Tenants and Tyrants (Book 5 of The Warden series)
Read Tenants and Tyrants (Book 5 of The Warden series) Online
Authors: Felicia Jedlicka
Copyright © 2013 by Felicia Jedlicka
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Felicia Jedlicka
Book design by Felicia Jedlicka
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Felicia Jedlicka
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The
Warden
Tenants and Tyrants
Felicia Jedlicka
Successors
Rivals
Honeymoon
Lovers and Liars
Time and Time, Not Again!
Bad Blood
Let My People Go
Tenants and Tyrants
The Ring Bearer
If Wishes Were Fishes
Gods and Monsters
Beasts and Burdens
Magic and Mayhem
…More to Come…
Corn, Cows, and the Apocalypse
Cow Tipping After the Apocalypse
Corn Husking After the Apocalypse
Table of Contents
Daniel McGrath sprinted up the second to last flight of stairs. His throat burned from the effort of sucking in excess air while ascending the five flights of hospital stairs. He was convinced if he made it to the top without puking it would not be viewed as a triumph by his stomach.
On the last landing before the roof Heaton popped out of the sixth floor door looking alert and un-winded. Daniel conversely thought his heart might explode if it thumped any faster. He pointed a finger at Heaton threatening to say something as soon as his breathing was not overpowering his vocal chords.
Heaton looked up at the next flight, and back at him. He had finally abandoned his long dreads and floppy mops, and settled on cornrows to manage his thick black hair. Daniel had objected fervently to this new hair style. Not because he wasn’t pulling it off, but because it, along with his new black leather sport coat style jacket, made him look like a mobster thug. However, since this look had increased the attention he got from women at the pubs, he had no intention of making any changes. He had even threatened to grow a goatee like Daniel’s.
“Where the feck have you been? I thought you were right behind me,” Daniel spat out between breaths .
“I was. I took the elevator,” Heaton answered motioning to the door he just arrived from.
“What? I thought you said we had to chase it up the stairwell.”
“Yeah,” Heaton said implying the “no duh,” “not both of us.”
“Are you off your nut? I just ran up five flights of stairs.”
“Yeah, you did good. Jordan said he popped out onto the roof. Let’s go get him.”
“You wanker! You made me climb these stairs?” When Heaton didn’t respond he clarified his outrage. “You run marathons, you plonker!”
“Yeah,” he offered the “no duh” implication again, “on roads, not stairs. Who wants to run up stairs?”
Heaton opened his mouth to let loose a deluge of Irish curses, but his cell phone ring interrupted him. The ring was a high twittering noise. It was annoying as hell, and he chose it with the very specific intention of pissing himself off every time he heard it. So far it was working.
He tugged it from his pocket and clicked to answer it. “What?” He croaked into the phone.
“Are you two coming?” Nevia asked on the other end. They had only been working together for three months, but she was already ruling the roost. She made the plans, while they did all the dirty work.
“Yes, we’re fecking coming, you narky woman!” He clicked the phone off and shoved it back in his pocket. “Whose damn idea was it to keep her on?”
“Yours,” Heaton answered jogging ahead of him on the stairs. Daniel felt hot in his long jacket, but as soon as he got onto the roof, the night’s early autumn breeze cooled him down. Most people hated to see summer go, but he was much happier in a cold climate. If he hadn’t hated the idea of being nearly celibate he might have considered opting for Ethan’s job. He was basically an indentured servant anyway.
“Where is the blood sucking bastard?” he asked scanning the roof. There was a helicopter on the landing pad on the other side of the roof. They had a special entrance to take the emergency victims into the hospital, but those doors required I.D. badges.
“He has to be up here. He’s not a flier.” Heaton surveyed the roof taking in the scene with the precision of a soldier. Daniel only knew a little about Heaton’s military background, but it was enough to know not to ask about it. Heaton wasn’t exactly proud of the roles he had played. Heroism always looked different depending on what it required you to do.
“Then he’s hiding. Search or lure?” Daniel asked not sure which answer he would have preferred. He was tired enough to hope for lure, but no one really wants to be vampire bait.
“I’m up for search, if you take the cut.”
“Damn it I always take the cut,” Daniel grumbled.
“You heal faster.”
“Barely!” Daniel didn’t really heal faster, but something about his system did allow for very quick clotting. It was a pretty useless talent, but it had saved his life on one occasion. The occasion was New Year’s Eve. The life threatening offender was a broken bottle that he managed to impale himself with when he passed out. Even with the quick clotting, it wasn’t a happy new year.
“Fine, I’ll do it,” Heaton said pulling out his knife. “Can’t feel anything on this arm anyway.” Heaton rolled up his sleeve to reveal his melted flesh. Ever since he had confronted Daniel about it at the prison, he had been passive aggressively taking shots at him about it. However, Daniel no longer held any sympathy for his affliction. Rule one: stay the fuck out of a
dispersers
way!
Daniel had never known what to call himself. He had rejected the phrase exorcist, for obvious reasons of blasphemy, and inaccuracy. He hadn’t really thought of himself as worthy of an official title, but Nevia had started referring to his type as dispersers and it just, sort of, stuck.
Heaton cut through his scarred flesh before Daniel could voice an objection. It was just another in a long list of things that he would complain about later. It was getting tiresome, but Daniel wasn’t in a position to take the high or low road, so instead he would just sit in the middle and ignore it all.
“Walk it around. I want to get to the pub before closing.”
Instead of walking around, Heaton milked the wound, letting the gash pour blood onto the graveled roof. Daniel looked away as he did. He wasn’t particularly sickened by the sight of blood, but he was sickened by Heaton’s severity. He was generally a calm mediator, but recently his sudden outbursts of bravery, violence, and on occasion sexism, were starting to push the envelope. He had even had Nevia sniff check him for parasites. No luck. Heaton was just becoming an ass.
“Maybe if I gash my throat I could get you there before the good tarts are taken.”
Daniel turned back to him. His face was smiling like he was joking, but his voice had said otherwise. “Really,” Daniel nodded lowering his voice to a level that allowed him to keep his temper in check. Outside of being mad drunk, he didn’t have a problem keeping his anger management issues in check. He always wondered why it was so important for him to keep himself under control when no one else did. “Was that supposed to be funny?”
“I don’t know, are you laughing?”
“No, as a matter of fact, I’m quite the opposite of laughter.”
“I don’t see any tears.” Heaton weaved his head to see.
“Crying is not the opposite of laughing,” Daniel objected.
“What? Yes it is. Have you ever seen drama masks: happy, sad.”
“Laughing is not happy.”
“Of course it is.” Heaton raised his voice to help make his point. “You’re happy when you laugh.”
“Not always. I’ve laughed when I’m sad. You laugh when something is funny. You laugh through tears. Laughing is just an extension of an emotion. Just like you can cry when you’re sad, or you cry when you’re happy.”
“Only women cry when their happy.”
“Only woman cry when their sad,” Daniel pitched. “Men drink when their sad and laugh when their drunk. They might be sad and laughing, and still not crying. So, no, crying is not the opposite of laughing.”
“So, what is the opposite of laughing?”
“Yelling!” Daniel technically raised his volume for that statement, but only for effect.
“In what world is yelling the opposite of laughing?” Heaton asked going so far as to get in his face.
“Laughing,” Daniel heard his cell phone tweeter from his rear pocket, but he ignored it so he could finish explaining. “Happy and sad are the polar opposites of one spectrum, that’s why you can laugh when you are happy or sad. Angry and jealous are opposite ends of a completely separate spectrum of emotions, those emotions cause yelling. Therefore yelling is the opposite of laughing.”
“Son of a bitch!” Heaton yelled.
“Hey don’t…”
“Behind you!” Heaton pointed with his wide eyes.
Daniel whipped around, hoping that Heaton would have a good laugh at his well-played joke, but the stark white elongated face behind him was no joke. The open mouth inches from him bore sticky yellow fangs. The creature hissed and dove for his neck, even as he stumbled back into Heaton.
Daniel heard a pop and the creature’s head bobbed to the right, followed by its body. Daniel fell back as the creature fell to the side. Heaton caught him and steadied him. A small pool of blood gathered around the head of the vampire. There was no need to check for a pulse, not because the vampire was undead like the story books said, but because he had a bullet through his brain, and that just wasn’t survivable.
Daniel cleared his throat and straightened his coat as he righted himself. He turned back to Heaton and looked him over. “You okay?”
Heaton looked on him with the same concern. “Yeah, you?”
“Good, good, never better.” He pushed his fingers through his hair reflexively to check for flyaway strands. “That was a good shot.”
“Yeah.” Heaton nodded.
“Nice to have her around,” Daniel said surveying the damaged body.
“Yeah,” Heaton did the same. “I’m glad I decided to keep her on.”
It was always amazing to Daniel how often they could walk out of buildings with dead vampires and have no one notice. This time they used a hospital wheel chair, a gown, a “borrowed” baseball cap, and sunglasses to disguise their vampire corpse. The outfit made him look like a frail old man slumped over into sleep.