The children shrieked in protest. “Don’t you hurt Mister Puddles!” A wooden duck flew through the air, striking Lena in the shoulder.
“Get them outside now,” Kyle shouted.
Mister Puddles kicked and flailed until the collar broke away. He twisted around and clamped his teeth into Lena’s calf. She drew one of her bokken and smashed the butt on the top of the dog’s head. The blow stunned him for a moment. His eyes glowed faintly red through the mop of hair flopped over his face. He staggered back, nails clicking on the linoleum. Lena pulled her second sword and moved to stand between me and the dog. I could see her weapons responding to her magic, the edges growing razor sharp.
“Mister Puddles, that’s enough!” Kyle was in full vamp mode now, his face turned monstrous, his fangs bared. He seized the dog by the scruff of the neck and hauled him into the air.
Mister Puddles shifted form, changing from an enormous shaggy dog into an enormous hairy man, naked and growling. His nails were long and blackened. Before I could react, his hand slashed out, and blood sprayed from Kyle’s throat.
Mister Puddles spun back toward me, but Lena struck his elbow with one of her bokken. He grabbed the wooden blade, so she stepped closer and drove her knee into his crotch. She lowered her stance, gripped her weapon, and pulled. The wooden blade nearly cut off the vampire’s fingers. She spun in a tight circle, bringing the second sword around to slice the side of his neck.
The vampire’s lips pulled back. “Hello again, Isaac.”
The intonation was identical to the vampire I had faced at MSU, as was the anger and hatred in his voice, as if the same mind was taunting me through another body. I reached into my pocket, grabbing a small pistol I had prepared from a Simon Green book. “Who are you?”
He only laughed and lunged again. Lena ducked low, striking him in the knee. Her blades cut parallel gashes into his thigh, and he staggered into the wall.
“His name is Rupert Loyola.” Kyle held a hand to his throat. The wound had already begun to heal, though blood soaked the front of his shirt. He sounded like someone had run a cheese grater over his larynx.
I studied Loyola, trying to make out the shape of his eyes through the long black bangs that hung to his nose. The red glow was just enough to illuminate the same cross-shaped pupils I had seen on the vampire in the steam tunnels. I pointed the gun at his chest. I wasn’t sure what species he was, but frozen darts of holy water should deter most vampires. “How do you know who I am?”
Loyola’s body arched backward, and he fell to his knees. His eyes began to burn.
“Don’t let him ignite!” I raced into the next room, grabbed an abandoned cup, and twisted off the top. As Loyola flopped onto his back, I splashed the contents into his face. Grape juice trickled down his beard, but the eyes merely burned brighter.
“Fire extinguisher,” Lena shouted. Kyle vanished into the kitchen.
Loyola’s good leg snapped out, sweeping Lena’s feet and knocking her to the floor. He jumped up and reached for me, bloody fingers spread like claws. I fired two darts into his stomach, but he didn’t react at all. He grabbed my throat, slammed me against the wall, and bared his fangs.
I rammed the barrel of my gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger. At the same time, both of Lena’s bokken punched through the center of his chest. The sharpened tips jabbed my breastbone hard enough to bruise, but neither one pierced my skin.
Loyola wrenched free and crashed through the door, eyes ablaze. He made it halfway down the walk before falling face-first into the grass. He disintegrated on impact.
Chapter 10
Furious as I was at losing another lead, it was the dark blood soaking into Lena’s torn jeans that turned my insides cold. I dropped to my knees, clamping a hand over the bite to try to slow the bleeding.
“A single bite won’t harm her,” Kyle reassured us. He had taken a handful of paper towels and was doing his best to clean the blood from his now-healed throat. “Rupert can’t turn anyone unless they drink his blood after he bites them.”
Lena hissed through her teeth as she pushed my hand aside and pulled up her pants leg. I wasn’t taking any chances. I popped the magazine out of my pistol and removed the individual darts. One by one, I pressed the frozen slivers of holy water onto the gashes in Lena’s lower leg. Her skin was tough as oak, but the dog had left four nasty puncture wounds.
I tried not to imagine what it would have done to me.
“I killed him.” Her words were quiet, but hard. She stared out the door.
“He didn’t give you a choice,” I said.
Kyle nodded. “This was an obvious act of self-defense. You’ve broken no law.”
“I saw him grab you,” she said. “I didn’t think.”
I took her hand. “This wasn’t your fault. It’s the fault of whoever was controlling him.”
She shook herself. “Then he was a victim twice over. Trapped by whatever magic turned him into a vampire, then enslaved.”
“Not just a slave.” I thought back to the other murders. “I think whoever’s controlling them can see through their eyes, share their experiences. And he knows me.”
“Are you all right, Isaac?” Kyle sounded genuinely concerned, which meant the love magnet was working fine. But it hadn’t stopped Mister Puddles. Whatever magic had controlled him was far stronger than mine. “Your throat is red where he grabbed you.”
“Bruised, but I’ll live.” In addition to the battering Loyola had given me, Smudge’s panic had blackened my pants and jacket both. I was lucky he hadn’t set me on fire. Red sparks continued to glow along his back. “Where does Mister- Where does Rupert go when he’s not playing sheepdog?”
“Nowhere,” said Kyle. “He sleeps here. He rarely takes human shape. He’s the best security we have.” His fist shot out, punching through drywall and splintering a wall stud. His face never changed, betraying nothing of his anger or frustration. “I had no idea anything was wrong. You’ve seen this before? Do you know who’s doing this to our people?”
“Not yet.” I dissolved the gun back into its book long enough to re-form and reload it, then tucked both book and weapon into my pocket.
One of the other vampires hurried through the playroom. “What’s going on in here?”
“Keep the kids outside,” Kyle snapped.
The vampire glared at us. At Lena, mostly. The love magnet deflected any anger and suspicion from me, but it didn’t do anything to help her. “What did they do to-”
“Marisha!” Kyle hunched his shoulders and hissed, a sound that made me think of an angry jaguar preparing to pounce. The other vampire drew back as if struck. She bowed her head and retreated.
“We need you to take us underground,” I said quietly.
“What about the children?” asked Lena. “Are we just going to leave them here?”
“Their babysitters know the rules.” I glanced at Kyle, who once again appeared fully human, albeit bloody. “Kyle knows exactly what will happen if they hurt or turn even one of these children. They’re smarter than that.”
“No slayings, and no turnings without the human’s consent.” He raised a hand. “To forestall your next question, according to our laws, no human can give consent to be turned before age seventeen. These children are safer here than they are at home.”
“You expect us to believe that?” Lena asked.
“The worst they get is the occasional mental nudge to keep them in line, but I’ve been trying to cut back on that. I don’t like messing with their heads, especially at that age. I’ve been making the staff watch old episodes of Supernanny, trying to adapt her reward system to the daycare. It’s… not taking off as well as I’d hoped.”