by Martha Woods
All of this happened in the space of ten seconds, but watching it happen step by step felt like it had been going for ten hours, the shaking at my leg drawing me back to the present with very sudden alarm.
“Y-you… fucking bitch…” Malcolm clawed weakly at my knee, his skin pale and clammy from blood loss, the stump where his arm had once been still bleeding onto the dirty concrete below us. The fact that he was even still conscious was honestly incredible, a normal man would have passed out from either shock or lack of blood, I guess it was sheer power of hatred that was keeping him awake enough to inconvenience me.
Or, judging by the pistol that he was picking up from his side and starting to aim in my direction, he was putting himself in a position to do much more than that.
“Wait!” I yelled, ducking to the side just in time to dodge a shot that had been going right for my head, the slug sailing through the air and sinking into an unfortunate hunter that had been standing behind us, sending him lifelessly down to the ground in a boneless heap. Malcolm didn’t stop at just one shot though, firing shakily in a clumsy attempt to hit me, his vision no doubt blurred at the very least and almost completely gone most likely. Unlike most things, however, this was not something that worked in my favor, the fact that he was shooting completely randomly and not even attempting to aim meant that I had no way of predicting where and when he was going to fire next, which meant that my still living wasn’t so much due to my good reflexes as it was pure dumb luck.
Some of the rounds skimmed so close to my skin I could swear a burn was going to be left behind, so focused on not getting shot that I couldn’t get a shot off of me own, or even count how many bullets he must have had left. All I could do was keep shaking and rolling, hoping against hope that he would run out of rounds before I ran out of luck.
“Jesus Christ Malcolm!” I shouted, “Can’t you just hurry up and fucking bleed out already?”
His next shot scraped against my shoulder, not enough to shatter bone but enough to hurt a lot, like, a lot a lot. I’d already been shot yesterday and that hadn’t been fun, but to have the pain renewed all over again in a location that needed to move pretty often hadn’t been on the top of my list of things to do, nor had curling up into a ball out of reflex from the pain, leaving myself completely vulnerable if he decided to take another shot. I realized that last point just in time to look up into the barrel of his pistol, seeing the lazy, almost dead smirk cross over his face just as he started to pull the trigger.
“Hey!” Someone yelled, a blur moving into my vision and sending him rocking to the side with one of the most vicious kicks I’ve seen in recent memory, “Fuck you!”
“Cara?” I gasped, staring up at her with her arms still tied behind her back as she stomped down on Malcolm’s remaining wrist, forcing the gun from his hands and kicking it away into the moving crowd. “Where the hell did that come from?”
“Do you know how hard it is to get up without using your hands?” She shook her head, grinning widely at me and nodding towards the hallway containing the rest of our friends. “Come on, let’s get the fuck out of here.”
I pushed myself to my feet, taking her arm and leading her away through the crowd as fast as I could, leaving Malcolm behind to breath his last. There was nothing that I could possibly do to help him anyway, not with an injury like that, but given what he’d spent the last day being a part of I was going to have a hard time convincing myself to actually mourn him. I was running very short on sympathy today, and all my stores were being spent on the vampires who had come here to save my life to begin with. Everyone else… eh, whatever.
“Hey, would you look at that?” I mused, squeezing my arm around her waist and smiling softly, “I didn’t save you this time. You saved me.”
“I did, didn’t I?” She hummed to herself, smile slowly spreading across her face and her shoulders trembling with happiness, “It feels pretty good, I can see why you’re totally addicted to it.”
“I’m not-” Addicted to saving people was what I was going to say, but I had to admit that… maybe the thrill I got from helping my friends and everyone in the alliance was… a bit more satisfying than it should have been. Today had been stressful enough, however, I didn’t need to admit on top of everything else that I what? Get off on helping people? Nuh-uh, no way am I ever going to admit to that, so I settled for the next most eloquent thing that I could think to reply, “Shut up.”
The journey back towards our friends wasn’t as hard as it had been getting over here, since the moment they’d seen Tristian dive straight out of the building and plummet the better part of three stories to the ground the hunters focus had shifted from keeping the fight going to retreating as best they could, the sheer number of them trying to push through the thin barricade of vampires blocking the door out saving at least a few of them. Many others, however, were not as lucky, and though they had been a gigantic pain in my ass for months, caused the deaths of a number of paranormals and had been planning to kill me not ten minutes ago… I had to admit that the sounds of them being torn apart were going to stay with me for at least a few months, maybe forever. They might have been monsters but no one really deserved to die like that.
In fact, by the time that Cara and I made it back into the thankful arms of Damon the battle was all but over, the screams now more distant as hunter after hunter focused more on trying to get out of the building than fighting back, a number of them falling victim to hungry mouth and sharpened claws, clearing the way for the rest to disappear through the front doors into not-night, tires screeching as they drove off to whatever fall back hideaway they had left.
“That went… differently, than I expected,” Damon said, looking between Cara and I to check for any injuries. His eyes stilled over the gouge in my shoulder, already checking the wound for any deeper damage before I could even properly articulate a sentence. “What is it with you and getting shot? I haven’t even seen the first one properly yet…”
“I’m fine, thank you so much for the concern.” Brushing his hand away from my shoulder and weaving our fingers together, I leaned in and pressed my lips to his cheek, sighing deeply and allowing myself to actually relax for the first time today. God knows I’m going to be carrying some tension in my shoulders for a while after this, hope someone at least knows how to give a good massage. “Is everyone ok here? I wanted to come sooner but I was out of town and-”
“We’re fine Amy,” Tabitha answered, looking up at me from her spot on the floor, “I’ve got a splitting headache and I probably have a broken finger but… I’m fine at least. Are you?”
“Am I? Of course, I...” Well, that was a lie, wasn’t it? My friends had almost been killed because of me, if I hadn’t gotten so involved in everything and stirred everything like I did there probably wouldn’t have been any reason for them to be placed in danger, Tristian would have kept being his reckless self but he would have been manageable. Alexis wouldn’t have been taken from her club and beaten, Tabitha wouldn’t have had to deal with more trauma on top of everything else, Tariq and Cara could have focused on sorting out whatever it was that was happening between them… but all because of a few choices that I had made they were brought here and almost killed. So, no, I wasn’t fine, I was downright shitty actually, and I only had myself to blame for that. “I’m… getting there.”
Damon nodded at me, guiding me down to the ground and leaning me back against the wall, sensing even before I did that I was in shock. I guess he would have seen it enough times in his life, given what he had done for a living, but it killed me to see the look on his face when he recognized it in me. I didn’t want to hurt him like that, but I guess that's just the day that we were having wasn’t it?
“Tell me that I’ve done the right thing so far,” I said, more pleaded actually, “Tell me that I’ve actually been doing something good and haven’t been just… fucking everything up relentlessly for the last few months of my life.”
“Personally, I don�
�t see any issues with what you’ve done.” We snapped our eyes up at the doorway, my breath hitching in my chest at the sight of Joseph dripping blood down onto the dusty concrete, his tongue flicking out at the scarlet liquid coating his lips. “Matter of fact, I’d say that this was a best-case scenario, barring the injuries to your friends.”
“Best case scenario?” I asked, “This is a fucking bloodbath, how was this a best-case scenario?”
Joseph rolled his eyes, edging that line between friendly jest and disdain. “We needed to kill Tristian, that much was assured, but there was no way that his hunters were just going to sit by and let us do so. Sooner or later, even if we killed him, someone else would have risen up and started over where he stopped.”
“But… we didn’t kill him, what’s to stop him from just leaving and doing this all over again? If he’s still out there then what does this all matter what we did today?”
“At least eighty percent of his men are dead, whatever moves he can make from now on are going to have to rely on means other than manpower.” He grinned, looking absolutely manic with the blood covering his features. “Of course, that sort of thing requires resources, and given that I put in a request to the hunters that we have with us…”
“You talked to the hunters?” Damon asked, stilling his inspection of my leg to look back up at Joseph, “What did you ask them to do?”
“It took a few tries, which is the reason for me being a little late, but I asked them a few simple questions. Namely, where would Tristian hide if he was to go on the run, what safehouses he has access to, what their common lines of funding were, they were very reluctant to give up the information but as soon as I told them what he had done and what he was planning to do here they proved more than willing to help us out.” Sweeping his hand behind him, across the city skyline, he sighed in satisfaction, “I asked them if they were willing to guard those posts for us for the foreseeable future and they were happy to oblige, if he or his men go to any of their normal hideaways all it will take is one single phone call and we will know exactly where they are. Or our hunters might decide to just kill them on sight, either option is a satisfactory one.”
I had to admit that… didn’t exactly sound like a bad plan, I’d only thought of everything ending once and for all right here, I hadn’t even considered a backup plan in case things didn’t fully work out. I guess if I needed a reminder that I was still new to all of this that was it, Joseph had a few centuries on me though so it only made sense that he would have more experience with planning to take down an entire organization. Still though everything… seemed to be working out a little too well.
“How do we know that the hunters can be trusted? Don’t get me wrong I know we need their help and all but… what if some of them aren’t on board with taking care of Tristian?”
“A fair concern, it’s one that I’ve had on my mind for a while now, but the reason I’m almost certain of their help is sitting right next to you with his hand on your leg.”
“Me?” Damon said, raising an eyebrow, “I’m just one guy, I wasn’t even the one in charge.”
“No, but you are the one that they felt they could talk to, and you’re the one who has taken the lead role in making sure that they feel welcome in our alliance. Even as someone who is heavily invested in what we are building I will admit that I was… extremely hesitant to give the hunters a chance, and if I was in charge of making them feel welcome I have no doubt that my preconceptions would have gotten in the way.” He smiled, pointing down at Damon and nodding. “You smoothed things over between us and them, gave us both enough time to see the similarities between each other and encouraged us to get involved. As a result, they all feel… greatly indebted to you, and so do many of the vampires that are here tonight.”
“Oh. Oh I… thank you, I suppose I should say.” Damon looked away, brow screwed up in confusion and his mouth quirked in amusement. “Gotta say, never thought that I’d ever be someone that vampires felt indebted to.”
“Neither did I,” Joseph replied, “When I first met you I thought you were impossibly skittish, but I suppose that must have just been nerves over sharing a drink with me. Given the last vampires whose house you had gone into I suppose such a reaction was justified. But here we are now, I think that this could be counted as a friendship, don’t you?”
I snorted, breaking into their moment and drawing their attention to me. “I’m sorry,” I said, “But if you two are going to hug it out you might want to wait until one of you isn’t covered in blood.”
Joseph looked down at himself, quirking his lip in dry amusement and sucking a finger into his mouth. “Of course, I don’t like to waste food after all. Now then, I suppose it’s about time that you and yours get on out of here, I would suggest that you get into your car and drive to the mansion, we have people there who are more than capable of helping your injuries.”
“That’s a good plan,” Tabitha said, wincing as she tried to flex her hand and tweaked her broken finger, “What about you? Are you going to be coming back with us?”
“No, I’m afraid not. The spell won’t last much longer and we absolutely will not survive exposure to the sun, we’re going to hide in one of the lower levels until night falls, then we will come back to join you.” He stepped away, offering a wave in farewell and a respectful nod. “I must say Amy, though this is hardly how I saw things going when we came to the idea of an alliance, I still think that you are the leader that we need. I suggest you think that over yourself, it’s not hard to see the doubt that you still have over yourself.”
“Yeah,” I scoffed, “Easier said than done…”
“Maybe, maybe…” He said, “But you’ve already managed to do some impossible things, why is that so hard to believe you can do?”
I couldn’t give an answer before he disappeared, the rest of the vampires following suit and retreating into one of the lower levels. Given the kind of darkness that they would need they would likely be underground, but I have a feeling that even if we needed to pass right by them to get out of the building we wouldn’t see them two feet away from us. Being able to do something like that would definitely be interesting, but the price that they’ve had to pay to have it… I’m not sure I would be able to take it.
“Fuck it,” I said, standing to my feet and shoving all my self doubt to the side for a moment. They might have been safe for the moment, but I still had my friends depending on me to keep them safe, I could think about how I felt about all of this once we were rested and fed. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter 4
Just as I thought, we didn’t see or hear any of the vampires that had only three minutes ago been standing and panting around us, fortunate for them seeing as the clouds had parted not thirty seconds after they had left, the sun hanging high and bright in the sky as it always should have been. I still couldn’t believe that Faye and the others had managed to keep it hidden for so long, I’d been expecting them to manage four minutes tops, but to manage almost fifteen minutes of total blackout without a single slip up in between start and finish? That must have been extremely taxing on them, I just hoped that they were alright.
As for us, with the exception of Alexis, everyone was at least able to walk, some limping more than others but able to stand under their own power. Damon and I were supporting Alexis’ weight on our shoulders, after everything she’d been through she deserved to take it easy for a little bit. What I wasn’t looking forward to though was working out how we were going to all fit in a four-seat car, being that we were six injured people who wouldn’t be very comfortable cramping up together, though we might not have much of a say in the matter.
“Alright, how are we going to do this?” I asked, staring at the car which, while very nice to drive, suddenly looked so much smaller than it had when I’d first pulled up. “Unless they let you drive one of your cars here I think our options are… pretty limited.”
Tariq coughed, his cheeks noticeably darker than they h
ad been before as he gestured between himself and Cara, catching her eye and giving a shy smile. “If it was alright with you Cara, and I don’t mean to put any pressure on you, you could always sit in my lap in the back. It would save space and I’m not that hurt, so a little weight wouldn’t really matter that much to me…”
She giggled, taking a second to look at me with an expression that told me everything I needed to know, though she may as well have just said it out loud considering their feelings for each other were no longer a secret even to each other. “That’s fine Tariq, I don’t mind that at all.” She stepped closer, standing on her toes and whispering something into his ear that I couldn’t hear but made him blush even darker. Knowing what I knew about Cara, honestly, it could have been damn near anything, but whatever it was no doubt good. “Well, that’s one seat covered, what about you four?”
Tabitha sighed, taking Alexis’ weight onto herself and leading her around to the other side of the car. “We’ll do the same if you’re not too screwed up?”
Alexis shook her head, smiling gently and wincing while she readjusted herself. “No, no that’ll be fine. So long as you don’t have any problems with your legs?”
“My finger is broken, not my legs, we’re good to go. I just want to get to this weird vampire house so I can get some pills and something to eat, then I’ll be floating golden.”
I looked over at Damon, shrugging to myself and pressing the key fob, the doors unlocking and letting us finally take what were relatively comfortable seats for at least some of us. Damon and I didn’t have any reason to complain, and Cara and Tariq certainly weren’t having any regrets about their seating choice, though Tabitha and Alexis were a little harder to get a read on. Tabitha looked like she was uncomfortable, whether from Alexis’ weight or the fact that, well, she was as attractive as she was, but Alexis at least looked relaxed for the first time in the entire time that I’d seen her. I guess anything was better than having to sit on a shitty concrete floor, compared to that a surly, uncomfortably bony seat sounded like heaven.
