Reclaimed (Morta Fox Book 2)

by D. N. Hoxa

  I buried one of my knives under the last vampire’s chin, grabbed Sharps’s arm, and shot forward. He practically flew after me, but I couldn’t stop running.

  When we opened the doors to go out, Chandra’s face greeted me. Ray was behind her with another fifteen vampires, but no Ignis.

  This is it, I thought. It was over. There was no way we could get past them.

  Sharps moved from behind me, pulled my hand back slowly, and put a small ball in my palm.

  The net.

  I’d forgotten about the net.

  “Thieves in my home?” Chandra’s cold voice echoed in the night. “Why don’t you show me your filthy faces?”

  My finger was on the button. I saw the second she moved her heels to jump forward. I pressed the button and threw the ball at her.

  Her face materialized in front of me, right behind the net that had caught her midair. She reached out her hands but couldn’t touch me. The net was all over her.

  She fell to the floor screaming.

  Sharps’s arms came around my sides, guns in both hands, and he fired at the vampires. Chandra was right in front of my feet, motionless, covered in the silver net. I almost felt pity as I looked at her wide eyes, but the vampires were there. I took out another, bigger knife from my vest, and went to work.

  I didn’t dare look at how Sharps was doing. I heard the gunshots, and that reassured me that he was still standing.

  Others were coming from inside the building. We had to get out of there soon, or we were both dead.

  “Jump on my back!” I said to Sharps. My hands were busy trying to defend myself.

  The next second, I felt Sharps’s arms around my neck, and I jumped. I landed right in front of the wall. I’d never tried to jump that high before, but when a vampire dug his nails into my forearm, I realized I would have to. There was no other choice.

  I jerked my hand free and a lot of my skin got stuck under the vampire’s nails, but it would heal. The pain would stop. I put a knife in his gut, and he stopped moving long enough for me to try and jump to the other side.

  I did.

  Someone hit me in the jaw with something big and made of steel. It felt like my whole face broke.

  A gunshot later, and Sharps pulled me by the arm. “Come on,” he said. “They’re coming.”

  He was right. Three vampires were already there, right in front of us, and one knocked Sharps’s gun out of his hand before he had the chance to fire it. I didn’t see it, but I heard his body hit the wall behind us when the vampire hit him, and I fought the other two.

  “Why don’t you take that fucking mask off, huh?” one of them said, just as my knife buried in his gut. I left it there, just in case, but before I reached the other one in my vest, the other vampire kicked me hard in the chest. I stumbled back a couple of steps and gave the other enough time to hold me with my back against the wall, and hit me so fast in my gut, my ribs almost broke.

  Pain made it impossible to think straight. I tried to defend myself, but it was no use. And when one of them jumped in the air and kicked the side of my face, my neck broke. It was just as much pain as silver caused, and I fell on the ground face first. While my neck healed and thoughts of giving up invaded my mind, they kicked me until it felt like all my bones were broken.

  I did free Lance, Penny, Tif, even Bugz. But then I heard Sharps breathing heavily and saw one of the vampires go for him.

  The perspective changed for me in less than half a second. I grabbed the vampire by the ankle and pulled so hard, he fell on the ground on his face. The strength I felt in my veins felt borrowed, but I wasn’t complaining. The last time I’d lost control of my body like that, I’d fought better than I ever had before.

  Call it instinct. Call it muscle memory. But not one minute later, both vampires had silver knives in their bodies, and I was standing.

  Sharps was still breathing heavily, sitting with his back against the wall. I grabbed him and put his arms around my neck and shot forward, just as others descended behind me.

  They were too many to count, and Sharps slowed me down a bit, but maybe we could make it. Maybe we could get to the car, and to the plane, and be done with this place.

  But they were close. Too close.

  I saw the building behind which was the car.

  “Wyatt, ready?” Sharps said to his earpiece.

  “All set,” he replied.

  “On my go…” Sharps breathed, just as I jumped off a roof and landed not twelve feet from the car. The other vampires jumped right behind me.

  Shit. We weren’t going to make it.

  “Go!” Sharps shouted, and the next second, light exploded all my senses.

  It was so bright and so hot, it burned my skin and my throat. My legs gave up. My mind almost gave up, too. Hands grabbed my shoulders, but I couldn’t move. I hissed with everything I had in me as the light touched my left side. It burned so, so much. If I thought I knew pain before, I was wrong.

  A lifetime passed before it was over. Not fast, but it was over eventually. Cold licked my skin and tried to heal it, but it couldn’t. The damage was too deep.

  “Hammer?” Sharps’s voice ringed clear in my ears, and I tried to open my eyes. The vision before me was blurry, but I saw his silhouette. “Are you okay?”

  I couldn’t speak, but I tried to nod. I was going to need a little while to recover and be able to see clearly. Or think clearly.

  We were driving faster than I thought possible, and Wyatt and Sharp looked to be alright.

  “What was that?” I asked when I found my voice again. I still couldn’t open my eyes. I needed blood so badly.

  “They’re lasers I’ve been working on,” Sharps said. “They generate energy by a nuclear fusion of hydrogen and helium—”

  “What the hell is that?”

  “They were supposed to give off energy as heat and light. The same heat and light as the sun,” Sharps breathed. “But I’ve never tested it before.”

  “It works perfectly fine,” I said and was tempted to smile. They’d saved our asses.

  The temperature dropped considerably when Wyatt drove the car into the plane. They took me out of it and laid me down on the cold iron floor, and finally Wyatt brought a bag of blood. I tore through it and drank until there was no more, then licked the floor for the drops.

  I immediately felt better, just in time to realize how close the real sun really was.

  “We’ll talk in the morning,” Sharps said and turned around to follow Wyatt.

  “You did it, Junior,” I said before unconsciousness took me. “You made light.”

  XXXVII

  When I woke up, the plane was landing on the roof of the RONY building.

  Chandra’s face stayed before me for a long time. She would’ve torn me to pieces if it wasn’t for Sharps and the silver net. Did she recognize me? They said the tracker they’d put on me was still active. Maybe she didn’t.

  And Bugz…I had no idea if trusting her again was a good idea. I did trust the hunger of Tif, Lance, and Penny, though. Their craving would have gotten them out of there, even if Bugz didn’t. I should’ve thought it through better—given them a way of contacting me. Now, I was stuck with not knowing.

  “My God,” Sean breathed as he came to see me in the showroom. I’d spent the last hour there, trying to get away from others, while I looked at everything Hammer had designed, and tried to come up with new stuff that could help. “I saw the images.”

  “Yeah…” there wasn’t much I could say to it. The bodies of the humans in Brazil were still fresh in my mind, too.

  “What the hell are they going to do when those people grow old and die?”

  I shook my head. “They’re claiming they’ll use the drug Mohg made. The one that will replace blood’s effect for vampires.”

  “I don’t know what to think anymore,” Sean said. “But isn’t it strange that they claim they can now survive without human blood because of some drug, yet they have one hundre
d and seventeen unconscious humans they take blood from?”

  “It is strange, but I didn’t get to ask questions.”

  “We need to move, Hammer. I talked to the others, and they’ve seen the images, too. They’re willing to do whatever it takes.”

  He sounded desperate.

  “Good, because you’re going to need help.”

  “When you find the vampire—I forget her name—what will we do?”

  “We will plan, and we will fight,” I said reluctantly. There was no shortcut.

  “We’ve all agreed that you should lead us,” Sean said.

  I laughed. “I will not lead you, Sean. I will help you every step of the way, but I cannot lead you into a war with the limited knowledge that I have.”

  If I’d had Hammer’s memories, all of them, maybe. But even if I did concentrate and remembered everything Hammer knew about war, it wouldn’t be enough.

  “You already know them so much better than we ever will. You are them,” Sean said.

  “I am. And I will help you, I gave you my word. When the time comes, we will all do our best because there will be no other option.”

  Before Sean could say anything else, Sharps found us.

  “I have an idea,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “About catching every vampire that’s outside the walls right now, testing us, trying to find you.”

  “Carson thinks there are more than twenty around us,” Sean said.

  “Well, let’s hear it then.”

  “We put the tracker back where it was, and we use you as bait.”

  I laughed again. “Use me as bait?”

  “Yes. Think about it, they’re probably watching you right now. I mean, your signal,” Sharps said. “If you get out, they’ll think you’ve escaped, and they’ll be after you right away.”

  “Yes, they’ll be after me and they’ll catch me,” I said.

  “They won’t. We’ll plan exactly where you’ll go, and we’ll have soldiers waiting for you there. As soon as they show up behind you, we rain upon them with silver.” He grinned proudly.

  “Stupid idea,” I said. “Vampires are unpredictable. Even a vampire can never tell which way they’re coming.”

  “Have you forgotten where we were last night?” He raised his brow at me. “We’ll know what’s coming from a mile away.”

  My mouth opened, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. He was right.

  “Don’t you have a vampire to find first?” Sean said.

  “Yeah. That is much more important than using me as bait,” I said. Morta was important. I couldn’t wait to see her face. I couldn’t wait to tell her.

  “We can get this done in a few hours. Tomorrow night,” Sharps said.

  “We need to find Morta,” I hissed.

  “How are we going to get out of here and search the ground if there are more than twenty vampires waiting for us to come out?”

  Again, my mouth opened, and again I found nothing relevant to say. “You’re an asshole,” I mumbled.

  “He’s right. We can always go out by plane, but how are we going to find her in the air?” Sean said in wonder.

  “We still have a couple of hours until sunrise, so we’ll plan everything tonight. Tomorrow, you leave, first thing.”

  They both looked at me expectantly. What the hell was I supposed to say?

  “Fine,” I hissed.

  “Then let’s get to it.” He grinned like he’d won—which he had—and I followed him with my head down.

  ***

  When I woke up the next night, I found Sharps looming above me, and I jumped to my feet.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “It’s amazing, really. You looked dead,” he said, shaking his head. “Well, technically, that’s as dead as you can get, but still.” He shrugged.

  “What the hell are you doing in here?” I wasn’t particularly fond of having people in the same room with me while I was unconscious.

  “Waiting for you to get up. Everything is ready. You need to get going.”

  That’s when I saw the blue bags under his eyes.

  “Have you slept?”

  He shrugged again. “No.”

  “How are you going to stay focused without sleep?”

  “I’ll be fine,” he said, and headed for the door. “Also, I put the tracker back on while you slept. I had to try three times because your skin kept healing too quickly.”

  “What the hell is the matter with you?” I slapped him on the back of his neck.

  “I didn’t want to waste any time,” he said. “Besides, you couldn’t feel anything.”

  “Maybe I did.”

  “You didn’t. There was no reaction.”

  That scared me. Anyone could do anything they pleased to me while the sun was up, and I wouldn’t even be able to tell.

  “Try touching me again and I’ll eat you.” The smile froze on his face, and he looked away. “That was a joke.”

  “Whatever,” he hissed, and at times like that, he seemed younger than Junior from the memory.

  “One of these days, you’re going to have to tell me why you’re so pissed at me.”

  “Yeah, one of these days,” he mumbled.

  We reached the control room where the map we’d made the night before waited for us on the table.

  “Is the team in place?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Sharps said. They had a team of forty soldiers, two for each vampire, waiting for me about half an hour away from the walls. “Stay on the tracks, and we’ll see you coming.”

  “You’re not going to shoot at me, are you?” It was only half a joke.

  “You’ll have your earpiece with you.”

  “That thing’s going to blow my ear off.”

  I could hear everything from Sharps’s ear. Imagine what it would do in mine.

  “Then put it in your jacket somewhere.” Sharps put the small piece in front of me. “Once you leave the building, you’ll have to run fast and jump the wall. Really fast.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  Chandra was probably watching me, and she’d see just how fast I moved, according to Sharps.

  “Good. You’ll leave ten minutes after my plane takes off.”

  I drank three large glasses of blood, and when I ran out of the building, the smell and sound of heartbeats still took me off guard. There were so many, I could barely keep my teeth from growing sharp. I ran between buildings, just as we’d planned the night before, and I reached the wall in less than five minutes. I wasn’t sure if people could see me, but I couldn’t allow myself to look for fear instinct would take over and I would tear someone’s throat out. My eyes forward, my legs moving.

  When I jumped to pass the wall, I didn’t stop on top of it like I intended to. I jumped all the way to the other side and fell into the black water that surrounded the wall. It was disgusting, and its smell made me never want to smell anything ever again.

  I couldn’t move as freely until I was on dry land again. The water was too thick. I ran slowly for the first few minutes, just to make sure that the vampires hiding nearby would see me, recognize me, and chase after me.

  Sharps’s plan was good. I hated to admit it because I was the bait, but it was a good plan. It would work. They had VS balls all over the place, and they would see exactly who was coming from more than a mile away.

  The earpiece was in the chest pocket of my jacket. I could hear it perfectly, and they could hear me. All was set. Another ten minutes and I’d go to the top floor of a four-story building. Below me would be ten soldiers, and another ten were spread on the buildings across. It was the perfect scenario. The vampires had nowhere to go without the soldiers seeing them, either with their eyes or with their machines. It was going to end fast. They would all be dead, and then we could go look for Morta.

  I just hoped that I wouldn’t run into anyone until I got there.

  “All good?” Sharps said. His voice came out in a weak w
hisper from my pocket.

  “All good,” I whispered back.

  “You’ve got seven right behind you, and the rest right behind them. They’re twenty-three, by the way.”

  Twenty-three. Good thing Sharps had insisted on forty men. I wanted to remind him not to shoot until I was inside the building, when I almost tripped over my own feet.

  My ears picked it up and my chest knew it.

  It was her beating heart. I’d found her.

  “Don’t shoot!” I hissed.

  “Hammer, you’re off course! Turn left,” he called.

  “Do not shoot, Sharps. It’s her…”

  “Hammer, they’re after you! Turn left!”

  “Do not shoot anyone with a beating heart!” I said, right when I turned a corner, and saw her face.

  She was standing in the middle of the street, her white hair shining silver under the light of the moon, her lips blood red, and her knives in her hands.

  “Morta,” I breathed her name. Before I knew it, she was right in front of me. I couldn’t believe my eyes. She was really there, and I hadn’t even been looking for her.

  “Is it true?” she whispered, and her whisper broke. Her eyes glistened with tears as she took in every inch of my face.

  “It is.” My fingers itched to touch her face, but I didn’t dare.

  “How can it be?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. Then, I remembered. “Who told you?”

  “Lance. He found me and told me everything,” and before I could reply, she slapped me. “Why did you lie to me?”

  “I didn’t lie to you, Morta. I didn’t know.”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “I gave my mind to come back from the Red Dimension. I don’t remember anything.”

  A cry escaped her lips before she put her arms around my neck and hugged me. I wanted to stay there, pressed against her for all eternity, but I couldn’t.

  “Morta, you have to leave.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’m not letting you go ever again.”

  I knew the circumstances, yet the smile on my face couldn’t be helped.

  “Listen to me, there are twenty-three vampires coming after me, and a team of humans ready to put them down. You have to leave for now and meet me at the wall.”