Page 31 of Countdown to Murder
From the time I saw extra particles until the vampire was standing before me with his mouth drinking my blood was less than a second, but my response times are fast, and his face was right in front of and a little below my face. I opened my mouth as wide as it would go, and then stretched the back of my jaw so it opened wider. When the bone connections dislocated and the muscles pushed everything even wider, my fangs dropped down, and I closed my mouth around the bastard’s face. I was in the process of a venom dump when everything went black.
* * * *
Panda
The vampire appeared out of seemingly nowhere, his mouth on Mira’s neck. Sloan’s job was to seal off the tunnel door, and I heard him and others behind me with thesticky plastic. We’d hung it from the ceiling, so the two bottom edges could be sliced loose and it would fall into place. The outer edges were sticky, plus there was tape to use to make certain the vampire couldn’t get out.
But I wasn’t focused on them. All I could see was Mira’s mouth open, and then open wider, like something out of a horror movie. She slammed her ghastly mouth over most of the vampire’s face, and then they were both gone. I aimed my laser towards the spot and saw the mists moving. We all watched the mass of particles try to get out, realize it was trapped, and then hover near the ceiling. He’d misted both himself and Mira. Was she hurting? I didn’t know, but I knew what to do.
I shifted into human form and reached for the metal canister near my feet.
“I have liquid nitrogen. You should come back to solid mass.” Aaron had hypothesized that a vampire who’d gone to mist would sense thoughts aimed at him even without ears to hear the words. Thus, speaking to the vampire would make sure your thoughts were aimed properly.
I wasn’t certain I could spray him when it would kill Mira as well as the vampire, but he didn’t know we were close, and neither did anyone else. We had a room full of people with strong shields, but on the off chance he made it into someone’s head, he wouldn’t find out how much I’d come to care for the cobra shifter.
The mist moved down and slowly formed back into the vampire and Mira. This time, he held her hands behind her back with one hand, and kept his other on the back of her skull to keep her from turning her face towards him. He held her in the air, her feet dangling, and I wasn’t certain she could get enough leverage to kick backwards and do any harm.
“A stalemate, and the lovely Ella isn’t even here.” He turned Mira’s head a little, enough to see her profile, and then turned her face away from him again. “This little thing would be a nice consolation prize, once I have her properly trained. Not certain I’d ever let her give me a blow job, though.” He met my gaze. “If anyone makes a move, she dies. Your play, lion.”
And this is why couples aren’t supposed to work together. My terror at the thoughts of watching her die could have overtaken all logic, but it didn’t. Mira gave me three fast blinks, and I decided to keep his mind occupied as much as possible, in the event she was signaling to let me know she was about to act. I bent forward with my hands out to the side, one of them still holding the canister, the other holding the sprayer, and I held his eye contact while I oh-so-gently set it on the ground. It’s stable, the gentle treatment wasn’t necessary, and I could tell he was trying to figure out what I was about to do.
And then Mira somehow became flexible in ways humans can’t move. She flicked around and managed toturn in his arms, and the knife usually along her spine pierced him against the wall through his throat. He wasn’t dead, but she wasn’t finished. She drew a handgun and emptied the magazine into his chest, and he finally let her go. She landed gracefully on her feet, backed up, pulled the knife free, and then swung it as he fell forward. His head flew across the room, his body collapsed to the ground, and she stuck the silver knife into his back, into his heart, and swept it back and forth for good measure. She put her foot on him to hold the body down, yanked her knife out, flipped him over, and drove the knife into his heart from the front as well, once again sweeping it back and forth as much as possible between the ribs. She put her foot on the body again, yanked her knife out, cleaned it on her pants leg, and hooked the handle into a loop on her tactical belt. I understood why — it’s hard to clean blood from the inside of a sheath.
While she did this, the rest of the room stood still and watched.
From her first slithery movement until he was on the ground was less than four seconds, and it had taken her three of those seconds to fire off seven rounds without jamming her gun. She’d used another ten seconds to put a knife into his heart from both the back and front.
Mira was graceful, efficient, lethal, and beautiful.
She finally stepped away from the dead vampire, shivered, and shook her arms while bouncing up and down.
“For the record, I don’t think I felt being turned to mist, but being brought back hurts every damned cell in your body.Fuck, I need a shower.”
My mic was already engaged, and someone needed to let the team outside the room know what was happening, along with both control rooms. I’m the man in charge, so it fell to me.
“Target is down. Head missing and heart shredded, but we’ll remove it shortly to be certain he doesn’t come back. We’re opening the door into the hallway. Let’s get the suite put back to the way it was and bring our client down. We have some cleanup to do if we’re going to convince her we killed him outside the suite.”
I disengaged my mic and met Mira’s gaze. “That was bad-ass. All of it. I need to oversee things down here, but you can head up to the room and shower.”
She shook her head. “It can wait. I’m fine. Let’s get whatever images ya’ll need and then I’d like to burn the bastard. Need to makecertainhe won’t be coming back.”
I nodded. With the FBI involved, we’d have to convince them the target was taken out, but we’d need a good reason there was no body. This meant moving the client just outside the suite and then having a firefight and explosion down the hallway. Not a big explosion, nothingbad enough to mess with the structural integrity of the mansion and bring it down on us — just enough to burn the body.
One of Jones’s men specialized in this sort of thing, so it was time to put him to work.
Chapter Seventeen
Mira
It was another four hours before I got my shower, and I turned it as hot as I could stand it and stood under the flow without moving, wondering how many gallons I had until it ran out. I took my long knife in with me, and cleaned it before I propped it in a corner and started soaping myself. I’d have to soak the knife later, but it was clean enough to go back in the sheath.
I turned and went into a defensive posture when the door opened, and then was upset that my body relaxed when I saw it was Panda. He was naked, and I was naked, and I was suddenly afraid.
Not afraid for my life, or my physical safety, but afraid of screwing up whatever we had going. Afraid of showing him I had no idea what I was doing. Afraid of doing something wrong, because I had no idea how to do this right.
“Will you let me wash your hair?” he asked.
The shower was bigger than most bathrooms, so he was still four or five feet away from me, and completely nonthreatening. I’d turned away, showing him my butt while hiding my breasts and front, and I noted he just stood and let me see him. No shame. No hiding. I stood up straight and told myself to do the same, but it was hard.
