Hard Bitten - Chloe Neill [69]
“You’re a doll,” I told her, hurdling a knot of wrestling vampires as I ran for the door. I started by building a vamp chute by grabbing the nearest table and sliding it toward the door. Three more made a faux retaining wall between the exit and the rest of the bar, which kept the fighting vamps corralled and gave the humans a clear path.
I looked back at the crowd, and first spied a couple squeezed back into a booth, eyes wide. I ran to them, hustled them to their feet, and pointed them toward the now partially secured exit.
“Out that way,” I said, and as they headed for the door, I rounded up the rest of them. The humans were pretty easy to spot. The few vamps who hadn’t been affected by the violence were trying to help; the humans mostly cowered, probably shocked by the violence and trying to stay out of the way. I located as many as I could and sent them toward the door, police sirens getting louder as they ran outside.
When I’d cleared out the last of the humans, I moved to the door and found the street awash in blue and red lights as humans ran from the bar like hostages released from a bank robbery.
Cops began to emerge from their vehicles, and I began to fear the worst—that we’d all be arrested for inciting public mayhem. Of course, that would make Tate’s arrest-warrant threat moot.
I moved slowly toward the sidewalk, not eager to be shot by cops who thought I was an emerging perp. Adrenaline began to pulse again as I prepared to face round two—the aftermath. But when a familiar Oldsmobile rolled to the curb, I breathed a sigh of relief.
My grandfather stepped out of the car’s passenger side, wearing khaki-colored pants and a butter yellow, short-sleeved button-down shirt.
Jeff stepped out of the backseat, and Catcher popped out of the driver’s side in a dark T-shirt advertising “Bang Bang Home Repair.” His wearables might have been kitschy, but his expression was all business.
The three of them nodded at the cops they passed. I walked their way.
“Problems?”
“Violence,” I said. “Lindsey was mixing drinks at the bar, and the vamps started fighting over who was going to get which drink. The aggression spread like a virus after that.”
“Same thing you saw at the rave?” Catcher asked, and I nodded my agreement.
“Looks like it. Something in the air, maybe, or slipped into their drinks? I don’t know.” I gestured to the cluster of humans. “We got the humans out of the bar, but things are still tense inside. They’re still going at it, and pulling them off each other hasn’t really worked.”
“How’d you get them calm at the rave?” Jeff asked.
“We didn’t. We basically faked a fire alarm and fled the scene. Since it didn’t make the news, I assumed they’d calmed down on their own.”
A bar table suddenly flew through the open doorway and crashed on the sidewalk outside, rolling to a stop at the front tire of one of the CPD cruisers.
“We may not have that kind of time,” Catcher said.
“Get in there,” my grandfather prompted, gesturing to get the attention of one of the CPD cops. They exchanged some sort of secret cop code, the other officers standing down while Catcher jogged toward the bar and disappeared inside.
It was only a moment before Lindsey and the rest of the nonfighting vamps were jogging out onto the sidewalk. Colin was last in line, a dour expression on his face.
“What’s Catcher going to—” was all I managed to get out before the bar went silent. No more crashing glass, no more screamed epithets, no more flat pops of flesh against flesh.
Although I knew it probably wasn’t possible, my first thought was that Catcher had somehow taken out every vamp in the bar with his mad fighting skills. But Jeff leaned in with a more likely answer.
“Magic,” he whispered. “Catcher got the happy vamps out of the bar. That gave him room to work the Keys on the rest of them.”
“By putting them to sleep?” I asked.
“Nah, probably just a little calming juju. He’s good at that