A Perfect Blood

broken woman’s shoulder. Wherever she was taking her, I doubted very much that it was going to be the waiting suspects van. She was going to be halfway to a safe house three minutes after reaching the surface. Nina was going to suffer enough emotional trauma. Putting her in jail wasn’t going to help. Was I as corrupt as Trent?
    “You’re letting her walk away!” the brunette shouted at their vanishing shadows. “Damn clot suckers! You’re not going to get away with this,” she yelled, spittle flying as she leaned forward against her bonds and raved. “I’ll track her down myself and—”
    “Will you shut up!” I shouted, having enough of her to last a lifetime.
    The woman grinned at me, her mascara running from her sweat. “What’s the matter with you, you little chubi?” she mocked, and my breath sucked in.
    Jenks’s wings clattered, and the murmured conversations suddenly ceased as my face paled.
    “What did you call me?” I said, my voice quavering in anger at the crude, vulgar insult aimed at witches that had evolved during the Turn.
    “Chubi, rhymes with booby, which you don’t have, or doodie, which is what your face looks like,” she said smugly, leaning back and making her chair squeak.
    Appalled, I could do nothing as the men and women behind Glenn retreated farther into the shadows. “Get her out of here,” Glenn said harshly, and two men hastened forward to volunteer, living vampires by the look of it, wheeling the woman past the still-standing milky plastic sheets to the distant elevator, eager to get out of Dr. Cordova’s sight.
    “Get your fucking hands off me, you bloody clots!” the woman was shouting, and Glenn’s face darkened.
    “If I may speak to you, Detective?” Dr. Cordova intruded smoothly.
    Glenn briefly acknowledged her, then turned to me instead, making her angrier. “I, ah, need to tie off a few ends here,” he said, ignoring Dr. Cordova for a moment more. “I’ll see you upstairs. You did good, Rachel, despite not staying at the car.”
    I smirked, and Jenks snorted from my shoulder. “Yeah, we all did good,” Jenks said tartly. “Can we get out of here? Rache, I’ll show you the way to the elevator.”
    He darted into the dark, and I shook hands with Glenn. Pulling him into me, I whispered, “I don’t care what she says, getting a HAPA member alive is more than the I.S. or the FIB has done in forty years.”
    “That’s what I’m afraid of,” he muttered back. “I have to keep that foul woman alive.”
    “Now, Detective!”
    Our hands parted, and I gave him one last look before smiling at Dr. Cordova’s anger. The adrenaline sparkling through me was wearing off, leaving a pleasant feeling of satisfaction. Past the remaining sheets of plastic, the air was cooler and didn’t stink of vampire. Breathing deep, I followed Jenks’s fading trail of dust and the distant sound of the woman’s continual threats. I’d take the stairs. If I was stuck in an elevator with her, one of us wasn’t going to come out alive.
    “I’ve seen you, chubi!” the woman screamed at me, seeing me through the closed doors as I walked into the puddle of light spilling out onto the concrete floor from the huge industrial-size elevator. “We’re going to get you. Your clot and rotter can’t protect you!”
    One of the vampires with her stopped the door from closing so I could ride up with them, and I rocked back with my thumbs in my pockets. “You’re kidding, right?” I said, and he shrugged, letting the door go.
    “There are more of us than you!” the woman howled as the doors began closing again. “We’re everywhere! You’re dead.”
    Jenks landed on my shoulder. “Can’t they shut her up?”
    “Dead!” she shouted through the metal doors, and the elevator hummed to life, rising.
    Behind me, I could hear Dr. Cordova reaming Glenn out. No one would be coming up anytime soon, and I reached for the fire door to the nearby stairway. The stairwell was dark and unlit, but Jenks was dusting heavily enough to see by. The walls were cold and damp, and I wrapped my arms around myself for the first couple of flights, letting go when my exertions warmed me.
    “Don’t let it get to you, Rache. She’s just an ignorant lunker,” Jenks said as he rested at one of the turns.
    “Person,” I said, head down to watch my footing. “She’s a person. Scared and ignorant. She doesn’t know better.” That’s what I kept telling myself, but I’d never been