Valkyrie

Chapter 15

The security office was small and hot and cramped. One side was a long desk with a bank of monitors mounted on the wall above it, a keyboard, and a mouse sitting on the top of the battered desk. It smelled like old spaghetti and scorched coffee and human sweat. A couple of rolling chairs and a coffee pot sitting on top of a small fridge and microwave were the only other things in the room that was more the size of a walk-in closet. Shoving an Alpha wolf with hurt feelings, an old, old vamp, and a tired Valkyrie inside wasn't a good idea but I really wanted to look at the footage before I went home and fell into a coma.

After I took a shower. And ate. And had a drink. Not necessarily in that order.

"Rewind it," I said to Spike. He clicked a few things on the computer and the images on the screen I was looking at reversed. "Stop."

"What do you see?" Trey rumbled. His shoulder was pressed against the right side of my back, the heat of him soaking through my leather jacket as he leaned closer and looked over my shoulder. It felt so good just to have him close. I ignored it, choosing not to acknowledge what he was doing instead of asking him to move.

"It's not what I see, but what I don't see," I murmured as I focused on the screen instead of the wolf pressed against me. I could clearly see myself, my golden hair standing out like a beacon in a sea of black anytime the colored lights rolled over me. I watched as I turned to the right then jerked and spun around to the left toward a blur of movement that was there and gone quick as a blink. I thought I saw a glimpse of a bright blue-white spark but it could have just been the light reflecting off of something metallic. Lord knows there was enough metal on that dance floor to melt down and make a battle ship.

"Can you give me a frame-by-frame?" I asked. It didn't escape me that an ancient vampire knew more about using the computer in front of us then I did. I'm sort of a technophobe and Spike is not. He loves technology. He's the one I reach out to for help anytime my laptop doesn't do what I want it to which is a lot more often than I care to think about.

The scene reversed before it advanced a frame at a time. A flicker to the right. A blur to the left. A gun pointed at the back of my head, nothing more than a dark outline only noticeable because it was set against the relative brightness of my hair. Another blur touching the other. A clear shot of a hand wrapped around a gun, another hand on the wrist of the one holding the firearm, pulling it down. Blur. Blur. The tiniest flash of blue-white light when I assumed the gun went off. Blur. Blur. Gone.

"They were trying to shoot me in the head," I whispered. "Someone jerked their hand down so they got me in the back instead. They weren't aiming for my heart at all."

"Would a head shot kill you?" Trey asked, his voice tight and almost a growl. That Alpha energy bit at my exposed skin before it faded away.

"I don't know," I said with a shake of my thankfully hole free head. "The brain is one of the few places I've never been shot. And with liquid silver in the mix?" I shrugged. "Possibly." It was a chilling thought. I am very hard to kill but it's not impossible. Nothing is truly immortal. Not even the divine, the ones we call gods and goddesses. Even they have their weaknesses. Even they can be killed. It's tough to do but it can be done if you know what you're doing.

"They moved fast," Trey said.

"Yeah. Too fast."

"Not human," Spike whispered. I agreed. No humans moved that quickly. Vampires. Divinity. Maybe a few shifters could. But definitely not humans.

"Who would want to shoot you?"

"The list is endless," I said. Trey grunted. "But here in Arizona? No one that I know of." When you've been around as long as I have, you're bound to make a few enemies. Especially given what my former profession used to be but it had been a long time since I'd acted in that capacity. I hadn't been in Arizona long enough to make the kind of enemy that would try to kill me. Give me some more time and I probably would. Especially after finding whoever hurt Mischa.