Stage Fright (Bit Parts) (24 page)

That coaxed a smile from his lips.  “It would be handy if you were being chased down by bloodhounds, though.”

“Can you imagine Superman being chased down by bloodhounds?”

He laughed.

I leaned my head against his shoulder.  The fact that we were both damaged meant that we knew how to care for each other.

We sat quietly for a time that stretched into minutes.  I wondered if I tipped my head up just a little, would he try to kiss me?  I was dying to find out if those luscious lips of his were as kissable as I’d…

Footsteps clumped down the stairs, and a worried-looking Perry came into the room.   “Houston, we’ve got a problem.”

We stood near one of the windows overlooking the church’s parking lot.  The sodium arc lights revealed nine figures lingering by Isaiah’s Jeep.  All of them looked up at the windows.  One waved.

“Rogues?” I asked Perry.

“I’d say so.  But brand-new ones with a few functioning brain cells left.”

They might have had a few brain cells, but they were a motley-looking group.  Their clothes were in tatters, and only three of them wore shoes.  Despite the cold, one of the women dressed in a torn tank top and bootie shorts.  The other woman looked like a soccer mom in her turtle neck and unraveling sweater.  Two of the men wore business casual while the others had leather jackets and bandanas, like they’d been dragged off their barstools in a biker bar.

“What makes you think they’ve got brain cells?” I asked.

“The way they’re congregating.  They should be off feeding somewhere, but it’s like they’ve got a plan.”  Perry folded his arms as he watched them mill around Isaiah’s Jeep.  “Though I have no idea what that is.”

“They better not lay a finger on my ride,” Isaiah growled a moment before one of them punched the Jeep’s windshield so hard we heard the crack from inside the building.

“That’s it!”  Furious, Isaiah made for the counter.  Reaching over it, he grabbed a bat and headed towards the door.

“Hold up!” Perry said.  “Before you start cracking heads, think this through.  Something about this feels wrong.”

At the sound of crunching metal, Isaiah hustled to the windows once more.  One of the vampires had thrown his shoulder against the front end of the Jeep, leaving a dent so large it could have been made by a head-on collision with a semi-truck.  This set off the vehicle’s alarm.  The horn began blaring steadily.

When the sound of crunching metal came again, even Perry couldn’t stop Isaiah from storming out the door.  “Excuse me, Cassie,” he rumbled.  “I have a problem I need to take care of.”

I started to follow, but Perry grabbed my sleeve.  “Stay here.  You’re on holy ground, so they can’t touch you.”

Staying in the church would be safe, but it felt wrong.  I didn’t want to be the damsel in distress who relied on the knight to protect her.  Besides, the vampires had already stolen my shine, what else could they take?

Heart pounding, I headed for the doors.  “Where do you keep the stakes?” I asked Perry.

“Forget it.”

“Fine.  I’ll go without them.”  I wished I still had Andrew’s silver cross.

“Okay, okay!  Hold on a sec.”  Perry hurried into the office.  “I’ve got full riot gear in here.  It may not fit you perfectly, but it will be better than nothing.”

He was trying to stall me.  Forget that.  While he bustled about in the office, I lunged behind the counter, finding the stakes in a box beneath the cash register.  I grabbed as much wood as I could hold and dashed through the doors and into the shadowy nave.

I didn’t see the man in the duffle coat and ski mask until he’d tackled me.  My head bounced off the wooden floor, and air whooshed from my lungs.  The stakes clattered in every direction.

Before I could force air into my body, the man hauled me to my feet and, with a grunt, dragged me towards the basement stairs.  For a moment, I was too dazed to resist, then my chest unlocked, and I inhaled deeply, sucking in so much air that I started coughing.

The man was sucking wind, too, as he struggled to haul me towards the steps.  Apparently, he’d either underestimated his strength or my weight.  It was nothing to pull out of his awkward embrace.  The moment I yanked away, however, he let go, using my momentum against me.  I landed so hard on my butt that my teeth clicked together.  I made a swipe for his legs, but he kicked me away.

The sanctuary door banged open and Perry, wearing a Kevlar vest and a helmet with a face shield, charged into the nave.  He was so intent on the doors, he didn’t notice me on the floor until he tripped over my legs and went sprawling.  As Perry and I untangled ourselves, my attacker fled the building.

I finally got to my feet and bolted outside, but my attacker had already disappeared into the night.  Looking for him wasn’t an option.  Not with Isaiah facing down nine vamps by himself.

Perry, gasping, came through the doors.  He thrust a handful of stakes at me.  “Go!”

In the parking lot, the count was down to six vamps, but the long workout in the torture chamber had taken its toll on Isaiah.  His injury was slowing him down.  When one of the vamps lunged, he turned to meet the attack, but landed wrong.  His wounded leg buckled, and he fell against the Jeep’s mangled hood.

I reached Isaiah just as the woman in the tattered tank top pinned him against the Jeep.  Using the tattooed angel wings on her back as a bull’s-eye, I took aim with one of my stakes.  Before I could strike, however, Isaiah regrouped.  He drove off the rogue with a blow to her shoulder.  Bones crunched.  His bat left a large, smoking wound in her grayish skin.  He cut off her ungodly shriek with a second swing.  The vampire exploded into a spray of black residue.  The stink of bitter ash brought tears to my eyes.

I launched myself at a vamp in biker’s leathers, but he dodged me and rushed Isaiah instead.  As Isaiah regained his footing, the vamp slipped behind him, locking Isaiah in a bear hug.  With a backwards jab of the bat, Isaiah caught the monster squarely in its sternum.  The vamp stumbled away.  In a single, graceful move, Isaiah spun and swung the bat again, knocking the creature’s head clean off.

“I’m h-e-r-e!!”  I flicked my eyes from the one-man battle to see Perry jogging across the parking lot. 

“It’s about time.”  Isaiah glanced at Perry and spotted me.  “Cassandra!  Get back in the church!”

“No way!”  I raised my stake at another vampire, but Isaiah cut me off before I could go for the kill.

“Get inside.  NOW!!”

“Forget it.”  I lunged at a different target, but he interfered again.

Frustrated, I backed off, looking for a new objective.

Isaiah grunted as one vampire charged him while another landed a blow between his shoulder blades.  Although he shrugged off the attack, he grit his teeth against pain.  Almost immediately, he went for the first vampire, a bearded young man in a tattered leather jacket.  Isaiah kicked the vamp’s knee, and the creature crumpled to the ground.  One deft thrust of the baseball bat reduced the monster’s face to a smoking crater.  Another blow and the monster lay still.

Perry lobbed a canister into the fray.  It fell with a clunk on the asphalt, releasing a cloud of mist that I bet contained holy water.  Two remaining vamps shrieked and dropped back, but the third saw me and sped over.

For a moment, I froze.  I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to do.  Spin and strike?  Or strike and spin?  Stupid girl, I told myself.  Think.  THINK!!

When the creature was close enough for me to smell the cold, fetid air of its breath, I acted on instinct, spinning away from its outstretched hands while, at the same time, driving the stake underneath its ribcage and up into its heart.

The vampire exploded as suddenly as a car’s airbag, spraying me with its hot, dusty residue.  Retching, I jerked backwards and wiped my face.  As I fought to control my gag reflex, another vampire grabbed me around the neck.  Its weight knocked me to my knees.  Instead of remembering Isaiah’s instruction, I lashed out like a terrified animal, trying to beat the creature with the stake.

Another burst of thick, black ash brought me to my senses.  I drove my stake into my attacker’s leg.  The vamp screeched.  I pushed it away from me and scrambled out of reach.  When it came at me again, I went for its throat.  The stake’s point landed squarely where I’d intended: the vulnerable hollow above the breastbone and below the larynx.  When the vamp fell back, I drove a second stake under its ribs and into its heart.  This time, when the monster exploded, I remembered to close my eyes and mouth.

As the smoke dissipated, Isaiah helped me to my feet.  “You okay?”

I blinked.  The parking lot was quiet and vampire free.  “Yes.”  I gave a shaky smile.  “I’m fine.”

He met my grin with a glare.  “I told you to stay in the church!”  He turned to Perry.  “You were supposed to keep her there!”

“Don’t shout at him,” I said.  Then, before Isaiah could deliver more of a lecture, I lifted my chin and wagged my finger at him.  “Besides, I did a damn fine job, thank you very much!”

His glower deepened before breaking into a huge smile.  He wrapped me in a hug.  “I have to agree.  Although, your technique could use some fine tuning.”

“Take it up with my teacher.”

He laughed.  “I guess you’re not a junior vampire killer any longer.”

“You’re promoting me?”

“Consider this your final exam.  You passed with an A plus.”  He frowned again.  “But don’t you dare try to hunt these things on your own.”

“No worries there.”

We circled the demolished Jeep, inspecting the damage under the parking lot lights.

“I hate to break it to you, big guy, but I think your ride’s totaled,” Perry said.

“Don’t listen to him, baby.”  Isaiah lovingly patted the Jeep’s fender which fell off with a clatter.

“I hope you have good insurance,” I said.

“Isaiah’s got more insurance on his ride than on the store.  Or on himself, for that matter,” Perry said.  “But it won’t make a difference.  What insurance company will believe that his car was innocently sitting in a parking lot when a group of pissed-off vampires beat the hell out of it?  Without a police report, you’re screwed.”

“Forget the insurance company,” Isaiah said.  “I’m getting her fixed and sending the bill to Hedda.”

“Good luck with that,” Perry said.

“If she can afford to renovate the Bleak Street, she can afford to fix your Jeep,” I said.

“I like how you think.”  Isaiah circled my waist with his arm.

I snuggled against his side.  I liked how he thought, too.

Back in Holy Comics, I headed to the bathroom to wash my face, but Perry stopped me.  He held out a box of baby wipes.  “These are an essential part of the vampire hunter’s survival kit.”

I laughed as I scrubbed the greasy, black residue from my skin.  “I’ll be sure to remember that.”

In the office, Perry found a bottle of Vernors in the fridge and poured us each a glass.  Holding up his ginger ale, he solemnly said, “To Cassandra Jaber, our newest vampire killer.”

Isaiah lifted his glass as well.  “Here, here.”  We all drank.

Perry coughed on the bubbles, then continued.  “What I’d like to know is what those rogues were up to.  I’ve never seen that kind of behavior.”

My stomach gave an uneasy twist.  “I may know.”  I hated to spill my secret, but it wasn’t fair to keep it from them.  Especially if they had to deal with the aftermath.  “Those rogues were a distraction to keep you away from me.”  I described the attacker who’d been waiting in the nave.  “I don’t know what the guy had planned, but I’m sure it wasn’t a surprise party.”  I was the only one who laughed.

Perry and Isaiah exchanged worried looks.  “He had to be a human,” Perry said.  “No way could a vamp set foot inside the church.  Any idea who it was?”

“Or why he would come after you?” Isaiah asked.

Keeping my eyes on my hands, I confessed everything from my newly found ability to reclaim my shine, to Victor’s desperate offer for me to become his blood partner, to the real reason for Geoffrey’s visit at my uncle’s restaurant.  “Apparently, the human blood partners aren’t too fond of me right now.”

“Oh, shit.”  Perry had paled three shades during my story.  He ran his fingers through his hair.  “Shit on a stick!  Why the
hell
didn’t you mention this before?”

I risked a glance at Isaiah.  He sat so still that he might have been carved from stone.  “Because I didn’t want you to worry.”  Then, before either man could speak, I hurried on.  “I didn’t want you to try to keep me away from Mercury Hall and the Bleak Street.”

Finally, Isaiah blinked.  He clenched his cup, reducing the Styrofoam to a small, white ball.  With an edge in his voice, he said, “I
am
keeping you away from there.  Even if I have to place you under house arrest.”

“Well, good luck with that.  Now that I’m the director of
16 Voices,
I’ll be down there quite a bit.”

Isaiah leapt off his chair like he’d been ejected.  “You’re WHAT?!!”

Oops.  Apparently, I’d forgotten to mention that one, tiny detail.

I tilted my chin up.  “Victor and Charles got into this huge fight, and Charles was fired.  So Victor asked me to be the director.  I don’t even have to be his blood partner to do it.”

Isaiah pointed his finger at me.  “You are NOT going to be the director!”  I swore his voice made the windows rattle.

I stood to face him.  “And you are NOT to order me around!  I found out a lot of information today.  Way more than you and Perry ever got before.  You didn’t even know that Hedda and Marcella were lovers.”

“They’re
lovers?
”  Perry struck the palm of his hand against his forehead and swore under his breath.

“I can’t give up now!” I continued.  “We need to put an end to this rogue epidemic.  Besides, you can’t keep fighting these things forever.”  Isaiah might claim that his leg was holding out, but he couldn’t disguise his increasing limp.  Even climbing the five stairs from the parking lot to the church had been difficult for him.  I softened my voice.  “I need to keep
you
safe, too.”