On Midnight Wings

She fired the Glock as her hands were knocked aside, the gunshot cracking like winter ice through the night.

Electric pain jolted from Heather’s wrist to her shoulder as Caterina seized the Glock and twisted it. The gun dropped from Heather’s pain-numbed fingers to clatter against the sidewalk.

Caterina kicked away the gun. She regarded Heather with hazel eyes devoid of emotion. Perspiration glistened on her forehead. Strain etched stark lines around her mouth. “How did you fool us?” she demanded. “All of us—Dante, the llygad, me. It’s important I know how you did it.”

Heather’s muscles ratcheted another turn tighter. This isn’t just betrayal. Something’s wrong with her. Very wrong. But whatever it is, I’m not going to stand here and let her kill me. I’m not going to die in a rest area parking lot surrounded by weeds and silence and the stink of piss.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Heather replied, inching her hand toward the hem of her sweater and the Taser hidden underneath it. “And I could ask the same thing of you. You gave your word to Dante. I watched you put your gun at his feet and promise to guard and defend him.”

The gun barrel jammed harder into Heather’s temple. Leather creaked as Caterina’s finger tightened on the trigger.

“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” Caterina said, her voice cold enough to hang icicles from the eaves of the restrooms.

As Caterina squeezed the trigger a second time, Heather dropped to her knees. She felt something blaze past the top of her head, almost skimming her scalp. A split second later the SIG’s muted thwip reached her ears.

Heather yanked the Taser out from beneath her sweater and fired. The prongs hit the assassin in the throat. Caterina stiffened, muscles rigid. She toppled over, hitting the pavement hard, and knocking the gun from her grip.

Heather jumped to her feet and delivered a solid kick to the assassin’s temple. She didn’t stop the current running through Caterina’s body until after she’d scooped up the SIG and aimed it.

But once Heather stopped the current, Caterina’s eyes closed and her body went limp. She was out cold.

Or pretending to be.

Panting, pulse pounding through her veins, Heather crouched and shoved the gun’s muzzle against Caterina’s chest, right above her heart. Several long minutes slipped past. Nothing. Not a twitch or flutter. Not faking, then. Keeping the gun muzzle firmly in place, she searched Caterina. She found the car keys in a blazer pocket, along with a smartphone.

Well, well, well. What do you know? Heather pulled the phone free, relief flooding through her. Guess the meeting with De Noir wasn’t the only thing she lied about.

One quick call, then she’d hit the road.

Heather punched in Annie’s number.

29 IT’S NOW OR NEVER BATON ROUGE DOUCET-BAINBRIDGE SANITARIUM

BROWS ANGLED DOWN INTO a deep, frowning V, SB agent Bryan Graham glanced at his partner, then back at the vamp strapped to the table. “What’d he just say?”

“Dunno and don’t care.” Morgan hefted his blood-spattered drill in one beefy hand. “At least the seizure’s over. About fucking time too. I was getting worried that we’d have to quit before we even got really started.”

S blinked, dazed, his attention focused on the ceiling. Tendrils of black hair clung to his sweat-slicked face. Blood smeared his lips, trickled from one nostril, oozed a deep red snail’s path from his ears down along his pale neck to disappear beneath the collar of his straitjacket.

Graham nodded. “Yeah, no point in beating the crap out of a guy when he can’t appreciate the effort you’re putting into it.” He’d only managed to wallop the bloodsucker a couple of times—good, solid bone-breaking blows (well, or would’ve been if the wallopee had been human)—before the seizure had struck, bringing the fun to a screeching halt.

Graham had never witnessed an actual, honest-to-God seizure before and, even though he felt pretty damned certain that human seizures lacked the speed and violence of vamp fits, he’d pass on witnessing another—human or vamp—thank you very much.

S’s body throws itself with mouth-drying speed against the restraining bars in violent, muscle-twisting convulsions. His head is a thrashing black-and-white blur, flinging warm droplets of blood from his bitten lower lip into the air.