Free Death Blows: The Bloodhound Files-2 by DD Barant Page A

sometimes swap—
    their identities whenever they want.

    I won’t bore you with a long description of every variation I see standing in front of me; let’s just say it looks like someone set off a car bomb in the alleyway between a jewelry outlet and a bandage factory, and leave it at that.

    They don’t carry guns, of course. But they’re large and mean and undead, and that’s all they really need.

    “Yeah, real frightening,” I say. “You guys look like the remains of a bad ski trip. Don’t you have a pyramid you should be guarding or something?”

    “Bitch thinks she’s tough,” one of them says. “Must be tough, she sure ain’t smart.”

    “Can’t count, anyway,” another says. “Must be that shiny thing she holdin’ so tight. Got some major mojo goin’ on.”

    “That what she want us to think, anyways.”

    I sigh. I’ve had special bullets made since I got here, but I had to provide the gunpowder from my one box of ammo; I don’t have a proper recipe for the stuff, and I hate wasting it educating morons like this. “Yeah, yeah, it’s my magical splatwand. I point it at you and you go splat . Wanna see?”

    Tair spreads both his hands wide in an abrupt slicing motion. Enough. Tell me, Jace, how do Dr. Adams and your enforcer get along ?

    “Charlie? What’s he got to do with this?”

    He’s a golem. I would have thought the doctor would show some . . . professional interest .

    That makes no sense at all. Dr. Pete’s specialty is human beings, not golems—not that lems have doctors, anyway. The closest thing they seem to have are repairmen.

    Human beings are only the doctor’s hobby, you know; his true interests lie in humanoid animism. And he wasn’t always that particular where and how he got to practice .

    My eyes narrow. I know what he’s talking about now—the Gray Market, the underground trade in illegal lem manufacture. “Dr. Pete’s not involved in anything like that.”

    Maybe not now. But he was—and the people he worked for aren’t very happy with him. Sooner or later he’s going to have settle accounts with them .

    The biggest wrapper in the group, a guy almost as wide as he is tall, slams a fist into his open palm suggestively. It’d be more menacing if his thick fingers weren’t bound in tartan fabric—it’s like watching a Scottish mummy warm up for sumo. C’mon, then, y’wee fat man! I’ll make ye squeal like the pipes at sunup!

    What are you smiling at ?

    “Nothing,” I mutter. Stupid brain.

    Most of the pires are standing very still, but one of them seems a little twitchy. He’s skinny—or maybe just seems that way because he’s standing next to Mr. Sumo—and favors strips of powder-blue suede wrapped around his bony frame. I mentally christen him Anorexic Vampire Elvis Mummy, and notice that he’s fingering a pire crucifix on a cord around his neck.

    Crosses aren’t much use against vampires in this world. Maybe it’s because the supernatural races outnumber humans a hundred to one, maybe it’s because the Catholic Church is now dominated by werewolves; whatever the reason, waving a cross in a pire’s face won’t do much more than annoy him.

    They even have their own version, what they call the Blood Cross. It’s a crucifix with two vertical bars instead of one, the bottom ends sharpened to points so they resemble a pair of fangs. They’re about as common a symbol as a pentagram, so I’m not surprised to see it—I just wonder why he’s wearing it on a cheap piece of string instead of a chain.

    Until, of course, he rips it off and throws it at me.

    People here are very fond of throwing things. Ball bearings, darts, shuriken , toasters—whatever comes to hand. It’s partly because they don’t have guns, and partly because they’re strong enough to chuck a cat into orbit. Accuracy is usually another matter.

    Unfortunately, in this case Anorexic Vampire Elvis Mummy seems to have been practicing. Either that, or he meant to