fine.”
It is the nastiest shit I have ever tasted, but I chew it anyway. A few seconds later, my hearing goes back to normal. Some of the pain in my side subsides, too. I’ll have to get more of this stuff.
I poke my head through the doorway. The windows are gone. Torn-out holes edged with exposed brick. Carpet stripped from the floor, walls scoured bare. All the furniture is gone. There isn’t even a speck of blood.
“You got any more of those?” I ask.
“A couple.” She grins. “Want one?”
“Fuck, yes.”
She digs another marble out of her pocket, drops it in my hand. “It’ll fill the space of whatever you set it off in. A room, a suitcase, doesn’t matter.” She waves her hand over it and it flashes blue. “It’s attuned to you now. Think hard about setting it off and it’ll go off. Don’t use it in my hotel.”
“Deal. And thanks.”
Jean and the other vamps run up to us from the end of the hall, pausing at the doorway and gaping in awe at the negative devastation. There’s just nothing left in the room.
“I called some of the others,” Jean says. “They should already be down—” She’s interrupted by screams and gunfire coming from the lobby. Gabriela bolts for the stairs and the rest of us follow. Two mages, five vampires and whatever she’s got downstairs.
The stairs allow for two of us to head down side-by-side. We pause at the second floor landing and duck. A cacophony of gunfire, yelling, screams. I pop my head up and look over the side of the railing.
It’s the weirdest bar brawl I’ve ever seen. Thugs with close-cropped hair, tight leather jackets, button-down shirts going toe-to-toe with a crowd of pissed-off tweakers. The guns aren’t as big an advantage against the vampires as these guys seem to think. Sure, a bullet will slow them down, but it won’t kill them. It’ll do a bang-up job of pissing them off, though.
I see one of them put a couple rounds into a vamp’s chest, thick black ooze spreading into his shirt where the bullets punched through. It doesn’t even slow him down. He gets the guy into a bear hug, his spindly arms wrapping around him like a spider. But the gangster’s gun is between them and he unloads the rest of it into the vamp, dropping him.
Similar scenes are playing out all throughout the lobby. There’s at least thirty people down there. A lot of the gangsters are cluing into the fact that putting holes in vampires is a fool’s errand, dropping their guns and opting for collapsible batons, instead.
“How is it?” Gabriela says as I duck back.
“Messy,” I say. A stray bullet ricochets up through the gap between the stairs and gouges a hole in the wall. “You sure you want to get into that?”
She hefts the machete in her hand. “Nobody comes into my home and shits on my carpet.”
She digs into her pocket, pulls out a scrap of paper, wads it into a tight ball, then tosses it over the side of the railing. There’s the tiniest of flashes. The gunfire stops. I can hear the click of hammers and triggers, but no rounds fired.
“Did that just turn this into dead weight?” I say, showing her the Browning.
She winces. “Sorry. It’ll work again once you get out of the hotel.” Great. Using the gun in that mess probably wouldn’t be a great move, anyway, and using the pocket watch would be the mother of bad ideas. I pull my straight razor out of my coat pocket, flick it open. I’m going to have to sterilize this thing before I use it on myself again. It’s a wonder I don’t have Hep C.
Gabriela hefts the machete in her hand, bolts down the stairs. Lets loose a warrior princess shriek like a tiny, pissed off Xena. She’s five feet of screaming fury swinging a machete. I don’t know if that’s badass or suicidal.
All right, then. Let’s do this.
We’re outnumbered. Three to one, at least. Floor littered with bodies. Mostly Gabriela’s men, a few the Russian’s. A couple of the vampires are on the floor, slowly
It is the nastiest shit I have ever tasted, but I chew it anyway. A few seconds later, my hearing goes back to normal. Some of the pain in my side subsides, too. I’ll have to get more of this stuff.
I poke my head through the doorway. The windows are gone. Torn-out holes edged with exposed brick. Carpet stripped from the floor, walls scoured bare. All the furniture is gone. There isn’t even a speck of blood.
“You got any more of those?” I ask.
“A couple.” She grins. “Want one?”
“Fuck, yes.”
She digs another marble out of her pocket, drops it in my hand. “It’ll fill the space of whatever you set it off in. A room, a suitcase, doesn’t matter.” She waves her hand over it and it flashes blue. “It’s attuned to you now. Think hard about setting it off and it’ll go off. Don’t use it in my hotel.”
“Deal. And thanks.”
Jean and the other vamps run up to us from the end of the hall, pausing at the doorway and gaping in awe at the negative devastation. There’s just nothing left in the room.
“I called some of the others,” Jean says. “They should already be down—” She’s interrupted by screams and gunfire coming from the lobby. Gabriela bolts for the stairs and the rest of us follow. Two mages, five vampires and whatever she’s got downstairs.
The stairs allow for two of us to head down side-by-side. We pause at the second floor landing and duck. A cacophony of gunfire, yelling, screams. I pop my head up and look over the side of the railing.
It’s the weirdest bar brawl I’ve ever seen. Thugs with close-cropped hair, tight leather jackets, button-down shirts going toe-to-toe with a crowd of pissed-off tweakers. The guns aren’t as big an advantage against the vampires as these guys seem to think. Sure, a bullet will slow them down, but it won’t kill them. It’ll do a bang-up job of pissing them off, though.
I see one of them put a couple rounds into a vamp’s chest, thick black ooze spreading into his shirt where the bullets punched through. It doesn’t even slow him down. He gets the guy into a bear hug, his spindly arms wrapping around him like a spider. But the gangster’s gun is between them and he unloads the rest of it into the vamp, dropping him.
Similar scenes are playing out all throughout the lobby. There’s at least thirty people down there. A lot of the gangsters are cluing into the fact that putting holes in vampires is a fool’s errand, dropping their guns and opting for collapsible batons, instead.
“How is it?” Gabriela says as I duck back.
“Messy,” I say. A stray bullet ricochets up through the gap between the stairs and gouges a hole in the wall. “You sure you want to get into that?”
She hefts the machete in her hand. “Nobody comes into my home and shits on my carpet.”
She digs into her pocket, pulls out a scrap of paper, wads it into a tight ball, then tosses it over the side of the railing. There’s the tiniest of flashes. The gunfire stops. I can hear the click of hammers and triggers, but no rounds fired.
“Did that just turn this into dead weight?” I say, showing her the Browning.
She winces. “Sorry. It’ll work again once you get out of the hotel.” Great. Using the gun in that mess probably wouldn’t be a great move, anyway, and using the pocket watch would be the mother of bad ideas. I pull my straight razor out of my coat pocket, flick it open. I’m going to have to sterilize this thing before I use it on myself again. It’s a wonder I don’t have Hep C.
Gabriela hefts the machete in her hand, bolts down the stairs. Lets loose a warrior princess shriek like a tiny, pissed off Xena. She’s five feet of screaming fury swinging a machete. I don’t know if that’s badass or suicidal.
All right, then. Let’s do this.
We’re outnumbered. Three to one, at least. Floor littered with bodies. Mostly Gabriela’s men, a few the Russian’s. A couple of the vampires are on the floor, slowly
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