“So much for stealth,” Jane said. “Move it!” She shoved the two girls and me toward the tunnel out. Stumbling, we raced to the dark. I switched on the flashlight, put it in Carmen’s hands. Pulled the last two charms. The empowerment charm was meant to take strength from a winning opponent and give it to a losing, dying one. It could be used only in clear life-and-death situations. The other was my last healing charm.
We made the first turn, feet slapping the stone, gasping. Something crashed into us. A girl and Jane went down with the vampire. Tangled limbs. The vampire somersaulted. Taking Jane with him. Crouching. He held her in front of him. Jane’s head in one hand. Twisting it up and back. His fangs extended fully. He sank fangs and claws into Jane’s throat, above her mail collar. Ripping. The collar hit the ground.
Brax shouted. “Run!” He picked up the fallen girl and shoved her down the tunnel. The last vamp landed on his back. Brax went down. Rolling. Blood spurting. Shadows like monsters on the far wall.
In the wavering light, Jane’s throat gushed blood. Pumping bright.
Carmen and I backed against the mine wall. I was frozen, indecisive. Whom to save? I didn’t know for sure who was winning or losing. I didn’t know what would happen if I activated the empowerment charm. I pulled the extra flashlight and switched it on.
Brax rolled. Into the light. Eyes wild. The vampire rolled with him. Eating his throat. Brax was dying. I activated the empowerment charm. Tossed it.
It landed. Brax’s breath gargled. The vampire fell. Brax rose over him, stake in hand. Brought the stake down. Missed his heart.
I pointed. “Run. That way.” Carmen ran, her flashlight bouncing. I set down the last light, pulled stakes from my pockets. Rushed the vampire. Stabbed down with all my might. One sharpened stake ripped through his clothes. Into his flesh. I stabbed again. Blood splashed up, crimson and slick. I fumbled two more stakes.
Brax, beside me, took them. Rolled the vampire into the light. Raised his arms high. Rammed them into the rogue’s chest.
Blood gushed. Brax fell over it. Silent. So silent. Neither moved.
I activated the healing amulet. Looked over my shoulder. At Jane.
The vampire was behind her. Her throat was mostly gone. Blood was everywhere. Spine bones were visible in the raw meat of her throat.
Yet, even without a trachea, she was growling. Face shifting. Gray light danced. Her hands, clawed and tawny, reached back. Dug into the skull of the vampire. Whipped him forward. Over her. He slammed into the rock floor. Bounced limply.
Sobbing, I grabbed Brax’s shoulder. Pulled him over. Dropped the charm on his chest.
Jane leaped onto the vampire. Ripped out his throat. Tore into his stomach. Slashed clothes and flesh. Blood spurted. She shifted. Gray light. Black motes. And her cat screamed.
I watched as her beast tore the vampire apart. Screaming with rage.
We made it to the mine entrance, Carmen and the girls running ahead, into the arms of my sisters. Evangelina raised a hand to me, framed by pale light, and pulled the girls outside, leaving the entrance empty, dawn pouring in. I didn’t know how the night had passed, where the time had disappeared. But I stopped there, inside the mine with Jane, looking out, into the day. In the urgency of finding the girls and getting them all back to safety, we hadn’t spoken about the fight.
Now, she touched her throat. Hitched Brax higher. He hadn’t made it. Jane had carried him out, his blood seeping all over her, through the rents in her clothes made by fighting vampires and by Jane herself, as she shifted inside them. “Is he,” she asked, her damaged voice raspy as stone, “dead because you used the last healing charm on me?” She swallowed, the movement of poorly healed muscles audible. “Is that why you’re crying?”
Guilt lanced through me. Tears, falling for the last hour, burned my face. “No,” I whispered. “I used it on Brax. But he was too far gone for a healing charm.”
“And me?” The sound was pained, the words hurting her throat.
“I trusted in your beast to heal you.”
She nodded, staring into the dawn. “You did the right thing.” Again she hitched Brax higher. Whispery-voiced, she continued. “I got seven heads to pick up and turn in”—she slanted her eyes at me—“and we got a cool quarter mil waiting. Come on. Day’s wasting.” Jane Yellowrock walked into the sunlight, her tawny eyes still glowing.
And I walked beside her.
Faith Hunter was born in Louisiana and raised all over the South. “Signatures of the Dead” is a prequel to her Skinwalker series, featuring Jane Yellowrock. Blood Trade, the sixth Skinwalker novel, was recently released. Her Rogue Mage novels—Bloodring, Seraphs, and Host—feature a stone mage in a post-apocalyptic, alternate reality, urban fantasy world. The novels are the basis for the role playing game, Rogue Mage, that premiered in 2012. Under the pen name Gwen Hunter, she writes action-adventure, mysteries, and thrillers. As Faith and Gwen, she has more than twenty books in print in twenty-eight countries. She and her husband love to RV, traveling with their dogs to whitewater rivers all over the Southeast.
The Case: A woman’s ex-husband has physically assaulted her half a dozen times. Now he’s threatening to kill her—tonight.
The Investigator: Sam Hunter—currently a Philadelphia PI, formerly a detective with the Minneapolis PD.
LIKE PART OF THE FAMILY
Jonathan Maberry
“My ex-husband is trying to kill me,” she said.
She was one of those cookie-cutter East Coast blondes. Pale skin, pale hair, pale eyes. Lots of New Age jewelry. Not a lot of curves, and too much perfume. Kind of pretty if you dig the modeling-scene heroin chic look. Or if you troll the anorexia twelve-steps or crack houses looking for easy ass that’s so desperate for affection they’ll boff you blind for a smile. Not my kind. I like a little more meat on the bone, and a bit more sanity in the eyes. This one came to me on a referral from another client.
“He actually try?”
“I can tell, Mr. Hunter.”
Yeah, I thought and tried not to sigh. What I figured.
“You call the cops?”
She shrugged.
“What’s that mean? You call them or not?”
“I called,” she said. “They said that there wasn’t anything they could do unless he did something first.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Can’t arrest someone for thinking about something.”
“He threatened me.”
“Anyone hear him make the threat?”
“No.”
“Then it’s your word.”
“That’s what the police said.” She crossed her legs. Her legs were on the thin side of being nice. Probably were nice before drugs or stress or a fractured self-image wasted her down to Sally Stick-figure.
Skirt was short, shoes looked expensive. I have three ex-wives and I pay alimony bigger than India’s national debt. I know how expensive women’s shoes are. I was wearing black sneakers from Payless. Glad I had a desk between me and her.
“Your husband ever hurt you?” I asked. “Or try to?”
“Ex,” she corrected. “And . . . yes. That’s why I left him. He hit me a few times. Mostly when he was drunk and out of control.”