A Perfect Blood (The Hollows #10)(59)
Author: Kim Harrison

"Will you shut up!" I shouted, having enough of her to last a lifetime.

The woman grinned at me, her mascara running from her sweat. "What’s the matter with you, you little chubi?" she mocked, and my breath sucked in.

Jenks’s wings clattered, and the murmured conversations suddenly ceased as my face paled.

"What did you call me?" I said, my voice quavering in anger at the crude, vulgar insult aimed at witches that had evolved during the Turn.

"Chubi, rhymes with booby, which you don’t have, or doodie, which is what your face looks like," she said smugly, leaning back and making her chair squeak.

Appalled, I could do nothing as the men and women behind Glenn retreated farther into the shadows. "Get her out of here," Glenn said harshly, and two men hastened forward to volunteer, living vampires by the look of it, wheeling the woman past the still-standing milky plastic sheets to the distant elevator, eager to get out of Dr. Cordova’s sight.

"Get your f**king hands off me, you bloody clots!" the woman was shouting, and Glenn’s face darkened.

"If I may speak to you, Detective?" Dr. Cordova intruded smoothly.

Glenn briefly acknowledged her, then turned to me instead, making her angrier. "I, ah, need to tie off a few ends here," he said, ignoring Dr. Cordova for a moment more. "I’ll see you upstairs. You did good, Rachel, despite not staying at the car."

I smirked, and Jenks snorted from my shoulder. "Yeah, we all did good," Jenks said tartly. "Can we get out of here? Rache, I’ll show you the way to the elevator."

He darted into the dark, and I shook hands with Glenn. Pulling him into me, I whispered, "I don’t care what she says, getting a HAPA member alive is more than the I.S. or the FIB has done in forty years."

"That’s what I’m afraid of," he muttered back. "I have to keep that foul woman alive."

"Now, Detective!"

Our hands parted, and I gave him one last look before smiling at Dr. Cordova’s anger. The adrenaline sparkling through me was wearing off, leaving a pleasant feeling of satisfaction. Past the remaining sheets of plastic, the air was cooler and didn’t stink of vampire. Breathing deep, I followed Jenks’s fading trail of dust and the distant sound of the woman’s continual threats. I’d take the stairs. If I was stuck in an elevator with her, one of us wasn’t going to come out alive.

"I’ve seen you, chubi!" the woman screamed at me, seeing me through the closed doors as I walked into the puddle of light spilling out onto the concrete floor from the huge industrial-size elevator. "We’re going to get you. Your clot and rotter can’t protect you!"

One of the vampires with her stopped the door from closing so I could ride up with them, and I rocked back with my thumbs in my pockets. "You’re kidding, right?" I said, and he shrugged, letting the door go.

"There are more of us than you!" the woman howled as the doors began closing again. "We’re everywhere! You’re dead."

Jenks landed on my shoulder. "Can’t they shut her up?"

"Dead!" she shouted through the metal doors, and the elevator hummed to life, rising.

Behind me, I could hear Dr. Cordova reaming Glenn out. No one would be coming up anytime soon, and I reached for the fire door to the nearby stairway. The stairwell was dark and unlit, but Jenks was dusting heavily enough to see by. The walls were cold and damp, and I wrapped my arms around myself for the first couple of flights, letting go when my exertions warmed me.

"Don’t let it get to you, Rache. She’s just an ignorant lunker," Jenks said as he rested at one of the turns.

"Person," I said, head down to watch my footing. "She’s a person. Scared and ignorant. She doesn’t know better." That’s what I kept telling myself, but I’d never been called a chubi before, even at school, not even by the mean girls.

The elevator was open and empty when I got to the top of the stairs and left the stairway. It was just as dark in the empty warehouse, but the lighter square of darkness showed clearly where the wide double doors were now flung open. The silhouettes of the two vampires with the woman still handcuffed to her rolling chair showed clearly, and then I jumped at the twin pops of a gun.

"What the hell?" Jenks said softly, banking his dust.

The vampire pushing the handcuffed woman dropped. My eyes widened, and I put a hand to my mouth, my pulse jumping as the remaining one turned to a new figure in a long coat. It was the blonde. I could tell from here.

"Get Glenn!" I shouted at Jenks, and I started running.

The pop of a gun went off again, missing the remaining vampire as he dodged it and the glowing ball of magic the blond woman threw at him. It was her. She was trying to rescue her friend! And nearly everyone was downstairs listening to Dr. Cordova yell at Glenn!

That woman was gleefully throwing spells like it was a carnival game, making me wonder again at HAPA’s new acceptance of magic even as they tried to wipe us out. Maybe she wasn’t HAPA at all.

Jenks’s wings were a clatter by my ear as I pounded to the open door, and I glanced at him. "Go get Glenn!" I told him again, and not waiting for his answer as I spilled out into the lighter darkness and cracked cement.

The vampire ducked another gunshot, then lunged at the woman, his hands outstretched to grab her.

"No!" I shouted in warning, and the woman still tied to the chair spun to me, her expression ugly as she struggled to free herself. But the vampire had touched the blond woman in the lab coat, who laughed maniacally as she coated him in a hazy green glow. He pulled back too late, clawing at his throat and screaming as he went down.

The sound was chilling, his shriek of pain in the black night. "Stop!" I shouted as I ran forward, my hand reaching to the small of my back to find . . . nothing. Damn it all to hell, the I.S. guy took my gun!

Both vampires were down, one still, the other writhing madly, clawing at his throat and leaving bleeding gouges. I hesitated over him, unable to do a thing as he died. The blond woman was kneeling behind the woman in the chair, the keys to the cuffs from the first vampire catching the faint starlight. "You stupid bitch!" I shouted as I lunged for them. The blonde was still working the cuffs. I had seconds.

"Turn me!" the woman in the chair screamed, and I jerked back as she kicked out at me, her tiny feet thumping harmlessly into my leg. I drew back and pulled myself together to give her a quick front kick and snapped her head back, but with a howl of revenge, she exploded out of her chair before I could recoup, her little fists flailing. She was out. I couldn’t bring them both down unless I moved fast.