Three…
The faintest breeze against my right cheek.
I snapped to my left and fired the crossbow again. There was a thud and a satisfying squelch followed by a loud scream.
Twisting to my right, I pulled out one of my silver throwing knives and launched it towards the other vampire I could sense in my periphery. A sharp sting cut across my left shoulder as the vampire fell towards the ground.
When I opened my eyes, weaselly vamp was pinned to the wall, a stake through his chest, and 90s Icon was staring at the silver knife in his gut.
“Everything good?” Bishop asked, his voice soft through my earpiece.
I kept my eyes on 90s Icon as he squirmed in pain. “Yeah, just a little scratch. Three down. Where are the other two?”
“Second floor. One hasn’t moved and I think he’s guarding something. The other is scrambling and burning some shit.”
Guarding something? I wondered what they had up there. “Switch the binoculars to infrared and tell me what you see.”
“I’ll kill you for this,” 90s Icon sputtered, thick dark blood pooling in the corner of his mouth.
“Yeah, yeah. Of course you will.” Honestly, some people just didn’t know when to quit. “You won’t be doing anything until you take that knife out of your stomach.”
The vamp looked at it and winced. Yeah, that fucker was going to hurt. Apparently, silver felt like acid to a vampire, and that blade was completely made of silver. It would strip the skin from his hand if he touched it and it was probably making his stomach feel like it was disintegrating.
“You’ve got a heat source on the second floor,” Bishop said.
“How many?”
“One. Better move, Byron. John looks like he’s finished whatever he was burning in the grate.”
“Keep your eyes on him and tell me if he disappears.”
Shit. Well, at least I’d get to torture some answers out of him.
I crouched down next to 90s Icon and wrapped my hand around the hilt of the knife. “Are you going to tell me anything useful?”
“Fuck you,” he sputtered.
I twisted the knife, and he howled in pain. “Now, that’s not very helpful. Do you know who’s giving you the drugs to sell?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know anything. I just sell them.”
“How old is John Brown?” Damyr would be pissed if this asshole wasn’t even a century old.
The vamp’s brow dropped in a confused scowl. “Who?”
“The guy you take orders from. How old is he?”
“His name is John Brown?” he snorted and then grimaced as a wave of pain travelled through him. “He goes by Gunner. He’s like eighty, I think.”
I twisted the knife again. “You think?”
He yelped in pain and nodded. “Yeah. Come on, man. Stop. Please.”
I wasn’t going to get anything useful out of this guy. He was low pickings and clearly didn’t know shit. I stood up and lookeddown at him. “If you can pull the knife out, you can save yourself. But if you’re still there when I’m done with Gunner upstairs, you’ll be burnt to a fucking crisp with the rest of the building.”
“That was awfully kind of you,” Bishop mumbled as I made my way upstairs.
“I’m not kind. I’m just moving onto the target.”