Blood Vengeance

CHAPTER EIGHT

Kinimaka ducked as another bullet passed close to his head. With one heave he managed to lift Hayden’s inert body and drape it over one of his massive shoulders. He knew full well what was happening here. He had heard the albino’s comment ‘The Blood King sends his regards’, and knew time was of the essence. He should get word to his family right away, but Hayden was his closest family now and she needed him.

They rushed out of the mall into the cool night. The bright lights of Pennsylvania Avenue bathed them in stark unreality. Life wasn’t about eye-catching colors, provocative billboards and gleaming cars. It was struggle and desperation and momentary bursts of pure pleasure. It was dirty, unforgiving and ever-changing.

Komodo dashed out into the middle of the road, stopped a car and hauled out the driver. Without ceremony, the rest of the team piled in, Kinimaka holding Hayden across his lap. She was still breathing, and he kept every emotion reined in as the world passed him by.

“Nearest hospital?” Komodo cried.

“Needs to be secure,” Smyth rasped, unaccountably calm.

“There’s a military hospital on Georgia,” Karin said, her eidetic memory useful as ever. “Should be well guarded.”

Kinimaka passed his cell over to her. “Call them, and call Langley too. If they have any men to spare, we’re gonna need them.”

Smyth turned to him. “You think this thing ain’t over?”

Kinimaka cradled the unmoving head of his girlfriend. “I think it’s far from over.” He was about to continue when Karin cursed out loud.

“What is it?”

Instead of answering, shocked into silence and with tears suddenly bright in her eyes, Karin turned up the radio. The broadcast filled the car.

“… and to recap, reports suggest that the Secretary of Defense, Jonathan Gates, has been killed in Washington DC tonight. Though the authorities remain quiet, eye witness accounts speak of a professional gunman. It’s still too early to speculate on—”

Smyth stared at the radio as if he could will it into submission. “Is this right? It could only have just happened.”

Karin handed Kinimaka back his cell and shifted to dig her own phone out of her jeans pocket. “This is the Blood King,” she said. “It’s the Blood Vendetta. When we learned of the riot earlier, I wondered about it. But there were no reports of any prisoners escaping. So either he has full communications working on the inside and has been orchestrating this thing for months, or he’s free.”

Kinimaka’s eyes were huge. “Or both.”

Silence reigned in the car as Kinimaka and Karin both pressed speed dial numbers on their cell phones and listened to the dreadful, ominous drone of unanswered ringtones.