by D. N. Hoxa
“Like a fishing net?”
“Exactly,” Sharps said. “But you have to be really fast to use it. It opens in exactly two seconds. You already know how fast vampires are.”
“I have a feeling that will come in handy,” I said. Especially since the ball seemed to be made entirely out of iron, and the silver was tucked safely inside.
“I was thinking of wearing masks, too,” Sharps said. “They won’t know you’re going. The tracker they put in your ankle is still active, which means they’re still tracking you. If it stays here, they’ll think you’re here, too.”
“Wearing masks isn’t going to help me. They can smell me,” I said. It would’ve been cool to be able to catch them all by surprise, but it couldn’t be done.
Sharp pressed his lips into a tight smile. “You told me once that you sometimes washed your body in hydrogen peroxide, then used baby powder. You said the powder closed all your pores, and you didn’t smell like anything for a few hours.”
“Really?” I had no idea what hydrogen peroxide was, but it sounded serious. Sharps nodded. “Then you better get me a lot of baby powder.”
“I guess so,” he mumbled. “We should get going. And your plan pretty much sucks, by the way.”
“Thanks,” I said, grinning. “Let me know if you come up with a better one.”
***
The plane was much more pleasant now that I wasn’t locked up. I had only half an hour to admire the beauty, to check the weapons Sharps and Wyatt had brought, before the sun came up and I crashed.
When I woke up, we were in Brazil.
Sharps said we’d landed in an area where no vampire was around. I still did another run around, just to make sure. When I was convinced that there really was no one around, and enough time passed to tell us that nobody had heard us—the plane was really, really awesome—we went on our way.
I washed my body with hydrogen peroxide, then put baby powder all over me. I didn’t know where Sharps had gotten those things for me, but I was too excited to ask. Once that was done, I dressed in all black, and put the mask on. This one was different from what I was used to with my old mask since it covered my whole head and neck, but I didn’t complain. I didn’t even need to breathe, and I saw through the neatly cut slits just fine.
We jumped in the car which was smaller than I’d imagined, and the pilot, whoever he was, opened the huge door on the rear of the plane. We drove right off it.
“We’ll leave the car where Elijah and Isaac did last time. It worked for them,” Wyatt said as he drove. The road was terrible, too many bumps, and we had to keep swerving around the many things on the road ahead of us. “We’ll walk the rest of the way.”
“I think it’d be better if you waited in the car,” I said to Sharps. I didn’t really know if any of them were any good, but I still saw Junior when I looked at his face. I didn’t want him to die.
“Yeah, good idea,” Sharps said to Wyatt. “It’ll be safer if you keep the car ready to go in case we need to get away fast.”
“No, I meant you, Sharps,” I said, rolling my eyes. He knew very well I’d meant him.
“Are you sure about this?” Wyatt asked.
“Yes. There’s a bigger chance to go in unnoticed if there are just two of us,” Sharps continued.
“Okay,” Wyatt said, nodding.
“Do you have everything on you?” Sharps continued, and as much as I wanted to knock his head on the windshield, I gritted my teeth and let it go. There was no time to argue.
“Yes.”
I had two net balls, two awesome two-bladed knives, and a lot of smaller ones everywhere on me. Whoever had modified the handles with leather and steel had done a great job. I also had two guns filled with silver bullets, ready to fire.
Sharps looked ready, too. He had the night-vision glasses on, the small piece in his ear, and a miniature camera attached to his chest. He also had the triangle-shaped VS, as well as the screen attached to his wrist.
When Wyatt stopped the car, I felt like I should’ve recognized the place. I didn’t. I’d been in such a hurry to get out of there that I hadn’t really seen anything.
Sharps surprised me by how soundlessly he walked. We passed building after building as we moved slowly, and the VS remained calm. It didn’t blink. Sharps had turned the sound off, so he looked at it every few seconds, because the only signal it would give was a red, beeping light.
A few minutes later, we saw it.
The wall was an imitation of Manhattan’s wall, but much thinner and shorter. It had seemed large to me the first time. Probably because I’d been drowned in panic.
Sharps gave me the small VS ball. “You need to throw this inside,” he whispered.
We were still a good distance from the wall. I could barely make out the silhouettes of the vampires that guarded the outside.
It took me a long while to get close enough to hear them and finally find an opening between the guards. I could throw the VS ball there, but they would hear it.
So I found a rock, the biggest around me, and threw it all the way to the other side, and to the wall of a broken building. As soon as the rock hit its mark and the vampires looked its way, I threw the VS.
The screen attached to Sharps’s wrist was on, and I only saw a black background with orange lines at first.
Then Sharps explained.
“This is the building.” It was a bunch of straight lines and squares that I guessed were rooms. “These are the vampires,” Sharps said, pointing at the small, blinking orange dots. “And these are humans.”
Shit. He could see the humans, too. Their dots were yellow, and there were many more of them than I imagined when I saw the bodies through that window.
“We should be able to take these three out,” Sharps said, pointing at three vampire dots on the east side of the wall. He was right, the three of them were the farthest away from the others.
“We’ll enter through here, then move back here,” I said, as I followed the blinking orange dots around the building.
“They could move, so we need to check the screen before we do anything,” Sharps said.
We headed east until we saw the three vampires’ silhouettes right in front of us. I drew my gun, but Sharps shook his head at me. He took out his gun, and went down to his knees. I could’ve argued, but what if he was a better shot than me? Hammer maybe knew how to shoot, but I wasn’t sure I did yet.
Sharps’s gun had a silencer attached to the barrel. I heard the shots clearly. Three, one after the other, but the fact that the two other vampires remained in their places after the first told us that they couldn’t hear a thing. Sharps was better, faster than I’d thought.
When we reached the wall and found the best spot to jump to the other side, I was glad we’d left Wyatt behind.
Since we couldn’t speak, I had to fight Sharps with my hands and arms to get him to hold on tightly to my neck. There was no way he could climb the wall and not be heard. When he finally did agree and put his arms around me, it took a second for us to land on the other side.
There were no guards that we could see. We hid behind the corner of the building for long enough to check the screen on Sharps’s wrist. Inside, there were more vampires than we could count. The fastest way to the stairway that led down according to Sharps was a few steps to our right.
The door was unlocked, but behind it, in the first room, were three vampires. We couldn’t risk going in that way, so we settled for the window a few steps away that opened into an empty room.
I pushed Sharps up first, and then jumped inside myself. The room was small, dark, with cardboard boxes lined next to each other. We waited in there for a few minutes, until Sharps motioned for me to open the door.
The hallway was clear. We walked as silently as we could to our right. The stairway was clear. The screen showed four vampires below. Three in one room, and one in the other.
I pointed at the three blinking dots to tell Sharps that that’s where we needed to be. I b
egan to smell the sweat coming from his skin. I was close to him, sure, but he would leave a trail. I couldn’t smell my own body, so I hoped that it was a good sign, because we were almost done.
With the screen on Sharps wrist, it had been almost too easy to get in. I only hoped it would be just as easy to get out.
Down the stairs, I flinched at the sight in front of me. I looked at the door to the room they’d chained me in. The others were across from it.
An eternity passed until I reached it and found it was locked. I could break it open with a kick, but how many vampires would that bring down?
Sharps pushed me away from the door, and he got down on one knee. He had two thin wires in his hands, and he put them in the keyhole. His fingers moved like he knew exactly what he was doing, and a moment later, something clicked. When I tried the knob, the door opened.
The first I saw lying on the ground was Penny. A thick chain was tied around her ankle. All of them had chains around their ankles.
“Who the hell are you?” Tif said, but he made no effort to stand up from the bench mounted to the wall.
“It’s me. We have to get out of here.”
“Doyen?” Penny said and sat up.
“Do not speak at all,” I said, and all their eyes turned to Sharps.
“What is that?” Tif said, confused.
“Sharps, free Penny first,” I said, and he immediately went to Penny’s chains. “He’s a friend. He’s human, but you cannot, under any circumstance, drink his blood. Ever.”
“Human?” Lance said, and his eyes turned silver.
“A human you cannot drink from. Ever.” It was as clear as I knew how to say it.
Penny was on her feet, and Sharps continued to Tif’s chains. “Are we going to free Bugz?”
“Bugz?”
“Yes, she’s across from us. They brought her in last night.”
Sharps was done, and they were all free. They looked like they hadn’t fed in a long time, but they made no move towards Sharps, though they looked at him, and the silver in their eyes was not a good sign. It was stupid of me not to take some blood with us. I needed to separate Sharps from them fast.
“Who’s Bugz?” Sharps whispered.
“I don’t even know.”
She was a friend. A traitor. A vampire who helped me learn to stand on my feet, then delivered me to Mohg. What the hell was I going to do? I looked at the screen around Sharp’s wrist, and saw three vampires close to the stairway a floor above us.
“I need blood,” Penny whispered. When I looked at her face, I saw how hard she was trying to keep her teeth from growing sharp.
“Can’t we—” Lance took a step towards Sharps, and I stepped in front of him.
“No. You can’t.”
His wide eyes turned silver all the way. I could see both Penny and Tif through the corners of my eyes, looking at Sharps like he was piece of steak. And they couldn’t even hear his heart beating, because he had the soundproof vest on.
“If any of you moves before I tell you to, you’ll die.” It wasn’t a threat I wanted to make, but I had no other choice. The way they looked at Sharps meant he had no more than a couple of minutes before they attacked. Hammer might’ve been their Doyen, but I didn’t think I could stop them, though they did listen to me most of the time.
“Sharps, get the door across from us open.”
He didn’t speak. He walked out the door, and I stood right where I was for a few more seconds.
“Stay here. Do not move,” I told the others. I closed the door to their room when I walked out. By that time, Sharps had already opened the other, and I saw Bugz chained to the wall the same way I had been.
She hissed when she saw us and showed us her sharp teeth clearly.
“Shut the hell up,” I whispered.
Her expression changed the next second.
“M?”
“Just keep quiet and listen to me.”
“M, I’m so sorry. So, so sorry…” her chin shook as she cried without tears.
“I’m going to get you out of here if you can promise me that you can get Lance, Tif and Penny out.” I got close enough to her so she’d hear my whispers. “Can you do that?’
Bugz nodded. “Yeah, I can.”
“Can you promise me that you will get them out of here safely and stay with them until they’re far away from here?”
“What about you?”
“Just fucking answer me!” I hissed. Panic turned to anger. I was wasting time. I hadn’t thought about this properly.
“Yes, I promise,” Bugz said. “I promise I’ll get them to safety.”
“Get the chains,” I told Sharps, and he walked to Bugz.
“Is he human?”
“You do not get to say anything, okay? Nothing at all. The others are in the other room. As soon as you’re free, you take them, and you get the hell out of here.”
“M, I really, really am sorry.” I knew she was.
“So am I.”
Her chin shook as she looked at Sharps working on her chains. She didn’t look hungry. She just look desperate.
When she was finally free, she put her arms around me, and hugged me tightly. I didn’t move.
“Go,” I whispered. Enough time had been wasted.
“Two vampires are coming down,” Sharps said. “Shit.”
He showed me the screen and the orange dots. I turned to Bugz. “Get into that room and wait there. We’ll distract them. As soon as you hear shouts and probably gunshots, get the hell out.”
“Okay,” Bugz said. “I’ll meet you outside.”
I didn’t want to tell her that she wouldn’t.
“What are we going to do?” Sharps asked.
“Stand right here by the door. Shoot as fast as you can. I’ll catch them before they hit the ground.” The second the last word left my mouth, the vampires appeared at the end of the stairway.
Sharps fired. I ran faster than I ever had before, and caught them both by their necks before they hit the ground.
I took them to the side of the stairway, right where I’d hidden the first time I made it out. The silver bullets had caught both their eyes open as they went through their foreheads. Sharps’s aim was amazing.
He was by my side the next second, and we ran up the stairs.
“What now?” he whispered as he checked the screen on his wrist. There were vampires on both sides.
I grabbed his arm and pulled him forward. The only way I knew for sure was the one I’d taken the first time. The door that led to the window, and to the beds filled with unconscious humans, mocked me. It was a second’s decision, one I probably shouldn’t have made. I opened the door and pulled Sharps down to his knees before I closed it behind us.
Just like the first time, the small room was empty, and the window was right there in front of us. Sharps raised his brows at me in confusion, and I pointed at the screen. The yellow dots.
I waved for him to approach the window as soundlessly as he could. I didn’t want to look out there again, so I sat on the ground as he did.
He was right next to me, so I faintly heard his heart beating like a drum. He’d seen them. He fell on his knees, then detached the small camera from his chest. It didn’t look like he wanted to see it again, either, so he only reached out his hand to the edge of the window.
“This is…” he whispered, but he couldn’t finish. I didn’t blame him.
“You’ve got your proof,” I said. “Now let’s get out of here.”
He attached the camera to his chest again, and showed me the screen. There were vampires all over us. I was looking for a way out, when the screen went black.
Sharps pushed a couple of buttons, as confused as I was. When nothing happened again, he shook his head. “The battery’s good,” he whispered. “It’s…”
“They found the VS.” It was the only explanation.
Damn it. We were so close to getting out of there. Why the hell did I show him the humans? Now we wer
e fucking blind.
“Keep your guns ready at all times,” I whispered. “And whatever happens, run out of here as fast as you can. Do not wait for me, do not look back, just run.”
He nodded. I took my gun out, and my two-blade knife. I opened the door slowly and walked out. I heard the vampires, too many of them to count, around us, but we saw nothing. We headed for the window through which I’d escaped the first time. The smell of the vampire hit my nostrils a second before he appeared in front of me.
“What the fuck?” he hissed, and his hand wrapped around my throat. I cut almost all the way through his forearm with the knife before Sharps buried a bullet in his forehead, and he fell to the floor with his eyes open.
Another three were coming from that side, so we turned around and headed the other way. Five vampires came out of a room, all at once. The alarm went on, an annoying beeping in my ears. I emptied my gun in them, but managed to shoot only two. They were at me with their sharp teeth bare, but the silver on my knife paralyzed them. I did get a bite on my arm and a fist on my jaw, but nothing that stopped me.
Sharps stayed behind me as we ran ahead in the hallway, and I had to keep at his pace. I heard the vampires running at us from all four sides. Now was the time for Bugz to take the others out, and I could only hope they succeeded.
“That way’s out,” Sharps said breathlessly, pointing at a door to our left.
Behind it were at least ten vampires. “Are you sure?”
His nod was all the confirmation I needed. I ran fast and left him behind in hopes to kill a couple before he made it. I opened the door and found them all on their feet. Ahead were the main double doors, and I tasted the night air on the other side. So close…
A knife buried in my back, right between my shoulder blades. It wasn’t silver, but when I turned around and saw all the vampires after me, and Sharps all alone after them, I cursed loudly. I had to go back. I fired all the bullets I had in my second gun. When they were done, I fought with silver knives. One or two of them had silver weapons, too, and they cut me with it everywhere, as I did them, but because the tips of my blades were arched, they took pieces of flesh with them.
Sharps was at it with his gun and silencer again. He shot two vampires in the head, but missed another, and almost caught my shoulder.
