ve been saving.” Cassidy’s glare was so intense, Jo could feel it on the back of her skull.She swallowed hard, not needing her aunt’s verbal reminder of what had transpired between herself and the Guardian Leader the last time they’d spoken. Words were exchanged…. Blame was placed…. She’d thought about calling not that long afterward and apolog
Crying was the one thing Jo hated almost as much as Vampires, so she didn’t let herself sob for too long before she broke into a mental pep talk and went to the kitchen to grab a leftover napkin from takeout and blew her nose. “This is stupid,” she muttered, wadding the flimsy paper into a ball and tossing it into the overflowing trash can in the kitchen. “I can’t let those shitheads walk into my house and make me feel bad for something none of them can ever understand.”She drummed her fingernails on the chipped Formica counter and contemplated what to do. She wished a stiff drink would do her some good, but it had been a long time since alcohol or anything else had an effect on her--not that that had kept her from trying. Before she Transformed at seventeen, she’d done more drinking and smoking than most kids her age--all behind her parents’ back, which had been hard because her dad always seemed to know
A knock on her door had Jo pulling her head out of the past and back to the reality of her cruddy Denver apartment. Zane had sounded groggy on the phone, like maybe he had actually been sleeping for once, a rarity. Or maybe it was just that smolder he had about him amplified by her desperation to speak to someone she trusted. Either way, when she opened the door and saw him standing there, his brown hair falling over his eyes, one hand stretched behind his head, showing the ripple in his bicep, all the feelings she thought she’d sent packing months ago came roaring back in one heated hormonal ball that settled in her pelvis like a grenade without a pin.“Hey,” he said, dropping his hand and sticking it in the pocket of his worn jeans. “You okay?”“Peachy,” Jo replied, leaving the door open for him and returning to her couch. A cloud of dust enveloped her as she plopped down on it. Zane closed th
Jo brought her bike to a stop next to the SUV a few minutes before 8:00. Everything worth bringing with her was in the backpack strapped to her back, or in one of the many holsters she had hidden on her person--at least she hoped they were hidden. She hadn’t gotten too many questioning looks on her ride over, but then, there weren’t many people up this time of day either. When you had to stay up most of the night to make sure you weren’t some monster’s late night snack, you tended to sleep in.No one was stirring near the SUV, which looked more beat up in the daylight than it had the night before. She walked around it, wondering where the rest of the family might be and noticed a few dents on the driver’s side that could’ve been popped back into place easy enough. She vaguely remembered the days of Lamborghinis and jet planes but didn’t let her mind stay there too long. There was no use thinking about what used t
It didn’t take too long before someone wanted an explanation, one Jo wasn’t willing to give. So the questions went directly to Zane. It wasn’t a surprise at all that it was her dear brother asking the questions.“So… Zane… are you related to Kian O’Braonian?” Cadon asked once they were about twenty-five miles outside of the Denver city limits, and they’d pulled over so Elliott could drive, something he almost always insisted on. Jo and Zane were sitting in the way back now, Brandon and Cass in the middle, and her brother had to swivel almost completely around in a semi-circle from the front passenger seat to direct his question to the Guardian in the back row.“I am,” Zane said, a questioning lilt to his voice. “He was my grandfather.”“Interesting,” Cadon said, and Elliott looked away from the road long enough to give his so-ca
Stanstead was a quaint little town near the Quebec-Vermont border, just the sort of place one might expect to see on a 1950s television program, even though technically the town didn’t come into existence until two others were merged in 1995. Still, as the SUV rolled along nice suburban streets, lined with green hedges and white fences, it was easy to forget they were in the middle of a war.Not here, however. Not in Canada. Jo pushed her hair back behind her ear, trying to concentrate on anything other than seeing her dad for the first time in years, including remembering how ugly it had gotten between the US and Canada when the northern neighbor declared Vampires unwelcome within the borders. Many Americans had called them racist, said it was another Holocaust all over again. Jo remembered her dad sending as many LIGHTS members as he could find from other parts of the world that weren’t either in crisis like they were in the US or under a s