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We parked under one of the streetlights and headed into the building. Two burly armed and armored security guards were keeping watch at the doors, both Fae recently sent over from Queen Tanaquar. Y’Elestrial was slowly regrouping after the recent civil war, and our father was the new Queen’s chief advisor.
Camille leaned close and whispered, “They both wield powerful magic as well as beefcake. I can feel their energy signatures from here. ”
Delilah nodded. “Me, too, and I’m no witch. ”
I tried to concentrate on the men, but all I could sense was the pulse of their hearts, the sound of blood swishing through their veins. If they’d been demonic or undead, I would have sensed something. But regular magic—powerful or not—was usually beyond my ability to home in on.
As we passed through the outer entrance, the guards eyed us, but apparently we didn’t pose a danger by whatever criteria they were using, and they let us by without so much as a Who are you?
The entrance opened into a wide foyer. To the left was the station proper, through a set of bulletproof double glass doors. Straight ahead and slightly to the right was a staircase leading down. The elevators were directly in front of us. We turned to the left and pushed through the doors.
The room was bustling. Dispatch was busy. The number of officers from Otherworld had doubled in the past month alone.
Yugi, a Swedish empath, had been promoted to Chase’s second-in-command. He was leaning over the shoulder of an elf who looked barely old enough for his voice to change, but he was probably older than all of us. By the looks of things, the elf was trying to get the hang of using the computer.
Yugi glanced up, smiling when he caught sight of us. “Hey, girls. The chief is in his office. He told me to pass you through stat. ” Just then the phone rang, and Yugi grabbed it, motioning for Officer Re’ael—as the elf’s name tag read—to continue fiddling with the terminal.
“Yeah? Where? Okay, let me patch you through to the chief. ” Yugi punched a button on the phone as we filed through the cubicles toward the back of the building.
Delilah frowned. “I used to love coming here, but ever since Erika, I feel uncomfortable. Every time Chase’s office comes in sight, I cringe. ” She’d caught Chase dipping his wick in another woman’s inkwell not all that long ago, right on his desk. The fallout hadn’t been pretty.
“Eh, he’s learned his lesson. Next time, he’ll ask first,” I said, trying to be helpful. Chase could be stupid at times, but he learned from his mistakes.
We followed the maze of cubicles to the back wall that sported three doors and an opening to a hallway. One of the doors had Chase’s name stenciled on it. Blinds covered the half window, but they were open. We trailed in on Delilah’s heels.
Chase was taking notes as he listened to whoever was on the other end of the phone. He waved his pencil in the air, motioning for us to sit. After a moment, he grunted something to the caller and then hung up.
“Shit. I wanted to talk to you about those bodies, but we’ve got another problem. Come on—we’ve got an emergency on our hands. ” He grabbed his suit jacket, swinging it over the neatly pressed powder blue shirt he was wearing. I noticed a picture on his desk of a golden tabby, prominently displayed. Delilah. For some reason it made me smile that he kept a picture of her in Were form.
“What’s up?” Delilah said.
He checked his gun in his shoulder holster and then hastily scribbled something on a piece of paper. “Who’s driving?”
“I am,” Camille said.
He tossed her the note. “There’s the address. Come on, we don’t have all day,” he added, hustling out of the room. We followed. “We’re headed to the Avalon Dance Club. Heard of it?” Without waiting for an answer, he raced on. “Some monster is attacking the dancers. The caller said it looked like a bizarre squid, of all things. ”
“Squid? You have to be kidding. In a nightclub?” I snorted, but the serious look on Chase’s face stopped me. I could smell the stress and sweat rolling off of him. He’d had beef tacos for lunch again, that much I could tell, and he was worried. Hints of fear lingered in the droplets of perspiration.
“That’s what she said. Meet me there. Don’t screw around—it sounded like a brawl going on in the background. People are getting hurt. ”
He stopped at Yugi’s desk. “Send a squad car and an ambulance to the Avalon Dance Club. Tell them to wait for us before they head in. We don’t know what we’re up against, and I don’t want the men falling into a trap. ”
We jogged toward the door and slammed out into the balmy night. Chase veered for his squad car, Delilah running with him.
Camille and I raced to her Lexus. She revved the engine and floored it, screeching out of the parking lot behind Chase. I opened the passenger window. Chase had given each of us a flashing light, and I slapped it atop the speeding Lexus. As it caught hold, we sped through the night, the stoplights shifting to let us through at our approach.
The Avalon Dance Club was run by a group of Earthside Fae. A typical nightclub, it catered mainly to Fae, though the Faerie Maids were ever present, hoping to get laid and loved by one of their obsessions. The club was in the heart of the Belles-Faire District, and the station wasn’t all that far away from it.
Chase made a sharp turn into the parking lot. The club had been a restaurant at one time, probably some franchise from one of the bigger chains that had gone belly-up, and parking was plentiful.
Camille gave the wheel a smooth turn and followed him in. As we jumped out of the car, she glanced at me. “Is it wrong that I’m actually happy to be heading into a fight again?”
I returned her smile. “You run with the Hunt. How can you help but love the chase? We’re all predators, Camille. You, Delilah, me. Even Chase. Smoky hunts for his dinner. Morio’s a demon child. Vanzir’s a demon who hunts in people’s dreams. Rozurial chases passion. Everything alive—and sometimes even the dead—hunts in one respect or another. The quest gives us a reason to live. You know that. ”
She nodded, patting her pocket. “I brought the horn, just in case. ”
“Let’s go. There they are. ” I pointed to Chase and Delilah, who were motioning for us to hurry. We swung in beside them. Chase took a deep breath as the backup prowl car pulled into the lot.
“Nice to see they’re on the ball,” Chase muttered under his breath, opening the door to the club. He flipped open his walkie-talkie. “Car eighty-two, stay where you are in the parking lot until I call for you. Copy?”
The intercom crackled out with, “Copy, Chief. ”
As we entered the club, a volley of screams and shouts erupted from the room beyond the foyer. The coat-check girl had vanished, and we rushed into the main dance hall.
The Avalon was an old building. Its low, dark ceilings had been retrofitted with a long series of mirrors reflecting the dancers below. The colors du jour were royal purple and silver, and an updated disco ball twirled from the central ceiling. The music had stopped. The stage was now the scene of a massacre. As far as I could count, six members of the band were down. I couldn’t see blood, but they didn’t look very healthy.
Everywhere I looked, patrons were shoving and pushing to get out the side exits. But something appeared to be barring the doors, though in the semidarkness it was difficult to make out what the creatures were. They didn’t seem to emanate body heat. Undead, maybe? Oh shit, that’s just what we needed.
A woman near the front was clawing at something near one of the tables. I headed in her direction while Delilah and Camille took on whatever was barring the exits. What the hell were we up against?
As I raced toward the woman, I saw she was grappling with some creature—and damn it to hell, the thing did look like a squid. It writhed around her, tentacles encircling her waist and throat.
She beat at it, trying to get it off, but as I approached, the thing let out a hiss and lifted he
r up, tossing her across the room like I might toss a rock. She sailed through the air to land with a deadly thump on the floor near the stage.
Mr. Tentacles—who was still no more than a sooty silhouette—whirled around, one giant eye glimmering with white-hot fire. The closer I got, the more I realized that this was no ocean dweller. The tentacles seemed to work just fine on the floor, and they shrouded a razor-sharp beak. The spiked protrusion seemed more apt for drilling rather than eating.
“Okay, you bastard. Come on, let’s see what you’ve got,” I said, moving into position. Holding out two fingers, I motioned to it. “Come on, you butt-ugly bastard. Come to Mama. ”
The monster moved forward, propelling itself with its tentacles, reminding me of the cartoons where the octopus ran on tiptoe. But this was no cartoon, and these things were deadly.
I couldn’t get a reading on it at first, and then as it approached, I was slammed by the sensation that only one species could produce. Demonkin.
“Shit! Demon!” I shouted as it lashed out with a tentacle. I dodged as the dusky black arm came swiping by. Instead of suction cups, it was covered with tiny, razor-sharp barbs. Youch! That sucker could do some real damage.
I backed away to regroup. Eight—no, ten—tentacles full of what were essentially serrated fishhooks? No, thank you.
As it slid toward me, it glided a few inches above the floor.
Okay. Not good.
Again, I jumped out of reach. The back of my knees brushed against a table, and with one hand I shoved it out of the way. The marbled bench went flying across the room and shattered. Too bad. I had no time for subtleties.
Gauging my position, with a sudden burst of speed I launched myself in the air, boot slamming against the rounded head of the demon. But my foot stopped short an inch or so from the actual creature, sending a shock wave through my body. Damn—I felt like I’d just smashed into a brick wall. What sounded like a thunderbolt ripped the air, and I went sailing backward to land across the broken table.
What the fuck?
Slightly stunned, I leapt to my feet. I could tell I’d bruised a hip, but bruises would heal within the hour. Just one of the perks of being a vampire. Nothing had been broken, nothing punctured.
Should I try again? I decided to come at the creature from another angle, and once more, found myself flying across the room. As I landed, Delilah screamed, and I pushed myself off the floor and headed in her direction, stopping cold when I saw her.
She was covered with blood. Camille had dragged her away from another one of the shadow monsters. Kneeling by Kitten’s side, she started shaking her, just as Vanzir and Smoky raced through the doors.
Smoky let out a shout, and a cold snap filled the air, sending waves of frost through the room. Instantly, the temperature plummeted a good thirty degrees but didn’t seem to affect the creeping cruds at all.
Vanzir muttered, “Oh shit,” before shouting, “They’re bathed in shadow—try light. Blast them with as much light as you can muster!”
Light? I didn’t have a light, and I didn’t think he was talking about flipping on the overheads. Camille let go of Delilah and pulled out the crystal unicorn horn. She gave me a wild-eyed look.
“You have to get out of here,” she mouthed.
I didn’t ask questions. I just booked for the entrance. The doors had barely closed behind me when a huge flash from inside the club sent me reeling and startled all the patrons who were hovering around the police car and ambulance.
There’d been no heat—she hadn’t used fire—but whatever it was would have fried me in ten seconds flat if I’d been in the room with her. Sunlight in a can. Or a horn, rather.
I raced over to the officers, who were taking statements from the dazed crowd. Marquette, an OW Fae, and Brooks, a new FBH recruit, glanced at me. “Boss need us?”
“You better wait out here. But call several more ambulances. There are quite a few casualties. Make certain we have Otherworld medics on hand; it looks like only the Fae have been hurt. ”
While they radioed for help, I headed back to the building. The light had vanished, leaving no residue behind. The dance floor was almost empty, and there was no sign of the Demonkin. Camille and Chase knelt beside Delilah, while Smoky and Vanzir tended to those who had been hurt in the fight.
“What happened? Did you kill them?” I tried to ignore the smell of blood rising from Delilah’s wounds. On closer inspection, they looked superficial, though jagged. Most likely, she’d gotten in the way of one of those barbed tentacles. “You need to get those tended to, or they’ll scar. ”
“Menolly’s right,” Chase said, but Delilah shook her head.
“No. Look—they’re already healing. Great Mother Bast, what the hell’s going on? I know we heal fast, but this is ridiculous. ”
She was right. As we watched, the sides of the wounds quickly began to knit together. A moment later, and we couldn’t see any sign of where they’d been. Our father’s blood gave us healing powers that were far and above an FBH’s, but this was abnormal, even for us.
“What the—” I stopped as Sharah and Mallen burst through the door, equipment in hand. Behind them came several teams of medics, in training for the FH-CSI.
Sharah made her way over to us as Mallen began directing rescue efforts. “What happened? What were you fighting?” She glanced down at Delilah, who by now was getting to her feet. “Great Aeondel, are you okay? Where did all that blood come from?”
“I got sideswiped by a deranged squid,” Delilah said, resulting in a snort from Camille. “The cuts healed up immediately. I’m a little woozy, though. ”
Sharah’s expression took on a vaguely skeptical look. “Deranged squid?” she asked, her voice remaining neutral.