![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: The Lies You Live
Author: alyse
Fandom: Blade: Trinity
Pairing: Abigail Whistler/Hannibal King
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Highlight to read: violence, implications of past torture and sexual abuse, potential triggers for suicidal thoughts and actions.
Notes: This is the extended, higher rated director's cut version of the story, being posted in parts over the next week or so. If you'd prefer not to wait, a complete (non-sexy, rated 15!) version can be found here. Also, there is fabulous art by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
skylar0grace here.
Summary: Hunting is in her blood and in her bones, but when Abigail Whistler's path crosses that of a smart-mouthed vampire who seems perfectly happy to die, she's left questioning everything she thought she knew. While her team work to cure Hannibal King of his vampirism with an experimental antivirus, she finds herself warming to their captive in spite of her reservations, and when their actions turn out to have devastating consequences, Abby's loyalties are left torn.
Masterlist: dreamwidth :: livejournal :: insanejournal
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Part 08: dreamwidth :: livejournal :: insanejournal
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Thirty minutes into their night-time sortie and Estevez was already chomping at the bit. There was a hard edge to his impatience, something razor sharp and raw that had her fighting the urge to bash his head against the wall. Instead, she gritted her teeth and cursed Frank Reilly's name as she clung to every scrap of patience she could find, focusing on the mission instead. The mission was the important thing. Her blood pressure would just have to wait.
She had to keep Estevez on a tight leash as they moved through the streets and alleys, canvassing the area in a logical progression. She wasn't going to let his impatience - or his rapidly deteriorating language - get to her. She was ice, unmoved and unyielding, and if she ended up having to freeze his hot tempered ass, she'd do just that.
Hunting something like a blood bank wasn't like popping a few vamps in the subway. It was always a long game so she wasn't surprised when they found nothing at first, but Estevez's impatience grew with each dead end. His attitude did nothing to convince her that Frank was right about him being ready, but when they reached the fifth building they checked - a newly constructed and supposedly empty office building judging by the signs outside - there were lights on inside.
It could have been nothing - cleaners, security, maybe even the architect doing whatever the hell it was that architects did - but it was worth checking out and it wasn't as though they'd had any other leads this evening. A brief recon of the building found her a back door, something that would be a service entrance when the building was occupied, and the locks on it were flimsy and no match for her picks. There were no alarms installed, not yet. She hadn't expected any, but it paid to be careful and so she still hesitated, listening hard and ignoring Estevez's impatient hiss while she double checked that there was no one in the vicinity before she slipped inside.
They moved slowly through the dark interior of the building, Estevez practically standing on her heels, he was so impatient to see some action. She was about ready to abandon the whole thing as a bust when she finally heard voices and motioned for Estevez to stop, holding up a finger to keep him silent.
He subsided, sending her a glare that she also ignored as she strained her ears to catch more of the conversation.
The voices were too distant, too muffled for her to make out, and she bit her lip in frustration, only hesitating for a moment as she scoped out what she could see of the rest of the building. There were stairs to the left. Unlike the rest of the building so far, they were dimly lit and seemed a likely prospect. She darted up them, keeping her steps light and with Estevez still hard on her heels. It took her to a landing, one that oversaw the rest of the foyer, high class for the neighbourhood, something in minimalist steel and glass. She guessed it was pretty, but she was less concerned with that than the fact that the style meant there was no cover.
She dropped to her knees, motioning for Estevez to do likewise, and this time he didn't argue but dropped awkwardly where she'd pointed. He was finally paying attention to her, his dark eyes fixed on her, but he was still too eager for her peace of mind.
She couldn't dwell on it now, not when she had other things to focus on. She paused for a moment, listening hard to the movements below, but nothing in the low hum of voices gave her any immediate cause for alarm. They hadn't been spotted yet, but they hadn't spotted anything else either, which meant it was make or break time. She lowered herself to her stomach and wormed her way closer to the edge, moving as silently as she could and staying low and out of sight. When she reached the railings she stopped and listened again, not risking raising her head until she was sure her movements hadn't been overheard.
The lights she'd seen from outside had come from the foyer below, and when she peered over the edge there were dark clad figures down there, their stances tight and focused. She counted six before she ducked her head back down again, her mind busy cataloguing and assessing what she'd seen. They were armed, which was enough cause for alarm, but they were carrying semiautomatic pistols, which wasn't like any kind of building security she was familiar with. At least two of them were also carrying larger semi-automatic rifles and that, combined with the fact that they all wore earpieces, told her they were professionals, or at least liked to think they were. It also meant that they were in contact with someone, and probably taking orders from that same someone.
This wasn't a small-time op, no matter what Frank's sources had said. This was one of the clans - it had to be given the levels of human security below. Only one of the larger clans could afford that much heavily armed muscle, because they sure as hell weren't on any landlord's payroll.
Estevez took advantage of her distraction, crawling up beside her and sticking his own stupid head over the parapet. He raised his weapon and she pushed it down, glaring at him and resisting the urge to smack some sense into him. Tempting as it was, it wouldn't work, not judging by the way that his jaw was tightly clenched and his eyes were burning fiercely.
Instead she jerked her head towards the back of the landing, holding his gaze and staring him down until he shuffled back reluctantly, constantly casting heated looks back in the direction of the armed goons. She stole a last look herself before following him.
"They're vamps," he hissed in her ear as soon as she'd caught up to him. "Why aren't we taking them out?"
"Because they're not vamps," she whispered back, casting another look back towards the edge of the landing. "They're human."
"They're familiars," he snarled. "Fucking vermin. We should take them out anyway."
"Before we know why they're here?" Even though she was still whispering, she didn't bother to hide the contempt in her voice and Estevez's nostrils flared dangerously. "You know where their owners are? What they're up to?"
He didn't but he refused to acknowledge his own ignorance, simply staring at her, his eyes flashing.
"No, I didn't think so. The plan hasn't changed. We find out what we can first, then we decide whether or not we're taking them out."
He looked like he wanted to argue further, but she cut him off with a hand gesture before he could, holding his eyes as she stabbed a warning finger back towards the railings. He subsided, looking resentful, but she didn't give a shit how he felt about it. The important thing was that he did what he was told and kept quiet.
With Estevez finally under control, she could focus on the best way to proceed. She chewed at her lip, her eyes rapidly scanning the rest of the building, or at least as much of it as she could see from their precarious position. The building wasn't large; that much she been able to tell from outside. It was only three, maybe four storeys high, but it still had elevators, and there was one on either side of the balcony they were hiding on.
It was a bad position, and not just because they risked being seen from the foyer below. If anyone decided to make a visit to this floor, they'd be trapped like rats.
She headed back towards the stairs, making a 'follow me' gesture in Estevez's direction. He scowled at her, her earlier abruptness obviously not having been forgiven, but since he fell into step behind her just like she wanted she ignored his bad temper as she led the way. At least if she went first she could head him off before he could do something stupid.
There was no point in heading down. As much as she hated the idea of being trapped by the goons below, they weren't ever going to figure out what was going on without searching the rest of the building, at least superficially. That left up, and Estevez wasn't the only one who wasn't happy about it.
Their luck held. While the stairwells were lit, there were no lights on any of the other floors, nothing to indicate that any of the rooms were occupied, at least not tonight. Vampires could see better in the dark than humans, but they were no fonder of working in pitch black than any human Abby had ever met. That told her that any action happening tonight must be downstairs in the foyer, which also told her where they needed to be.
Estevez glowered at her when her hand gestures indicated that they should both descend the stairs again, but she was getting good at ignoring him. She pushed past him, leading the way while he slunk sullenly behind her.
She took her time, checking every doorway and pausing frequently to scan the area even though she was hyperaware of Estevez snapping at her heels. The rooms had been clear when they'd gone up, but that was no guarantee that they'd still be clear on the way down, and Estevez needed to understand that. And her caution was proven right - they reached the balcony again without incident, but as she slipped through the final door, still on the alert, she heard the steady tap of footsteps against the marble floor in the foyer below and the low murmur of voices again.
At least one of the voices was new - higher pitched, sharp and demanding. Abby couldn't make out the words, but there was no mistaking that the speaker was female. Vamps were traditionalist when it came to their muscle, and given the way this new woman was snapping out orders, she wasn't a familiar either. That left only one possibility, and Abby's mouth curled up in a small, triumphant smile.
Gotcha.
She threw up her hand again, stopping Estevez in his tracks and gesturing for him to hold back while she scouted closer to the edge of the railings. She got a belligerent look in return and it was beyond getting old. No matter what Frank's views were, no way was she taking Estevez out with her again unless he underwent a major attitude adjustment.
But she'd deal with that later. Right now her priority was the vamps below.
She edged toward the railing, keeping close to the wall, her hand on her weapon. If there were still only six down there plus the vamp, maybe she and Estevez could take them out from up here. If not... well, vamps were no better at looking up than humans were, and as long as she kept quiet, they probably wouldn't see her. And if they did, she'd have a better chance of getting out of sight before they could do anything about it if she was on her feet.
But when she peered over the edge, there wasn't just one vamp down in the foyer - there were several, and they'd brought their own toy soldiers along.
She ducked back out of sight, swearing copiously under her breath. Instead of six armed security guards, there were at least fifteen to twenty now, and she'd spotted at least five vamps, easily singled out by their lack of uniform and atrocious dress sense.
Estevez was waiting by the doorway, glaring at her impatiently. She slipped back towards him on soundless feet, her heart racing fast in her chest and the adrenaline already surging through her as she led him back into the stairwell.
"We got trouble," she said briefly, paying more attention to her gun than to Estevez. Her fingers, she was pleased to note, weren't shaking; instead they were steady, and her palms stayed dry. "Familiars, a lot of them. More than we can safely handle."
"Any vamps?" he asked, his voice low and intense. There was something in his tone that made her wary, something that had her hesitating before she finally nodded her head.
It was the wrong choice. Estevez's eyes lit up with an unholy light, his muscles tensing in a way that tipped her off. She grabbed hold of his jacket, but her fingers slipped away before she could sink them into the fabric and he hurled himself down the stairs with no thought of his own safety, his face twisted in an inhuman snarl.
She swore, not bothering to keep her voice quiet, not when Estevez was already screaming out his fury, a long, wordless bellow of rage as he burst through the doorway below, his guns blasting before he'd even managed to lock onto a target.
He didn't seem to care about not getting himself killed, and it was fucked in the head that Abby did.
She leapt the last few steps, hitting the ground at a run and charging through the door after him.
In spite of the noise Estevez had made, he'd still managed to take some of them by surprise. There were three down - humans judging by the blood that was spreading across the floor. Estevez had hit the first one in the head. Abby stepped over the ruins of his face, coolly targeting one of his fellow goons, who'd recovered enough to bring his weapon around to bear on Estevez. She fired twice and he went down, clutching his throat, blood spurting through his fingers.
Normally she came alive during this part, riding the wave of adrenaline surging through her, leaving her loose limbed and fluid. But there was no time to get into that zone, not when Estevez took a bullet high in his shoulder, the force of the impact spinning him around. It didn't stop him. He straightened up, still howling, spittle flying from his mouth.
She was on his attackers before they knew she was there, taking down the first familiar with a bullet in the chest, knocking him back several feet as the jacketed round impacted with his Kevlar vest. She kicked the second one in the face, moving in to block the blow aimed by the third and using her momentum to spin him around, shielding herself from the bullets sprayed in her direction with his body.
Somewhere behind and to the left of her Estevez screamed again, his voice full of hatred and wordless with it. She turned towards him just as a familiar shot in her direction again. The bullet ripped through the sleeve of her shirt leaving a line of fire in its wake.
She swore, spinning on her heels and putting a silver hollowpoint into the brain of the snarling vamp who had launched himself at Estevez. Her aim was off; she'd been aiming for his chest but at least she'd hit him.
She swapped her gun to her left hand, pulling out her silver blade with her right. Her arm burned, but she pushed the pain out of her mind, moving past it and focusing on keeping the pair of them alive.
Estevez was still screaming, lost in his fury, and she heard the snap-snap as he fired indiscriminately, his bullets ricocheting around the room. She turned towards him, keeping low and moving fast as the bullets whined overhead, but a black figure lurched into her path, blocking her and hiding Estevez from view. She ducked, bringing her knife up to slide it neatly underneath the Kevlar vest the familiar wore and sink it into his stomach. Blood spilled over her hand, and the knife slipped in her grip she pulled it free. He let out a grunt of surprise but it didn't stop him from punching her in the side of the head, the blow hard enough to snap her head back on her neck and leave her ears ringing.
She staggered back as he caught hold of her hair, sinking cruel fingers into it and pulling her towards him as he aimed another punch at her face. This time she managed to deflect it with her forearm so that the blow glanced off her forehead, ignoring the sharp, stabbing pain that flared in her arm as she drove her knife back into him, into his neck this time.
It sank in several inches and he dropped like a stone, his blood soaking her hand past the wrist. The sharp, metallic scent of it hit the back of her throat, making her eyes smart.
She left him where he fell, already scanning the chaos around her for Estevez, her eyes frantic and her heart pounding fast and fierce in her chest.
Estevez had stopped screaming, which did nothing to reassure her that he was still alive. She moved forward, taking down familiars as she went, her eyes constantly skimming the crowd, searching him out. When she finally located him, his face was grim and set, sheer madness burning in his eyes. His t-shirt was soaked with blood, and some of it was his. There were two neat holes in the fabric, high on his chest.
It wasn't slowing him down; he'd locked onto his target and it seemed that nothing was going to stop him, not even bullet holes.
His target was staring back at him, her head raised haughtily and her expression contorted into a look of ice-cold rage. Abby caught a brief glimpse of high heels and higher, teased hair, of a tight black dress and perfectly made up face, distorted by those sharp, snarling fangs, before another vamp was in her face, howling as he knocked her down onto the floor.
She landed on her hip, crying out as a sharp pain dug into her flesh and tasting blood as her teeth caught against the inside of her mouth. She automatically brought her legs up to push away the vamp as he rushed her, and it was only that automatic move that saved her. He was big, brutal, all muscle and very little in the way of brains. She drove her silver knife straight into his chest when he rushed her again, and he exploded into ash and dust around her.
Sliding her arms underneath her, she pushed herself to her feet, limping as the pain in her hip caught up with her. She refused to let it slow her down, already back to scanning the room for Estevez.
It was too late; he was already dead even if he didn't know it yet. The female vamp had her fangs sunk deep into his neck, tearing out his throat rather than feeding. Her eyes met Abby's, her face smeared into a macabre red mask as she let Estevez drop to the floor like a hunk of meat.
Pure fury flashed through Abby and she brought her gun up, swinging it to bear on the bitch in front of her. But before she could fire, something hard and heavy slammed into her back, knocking her onto the floor again, her weapon jerked out of her fingers and skittering across the floor.
Whoever had her pinned was snarling, and she could feel the heat of his breath against the back of her neck. It stank, heavy with the scent of old blood, and she slammed her elbow up, catching him in the side of the neck. He loosened his grip briefly and she took advantage of it to wriggle away as far as she could, rolling onto her back so that she could fight with both feet and fists.
He punched her in the face, only the fact that she jerked her head away from him at the last moment saving her from a broken nose. Instead his fist slid along her cheekbone, leaving another wave of fire in its wake before it slammed into the floor.
He howled, a sound of mingled pain and rage, his fangs flashing as he lunged for her again. This time she drove the steel-capped toe of her boot into his groin and he doubled over. Male vamps were as vulnerable to that as any sleaze ball of a human.
She rolled over onto her side, trying to push herself up and put some distance between them, but her wounded arm buckled underneath her weight and she fell to the floor again with a gasp, cursing under her breath.
The vamp hurled himself at her again, incandescent with fury and howling out his rage. She scrabbled away from him towards her gun, but before she could reach it, it was kicked away from her by a pair of very expensive, very high heels.
When Abby looked up, the woman was smirking down at her, Estevez's blood still smeared across her face and down over her chin. Only her teeth shone whitely in the gory mask as her mouth curled up into a vicious grin. She swooped down, sinking her fingers into Abby's hair and hauling her upright.
Abby twisted, driving her fist into the vampire's stomach and earning herself a screech of rage. The vampire grabbed at Abby's wrist before she could land a second blow, gripping it tightly enough for the bones to click and grate as she dragged Abby closer to her, her mouth now curled into a grimace of hatred.
"You're going to regret that, you bitch!"
Abby had no idea where her knife was. She was left resorting to older, more vicious moves, smacking her forehead into the vampire's face and hearing the crunch as the cartilage in the bitch's nose gave way under her onslaught. Vampires healed fast, but that didn't mean they didn't feel pain; she'd learned that much from King.
The vampire staggered back, both hands flying to her flattened nose. The blood flowing down her face now wasn't all Estevez's, and Abby took a certain savage satisfaction in that.
She moved back a few steps, giving herself some room to manoeuvre. She meant to kick her quarry in the head and finish destroying that artfully made up face, but she'd forgotten about the other vamp, the one who'd originally taken her down. He hadn't, however, forgotten about her. His arms clamped around her chest, hard as iron and just as unyielding. It didn't matter how much she kicked or how hard she jerked her head, slamming it back into his face, he just laughed, the sound ripping out of him and sinking its claws into her, leaving ice cold fear in its wake.
She dug her fingernails into the flesh of his arm, clawing wide, blood-filled grooves despite her nails being so short, but it did no good. He was too big, too strong and his grip simply tightened to the point where it drove the breath from her body, leaving her gasping for air as his fingers wrapped around her throat, twisted her head sideways so that he could get to her neck.
Please God, let him kill her, not turn her.
Black spots danced in front of her eyes, the room spinning as her lungs burnt and her chest heaved frantically, fighting for the next breath that wouldn't come. He drew it out cruelly, chuckling low in her ear as though he was getting off on it, each kick and punch she aimed at him only making it all the more enjoyable. And the weaker her struggles grew, the more pleasure he took in it.
She made one last, desperate lunge forward, trying to break his grip, slamming her heel down onto the top of his boot. Her boots were steel-toed and heavy; his were not and he howled in pain, his grip loosening momentarily. She took advantage of it, shifting all of her weight forward as she pushed herself away from him as hard as she could.
She finally broke free - he grabbed for her but he wasn't able to pull her back and she fell forward, landing with a jar on her hands and knees and scooting away as fast as she could. The howl he let out this time was one of rage, but when she looked up, it was the woman who was surging towards her, tottering on those ridiculous shoes, her face twisted up with anger and spite.
Abby rolled to the side just in time to avoid those sharp-heeled shoes slamming down onto her fingers, but that simply pushed her back into the path of the male vamp, whose eyes lit up with a malevolent kind of glee as he stalked towards her.
"Time to pay up, bitch," he snarled, flashing his fangs in a smile that was all shark-toothed hunger. He leaned in towards her, mouth gaping and eyes burning, and then he exploded as someone shot him from behind.
Abby flung up her hand automatically, shielding her face from the dust that blasted over her. Somewhere behind her, the woman shrieked with rage, the sound rising until Abby's eardrums rang with it.
Someone stepped through the ash, a dark shape with dark hair. Abby could barely make him out, not with her eyes burning and her throat smarting as she choked on the taste of dead vamp, but even so, the shape of him and the way he moved was all too familiar, even if the dark shadow of the beard on his face was not.
The woman's voice rose, seeming even angrier now, growing into an ululating howl that bordered on madness. Abby was forgotten as the vamp lunged at the man now standing over her. Before she could attack, someone else loomed out of the chaos, someone tall and blond, too pale and with too sharp teeth to be anything but vamp. He caught hold of the woman around the waist and pulled her away, ignoring the infuriated blows she rained on his head and shoulders and the way she struggled to free herself, her face turned towards Abby and contorted into an ugly, inhuman mask.
"Fucking kill you," she screamed, her eyes bulging and spittle flying from her mouth as her companion dragged her away. "I'll fucking kill you, King!"
King raised his weapon again, ignoring Abby as he aimed it at the still shrieking vampire, but her male companion barked out orders, ones Abby couldn't make out in the cacophony of yelling and gunfire. The few of his lackeys still living had heard him, however, and they fell in behind him, blocking King and cutting him off while the vampires made their escape. King was forced to dive for cover, skidding across the blood-soaked floor. Abby went in the opposite direction, flailing for her gun and bringing it around to bear on the familiar who had King pinned down.
She hit him in the chest, sending him flying, and King returned the favour, taking out the muscle-bound meathead trying to gun her down. The vamp's backup was rapidly diminishing in number, and she took advantage of the lull to crawl over to where Estevez was still sprawled on the floor.
She'd been right - Estevez was dead, his face slack and his eyes dull, the gaping wound in his throat mute testimony to the savagery of the vamp who'd killed him. She took a moment to lean in and press his eyelids closed, his blood soaking into the leather of her pants and staining the skin of her hands. He hadn't deserved this, but perhaps this was what he'd wanted.
"Abby!"
King grabbed at her, his fingers slipping away from her slick leather at first before he finally got a grip on her and dragged her to her feet. "We have to leave. Now!" He spun on the balls of his feet again, the move jerking her sideways as he fired off another couple of rounds, scattering the guards behind them. She could hear the woman still shrieking King's name, the sound almost incoherent with fury, and King's face tightened as he hesitated, staring off in the direction in which the two vamps had retreated. But then he swore, wrapping his free arm around Abby's waist and yanking her in the opposite direction, towards the exit.
She staggered, off-balance as he dragged her over the corpses of the familiars they'd killed. Here and there was a small pile of ash, all that was left of the vamps they'd wasted, but those piles were depressingly few and they'd cost Estevez his life.
A bullet whined overhead, and she ducked instinctively, her hand coming up to protect her head. King was already there, shielding her with his body as he half-dragged, half-carried her, scattering bullets behind them as he laid down a covering fire, not even bothering to look where he was aiming. The threat, however, was enough to keep the few remaining humans off their backs and the vamps had already fled. She'd have enjoyed that if she thought that she was the one they feared.
King hit the door with his shoulder and it flew open with a bang as they spilled out into the cool night air. He jerked suddenly, stumbling and throwing her off-balance again, but then he straightened up, dragging her out of the way so that he could slam the door shut.
There was no time for Abby to catch her breath, not when the familiars behind them would already be regrouping. She glanced both ways down the alley, somehow expecting to see Frank and Dex, as though they could possibly have heard the gunfire from wherever they were. But she and King were alone, nothing but the rapidly approaching sound of footsteps as the cockroaches finally found their courage.
"This way," King snapped out, reaching out to grab hold of her wrist again, his eyes focused on the far end of the alley, the opposite direction from where she and Estevez had come. She shook him off, pulling her hand back towards her body and cradling it carefully as though on some level she was afraid that he'd make another grab for her. He stopped in his tracks and gave her a disbelieving look. "You want to do this now, Whistler?" There was a shout from the interior of the building. She couldn't make out what was said, but it didn't sound good, and King licked at his lips, glancing back at the door they'd exited nervously.
"Any second now," he said, leaning in and dropping his voice urgently, "some heavily armed goons are going to burst through that door and try to put a couple of bullets in our heads. I'd kind of like to not be here when that happens."
She still hesitated, glancing back towards the doorway herself, torn between facing the danger behind and facing King.
"Jesus, Whistler." He ran his hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up in disarray. And then he seemed to reach a decision, reaching out again and pushing her this time, not grabbing her, but still managing to steer her in the direction he wanted. "You can kick my ass later if you want, but right now it's Splitsville."
She stopped resisting. She couldn't resist him, and that was a hell of a bigger problem than vamps.
-o-
King was parked three blocks over, and for those three blocks, the only sound she heard was the slap of their feet on the pavement, rapid but not running, never running. That kind of thing attracted attention and with her clothes still covered in Estevez's blood and with King with his weapon still drawn, attention was the last thing they needed.
Being hunted instead of hunting on the moon-drenched streets left her feeling twitchy and vulnerable, and King wasn't helping. She'd expected his normal constant stream of chatter, not this quiet and focused façade. He looked different as well, like a stranger, and she was left feeling awkward and uncomfortable, everything that had happened hanging between them. Not that she'd ever been any good at filling in gaps in the conversation anyway.
When they finally arrived at King's truck and he reached for the door, she hung back, still not trusting him entirely. Still not trusting herself when it came down to it, not with him. There was no doubt that her judgement was impaired when it came to King, and he didn't miss her hesitation. He paused with his hand still on the car door handle and glanced over at her, a question in his eyes. He looked tired, his face drawn and seeming older than she remembered, but perhaps that was just the effect of the beard. As looks went, it suited him, and the sight of him watching her, his dark eyes fixed on her face, hurt somewhere deep inside her.
She swallowed, fighting the urge to look away. She didn't want to show any sign of weakness, not to him, not when it seemed that he still had the ability to slip past all of her defences and hurt her, whether he intended to not. His lips parted as though he was about to say something, but then he shut his mouth again and simply stared at her, his fingers curled limply around the door handle.
She couldn't read his expression, not when the streetlights were behind him and not when her heart was still twisting painfully in her chest.
Lights swept around the corner and King ducked behind the body of his truck, reaching for Abby even as she followed his example, making herself as small as possible and hoping that they'd both dropped quickly enough. She pressed close to the metal curve of the fender, the condensation left by her breath blooming across the paintwork as her eyes met King's, which glittered as the light from the car roaring past pooled around them.
When the headlights had finally receded, King gingerly raised his head, checking out the streets for any stragglers, or any sign that they'd been spotted. The coast must have been clear because this time he didn't stop when he reached for the door handle, simply pulling the door open and waiting pointedly for her to climb inside.
In a choice between King and vamps, she'd take King every time and he knew that, but that didn't mean she had to be happy about it. He slid in after her, slamming the door shut and starting the engine.
"It's obviously not safe to be on the streets," he said, and then he hesitated for a moment. "I've got a bolthole close by." He glanced at her, his eyes jittering away again when she met his look with a blank one of her own. She didn't answer him, but he didn't seem to need one, putting the car into drive and pulling away from the curb. "It's the best option, at least for tonight," he added and she wasn't sure which one of them he was trying to convince.
If it was her, he'd failed. Logic had nothing to do with it. Being around King was hazardous for her heart if not her health.
She twisted in her seat, reaching into her back pocket to pull out her phone. There was a crack on the screen, a jagged little mark from one side to the other, and it wouldn't turn on. She guessed that explained the tender bruise on her hip. She must have landed on it.
King glanced over at her, and the lines around his mouth seemed to tighten as the streetlights flashed by. "There's a phone across the street from where we're going," he said. "Sometimes it even works." He kept his eyes fixed on the road as he gave her a little shrug. "If it's that important."
There was a question hidden in his sarcastic little remark, but she left it hanging there in the air between them, shoving her phone back into her pocket and folding her arms, staring out of the windscreen ahead.
His piece said, King stayed silent as he drove, eyes focused on the road and on scanning the streets; that was so unlike him that it kept her silent, too. It seemed he'd finally learned caution; more than once, he took a detour, his eyes frequently checking out his rear view mirror for signs of pursuit. And once he even pulled into a side street and turned off the lights, waiting until the only other car on the road had passed them by, his gun in his lap and his eyes watchful and wary.
Abby should have been watching the road, too. Instead, she watched King. It would have been easy to pretend it was because she still didn't trust him, and that she was simply watching for the first sign of betrayal, but she knew better than that.
So did King. When he finally took his eyes off the road, he met her gaze evenly, only his raised eyebrow giving away any of what he was thinking.
"How much further?" she asked to cover herself, hiding everything she felt behind small talk.
He shrugged, tearing his eyes away from her face to glance out at the main street again. "Not far." When he looked back at her, his eyes were shadowed, dim in the distant streetlights. "I don't think we're being followed, but it pays to be careful..."
He trailed off, obviously realising that she didn't need to hear it, not when she had plenty of her own experience to draw on. His shrug this time had a slightly apologetic air to it, but his eyes scanned over her face, like he was memorising her, maybe, or had missed her and was trying to re-familiarise himself with her features.
She flushed, feeling the blood rising slowly to her face, and glanced out through the windscreen into the darkness beyond, trying to get a hold of her overactive imagination. She was projecting, that was all. There was no reason to think that she was anything to King but convenient or useful.
"What were you doing there?" she asked, focusing on the task in hand.
"I could ask you the same question."
She shrugged, catching the move from him. "We were killing vamps."
"Not very successfully."
She shot him a look, not bothering to hide her anger, and he pulled a little face, the look in his eyes back to apologetic. It seemed real, genuine, but he'd fooled her that way before. She looked away again, glaring out into the darkness.
"I'm sorry about your friend," King offered tentatively, treading carefully around the subject. She wasn't sure if it was intended to be a peace offering, or whether he'd simply learned caution, but the comment still jarred. Maybe that wasn't fair of her, but she didn't feel like being fair, not with Estevez's blood still slicking her top, sticking it against her skin. She wanted out of here, somewhere she could clean up even if the guilt wasn't going to wash away as easily. It was stupid to feel guilty when Estevez had made his own bad decisions, but even knowing that didn't help.
King tapped his fingers impatiently against the steering wheel. She could feel the weight of his gaze on her, but she refused to turn and look at him, no matter what she owed him.
"Can I at least ask what the hell you were thinking?" he burst out suddenly. "I know you're good, Abby, but damn it... Just how many of those fuckers did you think you could take on?"
She wasn't going to explain herself, not to him. He sighed, and she heard the leather creak as he sank further down into his seat.
"Well, I guess we have the answer," he said and his tone was edging towards wryly amused, which was much more in keeping for him. "It was very impressive, actually, how many of them you managed to put down. I may even have taken notes."
Her jaw twitched; she wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or smack him in the face. Maybe doing both would make her feel better, get rid of the guilt and the rage, and had the added plus of driving home the point that he shouldn't condescend to her.
"So..." King drawled out the word and she could picture the look on his face, the way he would be looking at her, even if she refused to turn her head and see it. "Do you want to talk about it?"
There was a pained kind of politeness in his voice, and that did make her laugh, and acerbic little chuckle that escaped in spite of her efforts to keep it in. "No," she said firmly. "Of course I don't want to talk about it."
"Okay." He didn't sound put out, but she wasn't surprised when, after a moment's hesitation, he asked, "So what was his story?"
There was more than just curiosity in his voice. There was something else, something lying underneath the surface that she couldn't read. She shouldn't have been surprised. King was nothing but layered.
There was no reason for her to tell him, no reason at all except for the fact that maybe it would get it straight in her own head. She could consider it practice for when she had to tell Frank, come up with her justifications in advance, which was another uncomfortable thought.
"Abby?"
She took a deep breath. "He lost his wife a couple of months ago." She said it quickly, so getting it out would get it over with. "She was pregnant."
King let out a low whistle. "Yeah, that would explain it."
"He just..." She trailed off, unable to put it into words, not clearly. "I couldn't stop him. He just... ran in there, guns blazing. It was like he wanted to die."
"Maybe he did." She glanced over at King in time to see him shrug. "Suicide by vamp."
That was one way of looking at it, she supposed. And there was a grain of truth in it, King seeing things clearly in the way that she couldn't, not when she was that close to it.
She opened her mouth to say something - anything - to acknowledge that he might have been right but before she could do more than that, a car rolled by the entrance to the alley, too slowly to be casual. She ducked down below the dash as the lights flared across King's car, her heart pounding and King mirroring her move. It looked like the vampires weren't planning on quitting any time soon, which set a suspicion forming slowly in her mind.
The car rolled away, leaving her and King in silence, and it was a silence that this time she broke, a lot less reluctantly than she might have done earlier.
"That was Danica, wasn't it? Back there."
He didn't answer her, not straightaway, and when she looked over at him, he was staring out of the windscreen, his expression tight and tense.
"Yeah," he said eventually and the word came out of him on a long exhale. "That was Danica. The blond guy was her brother, Asher. Nice family. You'd like them. Good neighbours. Always entertaining, you know? We should ask them over sometime."
She ignored his attempt at a brush off. "You've been hunting them." It wasn't a question, but he nodded anyway, still avoiding her eyes and watching the streets instead. If she could believe him, then the truth was better than she'd feared when she'd seen him striding through dust and ash, some small part of her wondering if King had arrived with vamps, been part of their party. Whether he'd crawled back to Danica with his tail between his legs after Frank had kicked him to the curb.
If she could believe him. It was a big if, and she'd already been a fool more than once.
King started the engine again, the low, rumbling purr silencing anything else she might have said, if she could have thought of anything to say. But he still hesitated before he pulled out onto the road again, stealing another look at her, and this time his expression was all too readable. "Abby..."
She didn't want to hear it, didn't want the reminder of everything that had happened and of everything that hadn't. Didn't want to acknowledge the look in his eye, which hit far too close to home for comfort. "Thank you," she said instead, interrupting him. "For saving my life."
He fell silent and when she finally turned her head to look at him, unable to resist any longer, his expression had moved back to unreadable. After a moment he nodded, the look in his eyes staying veiled. "Well, you saved mine more than once."
"Then we're even." The words came out harshly, her voice a rasp as disappointment and grief warred within her. She hadn't been able to save Estevez, so what use was she?
"We're not even close." He sounded serious, and it sent a surge of anger through her, something she embraced because it was quick and clean, not like this mess. "You saved me, Whistler. Don't you get that?"
"I know what I got. I got two dead friends."
The muscle in his jaw tightened for a moment, but he didn't dispute it. It was just as well; she had no more arguments, not when they caught in her throat, burning and stinging in her eyes.
"I'm sorry," he said eventually. "I never wanted that."
"No." Again it wasn't a question, but he flinched minutely and turned his attention back to the road, his mouth set into a thin line. She'd killed their momentary camaraderie dead, but then she was good at killing things.
His place was small, little more than one room above a shop. There was a grill over the door, and a padlock on it that meant business; when King pulled out the key for it from his pocket, it wasn't the only key he had on the chain.
"Well, this is it," he said, waving her in expansively. "Home sweet home. Well, one of them anyway," he added, sounding cynical. She gave him a look and he caught it, his face twisting sheepishly.
"I've got several of these boltholes scattered across the city," he explained. "Most of them are disposable." He gave her a brief, searching look. "Including this one."
She had no idea whether that was intended to be a slam at her, but if so she refused to rise to the bait. Instead she looked around, automatically checking for all of the entry and exit points and pointedly ignoring the bed that dominated the room.
"There's a shower if you want it," he offered quietly. "I've got a t-shirt that might fit you, but not much else, I'm afraid. But, hey, you have that whole leather thing going on. I'm sure we can just wipe it down, get rid of..."
He trailed off, his brain finally catching up with his mouth, but by that point he didn't need to complete the rest of his sentence. His meaning was clear. He meant get rid of Estevez's blood.
Even if he'd had an ulterior motive, his suggestion was practical. She couldn't wander the streets bloodstained and shell-shocked, not when they'd left Estevez behind, surrounded by a pile of familiar corpses.
"I've got towels somewhere, as well," he said, turning away to rummage through one of the small cupboards. "And I promise I won't peek."
He dug out a t-shirt for her, as well, one that was large, grey and familiar. She wouldn't have been surprised if it really had been one of the ones she'd bought him, laundered to softness. Now that he was shopping for himself, the style of the top he was wearing under his Kevlar vest was completely different - dark and fitted, clinging to his lean, muscular frame in all the right places.
"Shower's that way." He nodded towards a door on the back wall. "If you pass your pants out, I'll wipe them down for you."
She gave him a look, raising one eyebrow, and he grinned, the expression wide and sudden, lighting up his face in a way that was too familiar to her. Her heart clenched, and whatever emotion showed on her face, it had his smile fading away again, the look in his dark eyes turning intense.
"Thanks," she said briefly, limiting herself to just that as she took the towel from his outstretched hand and made good her escape.
About all she could say for the shower was that the water was above tepid and that King kept it relatively clean. She didn't miss the signs of King scattered around the room: the toothbrush still in its wrapper; the razor lying neatly by the faucets; the deodorant stick, also unopened. It all added up to King not using this place often, and not staying overnight even if he did, but the medicine cabinet above the sink was neatly stocked with everything a hunter needed, from antiseptic cream to needle and thread.
She had a feeling he'd learned to keep that kind of stuff on hand the hard way, but she was simply delaying the inevitable, and there was no point in trying to do that any more. If nothing else, she strongly suspected that if she took too long, King would simply march in to check whether she was okay. At least, that would be his excuse, and so she pulled on her panties and dragged King's t-shirt over her head. Since her own shirt was beyond salvaging thanks to the rusty stains of Estevez's blood smeared across the fabric, she balled it up and shoved it into the small trashcan beside the sink. It would be King's problem now.
He looked up when she walked into the room. He was busy cleaning his gun at one of the work surfaces, and he'd taken off his Kevlar vest, hanging it over the back of the only chair in the room, the one pushed up against the table that obviously served as a desk. He'd painted a target on the back of the vest, and there was a grey mark scarring its surface, the hole left by a bullet impact. She froze, suddenly going cold as she remembered how he'd stumbled, shielding her body with his own.
"You finished with the shower?" King asked, but she ignored the question.
"Are you hurt?"
He blinked at her, obviously thrown by the question.
"You were hit," she said impatiently, flicking her fingers towards the tell-tale mark on his Kevlar vest. "Are you hurt?"
He shrugged, and she didn't miss his wince at the top of the move. "I'm fine," he said. "A little bruised, but I'll live. What about you?" He made a quick, abortive gesture towards her arm, where the red streak from her near miss marred her skin.
She gave it a quick, dismissive glance, turning her attention back to him almost immediately. "It's fine," she said flatly, but quelling King had never really worked. It didn't work this time either; he gave her a look that said everything he wasn't.
"Give me a second to clean up," he said, flashing his grease-stained hands at her, grimed with the grit from his gun, "and I'll see what I can do about patching you up."
She thought about arguing, but with vamps still on the hunt for them, she wasn't going anywhere any time soon. So she shrugged instead, avoiding his eyes by simple expedient of looking around the room.
He hesitated for a moment, as though he was expecting her to say something or wanted to say something himself, but when she refused to acknowledge him, he sighed and headed towards the bathroom, tugging his shirt over his head as he went.
She looked. She couldn't help it, her eyes drawn inexorably to his body. There were bruises scattered across on his torso, some old and yellowing but some new, including a red patch high on his shoulder that matched the mark on his Kevlar vest.
She tore her eyes away as he disappeared through the door, her fingers curling unconsciously into fists as she tried not to think about how, if the bullet had been just three or four inches higher, Estevez wouldn't have been the only body she would have had to leave behind. It was pointless to think about it, not when she'd spent far too much time dwelling on the past as it was. She needed distraction, and she pushed herself away from the table, exploring the small confines of the room and hoping for some insight into what King had been up to since she'd last seen him.
There were a few books here and there, which she'd expected given how voraciously he read, and while he'd said that he wasn't here often, it seemed like he didn't want to be separated for long from his reading material. But the titles of the books confused her - they were non-fiction, thick, weighty academic tomes whose titles she barely understood, never mind the contents.
They weren't the only things in the room that didn't fit with her picture of King. The shelves held broken shards of pottery, interspersed here and there with stone carvings and small statues, the figures in them contorted and otherworldly. But by far the most numerous were the bits of script, sometimes carved into rock, sometimes pressed into papyrus, which had, in turn, been pressed between sheets of glass, but all of it ancient, and none of them in a language she recognised.
She frowned, trying to puzzle it out and failing. She'd never pegged King for the collector type, and he seemed more the sports pennant type when it came to interior design than this. But then she spotted something that put all thoughts of relics out of her head.
Propped up neatly against the stone relief was the picture of King's parents that she'd had Hedges print out for him.
She picked it up, studying it. Maybe it wasn't the exact same photograph. Maybe King had also printed it off the web, but the sight of it had her swallowing, trying not to let it sway her in a direction she was already toppling.
She didn't want to think about King as human, as vulnerable. She didn't want to take that risk with her heart again, not when it was still battered and bleeding after last time, and it wasn't like he'd managed to find a picture of her.
She put the picture back, still busy straightening it when King came back into the room.
He'd showered and pulled on a pair of sweats, but he was still bare-chested, busy towelling his hair. It gave her a chance to study him without him noticing. The ageing bruises she'd spotted briefly on his back spread over his chest as well, an ugly line of yellows and purples splashed across his ribs. There was a graze on the front of one shoulder, the skin already scabbed and healing like he'd hit something or been dragged over something. It was all too easy to imagine what could have happened to him, even though she'd never really thought of herself as having a vivid imagination.
And there, lying against his chest, nestled neatly just above the dark hair, was Velasquez's St Jude medallion.
She was still staring at it when he finally pulled the towel away from his head and caught her looking. He raised his eyebrow, a slight smirk forming on his face, but she wasn't fooled. It may have been months since the last time she'd seen him, but some of his tricks she still remembered and his knack for deflection wasn't something she could easily forget.
"You get hurt a lot," she said softly and his smile faded as he looked away, something vulnerable flashing through his eyes before the barriers came up again.
"Yeah, well, it kind of goes with the territory." He jerked his chin at her arm. "You should know all about that. Are you finally going to let me look at that cut for you?"
She shrugged, not trusting herself to meet his gaze, not when the urge to touch him, to map every single one of his new scars with her fingers and ask the story behind them was so strong.
"I'm going to take that as a yes," he said, and there was a wry kind of amusement in his voice. "Wait here." He stepped back into the bathroom again, coming out with a small medical kit in his hands.
"Up." He patted the table. For a second, she thought about arguing, but she had no good reason for that. Nothing but her balking at the idea of being him so close to her, not when she still didn't trust herself. In the end, she gave in, pushing herself up onto the table and tugging the t-shirt she wore down so that she didn't flash any more thigh than was necessary.
She'd half expected King to comment on it, but he was all business. He cleaned the wound carefully, his face fixed into a small frown of concentration. His fingers were gentle against her skin, and she shivered.
There were no safe subjects of conversation between them, nothing she could retreat into, and that just left the unsafe subjects of conversation, the ones where only fools rushed in.
She was definitely beginning to believe that she was a fool for him.
"How did you know to be there tonight?" she asked.
He shrugged, his eyes focused on what he was doing. "I've been tracking Danica," he said.
"I know," she said quietly, "but our intel didn't have it down as a Talos operation. I thought you said that Danica considered blood banks beneath her."
"Well, your intel's out of date." He turned away, busying himself with the small first aid kit. "And Danica has always been a little greedy. With Frost gone, the Talos Clan are expanding their operations into every shady little deal they can, blood banks included..." He frowned, the words trailing off as he examined her arm.
"I don't think there's much more I can do except wrap this up, keep it clean. I guess I should have gone into medicine, not archaeology."
He never had told her what he'd been studying, all those secrets wound up in lies, but it would have explained the statuary and the other artefacts he had scattered around if she'd known what the hell he was up to. As it was, she was still in the dark.
"I stole it from Danica," he said when he glanced up from his contemplation of the first aid kit and caught her looking. "In case you were wondering."
That made it easier to look to look around the room again, focusing on the majestic mystery of the objects around her instead of how close King was or the warmth rising from his skin as he leaned over to apply a bandage to her arm, taping it down carefully.
"Why?"
He glanced up at her, his expression amused again. "That's kind of an open ended question," he said. "If you're asking why did I steal this stuff from Danica, then the answer is because she wanted it. I don't know why yet, but I intend to figure it out. And in the interim, she doesn't have it, which pisses her off." He gave her a slow grin, his hatred of Danica clear around the edges. "And I'm all for anything that pisses Danica off. It's kind of a hobby of mine."
She didn't rise to the bait, giving him a long, level look. He returned it with interest, his fingers stilling on her arm as his expression grew thoughtful. "And how did you know I was tracking Danica?"
She shrugged, wincing as the move pained the bullet graze on her arm. "I hear things," she said.
"I hear you ask things, as well."
She didn't answer him, but she wouldn't meet his eyes either and he dropped the subject, once again focusing on tending to her arm.
"How's that?" he asked when he'd fastened to the bandage off. His fingers were still resting lightly on her arm, and each time she breathed in or out, his fingers brushed against her skin. She licked nervously at her lips and flexed her arm, pleased when the tape didn't pull.
"That's fine," she said, adding a belated, "Thank you."
He nodded, but didn't move away. Instead, he leaned in closer, bracketing her with his hands as he rested them on either side of her on the table.
"Are you hurt anywhere else?" he asked, reaching up and cupping Abby's chin with his fingers, exerting a gentle pressure that guided her head to the side until he could see the bump on her temple.
"What about that?" he asked. "How are you feeling? Any dizziness?"
"No," she said, fighting not to pull away as he turned her face back, his eyes staring into hers, flicking from one pupil to another. She knew what he was looking for and pulled away, his fingers slipping from her skin. "I'm fine."
He pulled back, something flaring quickly across his face and then dying before she could register it. "Okay," he said, and his tone was just as gentle as his fingers had been.
She missed his touch as soon as he moved away, but she'd grown used to missing him. She stared at him for a moment, and she had no idea what was showing on her face or shining in her eyes, but his hand drifted up to her temple again, brushing her hair out of her eyes and running the strands gently through his fingers.
She shivered, his touch almost too much to bear. She reached up to push him away, put some distance between them, but her fingers settled on his bare chest and stayed there; his skin was warm and still damp from his shower, all too human and too much for her to take.
"I didn't sell you out," he said quietly, the look in his dark eyes serious, a little broken. "Danica was after me, so Frank was right. It's my fault they're dead, but I didn't -"
"I know," she murmured as her fingers came to rest gently on the small silver pendant. The heat from his body rose up to warm her fingers and she gave in to the feelings she couldn't fight any more, tracing the pattern of marks on his skin. She kept her touch light and gentle as she brushed over bruises, skimming around the scratches and scabs, licking nervously at her suddenly dry lips. "You need to learn how to duck."
The corner of his mouth quirked up, but the amusement didn't reach his eyes. They stayed deep and dark, a warmth in the depths that she couldn't ignore any longer.
She didn't want to. She was so tired of fighting: fighting Frank, fighting vamps, fighting this.
King leaned in, his fingers skimming over her face. His thumb brushed over her cheekbone, gently enough not to cause any pain from the bruise that was beginning to blossom there. And then his palm cupped her jaw as he bent down to kiss her, slow and soft and sweet as her fingers curled against his chest.
She pressed herself closer to him, her hand sliding up from his chest to the back of his neck as she deepened the kiss. His lips parted underneath hers, and even though they'd barely kissed before, even though it had been months, the taste of him was achingly familiar. Only the feel of his beard prickling against her skin was new.
She was going to regret this, but regrets were nothing new. Not when it came to King.
-o-
Part 10: dreamwidth :: livejournal :: insanejournal
Author: alyse
Fandom: Blade: Trinity
Pairing: Abigail Whistler/Hannibal King
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Highlight to read: violence, implications of past torture and sexual abuse, potential triggers for suicidal thoughts and actions.
Notes: This is the extended, higher rated director's cut version of the story, being posted in parts over the next week or so. If you'd prefer not to wait, a complete (non-sexy, rated 15!) version can be found here. Also, there is fabulous art by
skylar0grace here.Summary: Hunting is in her blood and in her bones, but when Abigail Whistler's path crosses that of a smart-mouthed vampire who seems perfectly happy to die, she's left questioning everything she thought she knew. While her team work to cure Hannibal King of his vampirism with an experimental antivirus, she finds herself warming to their captive in spite of her reservations, and when their actions turn out to have devastating consequences, Abby's loyalties are left torn.
Masterlist: dreamwidth :: livejournal :: insanejournal
-o-
Part 08: dreamwidth :: livejournal :: insanejournal
-o-
-o-
Thirty minutes into their night-time sortie and Estevez was already chomping at the bit. There was a hard edge to his impatience, something razor sharp and raw that had her fighting the urge to bash his head against the wall. Instead, she gritted her teeth and cursed Frank Reilly's name as she clung to every scrap of patience she could find, focusing on the mission instead. The mission was the important thing. Her blood pressure would just have to wait.
She had to keep Estevez on a tight leash as they moved through the streets and alleys, canvassing the area in a logical progression. She wasn't going to let his impatience - or his rapidly deteriorating language - get to her. She was ice, unmoved and unyielding, and if she ended up having to freeze his hot tempered ass, she'd do just that.
Hunting something like a blood bank wasn't like popping a few vamps in the subway. It was always a long game so she wasn't surprised when they found nothing at first, but Estevez's impatience grew with each dead end. His attitude did nothing to convince her that Frank was right about him being ready, but when they reached the fifth building they checked - a newly constructed and supposedly empty office building judging by the signs outside - there were lights on inside.
It could have been nothing - cleaners, security, maybe even the architect doing whatever the hell it was that architects did - but it was worth checking out and it wasn't as though they'd had any other leads this evening. A brief recon of the building found her a back door, something that would be a service entrance when the building was occupied, and the locks on it were flimsy and no match for her picks. There were no alarms installed, not yet. She hadn't expected any, but it paid to be careful and so she still hesitated, listening hard and ignoring Estevez's impatient hiss while she double checked that there was no one in the vicinity before she slipped inside.
They moved slowly through the dark interior of the building, Estevez practically standing on her heels, he was so impatient to see some action. She was about ready to abandon the whole thing as a bust when she finally heard voices and motioned for Estevez to stop, holding up a finger to keep him silent.
He subsided, sending her a glare that she also ignored as she strained her ears to catch more of the conversation.
The voices were too distant, too muffled for her to make out, and she bit her lip in frustration, only hesitating for a moment as she scoped out what she could see of the rest of the building. There were stairs to the left. Unlike the rest of the building so far, they were dimly lit and seemed a likely prospect. She darted up them, keeping her steps light and with Estevez still hard on her heels. It took her to a landing, one that oversaw the rest of the foyer, high class for the neighbourhood, something in minimalist steel and glass. She guessed it was pretty, but she was less concerned with that than the fact that the style meant there was no cover.
She dropped to her knees, motioning for Estevez to do likewise, and this time he didn't argue but dropped awkwardly where she'd pointed. He was finally paying attention to her, his dark eyes fixed on her, but he was still too eager for her peace of mind.
She couldn't dwell on it now, not when she had other things to focus on. She paused for a moment, listening hard to the movements below, but nothing in the low hum of voices gave her any immediate cause for alarm. They hadn't been spotted yet, but they hadn't spotted anything else either, which meant it was make or break time. She lowered herself to her stomach and wormed her way closer to the edge, moving as silently as she could and staying low and out of sight. When she reached the railings she stopped and listened again, not risking raising her head until she was sure her movements hadn't been overheard.
The lights she'd seen from outside had come from the foyer below, and when she peered over the edge there were dark clad figures down there, their stances tight and focused. She counted six before she ducked her head back down again, her mind busy cataloguing and assessing what she'd seen. They were armed, which was enough cause for alarm, but they were carrying semiautomatic pistols, which wasn't like any kind of building security she was familiar with. At least two of them were also carrying larger semi-automatic rifles and that, combined with the fact that they all wore earpieces, told her they were professionals, or at least liked to think they were. It also meant that they were in contact with someone, and probably taking orders from that same someone.
This wasn't a small-time op, no matter what Frank's sources had said. This was one of the clans - it had to be given the levels of human security below. Only one of the larger clans could afford that much heavily armed muscle, because they sure as hell weren't on any landlord's payroll.
Estevez took advantage of her distraction, crawling up beside her and sticking his own stupid head over the parapet. He raised his weapon and she pushed it down, glaring at him and resisting the urge to smack some sense into him. Tempting as it was, it wouldn't work, not judging by the way that his jaw was tightly clenched and his eyes were burning fiercely.
Instead she jerked her head towards the back of the landing, holding his gaze and staring him down until he shuffled back reluctantly, constantly casting heated looks back in the direction of the armed goons. She stole a last look herself before following him.
"They're vamps," he hissed in her ear as soon as she'd caught up to him. "Why aren't we taking them out?"
"Because they're not vamps," she whispered back, casting another look back towards the edge of the landing. "They're human."
"They're familiars," he snarled. "Fucking vermin. We should take them out anyway."
"Before we know why they're here?" Even though she was still whispering, she didn't bother to hide the contempt in her voice and Estevez's nostrils flared dangerously. "You know where their owners are? What they're up to?"
He didn't but he refused to acknowledge his own ignorance, simply staring at her, his eyes flashing.
"No, I didn't think so. The plan hasn't changed. We find out what we can first, then we decide whether or not we're taking them out."
He looked like he wanted to argue further, but she cut him off with a hand gesture before he could, holding his eyes as she stabbed a warning finger back towards the railings. He subsided, looking resentful, but she didn't give a shit how he felt about it. The important thing was that he did what he was told and kept quiet.
With Estevez finally under control, she could focus on the best way to proceed. She chewed at her lip, her eyes rapidly scanning the rest of the building, or at least as much of it as she could see from their precarious position. The building wasn't large; that much she been able to tell from outside. It was only three, maybe four storeys high, but it still had elevators, and there was one on either side of the balcony they were hiding on.
It was a bad position, and not just because they risked being seen from the foyer below. If anyone decided to make a visit to this floor, they'd be trapped like rats.
She headed back towards the stairs, making a 'follow me' gesture in Estevez's direction. He scowled at her, her earlier abruptness obviously not having been forgiven, but since he fell into step behind her just like she wanted she ignored his bad temper as she led the way. At least if she went first she could head him off before he could do something stupid.
There was no point in heading down. As much as she hated the idea of being trapped by the goons below, they weren't ever going to figure out what was going on without searching the rest of the building, at least superficially. That left up, and Estevez wasn't the only one who wasn't happy about it.
Their luck held. While the stairwells were lit, there were no lights on any of the other floors, nothing to indicate that any of the rooms were occupied, at least not tonight. Vampires could see better in the dark than humans, but they were no fonder of working in pitch black than any human Abby had ever met. That told her that any action happening tonight must be downstairs in the foyer, which also told her where they needed to be.
Estevez glowered at her when her hand gestures indicated that they should both descend the stairs again, but she was getting good at ignoring him. She pushed past him, leading the way while he slunk sullenly behind her.
She took her time, checking every doorway and pausing frequently to scan the area even though she was hyperaware of Estevez snapping at her heels. The rooms had been clear when they'd gone up, but that was no guarantee that they'd still be clear on the way down, and Estevez needed to understand that. And her caution was proven right - they reached the balcony again without incident, but as she slipped through the final door, still on the alert, she heard the steady tap of footsteps against the marble floor in the foyer below and the low murmur of voices again.
At least one of the voices was new - higher pitched, sharp and demanding. Abby couldn't make out the words, but there was no mistaking that the speaker was female. Vamps were traditionalist when it came to their muscle, and given the way this new woman was snapping out orders, she wasn't a familiar either. That left only one possibility, and Abby's mouth curled up in a small, triumphant smile.
Gotcha.
She threw up her hand again, stopping Estevez in his tracks and gesturing for him to hold back while she scouted closer to the edge of the railings. She got a belligerent look in return and it was beyond getting old. No matter what Frank's views were, no way was she taking Estevez out with her again unless he underwent a major attitude adjustment.
But she'd deal with that later. Right now her priority was the vamps below.
She edged toward the railing, keeping close to the wall, her hand on her weapon. If there were still only six down there plus the vamp, maybe she and Estevez could take them out from up here. If not... well, vamps were no better at looking up than humans were, and as long as she kept quiet, they probably wouldn't see her. And if they did, she'd have a better chance of getting out of sight before they could do anything about it if she was on her feet.
But when she peered over the edge, there wasn't just one vamp down in the foyer - there were several, and they'd brought their own toy soldiers along.
She ducked back out of sight, swearing copiously under her breath. Instead of six armed security guards, there were at least fifteen to twenty now, and she'd spotted at least five vamps, easily singled out by their lack of uniform and atrocious dress sense.
Estevez was waiting by the doorway, glaring at her impatiently. She slipped back towards him on soundless feet, her heart racing fast in her chest and the adrenaline already surging through her as she led him back into the stairwell.
"We got trouble," she said briefly, paying more attention to her gun than to Estevez. Her fingers, she was pleased to note, weren't shaking; instead they were steady, and her palms stayed dry. "Familiars, a lot of them. More than we can safely handle."
"Any vamps?" he asked, his voice low and intense. There was something in his tone that made her wary, something that had her hesitating before she finally nodded her head.
It was the wrong choice. Estevez's eyes lit up with an unholy light, his muscles tensing in a way that tipped her off. She grabbed hold of his jacket, but her fingers slipped away before she could sink them into the fabric and he hurled himself down the stairs with no thought of his own safety, his face twisted in an inhuman snarl.
She swore, not bothering to keep her voice quiet, not when Estevez was already screaming out his fury, a long, wordless bellow of rage as he burst through the doorway below, his guns blasting before he'd even managed to lock onto a target.
He didn't seem to care about not getting himself killed, and it was fucked in the head that Abby did.
She leapt the last few steps, hitting the ground at a run and charging through the door after him.
In spite of the noise Estevez had made, he'd still managed to take some of them by surprise. There were three down - humans judging by the blood that was spreading across the floor. Estevez had hit the first one in the head. Abby stepped over the ruins of his face, coolly targeting one of his fellow goons, who'd recovered enough to bring his weapon around to bear on Estevez. She fired twice and he went down, clutching his throat, blood spurting through his fingers.
Normally she came alive during this part, riding the wave of adrenaline surging through her, leaving her loose limbed and fluid. But there was no time to get into that zone, not when Estevez took a bullet high in his shoulder, the force of the impact spinning him around. It didn't stop him. He straightened up, still howling, spittle flying from his mouth.
She was on his attackers before they knew she was there, taking down the first familiar with a bullet in the chest, knocking him back several feet as the jacketed round impacted with his Kevlar vest. She kicked the second one in the face, moving in to block the blow aimed by the third and using her momentum to spin him around, shielding herself from the bullets sprayed in her direction with his body.
Somewhere behind and to the left of her Estevez screamed again, his voice full of hatred and wordless with it. She turned towards him just as a familiar shot in her direction again. The bullet ripped through the sleeve of her shirt leaving a line of fire in its wake.
She swore, spinning on her heels and putting a silver hollowpoint into the brain of the snarling vamp who had launched himself at Estevez. Her aim was off; she'd been aiming for his chest but at least she'd hit him.
She swapped her gun to her left hand, pulling out her silver blade with her right. Her arm burned, but she pushed the pain out of her mind, moving past it and focusing on keeping the pair of them alive.
Estevez was still screaming, lost in his fury, and she heard the snap-snap as he fired indiscriminately, his bullets ricocheting around the room. She turned towards him, keeping low and moving fast as the bullets whined overhead, but a black figure lurched into her path, blocking her and hiding Estevez from view. She ducked, bringing her knife up to slide it neatly underneath the Kevlar vest the familiar wore and sink it into his stomach. Blood spilled over her hand, and the knife slipped in her grip she pulled it free. He let out a grunt of surprise but it didn't stop him from punching her in the side of the head, the blow hard enough to snap her head back on her neck and leave her ears ringing.
She staggered back as he caught hold of her hair, sinking cruel fingers into it and pulling her towards him as he aimed another punch at her face. This time she managed to deflect it with her forearm so that the blow glanced off her forehead, ignoring the sharp, stabbing pain that flared in her arm as she drove her knife back into him, into his neck this time.
It sank in several inches and he dropped like a stone, his blood soaking her hand past the wrist. The sharp, metallic scent of it hit the back of her throat, making her eyes smart.
She left him where he fell, already scanning the chaos around her for Estevez, her eyes frantic and her heart pounding fast and fierce in her chest.
Estevez had stopped screaming, which did nothing to reassure her that he was still alive. She moved forward, taking down familiars as she went, her eyes constantly skimming the crowd, searching him out. When she finally located him, his face was grim and set, sheer madness burning in his eyes. His t-shirt was soaked with blood, and some of it was his. There were two neat holes in the fabric, high on his chest.
It wasn't slowing him down; he'd locked onto his target and it seemed that nothing was going to stop him, not even bullet holes.
His target was staring back at him, her head raised haughtily and her expression contorted into a look of ice-cold rage. Abby caught a brief glimpse of high heels and higher, teased hair, of a tight black dress and perfectly made up face, distorted by those sharp, snarling fangs, before another vamp was in her face, howling as he knocked her down onto the floor.
She landed on her hip, crying out as a sharp pain dug into her flesh and tasting blood as her teeth caught against the inside of her mouth. She automatically brought her legs up to push away the vamp as he rushed her, and it was only that automatic move that saved her. He was big, brutal, all muscle and very little in the way of brains. She drove her silver knife straight into his chest when he rushed her again, and he exploded into ash and dust around her.
Sliding her arms underneath her, she pushed herself to her feet, limping as the pain in her hip caught up with her. She refused to let it slow her down, already back to scanning the room for Estevez.
It was too late; he was already dead even if he didn't know it yet. The female vamp had her fangs sunk deep into his neck, tearing out his throat rather than feeding. Her eyes met Abby's, her face smeared into a macabre red mask as she let Estevez drop to the floor like a hunk of meat.
Pure fury flashed through Abby and she brought her gun up, swinging it to bear on the bitch in front of her. But before she could fire, something hard and heavy slammed into her back, knocking her onto the floor again, her weapon jerked out of her fingers and skittering across the floor.
Whoever had her pinned was snarling, and she could feel the heat of his breath against the back of her neck. It stank, heavy with the scent of old blood, and she slammed her elbow up, catching him in the side of the neck. He loosened his grip briefly and she took advantage of it to wriggle away as far as she could, rolling onto her back so that she could fight with both feet and fists.
He punched her in the face, only the fact that she jerked her head away from him at the last moment saving her from a broken nose. Instead his fist slid along her cheekbone, leaving another wave of fire in its wake before it slammed into the floor.
He howled, a sound of mingled pain and rage, his fangs flashing as he lunged for her again. This time she drove the steel-capped toe of her boot into his groin and he doubled over. Male vamps were as vulnerable to that as any sleaze ball of a human.
She rolled over onto her side, trying to push herself up and put some distance between them, but her wounded arm buckled underneath her weight and she fell to the floor again with a gasp, cursing under her breath.
The vamp hurled himself at her again, incandescent with fury and howling out his rage. She scrabbled away from him towards her gun, but before she could reach it, it was kicked away from her by a pair of very expensive, very high heels.
When Abby looked up, the woman was smirking down at her, Estevez's blood still smeared across her face and down over her chin. Only her teeth shone whitely in the gory mask as her mouth curled up into a vicious grin. She swooped down, sinking her fingers into Abby's hair and hauling her upright.
Abby twisted, driving her fist into the vampire's stomach and earning herself a screech of rage. The vampire grabbed at Abby's wrist before she could land a second blow, gripping it tightly enough for the bones to click and grate as she dragged Abby closer to her, her mouth now curled into a grimace of hatred.
"You're going to regret that, you bitch!"
Abby had no idea where her knife was. She was left resorting to older, more vicious moves, smacking her forehead into the vampire's face and hearing the crunch as the cartilage in the bitch's nose gave way under her onslaught. Vampires healed fast, but that didn't mean they didn't feel pain; she'd learned that much from King.
The vampire staggered back, both hands flying to her flattened nose. The blood flowing down her face now wasn't all Estevez's, and Abby took a certain savage satisfaction in that.
She moved back a few steps, giving herself some room to manoeuvre. She meant to kick her quarry in the head and finish destroying that artfully made up face, but she'd forgotten about the other vamp, the one who'd originally taken her down. He hadn't, however, forgotten about her. His arms clamped around her chest, hard as iron and just as unyielding. It didn't matter how much she kicked or how hard she jerked her head, slamming it back into his face, he just laughed, the sound ripping out of him and sinking its claws into her, leaving ice cold fear in its wake.
She dug her fingernails into the flesh of his arm, clawing wide, blood-filled grooves despite her nails being so short, but it did no good. He was too big, too strong and his grip simply tightened to the point where it drove the breath from her body, leaving her gasping for air as his fingers wrapped around her throat, twisted her head sideways so that he could get to her neck.
Please God, let him kill her, not turn her.
Black spots danced in front of her eyes, the room spinning as her lungs burnt and her chest heaved frantically, fighting for the next breath that wouldn't come. He drew it out cruelly, chuckling low in her ear as though he was getting off on it, each kick and punch she aimed at him only making it all the more enjoyable. And the weaker her struggles grew, the more pleasure he took in it.
She made one last, desperate lunge forward, trying to break his grip, slamming her heel down onto the top of his boot. Her boots were steel-toed and heavy; his were not and he howled in pain, his grip loosening momentarily. She took advantage of it, shifting all of her weight forward as she pushed herself away from him as hard as she could.
She finally broke free - he grabbed for her but he wasn't able to pull her back and she fell forward, landing with a jar on her hands and knees and scooting away as fast as she could. The howl he let out this time was one of rage, but when she looked up, it was the woman who was surging towards her, tottering on those ridiculous shoes, her face twisted up with anger and spite.
Abby rolled to the side just in time to avoid those sharp-heeled shoes slamming down onto her fingers, but that simply pushed her back into the path of the male vamp, whose eyes lit up with a malevolent kind of glee as he stalked towards her.
"Time to pay up, bitch," he snarled, flashing his fangs in a smile that was all shark-toothed hunger. He leaned in towards her, mouth gaping and eyes burning, and then he exploded as someone shot him from behind.
Abby flung up her hand automatically, shielding her face from the dust that blasted over her. Somewhere behind her, the woman shrieked with rage, the sound rising until Abby's eardrums rang with it.
Someone stepped through the ash, a dark shape with dark hair. Abby could barely make him out, not with her eyes burning and her throat smarting as she choked on the taste of dead vamp, but even so, the shape of him and the way he moved was all too familiar, even if the dark shadow of the beard on his face was not.
The woman's voice rose, seeming even angrier now, growing into an ululating howl that bordered on madness. Abby was forgotten as the vamp lunged at the man now standing over her. Before she could attack, someone else loomed out of the chaos, someone tall and blond, too pale and with too sharp teeth to be anything but vamp. He caught hold of the woman around the waist and pulled her away, ignoring the infuriated blows she rained on his head and shoulders and the way she struggled to free herself, her face turned towards Abby and contorted into an ugly, inhuman mask.
"Fucking kill you," she screamed, her eyes bulging and spittle flying from her mouth as her companion dragged her away. "I'll fucking kill you, King!"
King raised his weapon again, ignoring Abby as he aimed it at the still shrieking vampire, but her male companion barked out orders, ones Abby couldn't make out in the cacophony of yelling and gunfire. The few of his lackeys still living had heard him, however, and they fell in behind him, blocking King and cutting him off while the vampires made their escape. King was forced to dive for cover, skidding across the blood-soaked floor. Abby went in the opposite direction, flailing for her gun and bringing it around to bear on the familiar who had King pinned down.
She hit him in the chest, sending him flying, and King returned the favour, taking out the muscle-bound meathead trying to gun her down. The vamp's backup was rapidly diminishing in number, and she took advantage of the lull to crawl over to where Estevez was still sprawled on the floor.
She'd been right - Estevez was dead, his face slack and his eyes dull, the gaping wound in his throat mute testimony to the savagery of the vamp who'd killed him. She took a moment to lean in and press his eyelids closed, his blood soaking into the leather of her pants and staining the skin of her hands. He hadn't deserved this, but perhaps this was what he'd wanted.
"Abby!"
King grabbed at her, his fingers slipping away from her slick leather at first before he finally got a grip on her and dragged her to her feet. "We have to leave. Now!" He spun on the balls of his feet again, the move jerking her sideways as he fired off another couple of rounds, scattering the guards behind them. She could hear the woman still shrieking King's name, the sound almost incoherent with fury, and King's face tightened as he hesitated, staring off in the direction in which the two vamps had retreated. But then he swore, wrapping his free arm around Abby's waist and yanking her in the opposite direction, towards the exit.
She staggered, off-balance as he dragged her over the corpses of the familiars they'd killed. Here and there was a small pile of ash, all that was left of the vamps they'd wasted, but those piles were depressingly few and they'd cost Estevez his life.
A bullet whined overhead, and she ducked instinctively, her hand coming up to protect her head. King was already there, shielding her with his body as he half-dragged, half-carried her, scattering bullets behind them as he laid down a covering fire, not even bothering to look where he was aiming. The threat, however, was enough to keep the few remaining humans off their backs and the vamps had already fled. She'd have enjoyed that if she thought that she was the one they feared.
King hit the door with his shoulder and it flew open with a bang as they spilled out into the cool night air. He jerked suddenly, stumbling and throwing her off-balance again, but then he straightened up, dragging her out of the way so that he could slam the door shut.
There was no time for Abby to catch her breath, not when the familiars behind them would already be regrouping. She glanced both ways down the alley, somehow expecting to see Frank and Dex, as though they could possibly have heard the gunfire from wherever they were. But she and King were alone, nothing but the rapidly approaching sound of footsteps as the cockroaches finally found their courage.
"This way," King snapped out, reaching out to grab hold of her wrist again, his eyes focused on the far end of the alley, the opposite direction from where she and Estevez had come. She shook him off, pulling her hand back towards her body and cradling it carefully as though on some level she was afraid that he'd make another grab for her. He stopped in his tracks and gave her a disbelieving look. "You want to do this now, Whistler?" There was a shout from the interior of the building. She couldn't make out what was said, but it didn't sound good, and King licked at his lips, glancing back at the door they'd exited nervously.
"Any second now," he said, leaning in and dropping his voice urgently, "some heavily armed goons are going to burst through that door and try to put a couple of bullets in our heads. I'd kind of like to not be here when that happens."
She still hesitated, glancing back towards the doorway herself, torn between facing the danger behind and facing King.
"Jesus, Whistler." He ran his hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up in disarray. And then he seemed to reach a decision, reaching out again and pushing her this time, not grabbing her, but still managing to steer her in the direction he wanted. "You can kick my ass later if you want, but right now it's Splitsville."
She stopped resisting. She couldn't resist him, and that was a hell of a bigger problem than vamps.
-o-
King was parked three blocks over, and for those three blocks, the only sound she heard was the slap of their feet on the pavement, rapid but not running, never running. That kind of thing attracted attention and with her clothes still covered in Estevez's blood and with King with his weapon still drawn, attention was the last thing they needed.
Being hunted instead of hunting on the moon-drenched streets left her feeling twitchy and vulnerable, and King wasn't helping. She'd expected his normal constant stream of chatter, not this quiet and focused façade. He looked different as well, like a stranger, and she was left feeling awkward and uncomfortable, everything that had happened hanging between them. Not that she'd ever been any good at filling in gaps in the conversation anyway.
When they finally arrived at King's truck and he reached for the door, she hung back, still not trusting him entirely. Still not trusting herself when it came down to it, not with him. There was no doubt that her judgement was impaired when it came to King, and he didn't miss her hesitation. He paused with his hand still on the car door handle and glanced over at her, a question in his eyes. He looked tired, his face drawn and seeming older than she remembered, but perhaps that was just the effect of the beard. As looks went, it suited him, and the sight of him watching her, his dark eyes fixed on her face, hurt somewhere deep inside her.
She swallowed, fighting the urge to look away. She didn't want to show any sign of weakness, not to him, not when it seemed that he still had the ability to slip past all of her defences and hurt her, whether he intended to not. His lips parted as though he was about to say something, but then he shut his mouth again and simply stared at her, his fingers curled limply around the door handle.
She couldn't read his expression, not when the streetlights were behind him and not when her heart was still twisting painfully in her chest.
Lights swept around the corner and King ducked behind the body of his truck, reaching for Abby even as she followed his example, making herself as small as possible and hoping that they'd both dropped quickly enough. She pressed close to the metal curve of the fender, the condensation left by her breath blooming across the paintwork as her eyes met King's, which glittered as the light from the car roaring past pooled around them.
When the headlights had finally receded, King gingerly raised his head, checking out the streets for any stragglers, or any sign that they'd been spotted. The coast must have been clear because this time he didn't stop when he reached for the door handle, simply pulling the door open and waiting pointedly for her to climb inside.
In a choice between King and vamps, she'd take King every time and he knew that, but that didn't mean she had to be happy about it. He slid in after her, slamming the door shut and starting the engine.
"It's obviously not safe to be on the streets," he said, and then he hesitated for a moment. "I've got a bolthole close by." He glanced at her, his eyes jittering away again when she met his look with a blank one of her own. She didn't answer him, but he didn't seem to need one, putting the car into drive and pulling away from the curb. "It's the best option, at least for tonight," he added and she wasn't sure which one of them he was trying to convince.
If it was her, he'd failed. Logic had nothing to do with it. Being around King was hazardous for her heart if not her health.
She twisted in her seat, reaching into her back pocket to pull out her phone. There was a crack on the screen, a jagged little mark from one side to the other, and it wouldn't turn on. She guessed that explained the tender bruise on her hip. She must have landed on it.
King glanced over at her, and the lines around his mouth seemed to tighten as the streetlights flashed by. "There's a phone across the street from where we're going," he said. "Sometimes it even works." He kept his eyes fixed on the road as he gave her a little shrug. "If it's that important."
There was a question hidden in his sarcastic little remark, but she left it hanging there in the air between them, shoving her phone back into her pocket and folding her arms, staring out of the windscreen ahead.
His piece said, King stayed silent as he drove, eyes focused on the road and on scanning the streets; that was so unlike him that it kept her silent, too. It seemed he'd finally learned caution; more than once, he took a detour, his eyes frequently checking out his rear view mirror for signs of pursuit. And once he even pulled into a side street and turned off the lights, waiting until the only other car on the road had passed them by, his gun in his lap and his eyes watchful and wary.
Abby should have been watching the road, too. Instead, she watched King. It would have been easy to pretend it was because she still didn't trust him, and that she was simply watching for the first sign of betrayal, but she knew better than that.
So did King. When he finally took his eyes off the road, he met her gaze evenly, only his raised eyebrow giving away any of what he was thinking.
"How much further?" she asked to cover herself, hiding everything she felt behind small talk.
He shrugged, tearing his eyes away from her face to glance out at the main street again. "Not far." When he looked back at her, his eyes were shadowed, dim in the distant streetlights. "I don't think we're being followed, but it pays to be careful..."
He trailed off, obviously realising that she didn't need to hear it, not when she had plenty of her own experience to draw on. His shrug this time had a slightly apologetic air to it, but his eyes scanned over her face, like he was memorising her, maybe, or had missed her and was trying to re-familiarise himself with her features.
She flushed, feeling the blood rising slowly to her face, and glanced out through the windscreen into the darkness beyond, trying to get a hold of her overactive imagination. She was projecting, that was all. There was no reason to think that she was anything to King but convenient or useful.
"What were you doing there?" she asked, focusing on the task in hand.
"I could ask you the same question."
She shrugged, catching the move from him. "We were killing vamps."
"Not very successfully."
She shot him a look, not bothering to hide her anger, and he pulled a little face, the look in his eyes back to apologetic. It seemed real, genuine, but he'd fooled her that way before. She looked away again, glaring out into the darkness.
"I'm sorry about your friend," King offered tentatively, treading carefully around the subject. She wasn't sure if it was intended to be a peace offering, or whether he'd simply learned caution, but the comment still jarred. Maybe that wasn't fair of her, but she didn't feel like being fair, not with Estevez's blood still slicking her top, sticking it against her skin. She wanted out of here, somewhere she could clean up even if the guilt wasn't going to wash away as easily. It was stupid to feel guilty when Estevez had made his own bad decisions, but even knowing that didn't help.
King tapped his fingers impatiently against the steering wheel. She could feel the weight of his gaze on her, but she refused to turn and look at him, no matter what she owed him.
"Can I at least ask what the hell you were thinking?" he burst out suddenly. "I know you're good, Abby, but damn it... Just how many of those fuckers did you think you could take on?"
She wasn't going to explain herself, not to him. He sighed, and she heard the leather creak as he sank further down into his seat.
"Well, I guess we have the answer," he said and his tone was edging towards wryly amused, which was much more in keeping for him. "It was very impressive, actually, how many of them you managed to put down. I may even have taken notes."
Her jaw twitched; she wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or smack him in the face. Maybe doing both would make her feel better, get rid of the guilt and the rage, and had the added plus of driving home the point that he shouldn't condescend to her.
"So..." King drawled out the word and she could picture the look on his face, the way he would be looking at her, even if she refused to turn her head and see it. "Do you want to talk about it?"
There was a pained kind of politeness in his voice, and that did make her laugh, and acerbic little chuckle that escaped in spite of her efforts to keep it in. "No," she said firmly. "Of course I don't want to talk about it."
"Okay." He didn't sound put out, but she wasn't surprised when, after a moment's hesitation, he asked, "So what was his story?"
There was more than just curiosity in his voice. There was something else, something lying underneath the surface that she couldn't read. She shouldn't have been surprised. King was nothing but layered.
There was no reason for her to tell him, no reason at all except for the fact that maybe it would get it straight in her own head. She could consider it practice for when she had to tell Frank, come up with her justifications in advance, which was another uncomfortable thought.
"Abby?"
She took a deep breath. "He lost his wife a couple of months ago." She said it quickly, so getting it out would get it over with. "She was pregnant."
King let out a low whistle. "Yeah, that would explain it."
"He just..." She trailed off, unable to put it into words, not clearly. "I couldn't stop him. He just... ran in there, guns blazing. It was like he wanted to die."
"Maybe he did." She glanced over at King in time to see him shrug. "Suicide by vamp."
That was one way of looking at it, she supposed. And there was a grain of truth in it, King seeing things clearly in the way that she couldn't, not when she was that close to it.
She opened her mouth to say something - anything - to acknowledge that he might have been right but before she could do more than that, a car rolled by the entrance to the alley, too slowly to be casual. She ducked down below the dash as the lights flared across King's car, her heart pounding and King mirroring her move. It looked like the vampires weren't planning on quitting any time soon, which set a suspicion forming slowly in her mind.
The car rolled away, leaving her and King in silence, and it was a silence that this time she broke, a lot less reluctantly than she might have done earlier.
"That was Danica, wasn't it? Back there."
He didn't answer her, not straightaway, and when she looked over at him, he was staring out of the windscreen, his expression tight and tense.
"Yeah," he said eventually and the word came out of him on a long exhale. "That was Danica. The blond guy was her brother, Asher. Nice family. You'd like them. Good neighbours. Always entertaining, you know? We should ask them over sometime."
She ignored his attempt at a brush off. "You've been hunting them." It wasn't a question, but he nodded anyway, still avoiding her eyes and watching the streets instead. If she could believe him, then the truth was better than she'd feared when she'd seen him striding through dust and ash, some small part of her wondering if King had arrived with vamps, been part of their party. Whether he'd crawled back to Danica with his tail between his legs after Frank had kicked him to the curb.
If she could believe him. It was a big if, and she'd already been a fool more than once.
King started the engine again, the low, rumbling purr silencing anything else she might have said, if she could have thought of anything to say. But he still hesitated before he pulled out onto the road again, stealing another look at her, and this time his expression was all too readable. "Abby..."
She didn't want to hear it, didn't want the reminder of everything that had happened and of everything that hadn't. Didn't want to acknowledge the look in his eye, which hit far too close to home for comfort. "Thank you," she said instead, interrupting him. "For saving my life."
He fell silent and when she finally turned her head to look at him, unable to resist any longer, his expression had moved back to unreadable. After a moment he nodded, the look in his eyes staying veiled. "Well, you saved mine more than once."
"Then we're even." The words came out harshly, her voice a rasp as disappointment and grief warred within her. She hadn't been able to save Estevez, so what use was she?
"We're not even close." He sounded serious, and it sent a surge of anger through her, something she embraced because it was quick and clean, not like this mess. "You saved me, Whistler. Don't you get that?"
"I know what I got. I got two dead friends."
The muscle in his jaw tightened for a moment, but he didn't dispute it. It was just as well; she had no more arguments, not when they caught in her throat, burning and stinging in her eyes.
"I'm sorry," he said eventually. "I never wanted that."
"No." Again it wasn't a question, but he flinched minutely and turned his attention back to the road, his mouth set into a thin line. She'd killed their momentary camaraderie dead, but then she was good at killing things.
His place was small, little more than one room above a shop. There was a grill over the door, and a padlock on it that meant business; when King pulled out the key for it from his pocket, it wasn't the only key he had on the chain.
"Well, this is it," he said, waving her in expansively. "Home sweet home. Well, one of them anyway," he added, sounding cynical. She gave him a look and he caught it, his face twisting sheepishly.
"I've got several of these boltholes scattered across the city," he explained. "Most of them are disposable." He gave her a brief, searching look. "Including this one."
She had no idea whether that was intended to be a slam at her, but if so she refused to rise to the bait. Instead she looked around, automatically checking for all of the entry and exit points and pointedly ignoring the bed that dominated the room.
"There's a shower if you want it," he offered quietly. "I've got a t-shirt that might fit you, but not much else, I'm afraid. But, hey, you have that whole leather thing going on. I'm sure we can just wipe it down, get rid of..."
He trailed off, his brain finally catching up with his mouth, but by that point he didn't need to complete the rest of his sentence. His meaning was clear. He meant get rid of Estevez's blood.
Even if he'd had an ulterior motive, his suggestion was practical. She couldn't wander the streets bloodstained and shell-shocked, not when they'd left Estevez behind, surrounded by a pile of familiar corpses.
"I've got towels somewhere, as well," he said, turning away to rummage through one of the small cupboards. "And I promise I won't peek."
He dug out a t-shirt for her, as well, one that was large, grey and familiar. She wouldn't have been surprised if it really had been one of the ones she'd bought him, laundered to softness. Now that he was shopping for himself, the style of the top he was wearing under his Kevlar vest was completely different - dark and fitted, clinging to his lean, muscular frame in all the right places.
"Shower's that way." He nodded towards a door on the back wall. "If you pass your pants out, I'll wipe them down for you."
She gave him a look, raising one eyebrow, and he grinned, the expression wide and sudden, lighting up his face in a way that was too familiar to her. Her heart clenched, and whatever emotion showed on her face, it had his smile fading away again, the look in his dark eyes turning intense.
"Thanks," she said briefly, limiting herself to just that as she took the towel from his outstretched hand and made good her escape.
About all she could say for the shower was that the water was above tepid and that King kept it relatively clean. She didn't miss the signs of King scattered around the room: the toothbrush still in its wrapper; the razor lying neatly by the faucets; the deodorant stick, also unopened. It all added up to King not using this place often, and not staying overnight even if he did, but the medicine cabinet above the sink was neatly stocked with everything a hunter needed, from antiseptic cream to needle and thread.
She had a feeling he'd learned to keep that kind of stuff on hand the hard way, but she was simply delaying the inevitable, and there was no point in trying to do that any more. If nothing else, she strongly suspected that if she took too long, King would simply march in to check whether she was okay. At least, that would be his excuse, and so she pulled on her panties and dragged King's t-shirt over her head. Since her own shirt was beyond salvaging thanks to the rusty stains of Estevez's blood smeared across the fabric, she balled it up and shoved it into the small trashcan beside the sink. It would be King's problem now.
He looked up when she walked into the room. He was busy cleaning his gun at one of the work surfaces, and he'd taken off his Kevlar vest, hanging it over the back of the only chair in the room, the one pushed up against the table that obviously served as a desk. He'd painted a target on the back of the vest, and there was a grey mark scarring its surface, the hole left by a bullet impact. She froze, suddenly going cold as she remembered how he'd stumbled, shielding her body with his own.
"You finished with the shower?" King asked, but she ignored the question.
"Are you hurt?"
He blinked at her, obviously thrown by the question.
"You were hit," she said impatiently, flicking her fingers towards the tell-tale mark on his Kevlar vest. "Are you hurt?"
He shrugged, and she didn't miss his wince at the top of the move. "I'm fine," he said. "A little bruised, but I'll live. What about you?" He made a quick, abortive gesture towards her arm, where the red streak from her near miss marred her skin.
She gave it a quick, dismissive glance, turning her attention back to him almost immediately. "It's fine," she said flatly, but quelling King had never really worked. It didn't work this time either; he gave her a look that said everything he wasn't.
"Give me a second to clean up," he said, flashing his grease-stained hands at her, grimed with the grit from his gun, "and I'll see what I can do about patching you up."
She thought about arguing, but with vamps still on the hunt for them, she wasn't going anywhere any time soon. So she shrugged instead, avoiding his eyes by simple expedient of looking around the room.
He hesitated for a moment, as though he was expecting her to say something or wanted to say something himself, but when she refused to acknowledge him, he sighed and headed towards the bathroom, tugging his shirt over his head as he went.
She looked. She couldn't help it, her eyes drawn inexorably to his body. There were bruises scattered across on his torso, some old and yellowing but some new, including a red patch high on his shoulder that matched the mark on his Kevlar vest.
She tore her eyes away as he disappeared through the door, her fingers curling unconsciously into fists as she tried not to think about how, if the bullet had been just three or four inches higher, Estevez wouldn't have been the only body she would have had to leave behind. It was pointless to think about it, not when she'd spent far too much time dwelling on the past as it was. She needed distraction, and she pushed herself away from the table, exploring the small confines of the room and hoping for some insight into what King had been up to since she'd last seen him.
There were a few books here and there, which she'd expected given how voraciously he read, and while he'd said that he wasn't here often, it seemed like he didn't want to be separated for long from his reading material. But the titles of the books confused her - they were non-fiction, thick, weighty academic tomes whose titles she barely understood, never mind the contents.
They weren't the only things in the room that didn't fit with her picture of King. The shelves held broken shards of pottery, interspersed here and there with stone carvings and small statues, the figures in them contorted and otherworldly. But by far the most numerous were the bits of script, sometimes carved into rock, sometimes pressed into papyrus, which had, in turn, been pressed between sheets of glass, but all of it ancient, and none of them in a language she recognised.
She frowned, trying to puzzle it out and failing. She'd never pegged King for the collector type, and he seemed more the sports pennant type when it came to interior design than this. But then she spotted something that put all thoughts of relics out of her head.
Propped up neatly against the stone relief was the picture of King's parents that she'd had Hedges print out for him.
She picked it up, studying it. Maybe it wasn't the exact same photograph. Maybe King had also printed it off the web, but the sight of it had her swallowing, trying not to let it sway her in a direction she was already toppling.
She didn't want to think about King as human, as vulnerable. She didn't want to take that risk with her heart again, not when it was still battered and bleeding after last time, and it wasn't like he'd managed to find a picture of her.
She put the picture back, still busy straightening it when King came back into the room.
He'd showered and pulled on a pair of sweats, but he was still bare-chested, busy towelling his hair. It gave her a chance to study him without him noticing. The ageing bruises she'd spotted briefly on his back spread over his chest as well, an ugly line of yellows and purples splashed across his ribs. There was a graze on the front of one shoulder, the skin already scabbed and healing like he'd hit something or been dragged over something. It was all too easy to imagine what could have happened to him, even though she'd never really thought of herself as having a vivid imagination.
And there, lying against his chest, nestled neatly just above the dark hair, was Velasquez's St Jude medallion.
She was still staring at it when he finally pulled the towel away from his head and caught her looking. He raised his eyebrow, a slight smirk forming on his face, but she wasn't fooled. It may have been months since the last time she'd seen him, but some of his tricks she still remembered and his knack for deflection wasn't something she could easily forget.
"You get hurt a lot," she said softly and his smile faded as he looked away, something vulnerable flashing through his eyes before the barriers came up again.
"Yeah, well, it kind of goes with the territory." He jerked his chin at her arm. "You should know all about that. Are you finally going to let me look at that cut for you?"
She shrugged, not trusting herself to meet his gaze, not when the urge to touch him, to map every single one of his new scars with her fingers and ask the story behind them was so strong.
"I'm going to take that as a yes," he said, and there was a wry kind of amusement in his voice. "Wait here." He stepped back into the bathroom again, coming out with a small medical kit in his hands.
"Up." He patted the table. For a second, she thought about arguing, but she had no good reason for that. Nothing but her balking at the idea of being him so close to her, not when she still didn't trust herself. In the end, she gave in, pushing herself up onto the table and tugging the t-shirt she wore down so that she didn't flash any more thigh than was necessary.
She'd half expected King to comment on it, but he was all business. He cleaned the wound carefully, his face fixed into a small frown of concentration. His fingers were gentle against her skin, and she shivered.
There were no safe subjects of conversation between them, nothing she could retreat into, and that just left the unsafe subjects of conversation, the ones where only fools rushed in.
She was definitely beginning to believe that she was a fool for him.
"How did you know to be there tonight?" she asked.
He shrugged, his eyes focused on what he was doing. "I've been tracking Danica," he said.
"I know," she said quietly, "but our intel didn't have it down as a Talos operation. I thought you said that Danica considered blood banks beneath her."
"Well, your intel's out of date." He turned away, busying himself with the small first aid kit. "And Danica has always been a little greedy. With Frost gone, the Talos Clan are expanding their operations into every shady little deal they can, blood banks included..." He frowned, the words trailing off as he examined her arm.
"I don't think there's much more I can do except wrap this up, keep it clean. I guess I should have gone into medicine, not archaeology."
He never had told her what he'd been studying, all those secrets wound up in lies, but it would have explained the statuary and the other artefacts he had scattered around if she'd known what the hell he was up to. As it was, she was still in the dark.
"I stole it from Danica," he said when he glanced up from his contemplation of the first aid kit and caught her looking. "In case you were wondering."
That made it easier to look to look around the room again, focusing on the majestic mystery of the objects around her instead of how close King was or the warmth rising from his skin as he leaned over to apply a bandage to her arm, taping it down carefully.
"Why?"
He glanced up at her, his expression amused again. "That's kind of an open ended question," he said. "If you're asking why did I steal this stuff from Danica, then the answer is because she wanted it. I don't know why yet, but I intend to figure it out. And in the interim, she doesn't have it, which pisses her off." He gave her a slow grin, his hatred of Danica clear around the edges. "And I'm all for anything that pisses Danica off. It's kind of a hobby of mine."
She didn't rise to the bait, giving him a long, level look. He returned it with interest, his fingers stilling on her arm as his expression grew thoughtful. "And how did you know I was tracking Danica?"
She shrugged, wincing as the move pained the bullet graze on her arm. "I hear things," she said.
"I hear you ask things, as well."
She didn't answer him, but she wouldn't meet his eyes either and he dropped the subject, once again focusing on tending to her arm.
"How's that?" he asked when he'd fastened to the bandage off. His fingers were still resting lightly on her arm, and each time she breathed in or out, his fingers brushed against her skin. She licked nervously at her lips and flexed her arm, pleased when the tape didn't pull.
"That's fine," she said, adding a belated, "Thank you."
He nodded, but didn't move away. Instead, he leaned in closer, bracketing her with his hands as he rested them on either side of her on the table.
"Are you hurt anywhere else?" he asked, reaching up and cupping Abby's chin with his fingers, exerting a gentle pressure that guided her head to the side until he could see the bump on her temple.
"What about that?" he asked. "How are you feeling? Any dizziness?"
"No," she said, fighting not to pull away as he turned her face back, his eyes staring into hers, flicking from one pupil to another. She knew what he was looking for and pulled away, his fingers slipping from her skin. "I'm fine."
He pulled back, something flaring quickly across his face and then dying before she could register it. "Okay," he said, and his tone was just as gentle as his fingers had been.
She missed his touch as soon as he moved away, but she'd grown used to missing him. She stared at him for a moment, and she had no idea what was showing on her face or shining in her eyes, but his hand drifted up to her temple again, brushing her hair out of her eyes and running the strands gently through his fingers.
She shivered, his touch almost too much to bear. She reached up to push him away, put some distance between them, but her fingers settled on his bare chest and stayed there; his skin was warm and still damp from his shower, all too human and too much for her to take.
"I didn't sell you out," he said quietly, the look in his dark eyes serious, a little broken. "Danica was after me, so Frank was right. It's my fault they're dead, but I didn't -"
"I know," she murmured as her fingers came to rest gently on the small silver pendant. The heat from his body rose up to warm her fingers and she gave in to the feelings she couldn't fight any more, tracing the pattern of marks on his skin. She kept her touch light and gentle as she brushed over bruises, skimming around the scratches and scabs, licking nervously at her suddenly dry lips. "You need to learn how to duck."
The corner of his mouth quirked up, but the amusement didn't reach his eyes. They stayed deep and dark, a warmth in the depths that she couldn't ignore any longer.
She didn't want to. She was so tired of fighting: fighting Frank, fighting vamps, fighting this.
King leaned in, his fingers skimming over her face. His thumb brushed over her cheekbone, gently enough not to cause any pain from the bruise that was beginning to blossom there. And then his palm cupped her jaw as he bent down to kiss her, slow and soft and sweet as her fingers curled against his chest.
She pressed herself closer to him, her hand sliding up from his chest to the back of his neck as she deepened the kiss. His lips parted underneath hers, and even though they'd barely kissed before, even though it had been months, the taste of him was achingly familiar. Only the feel of his beard prickling against her skin was new.
She was going to regret this, but regrets were nothing new. Not when it came to King.
-o-
Part 10: dreamwidth :: livejournal :: insanejournal
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(AND THE BEGINNINGS OF THE SEARCH FOR DRACULA OMG)
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I love the way he's looking at her in the picture your (and my!) icon is made from, and the way he's not quite touching her but you know that any second he could just close that gap between them, brush his fingers over her arm, and probably will.
Plus, she could kick his ass with one hand behind her back ::g::