Kissed by Smoke (9 page)

Inigo handed me a blanket he’d grabbed from
somewhere. I gave him a grateful look and turned back to Mikey.
“Mikey, I’m going to put this blanket around you, okay? Hard to
have a serious conversation with you in your Hanes.”

A wry grin at that. Good, there was someone
home.

I draped the blanket around him. “Now, can
you sit up?”

He nodded and slowly sat up. I didn’t help
him, didn’t touch him. What he’d been through, he probably wouldn’t
let me if I tried. “Okay Mikey, tell me about last night.”

He squeezed his eyes closed. “I was hanging
out down at the bar with a couple guys I know and this man came up
to us. Said he had a job. Said he’d pay us good. I thought … :” his
voice trailed off.

I knew what he’d thought. He’d thought the
man had wanted his special services. “But the man wanted something
else?”

Mikey nodded, his stringy hair flopping in
his face. “Yeah. He said there was this … ” He slid a look toward
me. “He used a bad word for your brother. About him being black.
I’m sorry, Miss.”

Miss. I nearly rolled my eyes, but I kept my
expression neutral. “I get it. Go on.”

“Well, he said that your brother didn’t
belong here, and needed a lesson. He’d pay us to teach him that
lesson. I didn’t want no part in it, honest. But the others.” He
shrugged his skinny shoulders. “And I needed a fix real bad. I’m so
sorry … ” sobs wracked his body. “I didn’t touch him, I swear. I
just stood lookout. But when I saw … when I saw … ”

“Calm down, Mikey. Calm down. When you saw
what?”

“They beat him pretty bad, miss. I knew they
were gonna kill him and I begged them to stop. They gave me my
money and told me to leave and let them finish up. That they’d kill
me if I told.”

There was a look in his eyes and I knew
without a shadow of a doubt there was still something in Mikey
worth saving. “You called the cops, didn’t you?”

“If they knew they’d kill me. Please don’t
tell.”

“I won’t. Promise.”

A look of relief spread across his face.
“I’m really sorry, I just. I needed.” He hung his head in
shame.

He was a junky. He needed a fix. Gods, this
world was fucked up. “Mikey, tell me about the man. The one that
hired you.”

He frowned. “He was kind of scary. Tall,
thin, really pale. Had this spooky voice.”

“He give you a name?”

“No, but I was kind of out of it. Maybe he
told the others.”

“You got their names? An address,
maybe?”

He did and he gave them to me eagerly.
Atoning for his sins. But I knew he’d never get straight without
help. A lot of help.

“Mikey, you’ve been really helpful,” I said.
“But you owe me for what you did to my brother.”

His shoulders slumped even more than they
already were. “I know.” His voice was barely above a whisper.

“So here is what you’re going to do. You are
going to take this card.” I handed him a simple white business
card. “You are going to call the number on this card and you will
tell the lady who answers that Morgan Bailey sent you to her. You
got it?”

He turned the card over and over in his
hands. “Yes, Miss.”

“You will tell her the truth. About your
drug habit, what you do to support it. The truth, you
understand?”

The look of shame on his face was so
profound it broke my heart. “She won’t judge you, Mikey. I promise
you that.”

He finally nodded. “Okay, I’ll call.”

“Good. And you will do everything she tells
you. Everything. You got me? Because if I find out you haven’t, I
will hunt your ass down.”

A look of absolute panic crossed his face.
“I’ll do it, I promise.”

I smiled for the first time. Maybe there was
hope for the kid yet. “Good. And Mikey?”

“Yeah?” He gazed up out of big tear-stained
eyes like I was some kind of freaking saviour.

“Take a shower.”

***

Beau and Benedict Radnor lived in a rundown
mobile home in the local trailer park. The pink siding, plastic
grass, and piles of empty beer bottles screamed white trash. No
surprises there.

“I don’t think we should knock,” I whispered
to Inigo.

“No kidding. They’re probably armed to the
teeth.”

He didn’t look at all nervous, which was
good, because I was nervous enough for both of us. I know, I know.
How stupid is that, a bad-ass Vampire Hunter scared of a couple of
rednecks. What can I say? I’m not used to going up against
creatures I can’t kill.

Not that I couldn’t kill the hillbilly
brothers, I totally could. But that would get me thrown in prison
for a very long time. And I don’t look good in orange.

“Okay.” I sucked in a deep breath.
“Ready?”

Inigo gave me a nod, then with one little
push he sent the door flying right off its hinges. It crashed into
the opposite wall of the single-wide trailer, then bounced back,
hitting the floor with a bang.

“Oh, way to be subtle, babe.”

He flashed me a smile before leaping over
the fallen door in a graceful bound. Show-off. I climbed over it
somewhat less gracefully.

We needn’t have worried about the noise. The
Radnor boys were sprawled out on the floor of the bedroom, dead to
the world and reeking of booze. They hadn’t even made it to the
twin beds before passing out. Gods, I hated drunks.

Inigo knelt down next to one of them and
yanked the guy’s head up by the hair. Nothing but a snort and some
drool.

An evil smirk crossed my face. “I have an
idea.” I tromped out of the room, rustled around the kitchen a bit,
and came back with a garbage can filled with water. Really cold
water. Which I proceeded to dump straight in the faces of the
Radnor brothers.

They came sputtering to life.

“Hello, boys.” I sat down on the nearest
bed, making a mental note to call my doctor for a tetanus shot
later. And maybe a rabies one while I was at it. “We need to have a
little talk. Somebody was very naughty last night.”

They blinked at me through identical
blood-shot eyes in identical puffy faces. They looked close to
thirty with huge bellies hanging over their saggy jeans. Career
drunks and assholes. Goodie.

“What’choo talkin’ ‘bout, bitch?” the one on
the right snarled nastily.

Inigo yanked the guy’s hair back and got all
up in his face. I could sense his dragon rising to the surface and
knew the Rador brothers could see the gold fire dancing in Inigo’s
eyes. “Listen you waste of human flesh,” the dragon was in his
voice, too. “Show the lady some respect, or I will remove your oh
so valuable manhood from your body before I flay you alive.”

The Radnors looked ready to piss themselves.
I smirked. Playing Good Hunter / Bad Hunter with Inigo was hella
fun.

“Thank you, my love. Now, boys, I want to
know all about the man who hired you to beat up the federal agent
last night.”

“What do you care?” the Radnor on the left
spit out. “That fed was just some … ” The word that came out of his
mouth was not one that I will repeat. Ever.

I am not a violent person. Okay, you can
stop laughing. I am not a violent person against humans, but that
asshole had me planting a fist straight in his face.

“That’s my brother you’re talking about,
asshat. Now I want the truth, or I let my boyfriend here turn you
inside-out. Literally. Got it? I want to know about the man that
hired you.”

There was some howling and carrying on, but
eventually I got the answers I needed. An address for a farmhouse
out near Culver.

“What should we do with them?” Inigo
asked.

I gave the Radnors a rather nasty grin. “Tie
them up with a pretty red bow and leave them for the police.”

Which is exactly what we did. Minus the red
bow.

“You have got to be kidding. This place is a
dump.”

I couldn’t disagree. The farmhouse we’d been
directed to by the Radnor brothers was just this side of falling
down. I gave Inigo a little nudge with my elbow. “Want to go in
first?”

“I thought you were the big, bad-ass Vampire
Hunter.” Humor laced his tone.

“Yeah, and you’re the big, bad-ass Dragon
Boy.”

That made him laugh. Which made me grin. His
laugh had a tendency to hit me right in my yummy spot.

The tingling at the back of my skull sobered
me up. “It’s a vamp nest.”

“You sure?”

I gave him a look. He had the grace to look
embarrassed.

“Sorry. You’re sure.”

I crossed my arms and studied the run-down
house. Getting in without attracting attention was going to be
tough. Too much debris. Too many loose and rotten boards.

“The only thing that’s on our side is that
it’s full daylight. We’ll have the upper hand.”

“We could burn them,” Inigo suggested.
“Light the place on fire and leave it.”

I shook my head. “We need answers. Hard to
question a pile of ash.”

“I can’t tell how many are in there, can
you?”

I couldn’t. “We can’t risk pulling the
boards off the windows, either. We don’t want to accidentally fry
the guy with answers. Dammit.” I went around to the back of the
Mustang and popped the trunk.

I began pulling out various blades and
bottles and stashing them about my person. When in doubt, load for
bear. Figuratively speaking.

Inigo was more conservative. He chose a UV
gun and a single blade. Then again, he had abilities far beyond
mine. Like, say, shifting into a dragon the size of a large horse.
Trust me, that was way more of a shock to the system than a UV gun.
Though damn if he wasn’t pretty when he did it.

“Ready?” I asked. He nodded and we slipped
into the house as fast and quiet as possible.

The minute we stepped through the front door
I knew the vamps weren’t in the house. “They’re underneath,” I
whispered.

Inigo nodded and headed for the kitchen with
me hot on his heels. He pushed at one of the doors that led off the
kitchen. It resisted, but finally gave in with a squeak and a groan
revealing a large pantry.

I got the next door. It swung open easily,
if a bit creakily. Steps led down into the gloom of a basement.

The grip at the base of my skull tightened.
There were definitely vampires in the basement, but I still
couldn’t get a fix on how many. And my stupid amulet felt like it
was burning a hole in my skin where it lay against my breastbone. I
was half tempted to take it off and stick it in my pocket, but I
didn’t have time for screwing around. We had vamps to
interrogate.

“Did you see any windows leading into the
basement?” I asked. I hadn’t seen any, but it was always good to
double check.

“Nope. It looks like this one’s completely
underground. Probably why they chose it.”

Damn. Without a way to let in the sunlight,
we were at a disadvantage. Even though vamps were usually forced to
sleep by the rising sun, they could still wake up. And being
completely underground, they’d still be deadly.

I clipped my flashlight onto my UV gun. The
flashlight was a special Tesselah edition with a full-spectrum
light bulb. It wouldn’t do the same damage as the sun or a UV gun,
but it would hurt the suckers like a hot stove to bare skin.
Probably not what the original inventors of full-spectrum lighting
had in mind.

I crept down the stairs, Inigo hot on my
tail. At the bottom we both stopped and gaped in surprise.

The floor was covered with sleeping bodies.
There must have been about thirty of them. And they weren’t all
vamps. There were demons in the mix.

What the … ?

“Demons and vamps don’t work together,”
Inigo hissed in my ear.

“No shit.” I had no idea what was going on,
but I
really
didn’t like it. Anything that got vampires and demons together in
harmony was not going to be good for the human race.

“I think we should get out of here and just
burn the place. We can figure out what’s going on some other
way.”

I opened my mouth to agree with him, but it
was too late. We hadn’t noticed a demon clinging to the dark
ceiling. Slowly it unfurled its wings and let out a low keening
sound. Before we could bat an eyelash, the entire place was
thrumming.

“Up the stairs,” I yelled, training my gun
on the nearest vamp and firing off a ray of pure UV light. The vamp
dusted, but there were more coming. Way more than we could handle
in such a tight space on our own.

Move your ass, Morgan
. Inigo’s voice in my head was
practically a yell.

“Believe me, I am.” I dashed up the stairs
after him, another vampire just a breath away.

I hit the kitchen just as Inigo smashed the
boards off the window, spilling hard winter sunlight into the room.
The vampire that had been milliseconds from snacking on me burst
into dust.

Sunlight would stop the vampires, but not
the demons. Two more vamps dusted before they wised up and sent the
non-combustibles instead.

Not good.

Inigo and I backed up in the kitchen as far
as we could from the basement door. We’d both switched from guns to
blades, as UVs were useless against demons.

The first one that crept through the door
was about four feet high and covered in greenish brown scales. It
was snarling like a mad dog and just as friendly. What really had
me worried were its talons. Razor sharp and twice as deadly.

I eyed the thing warily. “Dammit, why isn’t
Kabita here? She’s the demonologist, not me. What the hell is that
thing?”

“Looks like a Sonne demon,” Inigo said.
“They look nasty, but they’re low-level. Easily manipulated by
anyone with more psychic power.”

“Oh, good, then you can control them.”

“Afraid not,” a frown creased his forehead.
“This one’s already being controlled by someone else.”

“The vamps?”

“No. Something stronger.”