Incubus Dreams - Laurell K. Hamilton [147]
One of the biggest of the group jumped onto Primo, hanging on to his shoulder and arm. Primo grabbed him by the shoulder and peeled him off like he was nothing. He tossed him into the coat check booth and earned a scream from the holy item–check girl that worked there.
Primo’s power was thick enough to walk on, but only for a second, then down it went. He couldn’t sustain it.
“Enough,” Buzz said, and he sounded unhappy to have to say it. He motioned, and that one motion ended the security guards’ hesitation. The other black-shirts moved in and started helping the college guys move toward the door. They made some progress, but the guys didn’t want to leave their buddies ass-deep in giant vampire. I couldn’t really blame them.
Again, this was outside my skill set. I could have drawn badge and gun and stopped it, if I was willing to arrest, or kill Primo, but I didn’t know how to tone it down. As Buzz had said, their job was not to make it worse, but to make it better. I didn’t know how to do that. Not really.
Buzz was yelling, “Primo, Primo, stop fighting back. We need to get this out of the club.”
Primo’s answer to that was to pick up two college students by the throat, one in each hand, as if he meant to bang their heads together. But while his hands were busy, another enterprising young man, with short brown hair and shoulders nearly as wide as Buzz’s, hit him in the face. He knew how to throw a punch. It rocked the vampire’s head back, and blood blossomed at his mouth, like a crimson flower on all that white skin.
The music from the stage died abruptly, and into that sudden silence Primo screamed. A huge rage-filled battle cry. He dropped the two men in his hands like they were nothing and went for the man who’d hit him. I expected him to throw him around like he had the others, but he didn’t. He picked him up by the front of his jacket until his feet dangled off the ground, and he was probably choking on his own collar. But instead of those big pale shoulders bunching to throw the man, Primo’s hand went back, and this time he closed his fist. From that close up, with that kind of strength, he was going to snap the man’s neck.
I drew the Browning, but truthfully without a court order of execution, I was in the same boat as a police officer. I couldn’t shoot him if I thought he was only going to hurt someone. How did I argue in court that I knew how strong a vampire was and how fragile the human body could be? And call it a hunch, but I figured once I shot Primo, I had to kill him. I did not want that level of muscle and magic touching me. I was harder to kill, not immortal.
I aimed down my arm, because court and explanations would come later, and that kid was about to die. I was about to take a shoulder shot, because it was my best bet with this many people around, when everyone else got brave, too.
Clay was closest, and he jumped him. Primo tossed the shapeshifter into the first row of tables. Women screamed and scattered. Clay was getting to his feet, but that big fist was pulling back again.
Buzz was screaming, “No, Primo, no!”
I had the gun pointed at the floor, because when you’re tense, your fingers are tense, too. If I shot someone, I wanted it to be on purpose. I started to move closer and to one side for a better shot, when the black-shirts swarmed him, and I had no shot at all.
If I’d been ready to kill his ass, I’d have yelled for them to get away, but I was still hoping to avoid it. I moved closer, and to one side, farther away from the tables, where I thought I had a better chance at getting a clear shot. I’d never