Vampire Uprising

Chapter Thirty-Six

Denver Six blocks south of the police barricade

The Nymar had worked out several different escape routes from the cement building, but most of them were cut off by the police or were in the process of being severed. It had only been twenty minutes since the authorities took over the area, which was more than enough time for the vampires to gather in a parking lot within spitting distance of I-70 used by semitrailers and other large transport vehicles.

The van that rolled to a stop next to the others that had just arrived was still spattered with blood it had picked up from the loading dock where it was parked half an hour ago. Its driver’s window came down so a woman bearing symmetrical black markings along both sides of her face could look out. “Where was she? You told me she was going to be there!”

Two Nymar, men in their early twenties, approached the van. Although they had markings of Shadow Spore that swelled in size as they left the pool of light cast from atop a nearby post, neither of them were anxious to get any closer to the Kintalaphi inside the van. “Hope told you she’d be there,” the bigger of the two said. “All we knew was that Skinners were coming.”

“Where’s Hope?”

“Dead. I don’t know if they were Skinners, but the ones who killed her used some kind of metal thing with chains that I ain’t ever seen before.”

“You watched her die?”

Both of the Nymar looked at each other and stepped away from the van. When the driver kicked the door open, she exploded from behind the wheel as if she’d been launched from an ejector seat. Black claws snaked out from her fingertips to sink into the bigger Nymar’s chest like a set of fishing hooks. He didn’t even have a chance to try and free himself before he was on his back.

“You watched the Skinners kill her and did nothing?” she hissed.

“That room was full of Skinners when Hope was killed. And I already told you, I don’t know what the hell was used to kill her.” He blinked, but had trouble opening his eyes again as the claws embedded in his flesh took their toll. “I didn’t even know they could kill one like you.”

“The purpose of this was to kill them.”

When she pulled her claws out of him, the Nymar shot back with, “Then why’d you cut and run, Tara?”

Apart from longer hair, paler skin, a greater concentration of tendrils and hardened eyes, Tara looked much as she had when she’d been a student at the University of Illinois eleven years ago. “Hope told us to fall back and that’s what we did,” she replied. “Your orders were to find Paige and bring her to me.”

Seeing the clueless expression on the other Nymar’s face, Tara grabbed the front of his shirt along with several layers of skin beneath it. “The Skinner with the black hair and the wounded arm!”

“One of the chicks had a wounded leg.”

“Not her!”

“Why don’t you ask that shapeshifter? If there was anyone there that we missed, he probably would’ve smelled them.”

“Are you talking about the shapeshifter that held the cops back?” Tara asked.

The Nymar on the floor nodded. “I saw him when I was on my way out. He said he’d keep the cops busy so we could get away and that he’d be in touch. Said he had something important to talk about.”

“So Paige was never there?”

“I … I don’t …”

Another Nymar stepped forward when the one under Tara had become too flustered to talk. He was a smaller man, with a large grommet fitted into his right earlobe. “I think I know the one you mean,” he said. “There was a Skinner talking to the one that got dragged away by the cops. She came in a helicopter. Dark hair, short, wearing some kind of body armor like a bulletproof vest. Her arm looked stiff and scarred.”

“Where did she go?”

“I don’t know. The cops were spreading out, searching the whole place and sending teams after the Skinners who got away.”

“They got away?” Tara asked.

“When the cops were busy arresting the guy in the coat, I saw four or five of the Skinners run out the back door. Thought they were coming after us, but they scattered. One guy had a biker jacket on. He was picked up by some black dude in a run-down four-door. I lost track of the others when we came here.”

Slapping the chest of the Nymar pinned beneath her, Tara asked, “Did you tell this one what you saw?”

“Started to, but he had to keep driving.”

“You had one thing you had to do,” Tara snapped. Before the Nymar beneath her could say a word in his defense, she tore into his throat with every fang she had. The wound was messy and uneven, so she dug the claws of her right hand in and pulled it open wide enough for her to bury her mouth in the gore. A few seconds later she stood up and let the body drop.

Another of the Shadow Spore who’d remained silent until now stepped forward. “We need to stay together, like Cobb said. We can’t start infeeding just because things go a little wrong!”

“You’re right,” Tara said. “We knew tonight would be hard. How many cops did you kill?”

“All but the ones in the van. One of those bitches who came here with the Skinners cut them loose before we could do anything about it.”

“So that means the other two are dead?”

All of the Shadow Spore around Tara nodded. The pierced Nymar said, “I did the ones in that back office myself, and we got plenty more of the ones that kicked in the front door.”

“You used the Skinner weapon and left it where it could be found?”

“Oh yeah,” he said while holding up his hands to display a palm covered in shredded flesh that wasn’t healing. “Ripped the hell out of me, but it did an even better job on those cops.”

Tara offered her hand to the Nymar below her. The bigger man took it and was all but thrown to his feet. The wound on his neck was no longer bleeding, but the light gray tint of the tendrils beneath his skin meant he’d lost an unhealthy amount of blood. Turning toward the van, she said, “All of you get out of Colorado. I don’t care where you go, just hide and stay put until you hear from me. If I can’t call you directly, I’ll send word through the usual sites.”

“What happens now?”

“Now, I call Cobb.” Tara pulled the door shut and looked at each of the other Nymar in turn. Her skin was several shades lighter than it had been a few moments ago and her eyes burned with the intensity of someone who hadn’t tasted a decent meal for years. Her muscles nearly twitched out of her skin as she faced front and turned the key in the van’s ignition as though she meant to snap it off. “Things may happen quickly or we all may have to lay low and wait. The Skinners that haven’t joined us will be primed for a fight. Be careful.”

The big Nymar rubbed his torn throat, massaging the wound while holding it shut so his spore could knit the flesh back together. “Who’s that Skinner bitch with the dark hair? Why was she so important?”

Letting out a deep breath, Tara closed her eyes until the markings on either side of her face stopped trembling. “She’s an old friend that I haven’t seen in a long time. Now that I’ve finally flushed her out, it won’t be any trouble at all to catch her up on what she’s missed over the last ten years. Did you stay out of any cops’ sights tonight, Seth?”

One of the Shadow Spore who’d just arrived at the meeting replied, “None of them saw my face.”

“Can you still call in any favors?”

“The vice guy I know in the Denver PD thinks I handed him the information leading to the cop killers they found tonight. He’ll set me up with free doughnuts for years.”

“Find out where they took the Skinners that were captured. As soon as you know where they’re being held, get word to any of us that are locked up in the same place. If it’s a prison with no Nymar inmates, seed some of them. The nastiest ones.”

Seth nodded sharply and ran away. By the time he crossed beneath I-70, Tara was headed for the on-ramp and the others had dispersed to opposite ends of the city.