Free Don’t Bite the Messenger by Regan Summers

sound like Malcolm, thank God. Behind me, the lightbulbs cracked and fizzled out as the fight escalated. I spun onto the last landing and stumbled to a halt, breathing hard.
    A figure stood at the bottom of the stairs, pale yellow hair plastered to his skull. Price’s right-hand man. Richard. A woman lay limp at his feet, and he held her arm as though he was dragging her. She wore green scrubs and looked familiar, someone I’d passed in the parking lot in the morning maybe. The suckers had to influence someone to let them in. I hoped that was all they’d done to her.
    The Nazi wannabe dropped the woman, who rolled onto her side, her arms wrapping around her middle. That was a good sign. He climbed two steps and stopped, widening his stance, trying to block me in.
    “Come with me,” he said. His words filled my head with cold fog and glass shards of pain. I backed up until I hit the wall, my throat tight as though I was choking on the command. I blinked, clearing my eyes and my head. Go with him? So not going to happen. I had to get past him and buy myself thirty seconds to get to the Suburban.
    “Yes,” I murmured, pushing off the wall and picking up speed. His head tilted to the side, probably wondering what he’d done to elicit such an enthusiastic response. I dropped my left shoulder, grabbed the banister with both hands and kicked off of the stairs. My legs sailed out in front of me and I tensed, striking him in the chest. He crashed into the corner.
    I landed hard and rolled until the wall stopped me. I pulled myself into a crouch and felt around in my bag until my fingers brushed the scored hilt of my knife. I snapped out the six-inch blade. The woman’s eyes were glazed, her mouth moving weakly. The vamp was motionless. Another howl from above, then the sound of wood splintering. I ran.
    Flat-out, barreling out of the building and sprinting for the truck. The door crashed open behind me, and prickly cold energy slapped against my back. He was coming. I slid around the Suburban, bent knees locking as I lowered myself reflexively to stay upright. I ran a few steps into the street when the ice ended.
    And then the world tore open. The top of the apartment building exploded in a deafening burst of smoke and wood. I turned, catching a glimpse of the roof blowing outward, and then the sucker hit me. I tucked my chin when he tried to get an arm around my neck, rolled with him as we landed hard against an icy drift. His arm tightened around my waist, and he dragged me up, pushing me back against the snowbank with a cold, hard hand. The hilt of the knife bit into my palm, the blade pressing back along my forearm.
    Richard’s mouth moved, lips stretching around partially dropped fangs. I couldn’t hear anything but the underwater sound of my own breathing. Debris rained down on us, broken flaming bits of my home. He twitched, and then he arched backward, hands scrabbling, trying to reach something on his back. Flames crept up his shoulders. I shoved his arm down and swung the knife.
    He turned his head, thinking I was trying to punch him. I straightened my wrist and the blade flashed out, slicing across his face. Scrambling backward, I kicked him off of my legs and staggered to my feet. He writhed, his blood steaming in the cold air.
    I jogged down the block then crouched between two cars, panting. My hands shook as I wiped the knife on a tissue, forced it to fold and stowed it. The building burned. The fourth floor was gone, the second and third torn open. Orange flames danced inside of roiling black smoke. The squeal of car alarms and the security system pierced the cotton in my ears. People from nearby buildings wandered into the street, staring at the building, dazed. They were all human. My shoulders slumped. Malcolm wasn’t among them.
    A hand weakly gripped my ankle, and I leapt to my feet. Richard crawled toward me, his flesh waxen and pale. The yellow hair at the back of his head had burned off, the bottom of