All Hell Breaks Loose (27 page)

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Kyle warned as another car squealed around the corner and slammed to a halt at the alley entrance, the door already open.  She sprang into the passenger seat, and Marcello appeared in the back seat as though by magic.

Chapter
14

“Fourth
street
left,” Marcello hissed, and Butch put his foot down. The downpour hadn’t been enough to hide the custom paint job or the performance racing tyres on the Subaru
Imprezza
.  Butch hadn’t been joking when he said he did some street racing.  The tyres took a second to find their grip on the slippery tarmac, but once they did, the car leapt forward, slamming Gabi back into her seat.  Butch calmly kept the four-wheel-drive beast straight as it bolted down the slick road.  Gabi flexed her right hand, suppressing a hiss of pain.  The numbness was wearing off and a burning ache was setting in, she hoped there weren’t any cracked bones.  She swapped the dart gun into the painful hand and was relieved to find she could close her fingers around the grip.  That was a good sign.

“Hang on,” Butch growled as he threw the car around the corner Marcello had indicated.

Gabi had just enough time to brace
herself
but lost control of the dart gun again.  As she righted herself and groped around at her feet for the gun, Marcello pointed excitedly into the gloom ahead of them.

“There,” he said.  “Three blocks ahead.”

Gabi wasn’t sure she could see anything through the haze of rain and minimal streetlights.

“They’ve turned off their lights,” Marcello added, “but I can see them.”

Butch grunted unintelligibly and flipped a switch on the dashboard.  The car, already pushing ninety miles an hour, gave a primal roar and put on a burst of additional speed.  Gabi’s fingers closed around the barrel of the dart gun, and this time she tucked it securely into its holster.  As she searched the rain-drenched night ahead, she could just make out the dark shadow of a vehicle in front of them.  They were gaining on it.  She was just wondering how they were going to force the
rogues
off the road when Marcello opened one of the rear windows and deftly squirmed out until he was perched on the side of the car with just his legs inside.

“Get me as close to them as you can,” he shouted into the wind.  “I’ll peel the roof off that thing and toss them out for you to clean up.”

There was a maniacal grin on his face that Gabi had never seen before.  The previous times she’d fought with Marcello, they’d been up against
Demons
and
Ghouls
, and she’d had the impression he didn’t like being in the middle of a battle.  Apparently it was only battles with monsters he didn’t enjoy.  Then he was gone, followed by a couple of thumps on the roof of the Subaru.

Butch looked upward sourly.  “No dents, Vampire,” he growled.

Marcello’s ghostly chuckle drifted back to them.

The rain started to ease at last, and Gabi could make out the shapes of the men in the car only half a block in front of them now.  There were four of them, and they seemed to be aware that they were being followed.  The car made a sharp left onto a side street, followed by a succession of lefts and rights, but Butch stayed right on their tail, closing the distance between the vehicles by steady increments.  Buildings, parked cars and shop lights were a blur on either side of
them,
only the car in front remained in focus.  Gabi kept expecting to hear a thump as Marcello was thrown from the roof of the careening car, but he stuck to the roof like a hunting gecko.  They’d left the eastern suburbs and were heading into the heavy industrial area on the outer edge of the City.  Finally there was a stretch of road with no more side streets to escape down, and Butch flattened his foot on the accelerator again.  The engine roared, responding instantly.  They were close enough to see the agitation of the men in the other car, and they were close enough to watch as one turned, opened his window and aimed a gun straight at them.

“Fuck,” Gabi swore, bracing herself as the first of the bullets struck the windshield.  Thick cracks spiderwebbed across the glass, and one bullet punched a
hole
straight through, embedding itself in the rear seat.  Butch instinctively let up slightly on the accelerator and swerved the Subaru to the other side of the road, making it harder for the shooter to target them. 
He didn’t give up the chase, though, keeping the car steady even with almost no visibility through the shattered windshield.  Another window went down on the other side of the black car, and a second gun muzzle pointed out.  This time it wasn’t a hand gun, it was an assault rifle.  The staccato spit of bullets shattered the night air, and the distinct pop of a tyre bursting sank Gabi’s hopes of finally catching the bastards.

“Fucking hell,” Butch yelled, and this time jammed on the brakes, fighting the steering wheel as more gunfire rained towards them.

Gabi ducked, just as Marcello sailed over the front of the car and into the road.  She spared a quick look to check on the Vampire, but he was already rolling away from the path of the careening car.  The shooter with the rifle sent one last blast of bullets in their direction, and then they sped off into the night.  It took Butch long moments to bring the car to a stop, and Gabi considered it a miracle that they hadn’t actually rolled.  Once they tumbled out of the car and got a good look at the number of bullet holes in it, Gabi realised that the bigger miracle was that none of them had been hit.

“My car,” Butch almost wailed, taking in the damage.

“Just think of the street
cred
you’ll get when you arrive at your next race with twenty bullet holes in it,” Gabi said, patting his shoulder in consolation.  “Not bad driving, by the way.”

Marcello joined them, having made his way from the spot where he was thrown off the roof, and Gabi had to revise her assessment that no one had been hit.  She could scent his blood before she saw the holes in his leather jacket.  He brushed off her concern, but she dragged him into the beam of the car headlights to get a better look.  He’d taken two bullets to his left shoulder, and there were no exit wounds.

“Damn, we need to get those bullets out quick,” she muttered, remembering how quickly Julius healed.

Marcello calmly handed her a flick knife from his pocket.  She sat him on the front of the car while Butch used her phone to call Kyle and tell him where to find them.  The Vampire shrugged out of his jacket and shirt, barely wincing as he did so.  Gabi grimaced when she saw the wounds; one was bleeding profusely.  They had to hurt like hell. The smell of his blood swamped her nose, and for the first time, Gabi thought consciously about whether the scent appealed to her.  The smell of Julius’s blood had a bizarre effect on her.  She found it mouth-wateringly good, and was hard-pressed not to taste it if she smelled it.  Marcello’s, though not unpleasant, definitely didn’t hold the same attraction.  She filed the snippet of information away as Butch returned with a small flashlight and held it so she could see the gunshot wounds more clearly.

She took a deep breath and gritted her teeth as she set to work.  Marcello didn’t even flinch; he just turned to Butch and began to tell some sordid joke about a
Werewolf
, a stripper and a troll.  Gabi was concentrating too hard to hear the
punchline
, but she soon had two bloodied, misshapen lumps of metal in her hand.

“That should do it, tough guy,” she told him.

He let out a relieved sigh and flexed his arm.  The bleeding had stopped, and the wounds were already looking smaller.

“Thank you,
bello
mio
,” he said. “That was much less painful than having Jonathon dig them out later.”

She deposited the mementos into his hand, grimacing as swelling and pain stiffened her fingers.  He frowned and lightly caught her hand before she could pull away.  He ran his fingers over hers very gently.  “This one is broken for sure,” he said, indicating her middle finger, “
you
better tape it up, or the next time you flip Alexander the bird, it will be crooked.”

Gabi snorted a laugh just as Kyle’s van pulled up next to them.

“Damn,” he said appreciatively as he took in the bullet-riddled Subaru.  “Get in.  A tow truck is on its way for the car.”

Butch chose to stay with his baby.  Even though Gabi had assured him that the SMV would cover any repair bill, he still looked like a man bereft.

After collecting the Mustang, Gabi followed Kyle back to HQ.  The victim who’d been attacked at the apartment block hadn’t survived.  His injuries had been too severe.  Kyle told her that it looked like the
Werewolf
had lost control.  Or they meant to kill the man.  Ben was banged up but
recovering fast.  He’d broken a femur, though; so he’d be out of action for at least a couple of days.  Even
Werewolves
took a few days to heal something that serious.

Kyle snagged Melinda on her way home and got her to see to Gabi’s broken finger.  The Magus must have been tired, as she was unusually clumsy and seemed flustered as she tended to Gabi’s hand.  She didn’t offer to
Heal
it as she normally would have done, not that Gabi would’ve taken her up on the offer, but it just wasn’t like her not to try.  Gabi made a mental note to check up on her in the morning.

Byron wasn’t at HQ for once, he’d had some important meeting with the City Council earlier in the evening, and it was running on longer than expected.  So Alistair, who was ‘officer-in-charge’ for the night,
debriefed them.  He was deeply concerned by the incident, and after dismissing them to get some rest, he immediately began making phone calls to the City’s Pack leaders.

As Gabi, Kyle and Marcello clocked out and headed for their vehicles, Gabi was surprised to see Melinda walking briskly away from where her car and Kyle’s van were parked.  There were no other vehicles close by, and Melinda’s car was several parking spaces away. Gabi called out to her, wondering if something was wrong.  The other woman just smiled and waved before climbing in her car and driving off.  Gabi shook her head, filing the Magus’s strange behaviour away to be considered when she had less pressing issues on her mind.

When Gabi and Marcello pulled up to the main house in the Mustang, Maximilian was standing outside as though expecting them.  He waited for them to get out before addressing Gabi.

“Sire has cleared a parking spot for your vehicle in the underground parking,” he informed her.  “I have been gifted with the responsibility of being your valet tonight.”  His tone was inflectionless, but his eyes gave away exactly what he thought about the gift of becoming her valet.  On another night Gabi might have simply driven the car around to the garage herself, but she was still annoyed enough about losing the
Werewolves
that tweaking Maximilian’s supercilious nose appealed to her.  She stalked up to him and handed him the keys.

“Not
so
much as one scratch, Max,” she told him, her voice dark with menace.

Julius was waiting for them at the bar.  “Exciting evening,” he commented.  “Are you all in one piece?”

“Good news travels fast,” Gabi muttered, aiming directly for the glass of wine he held out to her, claiming it with her left hand.

“Sire,” Marcello greeted him with a small
bow
, “I leave her in your capable hands. She’ll need some ice on the hand she’s hiding in her jacket pocket, but she is otherwise uninjured.”  He was trying to suppress a smile.

“Traitor,” she grumbled glaring at him.  “And he got two bullet holes in him,” she counter-accused.

“He’s a Vampire, Lea,” Julius reminded her.  “Thank you, Marcello,” Julius dismissed his guard with a loaded look.  He moved to behind the bar counter and filled a clean cloth with ice.  “Do I need to get Jonathon in to look at it?” he asked her.

She joined him at the bar and took the ice pack from him.  She pulled her hand out of her pocket and held the ice to it.  “No, it’s nothing serious, I already had Melinda look at it and strap the fractured one.”

He reached over and lifted the makeshift ice pack off to check for himself.  Her middle finger, which was strapped to her ring finger with two thin strips of plaster, was slightly swollen and turning blue, and there were blood blisters forming under three of her nails, but all things considered, it was fairly minor.

“Hmm,” Julius murmured.  He lifted her hand to lay a gentle kiss on it and replaced the ice pack.

“So this thing with the
Werewolves
is escalating,” he observed.

“Yeah, and we’re just groping around in the dark,” she said in a disgusted tone.  “There is some kind of organisation to all of this, but to what end? And who is behind it all?  Lord and Lady, this is getting frustrating.”  She felt like kicking something, preferably something
Werewolf
related.

Suddenly Julius was behind her, his cool hands divesting her of her jacket and weapons and then beginning a slow kneading of her neck and shoulder muscles.  “I have cleared my schedule for a few nights so I can join you on the next patrol.  The guards and I have a few tricks up our
sleeves if we encounter the gun-toting
Werewolves
again.”  The massage grew more firm, working at the tension-induced knots.  “And Trish is working on tracking the shadow group.  I watched her work for a while, and she’s good. 
Really good.
  I wouldn’t be surprised if she has something for us by morning.”  His voice was calm and reassuring.  “So I think the
Werewolf
problem can be tabled for a few hours.  Worrying about it further tonight is not going to get us anywhere.”  He swept her hair away from the nape of her neck and pressed biting kisses along the ridge of her shoulder.