Crimson Storm

by Amy Patrick

  “Well, thank you for the warning,” Shane said. “I wish you a good night. Stay safe.”

  He lifted the reins in preparation to depart, but the agent held up a hand. “Just a minute. Would you mind removing your bonnet, ma’am?”

  27

  Calling in the Cavalry

  Worry bored through my midsection like the auger my father used to dig post holes on our farm.

  “That is against our religion,” I said to Agent Eggleston, leaning heavily into the Pennsylvania Dutch accent of my childhood. “You must know that.”

  “I’m sorry, but it’s regulations ma’am.” His tone was respectful but firm. He wasn’t going to back down on this.

  Without a word, I nodded and untied the strings beneath my chin, pulling the traveling bonnet from my head. Dark hair spilled down my back.

  Though it had been cut since I’d left my Amish community, it was still quite long, adhering to the style of Amish women.

  The agent’s sigh of relief was audible. I wasn’t blonde. The problem was, Kelly was feet away from him, and I suspected she was a perfect match to the description he and all the state border agents had been given.

  “Thank you, ma’am. You can put that back on,” Agent Eggleston said. “I just need to do a temp check on all of you, and then you can be on your way. It’ll just take a sec.”

  “Must you wake my sisters?” Shane asked. He was beginning to panic. I could hear his heart pounding.

  “It’ll just take a sec,” the agent repeated.

  I had to do something. If he wanded all of us and discovered three out of the four “Amish siblings” in the buggy were vampires, the ruse would be up. He’d detain us for sure, and it would take only a quick internet search to match Kelly, Heather, and me to our mug shots.

  We’d be sent back to prison—or more likely executed—for “murdering” a guard.

  Not for the first time, I wished I really did have the power to mesmerize a human. It would have come in very handy.

  As it was, I’d have to rely on my wits.

  “That is not our way, sir.” I kept my eyes down but spoke loudly and clearly. “Your modern technology is against our beliefs.”

  “I’m afraid it is our way ma’am. And if you want to enjoy our ‘modern’ highways, you have to abide by the law of the land,” he said.

  I nodded. “I understand.”

  We were going to have to take him out, overpower him and lock him up without his radio so he couldn’t call for backup—unless he’d done that already with that 9-8-6 code.

  The other option was to abandon the buggy—and Shane—and make a run for it. We were so close to the Bastion now. We simply couldn’t allow ourselves to be captured after making it this far.

  But how could I leave Shane? I’d promised to help him find his parents. Worse, he might be in legal trouble for traveling with us. He’d have a hard time claiming he’d been kidnapped and forced now that he’d lied to the agent.

  The man held his electronic thermometer to Shane’s forehead, and it beeped. I could tell from the agent’s low grunt he was satisfied with the readout. It was my turn.

  Slowly I turned toward him. My eyes were shaded by the bonnet, but it didn’t matter now if he saw their color. The second he read my temperature he’d know I wasn’t human.

  When he extended the wand toward me, I grabbed his wrist and sprang from the buggy, pulling his arm around behind his back.

  “Hey,” he yelled. “You can’t do that. I’m an officer of the law.”

  “I’m sorry. We’re not going to hurt you,” I said as I reached for his other wrist. But it was too late. He’d already gotten a hand on his gun.

  Drawing it, he raised the weapon over his head, angling it down behind his back toward me and pulling the trigger. Red-hot pain sliced through my left thigh. A couple feet higher and the platinum bullet would have pierced my heart, ending my life.

  The heat at the entry wound morphed to aching cold, which was spreading rapidly down toward my knee and up toward my hip. I couldn’t let the agent get off another round, but it was impossible to stay on my feet.

  As I fell, I grabbed for his gun hand, but he spun away, turning to face me with his weapon aimed at my chest.

  He spoke into the radio clipped to his collar, calling for backup and describing us and our vehicle.

  I lifted a hand toward him. “Please. We’re not dangerous. Just let my friends go.”

  “Shut up,” he ordered. “Don’t move an inch. I will shoot you through the heart.”

  “Abigail!” Shane yelled.

  I darted at glance at him standing horror-struck in the buggy’s open front. “No! Stay back. You’ll get hurt.”

  He didn’t listen to me. Leaping from the buggy, Shane landed on the agent’s back, knocking him to the ground where the two of them rolled and grappled for control of the agent’s weapon.

  It fired again, a loud crack that echoed for several seconds.

  Shane collapsed.

  “No. Oh no.”

  I crawled toward him while Kelly and Heather leapt from the buggy to subdue the agent. Each gripped one of his arms.

  Shane writhed on the asphalt, which was becoming soaked with his blood. I had to hold my breath to suppress a surge of thirst.

  “Where were you hit? Can you tell me? Can you speak?”

  Moaning and gasping for breath, he didn’t answer, just shook his head, squinting in pain and clutching his mid-section.

  “Abbi—we need to get out of here,” Heather said. “I hear sirens.”

  “I hear them, too,” Kelly said. They both sounded terrified.

  Sure enough, the wail of sirens filled the air. Lifting my head, I saw a police car speeding our way, lights flashing.

  The agent barked a harsh laugh. “You’re screwed now. I called it in before you jumped me. You’re the escapees, aren’t you? Don’t matter if you run now—we’re going to get you sooner or later. And that bullet you took contains liquid platinum. It’s working its way through your veins toward your heart right now. You’ve got about five minutes left to live, little vamp—less if you run and speed up your heart rate.”

  I looked over at Shane again, who was insensible with pain at this point, then back up at my friends.

  “You two go. Run home. I can’t leave him to die here alone.”

  “We can’t leave you,” Kelly said.

  “Yes—you can. You have to. Go. Get to safety. You can’t help me. Tell Kannon what happened. Tell...” Reece “...them... I didn’t make it.”

  “Abbi...” Heather whined. She and Kelly stood looking at me with anguished faces.

  The car was nearly upon us. Any second now the officers would jump out, guns drawn, and my friends would be arrested.

  “Go,” I repeated in a louder voice. “Go. Please. I love you.”

  They disappeared into the darkness outside the checkpoint’s lights just before the squad car braked in front of me and Shane.

  Two police officers got out of the car. They did indeed have their guns drawn, and both were shouting for me to lie down on my belly.

  My leg was aching and ice cold now. Moving it was agony, but I complied. The instant I was down, one of them jerked my arms behind me and locked a pair of platinum handcuffs around my wrists.

  “The other two ran off. Headed east.” The border agent sounded out of breath. “You might be able to catch them.”

  One of the officers, who looked about fifty years old and about fifty pounds over his ideal weight, said, “They’re vampires. We can’t catch them. But we’ve got her, and she’s going to tell us where they went—and anything else we want to know, aren’t you sweetheart?”

  He gave my injured thigh a little kick, causing me to cry out in pain.

  “You might want to get her to a hospital if you want to question her,” the agent said. “I shot her with one of those new exploding rounds. She’s full of platinum, probably won’t last too much longer.”

  “Dammit. All
right. We’ll have to radio the trauma center, but it’s ninety miles away. Hopefully she won’t croak in the car.”

  “Please help him,” I begged. Shane was unconscious now, and by the look and smell of things was losing blood at an alarming rate.

  “We’ll consider it... as long as you’re cooperative,” the other, much younger, officer said. “What is he, your own personal blood donor?”

  The two officers and the border agent all chuckled, which infuriated me.

  “He’s my friend. I don’t drink from humans.”

  “Sure you don’t,” the older officer said.

  “That’s what they all say when they’re arrested,” his partner said. “Their victims tell another story. Okay, let’s get a move on. Put her in the back.”

  “What about him?” I asked, nearly in a panic now over Shane’s condition—which no one but me seemed to really care about.

  The younger officer sneered. “Don’t worry. I’ll call an ambulance from the car. They’ll come scoop up your little vamp-loving ‘friend’ and take him to the hospital. Say your goodbyes now. Where you’re going, you won’t be seeing him for a long time.”

  He yanked me up and started dragging me toward the police cruiser but paused as a large, black tactical unit van pulled up.

  “You gotta be kidding me.” The older officer shot a look of disbelief at the border agent. “You called for a SWAT unit? Little bit of overkill calling in the cavalry, don’t you think?”

  The agent shook his head in obvious confusion. “I told dispatch there were three of them. I don’t know why they sent SWAT.”

  The doors on both sides of the armored vehicle opened, and a swarm of uniformed men poured out.

  They were not wearing SWAT uniforms.

  Not police or military uniforms either.

  They wore the distinctive black leather of the Bloodbound.

  28

  Soup’s On

  The police officers stared at them in bafflement.

  “Who are you guys?” the young officer asked. “VSU?”

  I’d heard of Vampire Suppression Units being formed in some of the larger cities. They were like SWAT teams for dealing with vampire threats.

  Unfortunately for the officers, this particular unit was the exact opposite—and the humans were severely outnumbered.

  Before they had a chance to figure that out and even raise a weapon, they were all dead, either beheaded or run through with a wicked Bloodbound sword.

  Blood was everywhere now, and the vampire warriors weren’t going to let it go to waste.

  “Soup’s on, boys,” one of them called out in a jovial tone.

  “Make sure you drain them completely,” another cautioned. “These guys would make crappy vampires.”

  I sat and watched the scene in a state of semi-shock, not sure if I should thank them or scream. It had been a while since I’d been around Bloodbound warriors. I’d forgotten how big and intimidating they were.

  When a couple of the men moved toward Shane’s helpless, still form, I snapped out of my fugue.

  “Stop,” I yelled. “Not him.”

  Halting their progress, they looked back at me. “Why not? It’s a waste of good blood to just let it all spill out on the cement.”

  “He’s with me. I’m taking him to the Bastion.”

  They exchanged amused glances. One of them laughed out loud. “You mean as a snack, right? There’s no Inception Ceremony coming up.”

  None of them looked familiar. They must have been new recruits to the Bloodbound ranks. Who knew how many the brotherhood numbered by now?

  Was Reece among them? I didn’t see him. Perhaps he ranked too highly at this point to be sent out on routine patrols.

  That had to be what this was—there was no way Kelly and Heather had made it to the Bastion quickly enough to send help.

  “I’m Abigail Byler,” I said to the guys who were once again moving toward Shane.

  Desperate to convince them to spare his life, I mustered as much dignity as I could from my position bleeding on the ground. “Imogen’s daughter.”

  “They know who you are,” someone said from behind me. “Why do you think we’re here?”

  My head jerked around at the familiar voice. “Kannon!”

  If I hadn’t been crippled and in excruciating pain, I’d have flung myself at my old friend and hugged him. It was incredibly good to see his handsome Viking face. Spotting my injury, he hurried toward me, wrapping an arm around my back to pull me up to my good leg.

  “What the hell are you doing here, squirt? I thought you were out in California with all the peace-loving hippies now.”

  I sagged against him, grateful for the support. “I was. But then... well, it’s a long story, which I’ll be happy to tell you later. Right now I need to get some help for my friend.”

  “Looks like you need help yourself. You’ve been shot. What kind of round was it?”

  “Don’t worry about me. You don’t happen to have any O-negative in that truck, do you?”

  “Thirsty?”

  “No—not for me. For him. He’s lost a lot of blood. It’s the universal donor type.”

  “No, but we’ve got some back at the Bastion, of course. You can’t really mean to take a human there, though.”

  “Yes. I do. He helped me and Kelly and Heather escape from a bad situation. He got us here. I can’t just leave him here to die. He needs help, Kannon. The hospital’s too far away—he won’t make it. I have to get him to Dr. Coppa.”

  He peered around me to check out Shane’s body lying in a pool of blood. “I’m not sure he’ll make it to the Bastion either. He looks pretty far gone. Sure you don’t want to just turn him?”

  I fought off another flare of thirst. “Absolutely sure. Can you help me get him into the truck?”

  Kannon’s face creased in consternation as he glanced around at the brightly lit border station. At the moment, it looked like a massacre scene.

  “Yeah, okay, but she’s not going to be happy about this.”

  She. Imogen. Chill bumps rose on my skin and lifted the fine hairs on my arms.

  “I know. Thank you for doing it anyway.”

  After another reluctant glance down at me, Kannon helped me to the van then went back to scoop my human friend off the pavement.

  Shane woke. “Ow. Shit that hurts. Abigail?” He twisted his head, searching for me.

  I called out to him from the van’s open rear door. “Right here. We’re taking you somewhere to get you some help.”

  “Or to get him eaten,” Kannon muttered.

  “What?” Shane whipped his head back and forth as he surveyed the bloody aftermath. “What’s happening?”

  Kannon didn’t bother to answer but placed Shane on the floor of the van next to me. “Just be still, kid. You’re getting blood on the carpet, and you don’t have that much left to spare.”

  To the other Bloodbound, Kannon barked out orders. “Clean this place up. Dispose of the bodies. Destroy the cameras and recordings. Remove any trace of yourselves or of Abigail and her friends. Meet back at the Bastion—and one of you bring along the buggy and horses. I’m going on ahead.”

  He slid the back door closed then got behind the wheel of the enormous vehicle, starting it and putting it into gear. I looked around the rear section and found a leather jacket someone had left behind on the floor. Balling it up, I pressed it against Shane’s wound to stem the flow of fragrant fresh blood.

  “Owwww,” he groaned.

  “Sorry. I can’t have you bleeding out before we even get there.”

  “Where are we going?” he mumbled, nearly incoherent.

  “Never mind. Just lie still and be quiet. You’re going to be okay.”

  Kannon turned his head to the side for a second, taking his eyes off the road, though he was driving at blistering speed.

  “How are you doing? You didn’t say what kind of round you got hit with.”

  I grimaced. The icy pain had crept
up over my hip and was now engulfing my stomach. I hadn’t wanted to mention it, needing to get some help for Shane before I lost consciousness. I feared for his fate if I died before we got him to Dr. Coppa.

  “The agent who shot me said it was platinum, some new exploding kind.”

  “What?” Kannon roared.

  He jerked the wheel and caused the van to veer across the road before correcting it. “You should have told me right away. You need some vampire blood—now.”

  Would that heal me? Dr. Coppa had given Reece injections of small amounts of vampire blood when he was recovering from animal blood poisoning, but it hadn’t occurred to me that vampire blood could save me from the liquid platinum infecting my bloodstream now.

  Hope lifted my heart. Maybe I hadn’t seen my friends for the last time. I could still help Shane.

  And I would see Reece again.

  It was stupid, but the thought was there anyway, undeniable and invigorating.

  “Dammit. We’re still thirty miles from the Bastion.” Kannon added another, more colorful, swear, slamming a large hand against the steering wheel.

  “Does it have to be injected?” I asked, confused. “Or are you worried you won’t be able to drive while I drink from your arm?”

  I’d never bitten anyone but Josiah and had sworn never to bite a human again, but drinking from a vampire seemed tolerable. After all, I couldn’t ruin a vampire’s life with a single bite.

  And I had no doubt Kannon would be willing to give me his blood if it would save my life. He’d been a good friend to me since the day we’d met.

  “It’s not that.” His face in the rearview mirror twisted with dismay. “Our vows state that we’ll never share our blood with anyone but Imogen.”

  “Really?”

  The sacred Bloodbound vows weren’t public knowledge, so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that I hadn’t been aware of this one. It was just that... Reece had given me his blood on the day I’d left the Bastion.

  Why?

  29

  One More Look