“Sooo, why didn’t you do it sooner?”
“All blood-servants think about it at some time or another. It is a powerful position among the Mithrans. And we think about requesting that we be turned. But there is danger in either process.”
“Yeah. Ten years of insanity, chained in the basement,” I teased.
“The devoveo is a rite of passage,” he said, amused.
“The devoveo is a time when the vamp disease makes humans go insane, reworks a human’s body and brain into something new—” I stopped, remembering the insectoid movement of the Naturaleza that Eli and I had tried to kill.
“Son of a gun,” I said, thinking, trying to put it together. “The Naturaleza here have been twice transformed. They got turned the first time; then they started drinking their fill, which made them stronger and faster and harder to kill, better at healing. Then they got the vamp plague.” I narrowed my eyes, trying to bring it all into focus. It was here. The answer of what had happened to the supervamps was here. “And then someone started including magic powered by a full witch circle, and that did something more, probably something unexpected, and now they’re transforming into something else. It’s all connected somehow.” It felt right. But there were still puzzle pieces missing, important stuff I needed to know, stuff that might help me kill supervamps and find Misha. Flying by the seat of my pants usually endangered only me. This time other people were in danger and I didn’t like the feeling of responsibility.
A knock sounded at the door, two soft taps. “Up and at ’em, Legs,” Eli said. “We got vamps to behead.”
“I’m up,” I called out. “I’ll be ready shortly.”
“Yeah, well, don’t get all gussied up. It’ll be a bloody night.” He moved on down the hall.
“Jane?” Bruiser rolled off the mattress and to his feet, once again watching me with that intensity, unexpected and unnerving. “I can’t join you hunting.” He placed a chaste kiss on the back of my hand. “I have other duties. Be safe.”
With no other words, he disappeared back through the bath into his room. Leo-type duties, I assumed. He might not be bound to the MOC, but he was still employed by the chief fanghead.
Alone in my room, I pulled my braided hair into a fighting queue and dressed in vamp-fighting gear. I’ve worn lots of different things when fighting vamps, from nightclothes and flip-flops—total accident—to full-on, high-impact, plastic motorcycle armor secured into my leathers. With the new vamps, I’d need all the good stuff.
I started from the skin out with the silver-over-titanium chain-mail collar Leo Pellissier had given me to replace the one lost in his service. It clasped in place over the gold nugget and mountain lion tooth on the doubled gold chain. I’d bought the chain before the price of gold soared so high. I couldn’t have afforded it at today’s prices. I unrolled and donned the silk-knit long johns that were perfect for hot, sweat-generating sports in cold weather, and laid out the now-tight leathers.
I inserted the flexible plastic into the specially made slits at elbows, knees, and my own customized areas: inner elbow, back of knee, and groin—places vamps wanted to drink from. The plastic on the inside joints had to be very pliable, and so, while it wasn’t very thick, it was filled with silver foil set into the plastic when it was poured. I pulled on the skintight leather pants and a fleece top before lacing on my combat boots. I zipped up my pants and stomped the boots hard before starting the arduous procedure of weaponing up.
I carried thirteen crosses, all silver, all tucked away into pouches or under my jacket so the silver glow that alerted me that a vamp was near didn’t alert them that I was near. Crosses worked on vamps when other forms of religious icons didn’t, because vamps had been created with the wood of the three crosses of Calvary. It had been an act of black magic that went wrong. And didn’t it always?
Three throwing knives were in sheaths specially made into the jacket front. Thirteen ash stakes and thirteen silver ones, each about fourteen inches long went into various loops and sheathes, ready at hand no matter how my body might be positioned, the sharpened tips either pointing away from my body or into the plastic protection of the body armor. Five fighting blades came next: the newest vamp-killer I strapped to my left hip for a cross-draw that resembled a sword draw in many ways; a blade into each boot sheath, one into my holster harness, and one in a spine sheath in the back seam of my jacket—a last resort draw that meant I was in major trouble.
The weapons harness was custom, and not the easiest thing in the world to put on, so I laid the harness out on the bed beside the jacket with the weapons: four semiautomatics—two nine millimeters, two .380s with red polymer grips—each with its holster, in the proper spot on the straps. Each weapon got a thorough look-see; I pulled back on the slide and removed the round from the chamber, ejected the magazine, and inspected the weapon for any visible problems. I saw none, at which point I reinserted the magazine and chambered a round. To make sure I had maximum firepower, I ejected the magazine again, reloaded the ejected round, snapped the mag home, and put the safety on. It was just dumb to run around with a chambered round and the safety off. I’d done it before, of course. But it was dumb. Each weapon got the same treatment. All four weapons were perfect, though all of them would be due for disassembly and cleaning soon. Like in the morning, after a night spent firing them. I holstered the semiautomatic pistols with regular ammo on the right, and the weapons with silver-based ammo on the left.
The Benelli M4 Super 90 slid into the spine sheath for an overhand draw. The M4 wasn’t beautiful to anyone but a gun lover. Its steel components had a matte black, phosphate-treated, corrosion-resistant finish that reduced the weapon’s visibility during night operations, like tonight. I didn’t know how well the new vamps saw in the dark, but it had been impressive last time. I’d have to think of a new term for them—not supervamps, which made them sound like a good thing, but more like vamp squared, or snake vamps, or maybe spidey vamps. “Yeah,” I muttered. “Spidey vamps tweak my spidey senses.”
The shotgun was nearly idiot-proof, requiring little or no maintenance, and operated in all climates and weather conditions. It can fire twenty-five thousand rounds of 2.75- and 3-inch shells of differing power levels without any operator adjustments and in any combination, using standard ammunition or well-made, hand-packed rounds, without replacing any major parts. The smoothbore, magazine-fed, semiauto shotgun had been a big investment, and I had studied long and hard before putting my money down. It was a modern weapon, utilizing the autoregulating gas-operated—ARGO—firing system, with dual gas cylinders, gas pistons, and action rods for increased reliability. It can fire and can be adjusted or fieldstripped totally without tools. It’s perfect for close-in fighting in low-light operations. Even after all these months, I thought it was a totally cool weapon. Mostly, though, I just liked the fact that it was idiot-proof.
The M4 was loaded for vamp with hand-packed silver fléchette rounds made by a pal in the mountains. Fléchettes were like tiny knives that when fired spread out in a widening, circular pattern, entering the target with macerating, deadly force. The fact that each fléchette was composed of sterling silver decreased their penetrating power but made them poisonous to vamps, even without a direct hit. There was no way a vamp could cut all of them out of his body before he bled out or the silver spread through his system. Well, until now, when they seemed to heal despite the silver in them. I opened the cock, inspected each round with eye and nose. Closed it and murmured, “Lock and load.”
I slid it into the sheath and opened my door. Eli was leaning against the far wall, spine and one foot on the wall, arms hanging loose and ready. He was dressed for vamp fighting in gear that resembled mine, no matter that he’d refused not that long ago to wear leather. It looked good stretched across his shoulders, his scar rising from the high collar and snaking up his jaw. “Took you long enough,” he said. “Painting your toenails?”