XIX
Muddy water splashed up onto Ansel's and Slate's pants cuffs as they trudged through the waterlogged streets of downtown Odette. Alone in the dark together, Slate had been complaining about nothing and everything for the past half hour.
"Total bullshit," he repeated for the hundredth time. "Two people to take care of one lunatic in a cell."
Slate walked ahead of Ansel and had his hood pulled down so far over his head that he couldn't see the exasperated look that passed over his partner's face. Flicking the stub of his cigarette into the gutter, he exhaled audibly and said, "Bellyaching won't change it."
"'Bellyaching'? What the fuck?"
"Griping," Ansel said with a wave of his hand. "Complaining. Whining. You are the single most miserable cuss I've known in a hot minute and that's saying something."
Slate peered over his shoulder and let out a braying laugh. "Fuck me, what crawled up your ass and died?"
"Shut up."
This had Slate fully turning to face him with a fanged jeer. "Come on, Dog, lighten up," he said, and for a moment the ghost of Wolcott's face lingered next to him. “You've been in a mood all day. What's wrong, your boyfriend dump you?"
Bristling, Ansel snapped, "Fuck off, Jesus Christ. You are just about the last person on earth I wanna talk to about this. Why Baptiste had to go and turn the most annoying man I ever met is beyond me."
With a snort, Slate turned his back on Ansel again. "Cuz I get results," he said, pulling up proudly on the shoulders of his hoodie. "Better question is why'd he turn Olive when all she does is fuck him and fuck around with you?"
The hairs on Ansel's neck stood on end as a chill ran through him. She already hates you. "Fuck you care?" he asked, kicking a discarded soda bottle into the street.
Slate shrugged. "Making conversation," he said. He lapsed into merciful silence for another block before glancing back over his shoulder. "You sure you wouldn't rather do this?"
"What happened to you getting results?" Ansel asked through a glower. "Besides, I got no way into that cell."
Swaying from side to side as if considering a complicated problem, Slate said, "It's not that hard to—"
Ansel cut him off with a gruff, "Stop." The man was about as subtle as a sledgehammer. "You get what orders are, right? I can't teach you shit, so let's just get this over with so we can get out of this fucking rain." Though Slate shot him a dubious look, he did as Ansel said and dropped the subject.
It wasn't long before the police station loomed out of the mist like a fortress. The pair couldn't risk getting any closer than catty-corner to the building, huddling together underneath an awning that only blocked the worst of the rain and none of the chill. Despite the dimness of their surroundings, Ansel's supernatural vision was unimpeded as he scanned up one side of the street and down the other for any prying eyes. Satisfied, he nodded at Slate who slipped his skin and melded into the night as a cloud of vapor.
Tempting as it was to leave, Ansel stayed put and lit a cigarette as he idled on the street corner, making a show out of looking at his phone. Few people were out in the weather and the ones who braved the cold hurried past him without a second glance. As a biting wind cut past him, he was reminded again that his best jacket had been abandoned at Hector's. His stomach twisted into a knot that had nothing to do with nerves about the job he was currently on.
In fact, as much as he hated the backtalk, he would grudgingly admit Slate was right in his self-assessment — he got results, and Ansel never had to fret about whether or not the job would be done. Tonight was one of the simpler plans to follow: get in, kill Malczyn, and leave the mess to Cutter.
"Don't I know you?" a voice asked behind him.
Spinning on his heel, Ansel came face to face with a woman he didn't recognize in the slightest. Solid with blonde hair collected in a tight ponytail at the nape of her neck, she had stopped only a few feet behind him with her hand on her hip. Although her tone was casual and open to conversation, she held herself with some manner of authority and her blue eyes were trained on him like a hunting dog.
"I don't believe so," he said, turning his head away from both her and the station.
"Yeah, sure we do," she said, stepping around to his line of sight again. "I've seen you at Arlo's, right?"
It was a safe question, nearly everyone in Odette had been to the local watering hole at least once and Ansel was no exception. It was possible she had seen him there, but it sounded more like the woman was fishing for something. Something about how comfortable she was to be invading his personal space set off an alarm in his head, but he was having trouble connecting pieces together while keeping an ear out for Slate. "I don't drink," he replied.
"That's not what I said."
Fuck. She'd caught his deflection for what it was and he could feel the jaws of some unseen trap ready to spring shut. There was a flicker of something in her pulse as she waited for his answer, and she'd taken a half step away from him.
"Listen, lady—" he started. He'd been intending to try a different tactic, but the words were closed off in his throat when Slate rematerialized behind her shoulder, his hoodie and face crimson red with blood.
The woman picked up on the change of his expression in an instant and whirled on the spot, unholstering a handgun in one fluid movement. "Alright, don't move, I'm— is that blood?" Her prepared speech had ended in a gasp of shock as she took in Slate's ghoulish figure on the street corner.
Time slowed down as Slate first glanced Ansel's direction and gave a halfhearted shrug as if to say what're you gonna do? Before Ansel could utter a word of protest, Slate again dissipated into mist, appearing to leave the two of them alone.
Ansel must have cried out then or else made some sudden movement without realizing it, because the next sensation he had was several blows punching through his midsection. No matter how cool she'd been trying to play it, the woman was as twitchy as a rabbit and had opened fire in his direction. Knocked back by the kinetic force, Ansel stumbled over his heels and began to fall to the ground.
She would have dumped the whole clip into him if Slate hadn't grabbed her suddenly from behind, one hand firmly on the underside of her locked hands and the other gripping her tightly bound hair. Gunshots rang out into the night with a deafening roar and bullets glanced off the facade of the building beside them, showering them with shards of brick.
Ansel tried to shout, but was unable to draw a breath and his vision darkened and swirled with the effort. The only sounds he could make were the wet, sucking noises of his punctured chest wall as he desperately tried to fill collapsed lungs. With incredible effort he hauled himself up onto one elbow and could only watch as Slate jerked the woman's head to the side and sank his fangs deep into her now exposed neck.
Arterial spray, thick and dark, glittered in the streetlight as Slate tore his face away from her. She fell to the ground with a sickening crack, one feeble hand crawling to her gushing neck before landing slack on her chest.
As Ansel's wounds finally knit themselves together, undoing the massive trauma he'd sustained, the time bubble around the street corner popped. Someone a half block up was leaning out their window and yelling and dogs in the damaged building were barking at a threat that no longer existed. Slick, bloodied hands dug at Ansel's arms, urging him to his feet.
"We gotta go," Slate hissed in his ear.
Dazed from the blood loss and the bottoming out of adrenaline from the chaos just moments before, Ansel was slow to rise and slower to comprehend the situation. He looked at Slate like a stunned cow, and the razor sharp snap of his Thirst against Slate's brought him renewed focus. "What the fuck. What the fuck," he gasped.
Gripping both of his shoulders, Slate pulled his face close to Ansel; through the rain, the hot, metallic scent of blood stung his nostrils. "Run!" he roared, pushing him away and taking off down the street at breakneck speed.
Even if his mind was still disengaged, his legs heard the call to action and Ansel broke away from the scene in the opposite direction Slate had taken. Although his body had healed over the damage, his reserves were now beyond tapped— the meal Baptiste had given him had barely been sufficient for maintaining his Thirst. His skin shuddered as if he was being licked by live flames, and his muscles all cramped and constricted. The scant few people he whirled past in his flight were little more than pulses wrapped up in a blur; he couldn't make out any faces, they were just the alluring promise of a blood meal. All of these were signs he was perilously close to tipping headlong into a frenzy.
He couldn't go back to the mansion. He wasn't sure he could even make it that far. This realization brought him to a sudden halt in an alleyway. His heart pounded irregularly in his chest and his breath caught in his throat causing him to double over, hands gripping tight to his knees. Nearly all conscious thought had left him, his mind was a beast circling desperately from one unpleasant future to another.
A passing car's headlights illuminated a street sign in the corner of his eye, and he latched onto it like a beacon. The jumble of letters meant something, even if he couldn't make out the word for what it was. Somehow it promised safety, it promised relief and comfort and protection. His feet turned and carried him down the street, away from the chaos and din of sirens and lights that flared to life behind him.
He gave himself to fate, to let it swallow him up and trusted he would make it through to the other side.