Page 45 of Sinner's Secret

“Your repeated interference has indicated a failure in my organization. Failures should always be punished.” He smiled, his teeth were straight and very white, but none of them came to points. Not like his canines.

Baz was suddenly very thirsty.

“Agreed,” Baz told him. He took in a deep breath and discovered the lingering pain in his chest was nearly gone. “I’m ready.”

The assassin sitting next to him looked at him with delight in his gaze. “I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.” He lifted the gun off Baz’s chest.

Baz brought his left arm up, grabbed the end of the silencer and shoved it upward just as flat face pulled the trigger.

The bullet went through the roof of the ambulance.

Baz twisted the gun out of the other man’s hand and tossed it into the far corner out of reach.

Flat face wasn’t smiling anymore. He pulled a knife and attempted to stab Baz in the throat, but Baz thrust the blade aside while he pivoted on his back and pushed the psycho away with a hard shove by one booted foot.

Flat face stabbed the knife into the dented toe of his boot.

“Steel-toe,” Baz told him, then shoved his boot into the man’s neck and pushed. He sat up and grabbed the man’s flailing hand and took the knife away from him. He pushed the man’s hands up and slammed them against the side of the Ambulance.

The driver was yelling something, but Baz could care less. He was so thirsty. So very thirsty.

“Do you want to know your first mistake?” Baz asked him.

“How are you doing this?” flat face asked in a painfilled wheeze. “Are you on some kind of steroids?”

“Your first mistake was assuming I’m like you,” Baz whispered into his ear. Baz smiled, showing off his pointed teeth. “But I’m a much better monster.”

Scorn wiped the fear from the assassin’s face. “Fangs? Really? Vampires are fiction. Overused, cliched, and unimaginative.”

The guy sounded so damned insulted Baz nearly laughed.

He ripped flat face’s throat out instead, gulping down hot, non-alcoholic blood. He drank a lot more than a pint. He drank until he couldn’t drink any more.

A loud punch of sound and something painful hitting his back finally pulled his attention away from the dead carcass he’d been feeding from. The driver had climbed into the back of the vehicle, a gun in his hand.

The bastard had shot him in the back.

Baz avoided the next few bullets by moving just slightly faster than the shooter could correct his aim. He knocked the gun out of the shooter’s hand and grabbed the guy by the throat and squeezed. He brought the guy close until he was nose-to-nose with him.

“Where can I find the woman?” he asked in a reasonable, rational tone that probably sounded super creepy since his face and torso was covered in blood. Only some of it was his own.

The guy he held made a gurgling noise.

Baz let go of him, but the dude’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed, not breathing.

Shit.

Baz looked out the windshield and side windows. At some point while he was drinking flat face’s blood, the driver had pulled into a parking garage. It was mostly empty, and they were parked in an interior corner.

So. He was in a stolen ambulance, covered in blood, with two dead bodies.

Not a situation he wanted to explain to anyone.

He took stock. There was a duffle bag under the front passenger seat. He pulled it out and found a spare paramedic uniform. The size was a little small, but it was either this or wear the driver’s clothes. Yuck.

He stripped out of his shredded, bloody clothes, then rinsed off his face, neck, and hands with the bag of saline that had been dripping into his arm. He wasn’t completely clean, but it was hopefully enough to keep people from assuming he’d just killed a couple of guys. He got dressed, the shirt tight across his chest, then went through Flat Face’s pockets until he found the man’s cell phone. He needed the information on it but didn’t have time to fuss with the security features. He used the knife flat face tried to kill him with to cut off the man’s index finger and shoved the digit into his pocket.

He’d seen a larger, self-contained first aid kit secured to the wall of the ambulance. He grabbed it, opened the back door enough to peek outside. No one was in sight.

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