Flame in the Dark Read online

  “Special Agent Maggot,” a familiar voice said.

  “Fanghead Yummy,” I said. Which was totally impolite, not that I cared as much as I might once have. Except that the inside light came on and Ming was sitting beside the blond vampire. “Ming of Glass,” I said, not apologizing, though the words I’m sorry wriggled in the back of my throat like a squirrel in a trap, trying to get out. Mama might fear vampires, but she would be polite to Satan himself. I’d be polite, though I had a momentary vision of Mama meeting the devil in the middle of an ice storm, the Angel of the Morning hovering on bat wings at the end of Mama’s shotgun.

  “You find us amusing?” Ming asked.

  I blurted a half-strangled laugh. “No, ma’am. I just imagined my mama meeting, ummm, you.”

  “Your mother fears Mithrans?”

  My laughter died. “My mama survived her worst nightmare. Now she don’t fear nothing. You called me over here?” It wasn’t exactly true, but it sounded good.

  “Do you feel maggots in my limousine?”

  I thought about lying, since I’d already insulted the chief blood-sucker in Knoxville. “Not through my clothes. I thought you were inside Pierced Dreams when the shooting took place.”

  “I was just arriving. I was delayed. If one of my kind was behind this shooting, is there any way you or your fellow nonhuman police officers could tell?”

  “The cats aren’t trackers. They’re sight hunters. We don’t have our own K9 paranormal dog. We don’t have a werewolf on the team, and that would be the best nose were-critter.”

  “If I flew a werewolf in, could it—could he track this shooter?”

  “I doubt it. Too many scent patterns.” I paused.

  “You have thought of something,” Ming said.

  “Maybe.” I frowned. It would be against regulations. But PsyLED didn’t always go by regs. And Jane Yellowrock had a tame werewolf . . . “Hmmm.”

  “Tell me what you are thinking,” Ming said, her voice full of velvet persuasion, a vampire mesmerism.

  I looked her in the eye. “Really? You’un gonna try that on me? ’Cause it don’t work.”

  “So I see.” Ming sat back against the leather, making it sigh like flesh still alive. She motioned to Yummy. “Go with her. Provide assistance as needed. PsyLED will bring you back before dawn.” Ming looked at me, her eyes intense, giving a final little push with her voice and her mind. “You will bring her back before dawn.”

  “I’ll be glad to give Yummy a ride, but if traffic stalls us on the highway and she burns up, you’un’re paying to have my truck fumigated. I hear it’s mighty hard to get out the burned vamp stink.”

  Yummy made a strangled sound that might have been laughter.

  Ming’s eyes went wide and then she burst out laughing. She was still chuckling when Yummy followed me out of the limo into the exhaust-laden air and the too-bright lights. “Girl, you are either stupid or you got big brass ones,” Yummy said.

  I decided that no reply was the wisest reaction this time. Not that I’d been wise for the last few minutes. Occam appeared at my side, ushering us into the shadows cast by streetlights against the ornate brick wall of a building. He was walking fine now, as he took in Yummy as part of his constant scan of the street and buildings and law enforcement rushing around. Around us, Old City’s Christmas decorations glowed, a festive red and white this year. To me he said, “Uniforms and feds found the greatest concentration of casings. They think the shooter stood in the greenspace there.” He jerked his chin to a couple of winter-leafless dogwoods and evergreen plantings at the edge of a roofed overhang. “There’s some land. Rick wants you to get a read.”

  The patch of earth was maybe ten feet by twenty. “That little bit of land? You’uns—you’re kidding.”

  “Nope. I got your blanket outta your truck.” He held out my faded pink blanket and I took it, uncertain for two reasons. I had locked my truck, and the blanket suggested that Occam either had a key or owned and knew how to use a slim-jim. And I didn’t like reading city land. It was usually dead land.

  Yummy leaned into Occam and breathed deeply. I realized she was taking his scent. “Wereleopard. I am still eager to taste you.”

  Occam turned his eyes from me to her and said, “No. Again. No.”

  Yummy laughed and her voice took on that persuasive tone, low and liquid. “You might change your mind. Such liaisons have always been things of pleasure and joy.”

  I wondered if that meant that Yummy and Occam had ever—

  “Come on.” Occam turned his back on her in a catty insult, speaking to me. “I got a camera for you to work with.”

  Yummy’s eyes lit up in what must have been relish at the insult. As if she found Occam even more interesting and delightful prey now than before.

  “Nell? Camera,” Occam said.

  The camera was a ruse to keep the humans among us from having a fear reaction at a paranormal person. I was listed in Unit Eighteen as an undifferentiated paranormal, meaning that I wasn’t among the short list of paranormals with known powers, gifts, and disadvantages—like vampires catching fire in sunlight. Yummy knew I wasn’t human because she had seen me communing with the land once. And because she knew Jane Yellowrock. Reading the land in such a public place might tell everyone everywhere that I wasn’t human, and . . . well, I hadn’t told my mama or daddy yet. So holding a camera was a ruse.

  Keeping to the semiprotection of the brick wall, I followed Occam down the street to the winter-bare trees. And the ten-by-twenty plot of land was revealed to be the brick-paved outdoor eating area of a restaurant, one with cement planters for the trees and greenery. There were rounds everywhere, each marked with a numbered yellow evidence marker. Tables and chairs were overturned; drinks were pooled and reeking of alcohol. There had been people eating out here when the shooting started, outside in the cold, which was just stupid to my way of thinking. But there was nothing for me to read, no land in sight. I looked at Occam and crossed my arms over my chest. Yummy was watching the byplay with the same kind of amusement that a human might display when watching monkeys in a zoo.

  Occam looked around. Sighed. “Right. Okay. I see.” He handed me a camera. “Try anyway.”

  I threw the blanket back at him and sat on the cement edge of a planter. Placed the camera on the ground prominently in front of me as if it had a purpose. I dug my fingers through six inches of mulch and stuck them into the soil. It was good-quality potting soil mixed with topsoil. There was a nice concentration of nutrients. One spot where some stupid human had dumped in a cup of coffee. I boosted the tree, just in case the winter was long and cold, and withdrew my hand. “Nothing. But why do they think the shooter stood here? The rounds probably popped off the roof.” I looked up. So did Occam and Yummy, who pursed her mouth.

  She laced her fingers together, bent her knees, and said, “Come on, cat. I’ll boost you up and you can pull me up. Maggot can wait down here.”

  I spotted Rick in a group of suited men and women, mostly Secret Service and feds. “I’ll be eavesdropping over there.” Occam didn’t acknowledge my comment. Without looking, he took a running start and bounded into Yummy’s hand. The vampire tossed him up and forward and he touched down on the roof with cat grace. In his cat form that leap would have been easy all on his own.

  Yummy backed up and raced in, leaping onto the planter and pushing off with one foot. Occam reached out over the edge and grabbed her arm, pulling her up. They collided, fell out of sight, and hit the roof. There was little doubt they had landed flat, together. Yummy laughed, the sound delighted. Teasing. Sexual.

  A strange feeling opened up in my middle at her laughter. I was pretty sure I had never heard laughter like that before, but I knew what it was and what it meant. The strange feeling in my rooty middle went wide and empty at the sound, sad and betrayed. Until Occam said, “No,” his tone cold and full of threa
t. “Look away from me.”

  The vampire made a pouting sound. “You take all the fun out of the hunt. Now put away your toy before we have an incident.”

  “Put away your fangs first.”

  The frozen tone of his voice eased some of the odd emptiness inside me. If there had ever been something between them it was long gone. I heard nothing else until the sounds of them rising reached me, and they walked across the metal roof. Then I heard them repeating what sounded like the “hands and push”/”leap and catch” being replayed as they attained the roof of the two-story building next over, one that shared a wall with the restaurant with no land in front.

  My attention returned to the shooting scene and when I breathed, the air was heavy with diesel exhaust. All the emergency medical vehicle engines were still running. I turned and moved toward Rick, through the law enforcement officers and crime scene techs, all milling around, all with jobs to do. I was almost to the street.

  Shots rang out. I dove to the pavers behind the planter. I caught a blur of movement from the corner of my eye on a roof. Either there were two shooters or the shooter had repositioned catty-cornered across the street. He—or they—had us pinned down. But then the movement was gone. Had someone been targeted? Or was the shooter just creating confusion so he—it?—they?—could get away?

  My heart was slamming in my chest. My breath was fast and shallow. I was terrified. Had I mistaken clouds in the sky for a shooter?

  High up, I caught a distorted shape against the skyline, an amorphous form bending over a long rifle, aiming down. Three shots sounded. Three more. These three hitting emergency vehicles with the injured inside.

  FOUR

  Cops ran everywhere. Screams. Shouting.

  “JoJo!” I shouted into my comms. “Active shooter on the roof of—I can’t see the business name. Multistoried building on South Central. There’s a white plaque in the brick, like an original name. It might start with a C, and the word Building after it?”

  “Hang on. I got your position.” I heard soft tapping. “You safe? You look like you’re out in the open.”

  I realized JoJo was following us in real time on the interactive map. “I’m behind a planter,” I said, lifting my head. “But there’s a cop in the street. She’s four feet from me. She’s hit. Bleeding. I’m gonna—”

  “Stay put,” JoJo warned.

  “But—”

  “Stay put. That’s an order.”

  On the other side of the street, two paramedics and a cop rushed into an emergency medical van, bodies low, crouched. Even over the sound of the EMS engines, which were still running, I could hear the girl in the street panting. Blood trickled between the tiny rocks in the pavement. I could feel it. Almost taste it. Bloodlust rose in me, hesitant, uncertain, but . . . interested. There was no land to feed here. Thank God, no land to feed. “Jo,” I said, “she’s—”

  The ambient noise on the comms system altered. “Attention, all law enforcement personnel,” JoJo said. “The shooter has been spotted on the top of the Carhart Building.”

  The EMS unit made a sharp turn at her words. More shots rang out, pinging into the vehicle. Ramming right through the body of the oversized van and burying themselves in the street. The engine gunned and the van rolled into the street, in front of the downed officer, the engine block between the wounded woman and the shooter’s position. The three responders fell out the rear door to the asphalt, keeping low. They pulled emergency supplies from an oversized red kit. Went to work on her.

  “Thanks, Jo,” I said. I was panting hard.

  “Not me. EMS did that all on their own. You got eyes on the shooter?”

  Scraping along the brick pavers, I reversed my body position so I was facing the other way. The angle of the van’s emergency lights now gave me more shadow protection, but if the shooter had low-light or infrared-vision goggles I was toast. I pulled myself along the bricks on my elbows, in between two other concrete planters, and angled myself so I could see the top of the Carhart Building clearly, as fully as I could at night. “Nothing,” I said, “except SWAT is converging there. If the shooter is still inside he’s caught.

  “Is Occam okay?” I asked. “He’s—”

  “On the roof with a vampire,” JoJo said. “I know. RVAC has eyes in the air.”

  “That was fast.”

  “City just had a multiunit emergency response exercise. They got this one nailed.”

  One of the paramedics in the street got back in the EMS unit and it moved again, this time turning at a sharper angle to the Carhart Building. Yummy landed on all fours beside me, like a praying mantis. I squelched a squeal and Yummy laughed. She was enjoying this.

  Without even thinking, I reached out, grabbed her shirt, and yanked her to me. Her face was two inches from mine. All vamped out. Fangs down, eyes bloodred with huge black pupils. “That cop got injured,” I said, “protecting this city and your’n boss. How ’bout you’un get in there and give her some blood instead of playing games?”

  “Take your hand off me, little female.”

  “No.”

  Yummy’s eyes went even wider. Surprised. She tilted her head in one of those creepy inhuman moves they do and looked at the EMS unit. The driver was scrunched down in his seat, making a small target; the other two responders were loading the wounded officer into the back of the glorified ambulance. “JoJo,” I said, “tell EMS that a vampire is about to join”—I stretched my own head to see the number stenciled on the van—“Unit Two-Fourteen, to offer her services as blood donor.”

  “Copy that,” JoJo said.

  “I’ll pick you up at UTMC,” I said to the vampire.

  “I’ll be thirsty,” Yummy snarled.

  “I think the appropriate response is ‘Cry me a river.’” I let go of Yummy’s shirt. “Move.”

  The vampire shot away from me with a pop of sound and landed at the back door of the EMS unit. And then she was inside and the vehicle was backing down the street. I maybe shoulda felt bad about talking to Yummy that way, but short of staking a vamp, talking mean was about all that might get them to pay attention.

  “You scare me sometimes,” JoJo said.

  “Oh? We saved a vamp’s young’un not so long ago. Call the Clayton vampire and get some more blood-suckers to the hospital,” I said. “Tell them they owe us.”

  Occam joined the conversation from somewhere, his voice calm and amused in my earbuds, and said, “Do it. But tell them they owe the city. Not us. Tell them it’ll be good PR.”

  “Mmmm,” JoJo said, her tone saying she didn’t like calling the vamps for favors of any kind.

  “Copy that,” Rick said. “And ask nice.”

  I jumped. I’d forgotten he was around tonight.

  “Yes, sir,” JoJo said smartly, indicating she still didn’t agree but she could blame her supervisor if problems resulted from vampires feeding cops. Rick chuckled, the sound like dry leaves scattering before a slow wind.

  Occam appeared between the planters, near my feet. He hadn’t jumped from above, so he must have come down from the roof elsewhere and cat-crawled to me. “Did I hear you just threaten a blood-sucker, Nell, sugar?”

  “Special Agent Ingram,” I said, tapping my earpiece with a fingernail, reminding him we were being recorded and every word would be transcribed.

  “Right.” Occam gave me a cat grin, all self-satisfaction. “Wish I’d seen that, Nell, sugar.”

  “We got two RVACs in the air now,” JoJo said. “And local LEOs just obtained footage from traffic cams showing an armed figure fleeing the scene, heading south on South Gay Street. Obtaining the images now. Stay in position. SWAT is clearing the Carhart Building.”

  Occam said, “The Mithran and I cleared the roof and building at our nine.”

  “I’ll let the local LEOs know.”

  In the wake of the EMS unit pulli
ng away, two others backed out, each carrying injured. Occam cat-crawled higher into the tight space, close enough for me to feel his were-warmth as he lay on the pavers beside me. Close enough for me to be uncomfortable, though he never indicated he was aware of anything untoward in lying on the ground so close to me. It was odd. And oddly comforting, to have a fellow agent in the cramped space with me.

  Fellow agent. That was what I thought of him? A small part of me questioned whether it was just any agent or Occam himself that created the comfort. Occam and I had unfinished business between us. Or I thought we did. He had asked me out for a date, nearly a month ago, for a dinner that had never happened. The memory of that invitation surfaced and I blushed for no reason I could fathom. I had thought about that invitation off and on and figured he had changed his mind since he never mentioned it again. I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or insulted or disappointed, but since I didn’t date, not ever, I had settled on relieved. But I still thought about it, mostly at night before I fell asleep. Thinking about it now made me break out in a hot sweat and made me suddenly cranky. I wondered if the werecat could smell my change in physical state. And that made me more cranky.

  However, I didn’t want to look at those questions, not in the middle of a shootout, and so I shoved my feelings away and turned my attention back to the actions along the street. We waited, not sure if it was safe to move yet. Not talking, just sharing the narrow gap, holding position.

  “Okay. Got the images from the traffic cams,” JoJo said. “Looks like either the same shooter from last night or a similar creature. Fuzzed features. Male gait. Seems to be carrying an M4 carbine, just like last night. Looks like we have a single shooter, at events where the senator, his rich brother, and their wives are.”

  “Where’s the shooter now?” Rick asked.

  “They don’t know. He took a turn through an alley and vanished. The alley has access to buildings on either side, to their roofs, to a parking lot, and to three streets front and back. Two minutes after he vanished, a black SUV pulled into traffic. Then a Mercedes and a beat-up truck like Nell’s. Two motorcycles, probably Yamahas, sped past traffic cams. And a bicycle. They’re clearing the buildings and the parking lot, but my personal opinion is, they lost him.”