BloodlustBundle

by Margaret Carter, Crystal Green, Erica Orloff, Patricia Rosemor

  “But they have him now. I need to get to him.”

  “Then you are as good as dead.”

  Camille couldn’t stop shaking. The fear, the aftermath, brought her to her knees. Her body couldn’t even take the stress, so what made her think she could save Griff herself? The only way she’d ever be able to attempt a rescue would be to train. To make herself into a being that couldn’t feel pain.

  An unstoppable machine.

  “I want to meet her,” Camille said. “This Dr. Grasu. Tomorrow, five minutes ago, whenever you can arrange it.”

  Ms. Godea nodded, started to tear up again, then ran away, leaving Camille alone.

  Really, truly alone.

  And that’s when the tears came. The all-consuming, rage-washed sorrow and promises of vengeance.

  For almost a year, she sent out her mercenary teams. As they failed, one by one, Camille grew stronger.

  Eventually, their deaths bought her enough time to become a huntress.

  The woman who was now facing two captives.

  One who might even be the man she loved.

  Chapter 11

  Griff stared at the same moon that greeted him night after night. His hair, which had grown long and scraggly, curled over half his sight. Not that seeing was important.

  He didn’t depend on watching the moon’s patterns to keep track of time. Didn’t while away the endless hours by worshiping the moon with his gaze. Didn’t even much care about the moon itself, as a matter of fact.

  But he needed to watch it just the same. It was the same moon the rest of the world saw. The same moon that sang Camille to sleep in whatever bed she rested in now.

  Back at the beginning, when all the Juni men had been alive and daft enough to give fight to the Girls, as he called them, they’d won a small battle. No, they hadn’t gotten to keep their blood, their pride, or even the strength all men were born with.

  They’d won the moonlight.

  After sleeping all day in a lower chamber, chained to the damp stone walls until they were awakened by a vampire for a dinner of goat tartare or rat surprise, the males used to make demands of the strigoiaca. They would yell for air, activity, anything to keep them from going stir-crazy.

  Anything that would give them enough freedom to encourage their dreams of escape in those days.

  The Girls would merely cock their heads at them, dumb to human language, except for Ecaterina. She’d taken a few weeks to shed all of her humanity. To turn vampire after the one Griff called Drusilla had bitten her and forced her to exchange blood in a demented kiss. A kiss that had turned Ecaterina from girl to bloodsucker once and for all.

  Yes, Griff had paid close attention to the way the strigoiaca worked, even back then. Lady Tex would be proud of the mental anthropological notes he’d taken while living among this foreign tribe.

  To make another vampire, blood and saliva were needed, he’d realized after seeing Ecaterina’s initiation.

  As if it were yesterday, he still remembered her rite of passage on that first night. Remembered the pungent terror of waking up in the arms of Mina—his very own nightgowned vampire, so named for a character from Dracula. She’d been feeding off of him, slow slurps of greedy pleasure, and he’d lashed out, so bloody afraid.

  But, like every other time he or the other males had tried to rebel, the strigoiaca would retain that blank expression and tilt their heads, quelling their captives with a throttling claw around the neck.

  It quieted “dinner,” but never killed it.

  Being a new vampire in those days, Ecaterina had still been half-human, had understood their feisty demands. With some sort of screeching permission from Drusilla, Ecaterina had soon led the males to this Moon Chamber. Every time they visited here, the vampires would stay in the dark and the males would soak up the wan light. Griff couldn’t help thinking that he and the guys were a little like tots being taken to the park for playtime.

  After all, the vampires needed to keep their food healthy, if not happy.

  But in spite of many playtimes in the Moon Chamber, Griff’s blood supply had dwindled, and his body had weakened. Ultimately, days—weeks? months?—ago, Griff had finally admitted that he was dying.

  That he’d never see his Camille again.

  Unlike the first days, when all the males had been alive, he and Petar Vladislav were the only meals left for all five of the female vampires. Their energy was disappearing exponentially because the other male pets had died off, one by one, their bodies piled in a corner of the sleeping room, leaving a sickening, hollow stench as a reminder of what would happen to all of them.

  That’s when Griff had made the big decision. Had sold his soul in order to be with Camille—the one passion who’d kept him alive all this time.

  He tried to picture her face in the light of the moon. Her strong cheekbones, the cheetah-like shape of her light blue eyes, the shoulder-length red hair that reminded him of volcanic lava and its soft flow.

  But it was getting harder to think straight now. Lately, pieces of his mind were falling away like dead autumn leaves baring a tree to the sky.

  Yes. The sky. The moon.

  Griff glanced away from it and tested his legs by inching one out in a poor excuse for a kick. Still so weak. But he’d been a little stronger lately because of what he’d done to stay alive.

  The sacrifice he’d made to see Camille someday.

  A moan sounded next to Griff. Petar. Dying.

  “Buck up,” Griff said.

  He inspected Petar: his dirt-crusted, shoeless feet, his island-castaway jeans, his emaciated bare chest with bite marks piercing the skin. The strigoiaca didn’t limit themselves to merely feeding on the neck. When they wanted a snack, they also amused themselves with other locations, other means of pleasure.

  But Griff blocked out thoughts of their games. He tried to, at least. If he ever did come face-to-face with Camille again, he might not even be able to look her in the eyes after this nightmare.

  Petar hadn’t answered Griff. Not even an “I am fine. And you?” That would’ve been more like the old days, when they’d had the will to talk while the strigoiaca lounged like cats in a parlor, wasting away the hours until feeding time presented itself.

  Griff groped over, felt Petar’s pulse. Barely there.

  “So sorry…” Petar’s voice was a whisper.

  Not again. Ever since Griff could remember, Petar had been apologizing for inadvertently calling down the vampires that day in Vasile.

  “Rest,” Griff said, the word an effort to get out.

  Petar’s eyes rolled back, as if asking Why? Why do I need strength now?

  Griff didn’t have an answer.

  The buzz of vampire movement caught his attention. Tentatively, he rolled a bit to the left, using his adapted dark vision.

  The female he called Star had entered. He called her this because her timeworn Gypsy skirt and blouse reminded him of a lovely vampire from The Lost Boys. This more hideous version of Star had been Mihas Vladislav’s mistress, but had taken a liking to Petar’s neck since her pet’s death so long—or maybe just days—ago.

  She floated near the other three females, who were lazily draped over stone slabs. Mina’s nightdress billowed in the slight wind, caressing Drusilla’s decayed seventeenth-century ball gown as she stroked blond Claudia’s bare leg. The last vampire was garbed in khaki backpacking gear, and Griff had always thought she might’ve been an unfortunate hiker caught by the strigoiaca.

  All of their clothing—what there was of it—split open down the spine, accommodating those tiny, agitated wings.

  Odd, he thought, watching Star screech to the others and bob up and down with the help of those wings. The strigoiaca used them when they were afraid, worked up or on the hunt. In their castle, they walked freely. Griff wasn’t sure of the last time he’d seen the wings flutter.

  Maybe this had something to do with Ecaterina, who hadn’t been around for—how long had it been? She’d gone hunting
for the males’ food and had never come back.

  Griff held a hand to his head, temples pounding. Lately, there’d been aching spells. Black spaces in his memories. And now it was happening again….

  Bits and pieces of his past, his present, his—he wasn’t sure—mashed through his mind: Camille smiling up at him while they took tea in Leicester Square. A jack-in-the-box popping out to scare him with its hideous clown’s grimace. His parents’ stoic faces as their little boy watched from the back window of an auto, their forms getting smaller and smaller as the strangers took him away from home. The revolving red sphere of a Web site he’d designed. A long tongue darting out of Mina’s mouth, shading his world to darkness.

  The pieces rubbed together like two edges of stained glass that didn’t fit, leaving gaps in his perception. Leaving him confused.

  What had he allowed himself to become?

  Soon his sight cleared, and he squeezed his eyes together, opened them again, his gaze blurring.

  He saw that the vampires were lined up, their red eyes beaming through the darkness at the broken wall to the left. At the rings of white light hovering there.

  Light?

  At the pows of four muted shots, like staple guns thrashing into a slab of wood, the Girls speared through the hole in the wall, their eyes streaks of red lightning. Something—a body?—came flying into the room, crashed against the opposite stairway. It moaned as Drusilla, the strongest and brassiest vampire, zinged over to it. With animalistic glee, she batted the object—yes, a body—back and forth, a feline with a yarn ball and claws.

  Then a second body spun into the room, cartwheeling through the air until Claudia caught up to it, catching it midspin, then twirling it the other way.

  This was all good fun for the Girls, but so surreal that Griff didn’t even know if it was actually happening.

  Blurs, flashing pieces of vision…this was his world now.

  Suddenly, there was a flash and a bang in the air, then a shower of flares sparking into the room, flaming it to light. Claudia jerked her head up, and her catnip revolved to the floor, kicking up dirt. Even Drusilla halted her vicious taunting, leaving her unwilling playmate alone.

  The vampires scattered, zipping to different ends of the room, and Griff crept a hand over his eyes because they stung. He wasn’t used to daylight. Hadn’t seen the sun in…

  A woman lunged into the room, gracefully clearing the stone wall. In front of her face, she held a sword of pale energy, its beams blocking her features and suffusing the area, making the strigoiaca scream with fury. Making them freeze.

  Only now did Griff become aware of Petar, whose breath was jagging out in taut wheezes.

  Even Griff was entranced by the woman.

  Then a man, dressed in camouflage, his left arm swathed in bandages, stormed in next to the warrior woman. He was bracing a crossbow against his good shoulder, aiming with one arm, but not firing. Then another woman, stocky and mean, charged in, carrying that strange sword.

  The other two bodies—the test versions—struggled to their feet, wobbling, offering their light-wands, too.

  The room looked like a lobby from Heaven. White light played over walls, making the unmoving strigoiaca seem like macabre decorations. Drusilla, with her divine dress, was hanging from the ceiling like a chandelier. Star was flattened against a wall like an empty torch holder. Claudia, the hiker girl, was perched like a lone vase on a dilapidated staircase that led to the sky.

  Mina was gone.

  All the intruders headed for a vampire, but the leader, the woman with the light-wand blocking her features, grabbed the man by his good arm.

  “Not so hard to take ’em alive,” she said in a tough voice. “Remember, if you kill any of them, they’ll be after two, three, four of us women. And then you’ll be on your own to fight the new vampires. Us.”

  He gave her a long stare, unreadable, then went back to covering the vampires with his crossbow while the rest of the women charged forward with what looked like restraints. Griff wondered when he and Petar would be discovered. If these fighters were actually worse enemies than the ones they already knew.

  After watching the man retreat, the leader woman moved over to Griff and Petar, the restraints in one hand, the wand causing Griff to cringe. A circle of light from her headset glared at them.

  When she lowered her wand, it shadowed her from underneath, casting hollows beneath her cheekbones, giving her eyes an awful glow.

  “Griff?” The foreign name cracked out of her throat.

  Good Lord. This had to be an illusion. Now someone was talking to him with Camille’s voice, her face. Or maybe this was one of his many visions, where she told him everything would be okay if he hung in there, that he needed to find a way out to get back to her.

  The soldier dropped the light to her side, making her less nefarious, and Griff a little stronger. Her lips parted; her eyes pooled with moisture.

  Camille? Not this steel-tough commando in a black bodysuit with weapons and devices hanging from belts. With a headset and microphone and a severe braid that had lost a few misguided strands of red hair.

  When he still didn’t answer, the hopeful lift of her brows crumbled. Her body practically slumped forward.

  “Okay.” She swallowed, struggled to talk. “Can you tell me your names, then?”

  “Lady Tex?” Griff croaked, chancing that his words wouldn’t chase this dream away.

  For a second, she didn’t react. Then the light came back into her eyes. “Griff?”

  He just drank her in, hoping she wouldn’t disappear.

  She leaned forward, brushing the hair back from his face. God, he’d repulse her if she looked too hard.

  “Griff!” A sob tore out of her. “Oh, dear God! Look at you. It’s you! It’s you!”

  Heart contracting, expanding, he reached up for her. Camille. Real? Really here?

  Springing to him, she dropped her light-sword and loaned some darkness to their corner, extending her arms to embrace him.

  He made a mad grab for her. Camille.

  But they weren’t fast enough.

  A streak of bedraggled white nightgown slammed into Camille, knocking her over. The restraints jangled to the ground.

  Mina.

  The vampire was on top of his girlfriend, nipping at Camille’s throat for the bite. In turn, Lady Tex held Mina by the neck, her arm like a strong column, fending her off.

  Griff slid forward, kicking out at his vampire, but too weak to lift his leg. He collapsed to the ground, spent with the effort.

  Bloody hell. Bloody, bloody hell. He couldn’t just sit here and watch his world be destroyed.

  While Griff panted on the ground, he gathered all his strength so he could be with the woman he’d loved through every skin-prickling minute of the life he’d been living.

  Whatever it took to be with her, he’d do it.

  The sacrifice couldn’t be any bigger than what he’d already done.

  Sobbing, laughing and reeling with terror at the same time, Camille reached for a mouth sealer with one hand, holding off the bitch who’d captured Griff with the other.

  Oh, yeah, she thought, staring into those flaming, bottomless eyes. I recognize you. And you don’t know just how long I’ve dreamed of revenge.

  Her arm shook with the labor of holding the gnashing creature back. The adrenaline shot she’d taken just before diving into the room helped, but it only evened the odds.

  Yet Camille wasn’t going to lose. Not when she’d finally found Griff again. Hell, no.

  She caught a glimpse of him out of the watery corner of her eye. He was laid flat on the floor, probably from all the blood loss. He was as pale as a hospital sheet, but alive.

  Alive.

  With a burst of sublime energy, she finally grasped a mouth sealer on her belt, then cried out, switching it on and slapping it upward.

  Just in time, the vampire hissed, averted her face. Her long dark hair trailed over Camille’s arm as the
mouth sealer missed its mark. It sucked against the female’s cheek, making the creature pick at it, miffed.

  Camille didn’t hesitate. She kicked up with one leg, found purchase against the vampire’s belly, then shoved.

  The vampire went flying a few feet away, but she swooped back to attack position. While she fixed Camille with the evil eye, she yanked at the mouth sealer. The device only pulled at her skin, stretching it like taffy.

  While the creature experimented with the deterrent, Camille had enough time to snatch her UV wand off the ground. The creature went still as soon as the light hit it.

  “Nu!”

  It was Reveka across the room. Her own UV light had gone out, but she’d already shot a dart into that vampire in the seventeenth-century Pirates of the Caribbean dress. Oddly enough, the creature was still hissing and clinging to the ceiling.

  The tranquilizer wasn’t working on this one? Why? Was it because the ball-gown beast was a lot older than Ecaterina had been? Did she need a bigger dose than the younger vampire?

  “I have got you covered, Reveka,” Sarge said in Romanian. “Use your restraints. If she moves, I will shoot.”

  Camille thought she detected a mocking note in that last phrase. He was dying to spill some vampire blood.

  “How will I get her down?” Reveka asked.

  Good question.

  “I can shoot her,” Sarge said.

  Oh, huge surprise.

  “Sarge!” Quickly Camille grabbed her dart gun, then tagged her vampire in the neck. Watched as she plopped to the floor. Thank God, this one was susceptible. But she still bound her with the steel-alloy restraints for good measure.

  At the same time, she cast a glance at Griff, just to check on him. Just to reassure herself that he was really here.

  Still resting on the ground, hair wild around his face, covering it.

  Her heart warmed, still thudding with adrenaline. Thank God. He was safe.

  Lightning fast, she bolted another dart into her gun. As her UV wand flittered to darkness, she aimed, shot the chandelier vampire.

  Hit for a second time, it stiffened, then went limp. Unfortunately, the intricate dress had snagged on an iron ceiling beam, so her body hung in space, upside down.