Crimson Death (54 page)

T
HE BLUR THAT
was Magda hit the wall opposite the door and bounced back. Mort was the only one fast enough to hit the floor, so she went over him, but she hit Donnie and Brennan both. If we hadn't told her not to hurt them, they'd have been done, but not hurting someone in a fight is harder than it sounds. Pulling your punch takes more skill than landing one, but even pulled they both went flying. Brennan hit the wall beside the other cell. Donnie slid across the floor and caught herself against the wall, but rolled to her feet and was in a fighting stance before Magda was on her again, which was pretty damn impressive.

Mort actually hit Magda as she came over him to go for Donnie
again. It didn't hurt her, but it threw off her leap and made her use the wall to turn and come back for him. I could see Mort as he fought with the blur that I knew was Magda. He was trying to land a blow, any blow, with the baton in his hand. I didn't understand how he was avoiding her blows, but I knew he was, because his other arm was coming up and he was moving like he was fighting. I started to be able to see her moving, but it was still like watching the afterimage as if you saw where she'd been, not where she was, because your eye just couldn't comprehend the speed. Mort had to be seeing her better than I did, because he was blocking her blows. It was like they were sparring, but it was movie-special-effects sparring, because no one moved like this in real life. It was like watching magic.

Donnie tried to back Mort up, and she got a few hits with her baton, but she seemed to have more trouble timing her blows with Magda's movements. Twice she almost hit Mort, because he moved with Magda and by the time Donnie swung she had a different target, one she didn't want to hit. It was like Mort and Magda were dancing and Donnie was trying to cut in.

Brennan staggered as he got up off the floor from where he'd fallen. He was shaken, maybe hurt. If you don't know how to fall, you shouldn't spar. Magda hadn't meant to hurt him, but she'd trusted that he knew how to keep himself safe.

Mort bent backward at the waist, so Magda swept over him. Donnie tried to come from the other side and Magda reacted to it, but Donnie was immediately on the defensive. “Don't try to see her. Feel it,” Mort said, as he avoided Magda's blows and Donnie waded in and got shoved out of the way again.

Donnie said, “What do you mean, don't see her?”

Brennan tried to join the fight, but whatever had happened in the initial rush made him too slow. His baton vanished from his hand in a movement so quick that he was left staring at his empty hand as if it had literally vanished instead of Magda grabbing it and spinning away with it.

Mort finally hit her and he didn't expect to, so he connected harder than he'd planned. Magda slowed down enough that I saw her face clearly and the bright red at her cheek. He'd bled her. There was a
second where he saw it, too, and his face showed that he was sorry, but she touched the blood on her face and then spun toward him with that blurring speed, and if I'd thought the fight was furiously fast before, I'd been wrong. Mort could not keep her from hitting him; no human could have.

Donnie moved in to help but was sent staggering back with blood on her own face. This had gone far enough. Apparently Brennan thought so, too, because he drew his sidearm and pointed it at the fight. Magda was moving too fast for him to be certain of hitting her and not Mort, and we were standing on the other side of the fight. There were too many friendly targets in the hallway. Fuck.

D
ONNIE YELLED, “
B
RENNAN,
stand down!”

I had my gun in my hand and hadn't meant to draw it. Brennan couldn't get a solid target on the moving fight, but all I had to do was hit him. I yelled, “Brennan, down, put it down, now!”

Donnie stood up taller and was suddenly all I could see down the barrel of the gun. I lowered it and aimed at the ruined cell. “Donnie, down, floor!”

“Don't shoot him,” she said.

“Disarm him, Donnie, or we will,” Socrates said.

Flannery moved at the other end of the hallway. “Brennan, holster your weapon.”

“It's the only way to stop it,” Brennan said.

Mort fell to the floor and Magda knelt over him, the baton coming down. Nicky yelled, “Magda!” and his beast's energy filled the hallway in a skin-trembling rush. She hesitated, looking at him with eyes gone to lion orange. Socrates was already moving down the hallway in his
own dark blur of speed, but he wasn't as fast as Magda. Nicky had chosen not to rush the fight, afraid he'd spook Brennan more. Nicky put his body in front of mine to shield me, so that I didn't see what happened next. The gunshot was thunderous in the hallway. You forget how loud it is without ear protection.

I tried to move around Nicky, but he kept his body firm in front of mine. Damn it! “What's happening?”

He moved enough that I could see around him, but he kept one arm sort of back so that he kept me swept mostly behind him. But I could see Magda helping Mort to his feet. Donnie was holding a gun in her hand, but I could still see her own gun in its holster at her side. Maybe she had a backup, but I was betting it was Brennan's gun. Had she disarmed him before Socrates could?

Flannery had Brennan up against the wall, talking low and urgently to him. The younger man wasn't fighting to get away, but he wasn't happy either. Socrates was standing beside Donnie and Flannery.

“What the fuck just happened?” I asked.

“Donnie and Flannery disarmed him before Socrates got there,” Nicky said.

I still had my own gun out. I let out the last of a breath I hadn't even realized I was holding and holstered it.

The door behind us opened and I almost went for my gun again, but it was Edward and Nolan. I started to breathe again and tried to relax, but that wasn't happening completely. We needed out of this hallway, or I did.

“I thought Forrester had trained you up better than that, Blake,” Nolan said; he was angry and looking for a target. I wasn't sure why that target wasn't Brennan, but if he wanted to fight, that was fine with me.

“I don't know what you're talking about, Nolan. It wasn't me who broke training.”

“First your wereanimal goes berserk and then you draw your gun and threaten a target you had no intention of shooting. Didn't anyone teach you that you don't draw your gun unless you mean to use it?”

“Magda did exactly what you said you wanted. She tested your fancy jail cell and your people.”

“Bollocks, she wasn't good enough to get past Mort.” He yelled it, pushing past Edward to advance on me. Edward didn't try to stop him. He knew I could take care of myself, and part of him was going to enjoy the show.

“She could have had me a dozen times, Captain. She was incredibly controlled,” Mort said.

“You fought well,” Magda said.

He grinned at her, pleased.

“If you can't control your animals, then you need to go back to America!” Nolan was looming over me as he yelled.

I stepped closer to him, invading his personal space. I yelled back, “Don't you ever call my people animals again, when it was your man who pulled his weapon on us!”

He stepped into me and screamed, “I'll discipline my man, but who disciplines you for pulling yours?”

I realized I wanted to fight, because part of me knew that I would have shot Brennan. I don't shoot to wound, so I stepped into Nolan. I moved forward into the fight instead of trying to calm it down, because I didn't feel calm. Brennan didn't need killing, but I knew that was exactly what I would have done if Donnie hadn't stopped me. I stepped into Nolan until only the smallest fraction of space was left between us. It was aggressive and designed to make the fight worse. I was afraid of what I'd almost done, and fear has always translated into anger for me. My beasts came with my anger in a rush of energy that fueled the aggression. We could fight; oh yes, we could. I felt Nolan's beast flickering inside him, rising toward the surface of him in his own rush of confused emotions turned to rage. It wasn't the same kind of wolf as the one inside me, but they recognized each other. Bow-fucking-wow.

“Your man lost his nerve and pulled his gun, because he didn't know what else to do, Nolan! This is why you can't jail the monsters! This is why you kill them, because you can't do anything else!”

He snarled into my face. “You pointed your weapon at a friendly that you had no intention of shooting; if you were my man I would take your sidearm and you would not get it back!”

“I pointed my gun at an armed threat, and I don't shoot to wound!”

He almost snarled the next words into my face. “Brennan was pointing his gun at the threat he saw in this hallway.”

Was there an edge of growl in my own voice as I spoke? “He staggered away from that wall. He wasn't steady enough to fire into a fight. He was a danger to your own man.”

“My men are trained to fire during a fight!”

“I'm trained to end the fight!”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

I was damn near on tiptoes putting my face up into his, as I said, “I'm an executioner, Nolan!”

“You wouldn't have shot him!”

“The fuck I wouldn't! Donnie blocked my shot.”

“I did, sir,” Donnie called.

My wolf with her mostly white fur was just suddenly clear inside me. I could see her standing with the black saddle mark across her, the slight darkening around her eyes that was the beginning of the marks around a husky's or malamute's face. She looked up into his brown eyes with her gold ones and his energy rose to hers. His eyes changed to amber.

Nolan looked down at the floor, blinking, then leaned back from me. He took a step back, and in a much calmer voice he said, “Your woman still lost control.”

“No, Captain Nolan, she did not, because if she had, there'd be fresh bodies.” My voice was calmer, too.

When he looked at me again, his eyes were back to human brown. “If Donahue hadn't spoiled your aim on Brennan, would you have shot him?”

“I was taught that you don't draw your gun unless you mean to use it, and if you start shooting, then you shoot until the target is stopped. Dead is stopped.”

Nolan looked at me. “I don't want to lose men to friendly fire.”

“Then you need to train them not to lose their nerve the first time they realize just what they're up against.”

“I did not mean for him to hit his head,” Magda said. “I overestimated his ability to fight, as I underestimated this one.” She clapped Mort on the shoulder. He winced. “Did I hurt you?”

“I'll be bruised, but so will you.”

“No, I will heal any damage before bruises form.”

“That must be nice,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” she said.

“I've never met anyone that much faster than me,” he said.

“You are very fast for someone who is only human.”

He took the compliment, and I realized that in that weird guy/warrior way Mort and Magda were now friends. It had sort of been how Edward and I first bonded, too, so I understood how it worked, but I was just girl enough to know it was a little crazy.

Edward stepped up beside Nolan. “You thought your cell would hold up.”

“I did.”

“You thought your people would stand a better chance at subduing a shapeshifter.”

Nolan nodded. “I did.”

“Don't take it out on Anita or any of her people.”

“He just did take it out on me,” I said.

Edward smiled at me. “Yeah, but I wanted to see who would get the most riled.”

“You wanted to see which of us would get angrier?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

He smiled at me, and it was all Ted charm, but the glint in his eyes was all Edward—that part of him that liked to know everyone's weaknesses, like an out-of-control temper that you aimed at the wrong person. I understood why Nolan was still only a captain at forty; with that kind of temper I was amazed he'd made captain. Of course, he had just watched us prove that his unit wasn't even close to prepared for the monsters. That was worth a temper tantrum or two, just not this public.

“Are the vampires going to be that strong and that fast when they wake up?” Donnie asked, nodding toward the cell where they'd stowed the body bags while we tested the other cell.

Nolan looked at me. “Well, Blake?”

I appreciated that he asked my opinion and not Edward's. I think he was trying to make up for the yelling match. “Not as fast, and the newly dead won't know how to harness all that superstrength yet. Magda has
had years of training and practice. She's not only stronger and faster than human-normal, but she knows how to use all of it. You've got a suburban mom and two teenage girls. Just being vampires won't make them instant martial arts experts or give them washboard abs; that takes work whether you're dead or alive.”

“So will the other cell hold the new vampires?” he asked.

I looked at Magda. “Will it?”

She nodded. “For a few nights, yes, but they will learn how strong they are, and they will begin to use that strength. They will also learn how to use the other things they have gained from becoming vampire.”

“You mean mind tricks,” Nolan said.

“Their gaze can trap you and make you into their slave. It can turn a man against his friends and family.”

“It doesn't work over cameras. As long as we don't open the door and look them in the eye, we'll be fine.”

“You'll have to feed them,” I said.

“We'll shove in some bags of plasma,” he said.

I shook my head. “They can't feed on old blood, only fresh.”

“We can get rats to put in the cell.”

“First, the vampires are still at some level going to be who they were in life, so I don't think that shoving live rats in a room with a mother and two kids is the best idea.”

“You mean they'll be afraid of the rats?” Donnie asked.

I nodded.

“I know where we can buy rabbits,” Flannery said.

“They would drink the blood of animals, but it won't sustain them.”

“What does that mean, it won't sustain them?”

“It means that animal blood fills their stomachs, but it's missing some ingredient that keeps the bodies from rotting. The brain stays intact and working, but the body starts to rot like a zombie's does. They still have eternal life unless they're killed, but the looking-just-like-they-did-at-death rots away.”

“How do you know that?” Donnie asked.

“I've seen a master vampire that tried to give up feeding on people. It was pretty horrible.”

“Is there any way to reverse the process?” Flannery asked.

“Yes, but not without literally sacrificing other people's lives to replace the energy the vampire has lost through trying to go their version of vegetarian.”

“You mean they have to consume enough blood to kill people?”

“No, literally the ritual that might fix the damage requires human sacrifice. I've never heard of it being done successfully, but I was approached by someone who wanted me to help them do it.”

“They wanted you to perform the ritual?” Flannery asked.

“No, they wanted me to be one of the human sacrifices.”

His eyes went wide. “Cheeky buggers.”

“I thought so.”

“What did you do to stop them?” Nolan asked.

“I've already told you what
stop
means to me, Nolan.”

We looked at each other for a long minute, and then he nodded. “Yes, you have.”

I felt Magda move beside me, and something about it made me turn and look. She was watching Brennan walk up the hallway toward us. We were also standing in the way of the only exit from the cell block, so he had to come this way to leave, but it had still put Magda on alert. I didn't blame her.

Mort stepped a little in front of her, so that Brennan would have to pass in front of him and not Magda. I had a moment to see how much smaller Mort was than the werelion. He wasn't just shorter; he also was one of those men who muscled but didn't bulk up much, so that he looked almost delicate standing in front of her. Since Mort was three inches taller than me, it let me understand just how tiny I must appear to everyone else.

Brennan stopped his six feet of tall, dark, and brooding handsome in front of Mort. “Would you actually protect her against me?”

“Magda did what we asked her to do: point out the flaws in our system.”

“Would you stand with her against me?”

“She didn't point a gun at me, Brennan. You did.”

“I wasn't aiming at you. I was aiming at her.” And he pointed a finger at Magda as he said it.

“Do you really think that you could have hit her without hitting me?”

“Yes,” he replied, but he was a little too defensive about it. He'd gotten spooked by Magda and he'd let his fear make him foolish.

Magda took a step forward and Brennan took one back; even with Mort between them he didn't want to be closer to the werelion. Crap, we might have broken him for this duty; if he couldn't get over being this afraid of wereanimals, not only couldn't he work with us but he'd be a deficit working with any of the preternaturals.

“Donnie, escort Brennan to medical. I want him checked out.”

“I'm fine, sir.”