My attention returned to the shooting scene and when I breathed, the air was heavy with diesel exhaust. All the emergency medical vehicle engines were still running. I turned and moved toward Rick, through the law enforcement officers and crime scene techs, all milling around, all with jobs to do. I was almost to the street.
Shots rang out. I dove to the pavers behind the planter. I caught a blur of movement from the corner of my eye on a roof. Either there were two shooters or the shooter had repositioned catty-cornered across the street. He—or they—had us pinned down. But then the movement was gone. Had someone been targeted? Or was the shooter just creating confusion so he—it?—they?—could get away?
My heart was slamming in my chest. My breath was fast and shallow. I was terrified. Had I mistaken clouds in the sky for a shooter?
High up, I caught a distorted shape against the skyline, an amorphous form bending over a long rifle, aiming down. Three shots sounded. Three more. These three hitting emergency vehicles with the injured inside.
FOUR
Cops ran everywhere. Screams. Shouting.
“JoJo!” I shouted into my comms. “Active shooter on the roof of—I can’t see the business name. Multistoried building on South Central. There’s a white plaque in the brick, like an original name. It might start with a C, and the word Building after it?”
“Hang on. I got your position.” I heard soft tapping. “You safe? You look like you’re out in the open.”
I realized JoJo was following us in real time on the interactive map. “I’m behind a planter,” I said, lifting my head. “But there’s a cop in the street. She’s four feet from me. She’s hit. Bleeding. I’m gonna—”
“Stay put,” JoJo warned.
“But—”
“Stay put. That’s an order.”
On the other side of the street, two paramedics and a cop rushed into an emergency medical van, bodies low, crouched. Even over the sound of the EMS engines, which were still running, I could hear the girl in the street panting. Blood trickled between the tiny rocks in the pavement. I could feel it. Almost taste it. Bloodlust rose in me, hesitant, uncertain, but . . . interested. There was no land to feed here. Thank God, no land to feed. “Jo,” I said, “she’s—”
The ambient noise on the comms system altered. “Attention, all law enforcement personnel,” JoJo said. “The shooter has been spotted on the top of the Carhart Building.”
The EMS unit made a sharp turn at her words. More shots rang out, pinging into the vehicle. Ramming right through the body of the oversized van and burying themselves in the street. The engine gunned and the van rolled into the street, in front of the downed officer, the engine block between the wounded woman and the shooter’s position. The three responders fell out the rear door to the asphalt, keeping low. They pulled emergency supplies from an oversized red kit. Went to work on her.
“Thanks, Jo,” I said. I was panting hard.
“Not me. EMS did that all on their own. You got eyes on the shooter?”
Scraping along the brick pavers, I reversed my body position so I was facing the other way. The angle of the van’s emergency lights now gave me more shadow protection, but if the shooter had low-light or infrared-vision goggles I was toast. I pulled myself along the bricks on my elbows, in between two other concrete planters, and angled myself so I could see the top of the Carhart Building clearly, as fully as I could at night. “Nothing,” I said, “except SWAT is converging there. If the shooter is still inside he’s caught.
“Is Occam okay?” I asked. “He’s—”
“On the roof with a vampire,” JoJo said. “I know. RVAC has eyes in the air.”
“That was fast.”
“City just had a multiunit emergency response exercise. They got this one nailed.”
One of the paramedics in the street got back in the EMS unit and it moved again, this time turning at a sharper angle to the Carhart Building. Yummy landed on all fours beside me, like a praying mantis. I squelched a squeal and Yummy laughed. She was enjoying this.
Without even thinking, I reached out, grabbed her shirt, and yanked her to me. Her face was two inches from mine. All vamped out. Fangs down, eyes bloodred with huge black pupils. “That cop got injured,” I said, “protecting this city and your’n boss. How ’bout you’un get in there and give her some blood instead of playing games?”
“Take your hand off me, little female.”
“No.”
Yummy’s eyes went even wider. Surprised. She tilted her head in one of those creepy inhuman moves they do and looked at the EMS unit. The driver was scrunched down in his seat, making a small target; the other two responders were loading the wounded officer into the back of the glorified ambulance. “JoJo,” I said, “tell EMS that a vampire is about to join”—I stretched my own head to see the number stenciled on the van—“Unit Two-Fourteen, to offer her services as blood donor.”
“Copy that,” JoJo said.
“I’ll pick you up at UTMC,” I said to the vampire.
“I’ll be thirsty,” Yummy snarled.
“I think the appropriate response is ‘Cry me a river.’” I let go of Yummy’s shirt. “Move.”
The vampire shot away from me with a pop of sound and landed at the back door of the EMS unit. And then she was inside and the vehicle was backing down the street. I maybe shoulda felt bad about talking to Yummy that way, but short of staking a vamp, talking mean was about all that might get them to pay attention.
“You scare me sometimes,” JoJo said.
“Oh? We saved a vamp’s young’un not so long ago. Call the Clayton vampire and get some more blood-suckers to the hospital,” I said. “Tell them they owe us.”
Occam joined the conversation from somewhere, his voice calm and amused in my earbuds, and said, “Do it. But tell them they owe the city. Not us. Tell them it’ll be good PR.”
“Mmmm,” JoJo said, her tone saying she didn’t like calling the vamps for favors of any kind.
“Copy that,” Rick said. “And ask nice.”
I jumped. I’d forgotten he was around tonight.
“Yes, sir,” JoJo said smartly, indicating she still didn’t agree but she could blame her supervisor if problems resulted from vampires feeding cops. Rick chuckled, the sound like dry leaves scattering before a slow wind.
Occam appeared between the planters, near my feet. He hadn’t jumped from above, so he must have come down from the roof elsewhere and cat-crawled to me. “Did I hear you just threaten a blood-sucker, Nell, sugar?”
“Special Agent Ingram,” I said, tapping my earpiece with a fingernail, reminding him we were being recorded and every word would be transcribed.
“Right.” Occam gave me a cat grin, all self-satisfaction. “Wish I’d seen that, Nell, sugar.”
“We got two RVACs in the air now,” JoJo said. “And local LEOs just obtained footage from traffic cams showing an armed figure fleeing the scene, heading south on South Gay Street. Obtaining the images now. Stay in position. SWAT is clearing the Carhart Building.”
Occam said, “The Mithran and I cleared the roof and building at our nine.”
“I’ll let the local LEOs know.”
In the wake of the EMS unit pulling away, two others backed out, each carrying injured. Occam cat-crawled higher into the tight space, close enough for me to feel his were-warmth as he lay on the pavers beside me. Close enough for me to be uncomfortable, though he never indicated he was aware of anything untoward in lying on the ground so close to me. It was odd. And oddly comforting, to have a fellow agent in the cramped space with me.
Fellow agent. That was what I thought of him? A small part of me questioned whether it was just any agent or Occam himself that created the comfort. Occam and I had unfinished business between us. Or I thought we did. He had asked me out for a date, nearly a month ago, for a dinner that had never happened. The memory of that invitation surfaced and I blushed for no reason I could fathom. I had thought about that invitation off and on and figured he had changed his mind since he never mentioned it again. I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or insulted or disappointed, but since I didn’t date, not ever, I had settled on relieved. But I still thought about it, mostly at night before I fell asleep. Thinking about it now made me break out in a hot sweat and made me suddenly cranky. I wondered if the werecat could smell my change in physical state. And that made me more cranky.
However, I didn’t want to look at those questions, not in the middle of a shootout, and so I shoved my feelings away and turned my attention back to the actions along the street. We waited, not sure if it was safe to move yet. Not talking, just sharing the narrow gap, holding position.
“Okay. Got the images from the traffic cams,” JoJo said. “Looks like either the same shooter from last night or a similar creature. Fuzzed features. Male gait. Seems to be carrying an M4 carbine, just like last night. Looks like we have a single shooter, at events where the senator, his rich brother, and their wives are.”
“Where’s the shooter now?” Rick asked.
“They don’t know. He took a turn through an alley and vanished. The alley has access to buildings on either side, to their roofs, to a parking lot, and to three streets front and back. Two minutes after he vanished, a black SUV pulled into traffic. Then a Mercedes and a beat-up truck like Nell’s. Two motorcycles, probably Yamahas, sped past traffic cams. And a bicycle. They’re clearing the buildings and the parking lot, but my personal opinion is, they lost him.”
• • •
The next hour ticked by slowly, sharing the space behind the planter with Occam while the SWAT officers in tactical gear and the uniformed officers cleared every single building up and down the street. It was almost pleasant, even though the brick was cold and I was freezing. And I was thirsty. And I had to go to the bathroom. And Occam was lying so close. Not that he did anything untoward or unpleasant, but . . . I had never been so close to a man for so long. Not even when I was married. Marital relations between John and me had been fast and mostly unpleasant and most nights I had then slept elsewhere.
“I wish we had coffee,” he muttered after an unconscionable amount of time.
“And some of that cold pizza on the ‘All’ shelf of the refrigerator in the break room,” I fantasized.
“Who brought Elidios’ pizza in? It’s all the way out on Callahan and Central Avenue Pike.”
“I’d guess Rick. He doesn’t sleep much,” I added, “except on the new moon.”
Occam swiveled his head to watch me in the darkness. “And you know that how, Nell, sugar?”
I shrugged. It was part of the claiming/healing. I just knew things about Rick sometimes, and when there was no moon, he slept hard and deep.