He sat quietly for a few minutes, digesting that. “I’m afraid,” he said at last, “if I ever start drinking your blood, I won’t be able to stop.”
“Oh.” I could have reminded him that this eventuality had already happened. Months earlier I’d cut open my scalp on a chunk of concrete. Quinn had licked away a few drops of blood, but I’d managed to snap him out of it.
But I knew his fear wasn’t rational or intellectual. It was like my nightmares about seeing Charlie killed or kidnapped right in front of me. It didn’t matter that I’d won in the past. All that mattered was that I could lose the next time.
I decided to let it drop for now. “So what do we—”
But before I could finish, there was a great, shuddering impact as the pickup truck slammed into the back of the Jeep.
Chapter 5
I couldn’t hear.
No, wait, I could hear, it’s just that everything was drowned out by the ringing.
I shook my head to clear it, but that only made my skull ache. I registered the tendrils of my own hair on my face and finally pulled together that I was upside down, still secured by my seat belt. It was surprisingly dark, though of course the desert was always like that at night. I fumbled at the seat belt latch, but my fingers were clumsy, or maybe it was stuck. The buckles weren’t where they were supposed to be, which only furthered my confusion. Had this Humvee been remodeled or something?
I gave up on the seat belt and reached out with my hands, feeling around for my gunner, my driver. Where the hell was the rest of my platoon? The ringing was finally beginning to fade, so I tried calling out their names, listening hard for one of them to reply. But then a hand covered my mouth.
I fought it, my fist beating against the arm that held me in place. Then a voice spoke right next to my ear. “Shh. Lex, honey, it’s me. It’s Quinn.”
I went still, and the whole thing came back to me. I wasn’t in Iraq; I was in Maven’s tricked-out Jeep, and someone had rammed into us on the scenic overlook, flipping us over. I nodded my head to show that I understood, and he took his hand away.
Quinn was right-side up, having disengaged his seat belt and crouched next to me. Both airbags had gone off, which explained the trickle of blood from my nose. I touched it gingerly. It hurt, but it didn’t seem broken. I distantly wondered if Quinn was bothered by the smell of my blood. Then I heard a pop and felt the seat belt loosen, and before I knew it Quinn was helping me down so I didn’t fall. I crouched next to him on the roof of the Jeep, silently thanking Maven for getting such an awesome vehicle. Things would have gone very differently in my little sedan.
“Where are they?” I whispered.
“Waiting for us to crawl out.”
I shivered. “Are they human?”
“Vampires, I think. Three of them. I only saw one face, but I’m pretty sure he was one of the Denver villani.”
I thought quickly—or as quickly as I could, having just had my bell rung. “Weapons?”
“Just a handgun and a shredder. My bag of tricks is in the back; I don’t think we can reach it.”
“Flares?” The rest of them had the advantage of vampire eyesight, but I couldn’t fight if I couldn’t see.
Quinn, who had no trouble seeing in the dark, reached for the glove compartment, and thrust a couple of road flares into my hand a moment later. I looked around for a moment, then extended the little legs on one of them and set it on the battered windshield behind me, where it wouldn’t start an actual fire. I used the igniter cap to get it started, just like lighting a match. It burst into hissing light.
Having any kind of light was a relief. I could make out Quinn, looking concerned and determined, and the remarkably intact interior of the reinforced Jeep.
“How do you want—” I began, but was interrupted by a long, earsplitting screech that started at the back of the car and traveled slowly toward the front. I froze, listening for footsteps, but I couldn’t hear anything over the piercing squeal of metal tearing up metal. They were keying the side of the Jeep, but with something a whole lot bigger than a key.
The sound stopped abruptly, a few inches down the car from my window.
Then a new sound burst into my ear, making me jump backward, bumping into Quinn. “Little pig, little pig, let me come in,” sang a male voice, right on the other side of the car door. I felt Quinn press a sidearm into my back, and I slowly took it. I could only make out a blurry circle for a face.
“Not by the hair of go fuck yourself,” I yelled back. As fast as I could, I raised the 9 mm and fired two quick bursts at the face.
There was laughing outside the window. Goddamned vampire reflexes. “This is the chick everyone’s afraid of?” said the same voice. He came strolling around the front of the car, as if baiting me to shoot again. I waited.
“She’s not so tough,” agreed the other, a woman this time. She had been behind him, and was now standing by my window. The man continued walking his lazy circle around the Jeep, while the woman hovered next to my window. If Quinn was right, there was a third vampire in the darkness somewhere.
They were surrounding us.
I glanced at Quinn, who raised an eyebrow, asking what I wanted to do. He was the investigator, but I was the soldier. He’d defer to me in this situation, but the problem was that all our options were shitty. If we went out, we’d have to climb awkwardly out of the flipped Jeep. Quinn could do it fast enough to attack, but it would take me a few seconds, and he couldn’t keep all three of them off me while we were cornered like this. Even if they did let me climb out safely, there wasn’t a lot I could do with my magic other than press them, and I couldn’t do that without being able to clearly see their eyes.