“For what?”
“Not for this.” It was grim. “I’m here chasing a murderer.”
“A murderer?”
“It’s a long story. Lord Cheung—my old master—lost some vamps in a basement in New York, to some weird ass bullets—”
“Bullets that can kill a vampire?” John frowned. He’d never heard of such a thing.
Zheng scowled, as if he hadn’t intended to mention that. “Doesn’t matter. Anyway, some of the clues led here, so I took a handful of guys to check it out—”
“You did? Shouldn’t that have been Lord Cheung’s job, if they were his vamps?”
“He didn’t have anything to do with this!”
John raised an eyebrow.
He’d never said that he did.
Zheng glowered at him. “Point is, I didn’t know I was stepping into a warzone! I don’t have the men to deal with this—”
A stray spell from the battle shattered a nearby shop window, sending flames leaping up the side of the building. And causing several dozen windchimes inside to toll like funeral bells. How appropriate, John thought, and threw a shield over the end of the alley.
“—and wouldn’t have, even if my whole family was here,” the big vamp continued. “What am I supposed to do about that?”
He gestured at the now merrily burning street, but John didn’t immediately respond. Because Zheng was wrong—he hadn’t thought he’d rescued everyone. He’d seen too many men he didn’t recognize to believe that the Vegas branch was the only one compromised. But this . . .
He hadn’t expected this.
“Call in your senate,” he rasped, despite hating every word. But there was no other choice. “Vampires seem immune to whatever spell is being used. We can use them to round up the Corps—”
“Round them up?” Zheng raised a single eyebrow in a manner that reminded John uncomfortably of another senator he knew. “How exactly do you expect us to round them up? They’re war mages.”
“The same way the triads did! Drain them enough to knock them out until we can determine what’s wrong—”
“Yeah,” big arms crossed over an even bigger chest. “Problem is, while you’re doing that, they aren’t just standing around waiting for you to finish. They’re actively trying to kill you—”
“—which won’t take long. The Lord Protector probably has every researcher in the Corps working on this—”
“—and they’re very good at killing you—”
“Damn it, man! We have to buy him time!"
“To do what?” Zheng demanded. “By the time they come up with anything, you bastards will have burnt down half the city! It took the combined power of three triads to subdue a few hundred of you, and they only managed it because the mages were punch drunk when they first stepped through those portals. They’re like goddamned tanks—"
“Which is why we need your senate!”
“My senate is on the other side of the planet!”
John had his mouth open for a comment, but at that he shut it again. “What?”
Zheng nodded. “I’m on the North American Vampire Senate.”
“Since when?” John thought he knew all those bastards.
“Since about a month ago. They had an opening and I ‘applied.’” He grimaced. “I’m beginning to think that may not have been my best move.”
Yeah, John thought. Titles sounded impressive until you realized the responsibility and danger that often went with them. He’d faced that fact many times since joining the Corps, only most of those times, he hadn’t cared. Live or die; it hadn’t seemed to matter much.
It did now.
It did not improve his mood that it would be exactly like the universe to let him live when he wanted to die, and then to switch that around later on.
Exactly like, he thought, as light began to splash the alleyway.
John turned his head to see a vampire running toward them from the direction they’d come and carrying a crate. It appeared to be one of the old-fashioned wooden kind, the sort vegetables used to come in, from what he could see. Which wasn’t much because it was on fire.
“What the hell?” Zheng said, rearing back.
The vamp carrying it just screamed in reply.
“Put it down, you idiot!”
The vamp did not put it down. John wasn’t sure the creature could think that clearly, over what appeared to be abject terror. Zheng swore and kicked the crate with a boot, sending the contents scattering all over the ground. And his vamp screaming and running into a wall.
Whereupon he got up, screamed some more, and . . . did it again.
These are my allies, John thought blankly.
These are my only allies.
My God, he was fucked.
“Calm down!” Zheng said, grabbing his hysterical vampire. He must have put a little too much power behind the command, because the vamp immediately collapsed and had to be rescued again, having ended up too close to one of the . . . burning . . . items . . .
Damn it!
John expended power he couldn’t spare to put out the flames that were snapping around a pile of leather, and then turned on Zheng. The big vamp was propping his sad excuse for a servant against the wall, making sure that he was out of the danger zone, only to turn around and find himself in another one with John. Who was holding up what looked suspiciously like a war mage coat.
“What is this?”
The eyebrow went back to work. “Consider it a gift, like your life. You’re welcome, by the way.”
“You saved me to help you figure out what is going on and avoid a war with the Circle. I hardly owe you thanks for that! And where did you get this?”
Zheng sighed. “You’re almost immediately unlikeable, did you know that?”
“Where?”
“Cool your jets. We grabbed it from the pile the tong took off your men, before we fled. Along with the other stuff.”
“What other stuff?”
Zheng gestured at the half-burned box and the items it had contained, which were now lying all over the ground, some still smoking. John put them out, too—with the coat this time, which was fireproof—and examined the remains. There wasn’t much.
Some melted potion bombs, now black and bubbling, were seeping into gaps between the stones. A raft of cracked and empty potion bottles sparkled in the firelight, the remains of their contents occasionally sparking and turning the flames unusual colors. And some throwing stars, with enough of the enchantment left to spasm against the road like Mexican jumping beans, hopped around what had to be an entire store’s worth of guns.
The latter were useless, with charred stocks and bent frames, but would have been so anyway in comparison to the magic that had been left behind. John’s hand clenched at the thought of what had been passed over, all the next level magical items an army of war mages must have been carrying. But the guns had been taken instead because they were all the vampires understood!
It was so infuriating that, for a moment, he just stood there, trembling. At least he wouldn’t have difficultly warding off the damned enthrallment spell, he thought grimly. It seemed to have problems pushing past fury, and the way he felt right now, he was probably safe for days.