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"Please don't leave me." Kate's voice was so weak, I could barely hear her whisper.

  Frankie didn't move. He just looked sadly at the sick Beta, his eyes filled with tears.

  "Come on, Frankie." I nudged him again. "We can't be in here right now. Dr. O's on his way."

  He hesitated. "We can't leave her like this."

  "We aren't going to do her any good if we get sick, too," I reasoned.

  He ignored me. I changed tactics.

  "Stop being a stubborn ass," I raised my voice. He still ignored me.

  Kate moaned and fell into a fetal position. She began to convulse. Frankie made a move towards her, but I grabbed him. Standing in front of him, I took him by both shoulders and stared into his eyes.

  "We need to get out of here before she barfs blood all over us. Don't make me go witchy on you."

  It was an idle threat. Only a few weeks before, I first learned that I am half-witch as well. My witch abilities were dormant for years — hidden by my vampire genetics — until an unfortunate encounter with a spelled knife turned on the hocus-pocus. I was working with my witch mentor, who's also my aunt, on controlling my newfound abilities. Much to Auntie Babe's frustration, I was not taking to it like a fish to water. If I tried to unleash my mojo in here, poor Kate could very well blow up, taking Frankie and me along with her.

  Kate's moaning was now punctuated by high-pitched cries of pain. Clearly in agony, she writhed on the floor. Her hands formed into claws, and she scratched at the body of the seriously dead vampire closest to her. His skin tore like dried papier-mâché as she drove her nails into his corpse. As she tore at his flesh, blood bubbled out of her mouth.

  "She not going to make it!" I shouted at Frankie, pushing on his lanky six-foot frame. "And neither are we if we don't get out of here!"

  I shoved Frankie harder towards the door. He finally snapped out of his stupor and we fled to across the room to the stairwell door. I pushed on it, but it didn't budge. Shaking the handle, I pressed all my weight against it. Nothing. I moved aside and Frankie levered a kick at the door. He succeeded in denting the door, jamming it even harder into the frame.

  "Crap, Frankie! There's no time!" I yelled over Kate's ear-piercing shrieks.

  Frankie looked wildly around. "Can we break the windows?"

  Everything was soaked in blood. Blood we couldn't touch. Crap. I had no choice.

  "Hold on!" I closed my eyes tightly and I tried to clear my thoughts, but between Kate's shrieks and Frankie's desperation creeping into my head, not to mention my own stress, my mind was too unfocused to do this right. Oh well. Close enough was going to have to do.

  I felt the air shift around me, and I latched onto this small breeze, willing it to grow to hurricane strength. My hair loosed from its ponytail and slapped across my face. The swelling wind pushed me forward. Grabbing Frankie's hand for stability, I cried out the few words of Latin I could come up with that approximated "break the damn glass." The five plate glass windows on the south side of the room shook. I repeated the words louder, putting more force behind them. The wind turned hurricane strength, pushing us across the room, dangerously closer to Kate. Finally, the windows shattered one by one, shards of glass falling 26 stories to the sidewalk.

  I opened my eyes. Kate was about to explode. Blood frothed around her lips, her shrieks now muffled as the blood worked its way up her throat.

  Hands still clutched, Frankie and I nodded at each other, knowing exactly what we had to do. Together, we ran straight for the windows, and leapt feet first into the star-filled sky.

  Frankie's hand slipped out of mine as we both twisted our bodies and made a grasp for the ledge. I caught it, just barely, almost wrenching my shoulder out of its socket on the impact. Frankie similarly stopped short next me. We dangled 26 stories over downtown Providence.

  I heard the rush of blood explode out of Kate, like a broken faucet spewing at high force. We were too late. I only hoped Max and Dr. O wouldn’t be too late themselves. Frankie could survive the drop. I, on the other hand, would totally Humpty Dumpty it.

  The elevator dinged open. "What the hell?" Max's voice echoed out the window.

  "Out here!" I called, my voice strained by my intolerable position. I was losing feeling in my arms, and my fingers were cramping.

  Max peered out the window, and a look of disbelief spread across his face when he saw our predicament.

  Max's strong grip latched onto my wrist. He hauled me up and pulled me through the window, steadying me on my feet before reaching down and pulling Frankie through, too.

  "What the hell were you doing out there?!" He rounded on us, his Berserker temper at the surface.

  "Take it easy, will you? It was go out the window or get super-soaked in opium-tainted blood. We picked our more survivable option." I nodded at the disintegrating vampire bodies at the back of the blood-soaked room.

  A second elevator dinged. The doors swept open and Dr. O stood inside, momentarily shell shocked by the carnage in the room. Frankie and I both rubbed feeling back into our shoulders.

  "I see I am too late." He stepped from the elevator into the room. He slipped a little on the fresh blood, and Frankie caught him before he landed ass first in the mess. "Nina, Frankie. Are you both all right? No blood spatter on you?"

  Frankie turned me around and started poking and prodding. His scrutiny of my body was awkward, and my face flamed hot when he turned me around to face him and opened my jacket, feeling quickly around my breasts and down my stomach.

  "Your turn," he said with a wink that made me want to jump back out the window. I scowled at him and started giving him the once over.

  "Um, Doc?" I called, finding a clean slice in the back shoulder of his black leather jacket.

  Dr. O came quickly, shining his flashlight where I pointed. He pulled carefully at the opening in the leather, exposing the skin on Frankie's back. The cut went through Frankie's t-shirt as well.

  Dr. O pulled his hand away, sticky blood caked to his fingers. He looked troubled. "The skin is intact."

  "That's a relief, right?" I asked. My heart was racing.

  "Frankie, there's a slice in your jacket, and there's blood around it." Dr. O's voice was measured. "Do you know if you got cut?"

  "Cut?" he asked. "I think I would have felt that."

  Dr. O's face didn't relax with Frankie's assertion. "Are you sure? Perhaps you already healed?"

  "Of course I am sure," Frankie barked. He turned quickly to face us, his eyes glowing and fangs extended.

  The force of Frankie's anger jumped from his body and into mine, my own fangs puncturing my gums as they broke out of hiding. I turned just as quickly towards Dr. O, my heart racing as Frankie's adrenaline surged through me.

  Dr. O actually took a step away from both of us.

  "Is that the binding?" Dr. O asked calmly.

  I nodded, breathing slowly to try to shut Frankie out of my head.

  When a psychotic vampire named Marcello almost killed me a few months ago, Frankie had to bite me in order to bind me to him so that I could survive Marcello's death blow. Frankie had kept me alive, but I was now bound to him as a "slave" or "companion," depending on which vamp you asked. That meant I could feel his emotions and he could feel mine if we didn't work to keep our feelings closed off from each other. Usually, it was simple, but the more intense the situation, the harder it was to keep the mental wall between us. It was a weird situation, but we were coping the best we could.

  "Whoa, Frankie." I slipped in between the two men and gently placed my hands on Frankie's shoulders. "We're just checking, okay. You'd do the same with me."

  He nodded, his eyes slowly losing their neon brightness. "I wasn't cut."

  "Okay, then, you weren't cut. But you're going to have to toss the jacket. We don't know whose blood that is."

  His face fell. "I liked this jacket."

  "No doubt, it's a hot jacket. But you'll find a new one. A better one!"

  I tried a perky smile, but Franki
e's expression remained unchanged. Defeated, he stripped the black leather off and dropped it into a heap on the floor.

  Dr. O still didn't look convinced, but he let it go. "Let's not tempt fate. You two need to get out of here."

  "What about this mess?" Max asked, frustration creeping into his voice. "I had to pull jurisdiction with the Providence PD to get this building back on the grid. They are going to want to know why. Not to mention a good explanation for all the windows that popped out of the top floor of a vacant high-rise."

  "Is there any way to stop their decay, so Max can take the bodies in?" I asked Dr. O. "They made the news the other night. Maybe a bust-gone-bad?"

  Dr. O nodded his head thoughtfully.

  "With this amount of blood missing and gaping holes for intestines?" Max snapped. "Are you kidding me?"

  "Don't worry. The Cleaner is on her way." Dr. O shuffled through the blood to the windows, turning out his pockets, looking for his phone.

  At the mention of The Cleaner, Frankie wiped the forlorn look off his face and grinned like an idiot.

  "The Cleaner?" I asked.

  The elevator rang again. The doors slid open. Despite his irritation, Max burst out laughing.

  An old woman shuffled out, pushing a cleaning trolley. She was 94 if she was a day, wearing a flower print housedress. She had sparse white hair and a hump back that made her stoop even shorter than my five feet.

  "This it, O'Malley?" She wheezed at Dr. O as she scuffed past Max, giving him a shove that belied her diminutive size.

  "Yes, Dora, and thank you for coming on such short notice," Dr. O said as she gave the woman a small bow.

  The old lady pulled out a pack of Virginia Slims and a Zippo lighter. With a cigarette dangling from her lower lip, she surveyed the mess as she sparked the lighter and lit up. The smell of lighter fluid and acrid smoke mixed with quickly decomposing organic matter.

  "I'll start at the other end while you take the bodies out?" she asked after taking a long drag. "Do you want it spotless? Or do you need a little body fluid left over? And leave the windows out? Or replace them?"

  "Let's replace the windows," Dr. O said. "Can you dispose of the glass on the sidewalk?"

  "That'll be extra." She waited for Dr. O to nod his approval. "Okay, windows done. And the blood clean up?"

  Dr. O turned to Max, hands spread. "What do you think, Agent? How would you like to handle the rest?"

  "I think we should leave some blood," Max sighed. "I'll have to get a forensic unit up here and treat this like a crime scene."

  "Right, Cookie," Dora blew a perfect smoke ring. "Leave the bodies piled there, then."

  "How do we keep them from rotting?" I asked, looking at the festering meat in the corner. To properly kill a vampire, they had to turn to dust. These vampires were molting quickly, the age finally catching up with their flesh.

  The Cleaner took a long drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke out in my face. "Trade secret, doll."

  "Can you dump some bad meth on them before you leave?" I said as I waved the smoke away with my hand.

  "Sure, anything you want, Princess," she wheezed. "How about we burn it down, like a meth lab gone bad?"

  "Really, that's not a bad idea," Frankie said with a shrug.

  "Now we are planting drugs and burning buildings?" Max asked, looking at us incredulously.

  "Would you rather explain decaying vampires?" Dora snapped. "Now everybody out. I have work to do."

  Dora snapped on a pair of yellow Playtex Living gloves.

  I headed straight for the elevator bank right then. Dora the Cleaner was one lady I hated spending time around. She had a knack for making just about anything — and anyone — disappear.

  About the Author

  Karen Greco has spent close to twenty years in New York City, working in publicity and marketing for the entertainment industry. Originally from Rhode Island (she loves hot wieners from New York System, but can't stand coffee milk), she studied playwriting in college (and won an award or two). After not writing plays for a long time, a life-long obsession with exorcists and Dracula drew her to urban fantasy, where she can decapitate characters with impunity. Her first novel, Hell's Belle, was released in 2013. Tainted Blood is the second book in the best-selling Hell's Belle urban fantasy series. Visist her website at http://www.karengrecoauthor.com, or hang out with her on her blog, karengreco.blogspot.com, or on Facebook or Twitter.