Page 85 of Psycho

About thirty seconds later, a gruff male voice asked, “What do you want?”

Fuck.

She didn’t look at either one of us, only smiled. “I was told to deliver a message about the girls.”

Interesting…

The locks disengaged and as soon as the door was open, Nera stepped out of the way and we rushed inside.

We bowled over the human who’d answered the door, and he hit his head on the wall and was now unconscious. What we saw in the living room area made us halt in our tracks.

The two girls who’d been taken out of the back of the van lay damn near catatonic on the sofas, vampires feeding on them. They lifted their blood-fanged, black-eyed stare at us when we entered.

I didn’t even think. I lifted my UV gun and blasted one right in the head. He didn’t even have time to scream. He instantly turned to ash since he was obviously very old.

The other one dropped the girl to the sofa, blood dribbling out of her neck, and he rushed toward us. Trigger shot him with his crossbow pistol and hit him straight in the heart, where he dropped and then turned brown, then gray, and crumbled to ash too slow and disgusting for my liking.

I would never get used to that. It was easier to take when they exploded into a dusty ash ball.

“Why do they turn to ash at different speeds?” Nera asked.

“Age,” I replied. “The older they are, the faster they crumble.”

She made a face and took off down the hall.

Trigger and I quickly made rounds in the condo, my weapon up at the ready, checking rooms for any more occupants.

“Clear!” I called after making sure two bedrooms had no occupants.

“I got something!” Nera yelled from somewhere in the condo.

Trigger and I rushed toward her voice and entered a bedroom where two girls with large, frightened eyes and gags around their mouths stared at us. Their hands were bound in rough rope, their skin bleeding.

Nera quickly removed their gags while Trigger and I yanked their ropes off.

I picked up the phone and dialed Wizard.

“Boss,” he answered.

“Vamp still out?” I asked.

“Yeah, but he seems to be… stirring a little.”

“Stab him in the carotid and leave the knife in. Then bring the Suburban to the front. We got four victims we need to load in.”

“You got it.”

It was going to be a tight fit but we’d have to make do.

“What are you names?” Nera asked.

“Miranda,” answered one. She was pale with brown hair and frightened hazel eyes.

“Alicia,” the other answered, olive skin and large brown eyes.

“You guys are safe with us, okay? We’re going to get you out of here.” Nera squeezed their hands, and both of them started crying.

These fucking vamps. I was so angry I was ready to turn this whole thing over to Viper. But would he really punish these guys? These pieces of shit creating blood whores out of girls who were barely out of their teens?