My training kicked in. Hunters were not only the soldiers of the Illuminati, but also the policemen, and while I had never done domestic duty, I had been trained to handle insurrections.
“Hold on!” I yelled. “Anyone who goes out that door isn’t coming back inside!” Luckily, almost everyone paused. “I’m not having that mess come inside. Sam will ban anyone who brings a fight in here.”
I grabbed Sam’s magic bat and called, “Jenny! Cover the bar. Tell Steve what’s going on and call Blair.” Rounding the end of the bar, I told Trevor and Josh, “You two. Come with me.”
They followed me out the door where we found a swirling battle of vampires fighting vampires. I saw Flynn near the entrance to our alley, and those vamps trying to get to him were discovering the difference between a young vampire and an old one. His hair was barely mussed as he grabbed a guy by the neck and twisted his head off.
“You guys stay here and cover the door. Don’t do anything unless one of them tries to get to the door.”
Casting a personal shield, I waded into the melee using the bat as I would a sword. Two men were fighting right in front of me. I hit the one with his back to me in the head, and when he fell, I clubbed the other one in the face. Another vampire, much taller than I was, came at me, and I broke his knees. The power embedded in the bat was pretty incredible, and I wasn’t having to use any of my own power except to maintain my shield.
While the vamps seemed to know who their enemies were, I didn’t care. I took out three more before they seemed to notice me and consider me a threat. Several turned to face me.
The fight was rather quiet, and when I raised my voice, it carried. “Stop this! Now! Get the hell out of here!”
Most of them stopped what they were doing and gaped at me.
“If you want to act like a bunch of juvenile delinquents, do it somewhere else. The police are on the way.”
One guy leaped at me, a sneer on his face. I poured power into my hands, and the bat changed his expression. Everyone watched him fly across the street and slam into the hotel wall.
“I’m not joking. Get the hell out of here before I start killing people.”
“Don’t piss the lady off,” Flynn said. “Come on. Let’s go.”
About a third of the vampires retreated toward Flynn, and then their group began to back out of the alley onto the main street. The others seemed torn between watching Flynn and watching me.
The sound of sirens in the distance, coming closer, seemed to get everyone moving, and in less than a minute, the street was empty of all but five vampires, and they weren’t in any shape to move. One was missing a head and two were missing their hearts. I had seen an old vamp to that before—plunge his hand into someone’s chest and pull his heart out. The guy whose knees I’d broken and the guy I’d hit a home run with weren’t in any shape to move, either.
I turned toward the door and walked between Josh and Trevor. “Come on. Let’s get inside. I don’t want to be out here when the cops show up.”
One of the things Rosie’s didn’t have was windows, so there weren’t any witnesses other than the two mouseketeers. When we got back inside, I said, “I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention what happened out there.”
“Jesus, Erin, you’re a major badass,” Josh said.
“Here, touch this,” I said, pushing the bat at him. He reached out and grabbed it, then jerked his hand back, his eyes wide. I grinned. “Sam gave me this when I asked about bouncers. Pretty impressive, huh?”
Of course, everyone in the bar was watching us. Raising my voice, I called, “All over. Just a bunch of stupid vamps dancing with each other, and they don’t dance worth shit.”
That brought a laugh, and when I walked behind the bar and put the bat away, I called, “Half-price drinks for the next fifteen minutes to celebrate our victory in the Battle of Rosie’s Alley!”
Josh went outside when we heard the sirens, and then came back in to report that five cop cars had shown up, and one TV news car.
After the fifteen minutes were over and everyone had a drink, I said to Jenny, “Can you cover for me a minute?”
I walked back into the kitchen, sat down in a chair, and let the adrenaline and power flow out of me.
“Hey, are you okay?” Steve asked. He was standing over me, and I realized I was shaking.
“Yeah. Just reaction.”
He walked out to the bar area, and when he came back, he was holding a glass of whiskey.
“Here, drink this.”
I did, and by the time the burn of the liquor hit my stomach, the shakes stopped.
“Thanks,” I told him.
After a couple of minutes, I went back to my place behind the bar and waited for Lieutenant Blair. He didn’t disappoint me, showing up ten minutes later.
“What the hell happened?” Blair asked before he even reached the bar.
“Good evening to you, too, Lieutenant? Coffee?”
He shook his head.
“Josh said the press showed up. Did you give them an interview?”
Blair rolled his eyes. “Frankie is taking care of them. We’re reporting it as a gang fight.”
“I’m sure businesses around here will appreciate that. Nothing like roaming gangs in an area to attract customers.”
If looks could kill, I was fairly sure I at least would have been crippled. I took pity on him before he dragged me down to his office again.
“Ms. Jones is correct,” I said. “Two gangs of vampires decided to have a brawl outside. I assume they didn’t like each other for some reason, but no one came in to tell me why they did it, or why they picked here.”
“Were any of them inside before it started?” he asked.
“Yes, a gentleman with a very pale complexion came in for a drink. He likes our selection of whiskies. As far as I know, the fight started after he left.”
“So, no one in here was involved?”
I shook my head. “I threatened to tell Sam to ban anyone who went outside.”
Blair chuckled. “You’re a hard woman, Ms. McLane.”
I gave him a grin. “I can be. Would you want to try and explain to Sam why his bar got busted up?”
“Not a chance.”
I considered telling him about all the attention I was getting from shifters, vampires, and the Hunter but decided to keep my mouth shut. I didn’t think Blair was the one putting me in danger, but he reported to Frankie. And some of what Barclay had said came from a conversation I had with Frankie when Blair wasn’t present.
Blair spoke to Trevor and Josh on his way out, and I saw both of them shake their heads. Blair didn’t look pleased. Once he left, I poured a couple of drinks and walked down the bar.
“On me,” I said as I pushed them across the bar to Trevor and Josh. “Thanks for having my back.”
“No problem,” Trevor said.
“Damn,” Josh said, “did you see that one guy twist that vamp’s head off? Like opening a jar.”
I nodded. “Older vampires have an incredible amount of power, and it just increases with age.”
“How long do they live?” Josh asked.
“Until someone kills them, or they commit suicide,” I answered. “I’ve been told some of them are thousands of years old.”
Chapter 18
I was left with the problem of what to do about all the attention I was receiving. With Flynn’s appearance, that problem was obviously getting worse. I could always leave town, but I didn’t have enough money to go very far, and I’d have the problem of how to eat and find a place to live in a new town with even less money than I had when I arrived in Westport.
As a Hunter, I was trained in determining who needed to be removed to resolve a particular situation. That often required weeks or even months of stalking suspects, following leads through social and business networks, and working my way into position to quietly take care of the problem individuals. Mass slaughter was rarely a good idea and bound to attract attention. Identifying the one or two people who were causing the problems in Westport and taking them down was a far better solution.
But I didn’t have the time or the money to take a Hunter’s patient approach.
Steve drove me home after work, but when he pulled up in front of my building, I saw a red sports car parked in the space assigned to me if I had a car. Frankie Jones had driven a car like that the day I found the dead werewolves.
Sure enough, when I got out of Steve’s truck, Frankie got out of the sports car and approached me.
“May I have a word, Ms. McLane?”
“It’s late,” I said. Not to mention it was cold and drizzling.
“I know,” she said. “But I would appreciate a little of your time.”
I thought about it, then said, “Let’s go inside.”
I dissolved the ward on my apartment door and let her in, then re-cast the ward. If it was a setup, she would have to deal with me one-on-one. I wasn’t going to provide a hole in my defenses if she had people with her.
She looked around at the lack of any furniture. I had my eye on a small dinette set at Goodwill but was waiting until after I paid the rent and got my next paycheck.
“I love what you’ve done with the place,” she said. “Sort of a minimalist feng shui?”
“Yes, it’s the chic look that’s very in with the broke-bartender set.”
I took off my coat and hung it in the closet by the door. I didn’t offer to hang hers.
“About tonight,” Frankie said. “I understand that George Flynn came into Rosie’s to see you tonight.”
Obviously, she had at least one informant in the bar. I didn’t think it was Josh or Trevor, so I would have to figure out who else might be tattling on me.
“He came in for a drink,” I said.
“I suspect that brawl was between Flynn’s adherents and those of Rodrick Blaine, who I understand you also know.”
I went into the kitchen and put the teakettle on the stove. “You seem to know everything about me,” I said.