The Bite of Winter (International Monster Slayers Book 2)

by Bethany Helwig

  The second I’m free I dart sideways and scrabble for the retractable blade in my belt. The grip is warm in my hand as I flick the blade fully open and sweep a wide arc in front of me. The tip meets resistance and there’s a sharp hiss from the vampire I managed to slice. There’s no time to hunt for the bio-mech gun that I dropped as I hear more footsteps thunder my way. I can’t let them surround me again.

  I do the only thing I know how. I stretch up on my toes, pull my fist back, and use the full force of my body to slam my fist into the ground. The entire building shakes as soil and chunks of wood explode outwards from my point of impact. I squeeze my eyes shut against the debris and listen to the yells and heavy thuds of the vampires sent tumbling away. I cough against the cloud of dust in the air, shake out my throbbing hand, and run towards the faint light that I think is the entrance now that my eyes have adjusted.

  The darkness fills with shouting, more shots, and cries of pain. I can only hope my team has finally arrived and is inflicting the pain and not the other way around. Every now and then I can hear a bullet ricocheting off a wall nearby or hit the ground at my feet. In my haste to get to cover, I nearly run straight into a wall and clip my shoulder on the corner. Grimacing from the impact, I feel my way along the wall until I see a glowing red exit sign above the outside door. There’s a breath of movement to my left so I extract the machete from inside my jacket to wield both of my blades. It comes out sticky with my own blood still running into my jacket from my neck.

  I need to find Agent Brooke and get out of here. Unfortunately, my act to blind the vampires also made it impossible to find my teammate. I can thank my idiotic self for not planning ahead.

  Adrenaline—my dear old friend—keeps the pain in my neck from slowing me down but I wince as I look this way and that trying to find my partner. I give a low whistle and a sharp one answers in reply on my left before it’s cut off with a grunt.

  Light coming in from a window high up paints a stripe on the floor in front of me where a battle takes place. Agent Brooke fights three vampires at once, his sword a flashing specter when it catches the faint light, but his other arm dangles at his side useless and dark blood flicks off his fingertips. One of the vampires stumbles out of the fray to fumble for a gun on the ground. Before I can take two steps, the vampire levels the gun at Agent Brooke and fires.

  He stumbles backwards and collapses to the floor, sending up a cloud of sawdust.

  I rush forward before the vampires realize I’m there and stab my machete through the chest of the closest one from behind. I’ve got a gun at my head the next second and duck immediately. It goes off inches above my head and I wobble as ringing fills my ears. I send an elbow into the gut of that vamp, then wrench free the machete and swing right as hard as I can. Its edge rips across the vampire’s throat and dark blood sprays over my side. Despite the damage, the vampire remains standing.

  While the one grabs at his throat gurgling blood, I send a kick into the last one still fighting and send him onto his back. I don’t think. I just move. Using my momentum as I spin around, I slash the thick machete and finish off the one clutching at the blood running from his throat. The vampire’s head topples away. There are more coming. I feel the force of their footsteps through the soles of my feet but can’t hear a freakin’ thing.

  The last of the trio jumps up from where I kicked him down only to find my machete waiting for him. He impales himself on the blade in my hand. He grabs onto the front of my jacket as the last of his blood pumps out of his heart and runs down my arm. I watch as he dies hanging onto me, the light in his eyes a mere flicker then gone. He falls backwards and the blade pulls free from of his chest.

  The footsteps of a dozen angry vampires pound the floor and reverberate up my legs. I need to move but I can’t. I’m frozen to the spot. Move, Phoenix. I just killed three people. Move, move, move. They’re monsters but they’re still . . . MOVE.

  The world moves too fast and too slow at the same time as I turn to help Agent Brooke only to find him struggling to his feet already. He’s bleeding heavily from somewhere but the light’s too dim to see where. Without a second to lose, I tuck his good arm around my shoulder and force him to jog with me towards the exit door. When we reach it, I slam my free shoulder into it, blasting it right off its hinges.

  Agent Brooke says something but I don’t catch the words. Once outside under a couple of floodlights, I can see a bullet must have torn right through his shoulder and his leg’s bleeding just as bad. We’ve got to get out of here.

  “Can’t hear!” I know I’ve said the words even if I can’t hear myself. “Run!”

  I spin around to the door to bar it with my blade but find I accidentally busted the hinges on my way out and the whole thing hangs crooked. There’s no stopping the vampires that way. I reach for my back pocket only to remember my bio-mech gun is gone, lost somewhere inside. If they come out shooting, we’re goners. There’s no cover here and the edge of the building is too far away for Agent Brooke to make it, but if I carry him, then we’ll both be completely exposed.

  “Just run!” I shout and press up against the wall beside the doorway with machete and sword at the ready.

  My ears are still ringing so I don’t have the advantage of hearing my enemy before seeing them. That’s okay, though. Even though my head is starting to spin, probably from blood loss, I need to hold the line until Agent Brooke can get to cover and the others arrive. This is my fault. I got us here. I shot out the stupid lights. This is on me.

  The barrel of a gun peeks out from the ruined doorway. I sweep up my sword, cleaving through flesh. The vampire’s hand drops to the ground as he screams in agony. I pivot on my toes, slice with my machete, and his head hits the ground before his body does. His comrades come next with guns raised. This is really an unfair fight—they know they can kill us from a distance but we have to be up close to get them.

  I’m too far away to reach them. Their fingers are on the trigger.

  I’m going to die.

  Someone shouts and the vampires halt. Enough of my hearing has returned for me to realize someone behind the three vampires is shouting. I can’t make out the words but the vampires part and a fourth marches up behind them drawing a gun and not just any gun. It’s the bio-mech gun I had dropped earlier. Before I can dive out of the way, a pulse ripples the air. A force like a giant sending its fist through my body hits me in the chest and I fly backwards onto the ground.

  Darkness touches the edges of my vision and I can’t move. I can’t even think. I don’t know how much time passes until I blink away the haze over everything and find the barrel of a gun digging into my shoulder. Four leering vampires stand over me. My machete and sword lie useless on the ground five feet behind them.

  “Go find the man,” the vampire holding the gun orders. Two peel off from the pack to race after Agent Brooke. I can only hope my distraction was long enough for him to find the others.

  “And you,” he snarls, digging the gun in until it hurts. “You’re going to tell me exactly where we can find Dasc. If we go back empty handed, they’ll wipe us off the map.”

  I laugh weakly and even manage to gather up a glob of spit to launch at his face. The vampire flinches and his eyes stretch wide, his lips curled in a terrifying snarl.

  “You can forget it,” I wheeze out.

  The gunshot is deafening in my ears.

  Chapter 18

  Blood splatters across my shoulder and the side of my face but it’s not my blood. The vampire gasps and tips to the side, a bullet hole torn clean through his shoulder. The other vampire spins about and hisses like an angry cat before a bullet goes straight through his forehead. Out of the broken doorway Jefferson strides with a gun raised in his hand. He’s got flecks of blood on his face but otherwise he doesn’t look harmed. No, not harmed at all—furious. The woman agent marches along behind him.

  With the two vampires distracted, I wrench the gun out of the vampire’s hand and clock him in the
side of the head with it. He falls to the ground and I roll away from him before he can grab me. Completing the full turn to end up on my back again takes a lot out of me.

  Jefferson and the woman are on the vampires in a second. A couple of deft strokes with their own blades and the area is neutralized. I let my body go limp on the ground and lie there in the freezing snow.

  Jefferson’s at my side in an instant.

  I raise a shaky hand and point in the direction the other vampires went. “Two went after Brooke.”

  “The rest of the team already picked him up,” Jefferson assures me as his eyes go from the ragged teeth marks in my neck to the blood covering my torso and arms. “We gotta get you out of here.”

  He takes me by the elbows and hauls me up. I groan and wince against the pain. I wish my adrenaline would come back. The numbness has faded and everything hurts. He slings my good arm over his shoulders and we walk slowly away from the carnage.

  “You need to tell me, Phoenix. Is it just the bite on your neck?” Jefferson asks. “There’s too much blood on you. I can’t tell if you’re injured anywhere else.”

  “Just my pride,” I say hoarsely. My throat burns with each breath. Getting strangled does that. I gaze down at myself and realize I am really covered in blood. It makes me queasy.

  “Did you ingest any of their blood?”

  The only way to turn into a vampire is by ingesting their blood, so I understand his concern. I kept my mouth closed for as much of the fight as I could, though.

  “I’m good.”

  His sigh of relief rattles through his arms as he helps me along. We round the corner of the building and find the van waiting for us. The other two agents already have Agent Brooke in the back and are getting him patched up.

  “But where did you all go?” I ask once they’re within range.

  “We were jumped outside,” the woman responds on behalf of everyone. “Right after you gave the distress signal. This whole meeting was a setup.”

  Jefferson gives me a hand up into the van and I collapse onto the bench opposite Agent Brooke. He nods weakly to me. The others pile in and the driver makes a call to one of the IMS cleanup teams as sirens grow louder in the distance. The van lurches forward and we hurry out of La Crosse. As we rattle across the bridge, I do my best to sit still as Jefferson dabs at the nasty bite on my neck with alcohol. It burns horribly and I accidentally rip out part of the stuffing of the seat beneath me as I clutch onto it. Once he secures a bandage to the side of my neck and gives me some pain meds, I feel like I can finally breathe again.

  “They were after Dasc,” I say hoarsely and accept a bottle of water from the female agent. “The trap was for him, but since he didn’t show, I’m pretty sure they were going to torture me until I told them where he is.”

  Everyone’s silent for a long while. Jefferson passes me a damp towel and I focus on wiping the insane amount of blood off my hands, face, and jacket. My hands are shaking so badly that eventually Jefferson takes the towel to dab at my hands and face himself. His own face is hollow. I can take a guess why. Getting the vampires to back off was part of my deal with Dasc. I imagine they’ll retaliate after this fiasco. If I just screwed up the agreement and Dasc decides not to give us the location of Genevieve Barnes . . .

  I’ll never be able to live with myself.

  After some work, Agent Brooke is stabilized and given a bag of his own blood. I didn’t realize they even had a store of blood for each agent on this trip. He must be feeling well enough after the infusion because he asks for his book and reads it one-handed as we race to Underground.

  The female agent sets me up with my own IV bag—since I didn’t know a bag of my blood was a travel necessity—and I drift in and out of sleep. When I wake, I find Jefferson’s arm around me and my head on his shoulder.

  “We’re nearly there,” the driver announces from the front.

  My attention drifts to the rear window and I watch the skyscrapers and mingling traffic of Minneapolis flash by under yellow streetlamps. A light snow falls and the city is peaceful at the moment. I wonder how much longer that will last after the massive can of pixies we just opened.

  No one says a word as we enter a hidden parking ramp into Underground where a medical team is waiting for us. Agent Brooke is wheeled away and they try to force me onto a stretcher too but I refuse. Instead, I follow the med staff down the dark, sloping tunnels until we reach black lifts that are miniature versions of the ones at the main entrance. We ride them to the lowest level and enter the medical unit of Underground. I’m directed to a bed and cordoned off with a white curtain as they peel back the bandage on my neck and give me a thorough once over.

  They ask me questions about other injuries so I give them short answers. I don’t want to talk. I’m waiting for the hammer to drop. Things went to crap and it could spell big trouble in the near future. For all I know, the vampires could be amassing at this very moment for an attack.

  I’ve still got vampire blood in the creases of my skin, all over my clothes, and even in my hair. A nurse guides me to a large shower area and leaves fresh clothes by the door. Vampire blood is dangerous. They need to get rid of it before they can be certain I’m not infected.

  The hot water runs over my face and washes away the grim covering me. My hands shake as I comb my fingers through my hair. I should eat something. That’ll make me feel better. I think. Once I dry off, I shrug into the clothes they left for me—a junior agent uniform—and walk out of the showers to find Director Knox speaking with Jefferson. They both spot me at the same time and quickly stop talking. Lucky for me, a nurse grabs me again so they can slap on fresh bandages. They deliver a tray of food at my request and then leave me alone behind that white curtain.

  I slowly eat my way through a turkey sandwich and chips. Shallow thoughts skim the surface of my mind but I’m exhausted. I’ve little energy left to put much thought into anything. Unfortunately, Director Knox decides it’s time to talk and there’s no avoiding it.

  “Agent Barnes has filled me in,” he says. I can see Jefferson’s shadow hanging around on the other side of the curtain. “There’s nothing else you can do today. We’ll have you speak with Dasc tomorrow after we have a better idea if we can expect vampire retaliation of any sort like he suspects. We’ll be in touch.”

  And just like that I’m dismissed. Jefferson reappears and we walk out of Underground together. He lets me know Agent Brooke should be fine, and passes along the agent’s thanks for saving his life. It only makes me feel worse somehow. We get in the SUV and Jefferson takes us out of the power park.

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Jefferson asks.

  He’s worried about me? He should be worrying about his daughter, about the fact that I screwed up everything. If I had been more threatening with the vampires, maybe I could have prevented this from happening. Maybe I shouldn’t feel guilty, but this had become my plan. I made the agreement with Dasc.

  “I want to go home,” I say quietly and stare out the side window.

  Silence accompanies us on the interstate for the long drive through the dark. A light snow continues to fall and flashes by like pieces of ash. My neck throbs and I clutch the little bottle of pain medication the nurse gave me before I left. It feels like forever before we reach the cabin. The floodlight is on but Hawk isn’t there when we go inside. The lack of his presence hits me hard. I need to see my brother. I sling on my mother’s worn bomber jacket and head towards the door.

  “Hawk’s at capture the flag,” I say and hold out my hand for the keys to the SUV. “I’m gonna head out there.”

  Jefferson shakes his head. “Phoenix, you’ve been through hell today. I don’t think you should—”

  “I need to see my brother, okay? I just do.”

  Something like pain crosses his face and he drops the keys in the palm of my hand. “Don’t be out long. You need to get some rest.”

  “Yeah. Sure thing.” I certainly plan on sleeping like the de
ad tonight. I’ll probably get some sleeping pills on the way home in fact. The kind of dreams I’ll have otherwise . . .

  I take the SUV back out and work my way to Mr. Wick’s farm where we usually hold our werewolf games. Sure enough, when I pull into the driveway there’s a slew of cars parked wherever they can fit. I spot a Carlton County Sheriff’s squad car parked near the end of the driveway. I guess Deputy Graham is here. Should I tell him that his sister might be alive and in Scotland? He deserves to know.

  No, I can’t. Need to know only. Plus, the plan to get specifics on the location of the missing people might be a lost cause at this point.

  Flipping up the collar of the bomber jacket, I grab a flashlight from the glove box and step out into the cold. I stop at the house first to say hello to Mr. Wick and find out where on his property the game is taking place. He directs me into the west woods and I follow the trodden path through the snow behind his house.

  The snow magnifies the light I carry but it’s still dark. Dark just like that building in La Crosse. I involuntarily shudder and quickly scan the woods around me but I’m alone. No vampires here . . . yet. The farther out I go, the closer the sounds of barking and howling become. I spot another light in the distance and hear laughter. My heavy footsteps announce my presence and I find a flashlight beam pointed directly at my face. I lift a hand and blink against the light.