HILL DUCKED INTO the first small bedroom but was barely in the door before he yelled, "Clear!" which meant we all did our best to back up, turn on a dime, and go for the last bedroom. The yelling was coming from there anyway, and if SWAT hadn't been with me I might have just gone for it, but there was method to the madness of not leaving the chance of a bad guy behind us. If Hill said the first room was clear, it was, and we just had the mess in the second room. I'd have still gone for the second room first; right, wrong, truth.

Hill and I entered; he peeled off right, and I stayed with him. Jung and Killian tried to come in at our backs, but there wasn't room for anyone else in the bedroom. The three men had to stay outside, because every inch of floor space had an armed man already standing on it. Derry was actually kneeling on the bloody bed, on top of two gory body shapes, because there was no room. Brice was at the foot of the bed, in front of a pile of bloody sleeping bags. Hill had taken us right, because Montague's broad back was standing left, rifle to his shoulder. We aimed where they were aiming, but it was Hermes, standing in the corner between closet and nightstand, that everyone was pointing at, because he was aiming at everyone else. What the hell?

I caught movement behind the big guy, caught a glimpse of pale hand, and knew there was a vampire behind him. In the movies Hermes's face would have been bare so I could have seen his eyes and known he'd been mind-rolled by a vampire, but in real life the face is covered, and the helmet sits low. He had his rifle snugged up tight like the rest of us did, so his face was pretty much invisible, but he was aiming at his teammates; he'd been mind-fucked.

I wanted to ask what had gone wrong. How had this happened? But there'd be time later for questions; right now, we needed solutions. Solutions that didn't end with any of our people dead.

Montague was trying to talk calmly. "Hermes, I helped you build your kid's swing set. Do you remember?" Protocol was that you tried to help the bespelled person remember himself, on the idea that he was still in there somewhere and fighting to break free. It wasn't a bad idea.

"Why'd you shoot this woman, Monty?" Hermes asked, and he sounded genuinely puzzled.

"She's a vampire," Montague said, making his words slow, calm. The time for yelling was over; we needed to de-escalate the situation.

"No, you're wrong. She's human and you shot her." He sounded confused, which was good. Hermes knew something was wrong; maybe he was in there somewhere?

"Hermes, you know me, you know all of us, we would never shoot an innocent woman."

"No..." Hermes said slowly, "no, you wouldn't."

She spoke from behind the shield of him. "Please don't let them kill me! Please!"

"You wouldn't, but someone shot her," Hermes said, and his shoulders moved just a fraction. "I don't know him." He was aiming at Brice.

"He shot me," the woman said, and there were tears and trembling in her voice.

Brice's barrel wavered, and I heard him say, "I'm sorry..." and then the holy objects flared to life. She'd used her voice, and that was fresh vampire powers. The eye trick didn't always flare the holy objects except on the one being targeted, but voice, voice with ill intent did.

Brice's gun came back up, aimed solid, except that there was nothing we wanted to aim at. None of us wanted to shoot Hermes, and none of us had a shot at the vampire behind him. Shit.

My cross flared white and blue with that holy flame that was never really hot until vampire flesh touched it, but it was bright. I was glad the bedroom lights were on, because otherwise it could be blinding, but now it merged with the light in the room, and I could squint past it, except that the only thing I could really see was Hermes.

There was no holy glow from him. She'd persuaded him to take off his holy object, or torn it off of him before she mind-fucked him. If he'd still been wearing it, she wouldn't have been able to roll him, if he believed. Had Hermes had a moment of doubt? Later; I'd worry about his possible crisis of faith later.

The vampire was screaming now. "Help me!"

I had a moment to see Hermes tense; I moved, driving my body with everything I had. If I was supernaturally fast, I called it up and drove my body low into Brice. The rifle shot hit as Brice and I were still falling to the floor. I was on top of Brice's side, with him lying on the bloody sleeping bags. The bed hid us and the action from view.

Hill said, "Blake!"

I said the only thing that came to mind. "Here!"

"Same thing, to the front of me!"

It took me a second, and I hoped I understood the cryptic message, because if I didn't... I trusted Hill, he trusted me. I slid off Brice and crawled for the corner of the bed, got down on one knee, rifle held across my body, set my rear foot into the carpet the way you do on the track, fingertips of one hand down to help with the spring. I breathed a prayer, and visualized putting Hermes through the wall, the way you do in judo; you don't aim a throw at the mat, you aim it inches below the mat. I came up off the floor and launched myself at him, trusting that I was faster than Hermes could move to aim at me, or that the other men would shoot him before he could do it.

It was like magic; one moment I was on the floor, the next slamming low into Hermes's body, driving with everything I had. It was like a giant hand smashed him backward. There was a sharp crack, crunching sounds, and a woman's scream. I had a moment to feel Hermes's body give under my push, saw a pale arm sticking out behind him, and then there were men at my back, hands grabbing Hermes's rifle, grabbing him. I was bringing my rifle up to find the body that went with that pale arm when another rifle barrel appeared in my line of sight. I dropped to my knee and turned my head just as the rifle sounded so loud next to my head that I was deafened.

I'd protected my eyes from the muzzle flash, but my ears behind the special earplugs had been on their own. The inside of my head was a mix of strange quiet and muffled-almost-noise. My head rang with the nearness of the shot, and I fought to look around and see what was happening.

The vampire's head was gone, blown away by Montague's bullet. Her body was smashed into the wall, in a crumpled outline like a cartoon. I could see her chest wound clearly now and knew part of what went wrong. The wound was too high and far to the left. Yeah, someone had shot her chest open, but the heart had been missed. There was a larger outline around her body, and I think it had been from Hermes hitting the wall.

Hermes was on the bloody bed with two of the other men on top of him, using twist ties on his wrists. If the vamp wasn't dead, then the mind-fuck was still happening. Montague was bending over me. He was holding my arm and probably saying something, but I couldn't hear him. It was like all sound was on the other end of some cotton-filled hallway, echoes, bits, but nothing I could actually understand.

He ripped off his face mask, and I could see his mouth move. I recognized my name but could only shake my head and try to shrug through all the equipment. I raised a hand and waved it next to my ear, shaking my head at the same time.

I caught him mouthing, "Sorry." He pulled me to my feet, and I let him do it. He screamed next to my ear, "Are you hit?"

Hit, not hurt; it meant shot, or hurt more than just partially deafened. I shook my head. He left me standing there and started using twist ties on the wrists of some of the dead vampires. It was standard to bind everything in a house, even the dead, just in case dead wasn't as dead as it appeared. They'd taken Hermes out of the room, but Hill was kneeling at the foot of the bed. Oh, shit, Brice. Please, God, don't let him be dead his first night out.

Hill was putting pressure on Brice's shoulder, but he was sitting up, blinking - alive. Yay, fucking yay! The distant wail of sirens made it through the lack of clear sound. My hearing was coming back, and I started to get snatches of sound almost as soon as I thought it.

"Ribs broken," and I turned to look down at Hill and Brice.

Brice's voice came tinny, but clearish. "Thanks for saving my... but did you have to..."

I finally got that he was grateful I'd saved him from getting shot in the chest, but that the force of the "save" had probably broken some ribs. I called him an ungrateful baby. We laughed, he winced, and then two men in different uniforms came in with a stretcher and equipment. The medics were here; my job was done. It wasn't my job to heal the sick, only to make the dead lie down and stop moving.

I looked at the bloody bed, the gory pile of sleeping bags beside Brice and Hill. I'd done my job. I moved out of the room and gave the EMTs room to do theirs.

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