Page 6 of Heart and Soul
The vamp steps back. The woman whimpers.
“Last chance,” I say. “What’ll it be? The firing squad, or…this?” Extending my open palm, I show him the thin metal cylinder I’ve been holding. He’ll know what it is. All FUA agents carry them. The bloodsucker snarls, but not at the cylinder. He’s looking at my fingertips. With all my senses on high alert, my claws have extended.
“A shifter.” Peering at my face, his eyes light up. “Afoxshifter. I know you.”
Shit, and a sigh. This can’t be good. I roll with my final bluff. “The firing squad, then? Firing squad it is. Won’t kill you, but it’ll hurt like hell.”
He flashes eyeteeth in a sinister grin. “I don’t think so. You’re Shayne Davies.” He spits out the next words with utter contempt. “Thetraitor. Everybody knows you side with the filthy human scourge over your own kind. And you lecturemeabout loyalty?” To my horror, his hand moves, swift as a bullet, to the woman’s neck. His fingernails dig into her throat, drawing blood. She flails, making desperate cries, half scream, half gurgle.
I jump back, raising my hands. “Okay, okay, you win. Stop!”
“To them!” he bellows.
I turn to the SWAT team. “Back! Go back, dammit. Stand down. Shit!” As the men backpedal, a frustrated murmur ripples through the crowd. The high-ranking moustache throws the bullhorn down and kicks it.
“Such a foolish weakness, Agent Davies.” Dragging the woman toward the dark alley, the vamp licks the blood off her neck. He shudders with ecstasy. “To love a human is to love a dandelion in a hurricane.”
His words stoke the fire of anxiety in my chest. I stamp at the flames, forcing them back, snuffing them out.I’m strong enough,I’m fast enough.And I’ll prove it. “Ineedto get back to the Agency,” I hiss through clenched teeth, my face red with both embarrassment and fury. “And you’re my key.”
We stare each other down for an electric moment, before he snatches the woman off her feet and rushes for the alley. I hurry back to the moustache. “Your sniper. Where?”
“Last door down, third floor overlooking the alley.”
Taking off like a shot, I sprint down the front of the apartment building, passing porch after porch until I reach the final door, bash through that, jump stairs three at a time, crash through the door of a back apartment, and lean over the railing of a balcony overlooking the alley. A SWAT sniper looks through his scope, tracing the movement of the vampire’s dark shape below.
I state the obvious. “You won’t get a clear shot.”
“Tell me something I don’t know. They’re still too far, she’s still too close to him, and they’re moving.”
“You’re going to have to take it anyway.”
“The hell I am.”
“Dammit, if he goes for her neck, you pull that trigger.”
“That’s an impossible shot.”
“If you don’t, she’ll be dead anyway, trust me.”
“If he goes for her neck? With what?”
“His teeth.” The sniper starts to turn toward me, but I slap him on the shoulder. “This is it. He’s pulling her behind the Dumpster.”
The sniper aims.
“Take it.”
He tightens his grip on the stock. The vampire presses the screaming woman against the wall.
“Take it!”
The vamp leans into her neck. The woman unleashes all her panic, kicking and flailing wildly, forcing the vamp away just as the sniper rifle jumps with abang. The shot misses, throwing sparks with a ricochet off the Dumpster. Abandoning the woman, the vamp streaks up the alley toward us.
“Again!” I order. “Take the shot!”
The sniper’s head shakes. “Too fast. Damn, he’s fast!” He fires again, missing by a mile.
“Shit, move!” I command, throwing one leg over the railing.
