Twice Cursed (21 page)

“
Like a knife,” she replied
dryly. “Are you ready?”

“
You talkin’ to
me?”

Lily pressed her lips together. “Don’t
make me shoot you, Jack.”

“
What? My Robert De Niro
impression making you a little twitchy?”

“
Yeah, but only my trigger
finger.” Ignoring him, she continued down the street, moving at a
fast clip, while Jack shadowed her every step. As she approached
the north side, she slowed, stopping just short of the ornate, gas
style streetlamp outside the entrance to the park.

The arch stood just inside
the north gate about twenty-five feet from the sidewalk. Fashioned
after the
Arc de Triomphe
in Paris, it was a landmark, despite the ever
present homeless sheltering in the gardens to either
side.

With a practiced eye, Lily surveyed
the area, checking for anyone who might end up as collateral
damage, but thankfully, the cold had left the park deserted
tonight. A silhouette moved around the base of the tall structure,
away from the street side view, scooting behind the far statue of
George Washington.

The park was mostly in shadow, despite
the light from the full moon, but Lily spotted the figure as it
dragged its prey toward the children’s playground off to the right
of the entrance.

She held her finger up to her lips,
and motioned for Jack to follow. Sliding her hand into the hidden
gun compartment along the outside of her purse, she drew her 9mm.
Not that it would do much good against a vampire, but it was better
than nothing. The ability to stun and run can sometimes mean the
difference between life and death in a business like
hers.

Stashing her cell phone, cash and thin
leather credit card case in her other boot she then placed her
empty purse under the closest bush.

She shoved the 9mm into the back
waistband of her pants, and motioned for Jack to stop. Her
adrenaline level ratcheted up a notch at the feel of the cold steel
against back, and her focus narrowed even as she expanded her
senses. Cold steel or not, it would not do to get blindsided by
another predator sniffing around the scent of fresh
blood.

She squatted down behind the
winter-dead shrubs, thankful again for her choice of black
clothing. With her left hand, she slid her boot halfway off her
foot and removed two thin, sharp-edged stakes from an inside
flap.

Jack’s eyes widened when she handed
him one of them, but he shook his head, reaching for his belt
buckle, instead.

“
Don’t shift, yet.” Lily’s
voice skimmed across his mind.
“I need to
get close enough so I can pick her brain…or what’s left of it
anyway. I want to try and get a bead on where she’s made her lair.
If we approach together, the distraction of two attackers might
give me just enough of an edge.”

“
Man, having your voice in
my head feels weird. I’ve only communicated like that with other
Hunters. Kind of sexy…”

“
Head in the game,
Jack…”

“
On three,
then?”

“
Yeah, but approach with
stealth, not like a screaming banshee. Got it?”

“
Strength of the wolf is in
the pack. After you, alpha-girl.”

“
Wait! One more
thing…”

Lily reached into her pocket and
pulled out what looked like a tube of lip-gloss. Dragging the goopy
applicator wand over her lips and under her nose, she then handed
it to Jack.

“
Vicks. It’ll help manage
the stench.”

“
How the hell…”
he started to ask, but then held up his hand,
wand and all.
“On second thought, I don’t
want to know.”

He smeared the Vicks exactly as
instructed, then handed the tube back. Lily shoved it back into her
pocket and with a single nod, unfolded herself but stayed in a
defensive crouch. Jack did the same, but let her take the lead.
What did he know? She was the one with all the vamp
experience.

She moved out into the open, the stake
in her right hand, flattened against her outer thigh. As she
walked, its sharp edge dug into her skin through her
pants.

Jack flanked her. They were barely
five feet from the vampire and its victim, yet still in shadow.
Jack’s nostrils flared, and he looked at Lily, his eyes
puzzled.

She took a step closer, joining the
vampire in the reflected light from the streetlamp at the edge of
the playground.

“
Holy mother of
God!”

The female vampire stood over its
victim, its lips pulled back over yellow, saliva-coated fangs,
horrific in their cold symmetry.

Its victim lay half in
shadow, half in the ambient light.
“Lily,
if that’s what I think it is, then she’s feeding on her
own,”
Jack’s voice was tight in her
mind.

Gurgling sounds came from the vampire
on the ground, it throat severed almost to its backbone.

This was what was wrong in the
atmosphere. Like feeding on like. It didn’t add up. Vampires
fought, even killed each other for various reasons, but never did
they hunt and feed off each other like prey.

The vampire turned and hissed at them.
Claw-like fingers, as bloodied as its mouth, swiped at the air, its
nails, jagged-edged and caked with gore and dirt.

“
Is it female?”
Jack said, revulsion clear in his voice, even as
it choked through Lily’s mind.

“
Yes. It’s not the same
vampire from the crime scene, but she’s definitely
related.”

Just like the vampire from Lily’s
visions, this one’s hair hung in ragged strings, but it was more
from dirt and dried blood than from rot.

This one was redheaded, and she was
young, both in human years and in vampiric terms. It was obvious
she hadn’t been a vampire long. Lily shook her head almost
imperceptibly. There was something wrong with this vampire, beyond
the average ‘what’s wrong with this picture,’ notion of a human
turned bloodthirsty predator. This creature was sick, and in the
same manner, Lily sensed in the vampire from her visions at the
crime scene. Reaching out with her senses, she registered only
partial coherence in its thoughts, but blind anger and its craving
for blood overrode even that.

It hissed again, shocking Lily back to
the present. The vampire took a step toward them, but stopped,
sniffing the air. It whirled around, its stench wafting toward Lily
and Jack as she turned. Jack gagged, despite the scent of Vicks
helping to mask the smell, his eyes widening in shock.

Lily didn’t move from her spot,
keeping her eyes trained on the vampire and a tight grip on the
butt of her stake.

The vampire straightened out of its
crouch, its body language still tense, but no longer
defensive.

A moan from the injured vampire on the
ground broke the silence, pulling the redhead’s attention back to
its prey. It stood as if torn, wanting to feed, but something else
pulling its attention.

“
Why isn’t it
attacking?”

“
I don’t know. It can see
us, it smells our blood, I’m sure of it, but something else has it
enthralled.”

From the shadows, thick with the
stench of rot and old blood, another vampire walked into the
moonlit patch of playground.

Lily tensed; her grip so
tight on the stake, her knuckles looked as if they’d rip through
her skin.
“It’s her,”
her voice shrilled in Jack head.
“…the one from my visions. She must be the redhead’s
maker.”

The older vampire was just as Lily
remembered from her visions, though she smelled even worse, almost
as if she was decaying from the inside out.

One look at the dying vampire on the
ground and the older vampire backed-handed the redhead, sending her
crashing against the children’s slide.

The vampire sniffed the air, whirling
toward Lily and Jack, a guttural snarl coming from the back of her
throat. Her eyes locked on Jack. Slowly the vampire advanced, her
head tilted to the side as if curious or puzzled. She inhaled
through her nose, her nostrils flaring slightly and her eyes
narrowing.

“
I’m guessing your scent is
somehow familiar, but it’s as if she can’t place the
smell.”

“
Great. You can stick
around and be a midnight snack. Me? I vote ‘no thank you’. She
takes another step, and I’m phasing. Let’s see how she likes
playing with the big dogs.”

Lily tried to touch the vampire’s
thoughts, but the minute she slipped into her head, it roared,
ripping its gaze from Jack and settling instead on Lily. Fragmented
thoughts raced through Lily’s mind, but each laced with pain, both
physical and emotional. This vampire had been tortured, and then
left for dead.

The vampire’s eyes met
Lily’s, as a flood of remembered pain washed through them both.
Lily’s knees buckled, and the vampire tore at its hair, wordless
screams echoing through the quiet dark. Behind them the redheaded
vampire screeched and took off into the park. The older vampire not
caring, as it sobbed into itself. Their eyes met again, and a
single blood tear fell, leaving a trail of crimson as it dripped
down the skull-like face. Lily heard two words murmur back through
her mind. They were lucid. They were scared, and they were
female.
“Help me”.

In that one second, Lily’s mind locked
on the vampire’s essence, and she saw her for what she was, and
what she used to be. In a flash, the image was gone. The crazed
creature was back, and with a feral snarl, she leaped over her and
Jack and took off into the shadows.

Stake in hand, Lily scrambled to her
feet and rushed to the injured vampire. Jack flanked her on the
opposite site, standing with his body tensed for action and his
feet in a defensive stance. He kept himself half turned toward the
darkened park, stake out, ready for anything from any
direction.

The vampire on the ground was a young
male. With his baby face and hip-hop styled clothing, he looked to
be no more than eighteen. Nevertheless, knowing the nature of
vampires, he could have been any age. Somehow, though, Lily sensed
he was just a kid—by any definition, vamp or human.

The boy-vamp’s heart was intact, and
though the redhead had ripped his throat from end to end, his head
was still attached. He was healing, but much too slowly for such a
young vampire.

His gaze flicked back and forth, and
though fear expanded its hold from her chest to her throat, Lily
approached with caution, her fingers itching for her crossbow.
Injured or not, a vampire was still a predator, and there was
nothing that got in the way of their bloodlust except
death.

Looking at him now, that’s exactly
what Lily read in his eyes. He wanted to die. But why? None of this
made any sense. Vampires rebounded from injury, even near fatal
injury, faster than any other supernatural being. At least that was
what she’d been told.

“
Will you just stake him
already before the queen vamp and her court decide to come back?”
Jack’s voice rushed from his mouth in a harsh whisper.

“
Not a chance, Jack. He’s
been attacked, and if we help him, maybe he’ll help us find out
who’s behind all this. If it’s the female vamp, or if she’s just a
puppet.” Lily answered, shrugging out of her coat and rolling it
into a ball.

Jack’s jaw dropped when he realized
what she intended. “Have you lost your fucking mind? You’re not
seriously going to stick that under the vamp’s head, are you? Why
not read it a bedtime story?” he asked, throwing his arm up. “We
are not nursemaids to the undead! You get too close to that
creature, and I promise it will use your blood for a booster shot.
Do you hear me?”

Not waiting for a reply, Jack scowled,
sticking the stake between his teeth, he dropping to his hands and
knees. His body contorted, muscle and bone reshaping in seconds
under his clothes, shredding his shirt and pants. A majestic grey
wolf stood in Jack’s place amid pieces of torn fabric. Baring his
teeth, a low, guttural growl rumbled from the back of his throat,
directed at both Lily and the vampire, as well.

Lily stood with the rolled up duster
in her hands, waiting for Jack to make a move. He chuffed, dipping
his big head, and Lily answered with a nod of her own,
acknowledging the big wolf and the message she hoped he meant to
convey. She glanced down at the vampire. “Do you understand what
we’ve been talking about?” she asked, watching its face and eyes,
bracing for any quick movements. She doubted it had enough strength
to draw breath, but she stayed in a defensive stance,
nonetheless.

The vampire nodded.

“
You understand something’s
wrong, don’t you? You’re not healing, and you haven’t stopped
bleeding. I know you can’t speak, but I want to prop this under
your head to help ease your breathing.”

Jack growled, this time chuffing out
his warning while he scored the grass next to the vampire with his
front paw.

“
My wolf friend would like
nothing better than to finish what the redhead started, and rip
that head of yours the rest of the way off,” she said, gesturing
toward Jack. “The only thing stopping him is me.
Understand?”