"We're going to meet Bill at David Workman's residence," Gavin announced, once we got everything settled in. Bill was working late hours—it was two in the morning. Roff checked his watch and informed me of the time. We climbed back in the van and drove to Edmond, leaving Roff behind.
Don's brother, David, worked as an accountant for a large energy firm in Oklahoma City; Sara was a manager for a local restaurant chain. Both made good money and had a nice house in southeast Edmond. Bill arranged to meet us outside the house, along with two human agents, neither of whom I knew. Xenides' scent hit me the moment we walked through the front door. Well, Bill could hear my mindspeech; he just couldn't reciprocate.
Xenides was here, I sent to him. He nodded to acknowledge the sending. Another vampire was with him—a sibling to two others I met recently, I added. It had to be Dominic—the same scent surrounded Thaddeus and Lorenzo. Bill didn't blink at my revelation. I then sent the same information to Tony, Gavin and René—I didn't want Bill's two agents to get the information. Better that they didn't know anything at all about us. I walked through Sara's kitchen and got a whiff of the scents there. "Sara's dead," I blurted, beginning to shake. I smelled her death. I wasn't sure it had been violent; there wasn't any scent of blood. However, a heart attack or a broken neck could also be the cause. I wondered how her health had been before the vampires came to call.
"You're sure?" Bill stepped across the tiled floor, stopping beside me. The other two agents stared at me, wondering how I'd come to that conclusion.
"She's sure," Tony walked up beside me. Send your agents to the car, I sent to Bill. Bill ordered the two men out of the house.
"I don't smell her blood, I just smell her death," I said after the two agents had gone out to Bill's car in the driveway. "Has the backyard been checked?"
"We looked it over but we didn't bring any dogs—we didn't want to confuse the scents," Bill said. At least he'd known to do that much.
Let's go out, then." Bill led us through the house and out the patio door.
The scent that hit me when we walked into the backyard was overwhelming in its stench—wild animal mixed with Saxom's taint and Dark Elemaiya. I grabbed Bill's arm and barely had time to toss him inside the house, slamming the French doors in his face before they were on us.
Our three attackers resembled grizzly bears with the heads of giant cats—all had huge canines, reminding me of drawings I'd seen of saber tooth tigers. One was doing his best to savage Tony; he'd been closest to the creatures and they'd jumped him first. René wanted to help Tony, but had a creature of his own to battle. I misted after Tony's attacker, coming up behind him as he clawed Tony to the ground, preparing to bite him in half. The growls and screams from those creatures were deafening as they leapt at their intended prey, tearing up huge clumps of earth with enormous, clawed feet. If David had still been alive, he'd have had an aneurysm. He'd been rabidly meticulous about his lawn.
Since I'd turned to mist as soon as we were attacked, I allowed my hands and claws to materialize, severing the thick spine at the neck of Tony's monster. The animal roared in agony before falling over and turning to ash. The noise of battle had brought Bill's agents rushing into the backyard. Both began firing at the animal Gavin was fighting. Neither Gavin nor his opponent was making any headway; it looked to be a standoff between them.
"Stop shooting!" Bill shouted as he forced his way past the jammed French door—I'd slammed it pretty hard. René was having the same luck that Gavin was having; he'd gotten a slash down his arm but the creature hadn't been able to do better than that against him. One of the agents got in a final shot as I removed the head of René's attacker, and the bullet managed to lodge in my exposed forearm. I shrieked mentally as the bullet slammed into my flesh; I think everyone there heard it.
There wasn’t time to deal with the injury, however. I went to help Gavin, who still hadn't been touched. That battle was like a tornado, with both of them attacking and retreating so swiftly I had difficulty getting in to kill Gavin's monster. When I finally got his attacker down and flaking, I rematerialized, causing both human agents to jump. Tony was right there, injured as he was, placing compulsion. René was beside him, helping in seconds. Gavin gripped my arm and began to examine my bullet wound.
"Hold still, cara, I can see it," he said, and forming a claw on an index finger, he carefully dug inside the wound, flipping the bullet out in no time while I clenched my teeth to keep from whimpering.
"What the hell were those things?" Bill had waited patiently for Gavin to finish performing minor surgery before demanding answers. I let my head droop against Gavin's chest. I knew what they were and hoped there weren't any more of them.
"Vampire shapeshifters," I mumbled against Gavin's shirt. Gavin drew in a sharp breath. So did Director Bill Jennings.
We were sitting inside the house later; it was too late to contact Wlodek so I left a message for him on Charles's cell before calling Merrill and doing the same for him. I carefully explained as best I could what we'd fought. Xenides was probably hoping to take out my guards so he could either take me or track me. I'm sure one of the shapeshifters would have been happy to grab me if he could and haul me off to Xenides. How they planned to do that, however, was a mystery. Even Xenides knew how fast I could go to mist; he'd seen it himself. They must have been relying on compulsion to do the job.
Gavin helped Tony with his wounds while I made my calls; Tony wasn't thrilled to have his slashes washed out thoroughly with soap and water, but Gavin was giving him a lesson on the fact that anything caught inside the cuts and not washed out would heal right over, trapping the debris inside. Tony had three deep rakes across his chest where he'd been clawed, along with a slash down his left arm when he'd held it up to protect his face. Gavin and René cleaned out all of Tony's wounds.
René submitted to his subsequent cleaning with stoic acceptance, grunting his thanks to Gavin when it was done. Bill, of course, was watching everything with fascination. He'd sent the two human agents back to the car, but only after Gavin checked the yard and surrounding area—it looked as if we'd gotten what was there to attack us.
* * *
"My lord, our three bears are dead." Angelo hid the smile behind his sly joke. He was a shapeshifter, just as the others were, but his shape was that of a bird—a blackbird, actually. If any of the vampires had been able to hear over the noise of the growls and the heat of battle, they might have heard the rush of his wings as he'd taken flight, making slow circles overhead as he watched the last of the three shapeshifters go down. They'd all died at the hands of the little female; he'd seen her claws form to take heads. Xenides truly would love to have her, he knew, but the task of taking her seemed quite difficult.