Children of Shadows

by Naylor, Joleene

  Katelina gasped. “What are they doing here? Aren’t they supposed to be blowing someone else up?”

  “Obviously there was a change of plans,” Torina replied disinterestedly.

  The mortal policemen stood with mouths open, wide eyes fixed on the vampires swarming toward them. The two vampire policemen were on their radios, probably calling for back up.

  Micah and the others reached Jorick as he leapt over the barricade and crashed into one of the ninja-style vampires. Micah gave a loud snarl and did the same. Verchiel disappeared and then seemed to reappear amidst the rubble, swinging his sword. Loren had the good sense not to bother with his silly pocket knife. Instead he heaved up a nearby chunk of rubble and flung it. Micah momentarily abandoned his attack to heft one that was four times the size. Katelina could imagine him saying, “This is how you do it!”

  The chunk of stone smashed into the vampires and knocked them on their backs. While they were down Ume swooped in and slashed at their waving limbs with her sickle.

  The spell of terror on the human policemen was broken, and they went for their guns. The air shook with the sharp report of rounds firing, one after another. Vampires on both sides jerked as the bullets impacted. Micah gave a furious roar and turned on one of them. The terrified cop dropped his empty magazine and popped a second in. He fired his rounds in quick succession, and Katelina saw blood flowers blossom on Micah’s tank top.

  The street lights flickered like a strobe then flashed on again to show the cop clicking the empty gun. Micah grabbed the man by the throat, his fangs flashing. Katelina looked away and then back in time to see Micah throw aside the man’s head. It arced through the air, silhouetted against the street lights and the snow, a trail of blood flying behind it like the tail on a macabre shooting star.

  Before Micah could go after any of the other policemen, the vampire officers turned their rifles on them. Katelina watched in horror as the humans’ bodies jerked and crumbled to the ground in bloody heaps. One of them ran for his car, and a vampire policeman bounded after him. He grabbed him by the arm and flung him into what was left of the building with enough force to break his back. The policeman lay on the rubble, his head lolling from side to side, and the vampire paused long enough to shoot a bullet into his brain before he tossed aside the gun and went after the nearest enemy.

  Loren had taken a fallen vampire’s sword. He swung the weapon clumsily, and hopped back and forth, dodging his opponent’s blows. Jorick was nearby, his hand gory and a dead vampire at his feet. He turned in time to grab the teen’s foe and fling him to the ground. Loren grabbed another chunk of rubble and threw it onto the vampire’s head. Though Katelina couldn’t hear the crunch, she imagined it as a wave of crimson shot out.

  Loren gave a smug grin, but his self-satisfaction disappeared when one of the ninja-style vampires grabbed him. He flung the teen toward another vampire, whose sword was at the ready. Ume dodged between them, knocking Loren aside with her arm, and, though she spun toward the assailant with her sickle, she wasn’t fast enough. She took the brunt of the blow with her left arm and shoulder. She fell back with a cry, clutching her bleeding wound. Her opponent rammed the blade of his sword through her chest. Katelina stifled a scream as Ume crumpled to the heap of rubble.

  Verchiel was suddenly there, standing over Ume’s fallen form. With a swish he took off the vampire’s head and with a second motion he rammed his bloody sword through the vampire’s heart. He twisted the blade, then kicked the limp body off of the weapon.

  The street lights blinked out, leaving everything washed in tones of black and blue. Loren flung himself blindly toward Ume, but Oren caught him and pulled him out of the way.

  Enemies set on Oren and Torina gave a low, angry growl. “If you little humans can take care of yourselves, you’d better do it.” Then she took off for the fight.

  Working together, the vampire police made quick work of their enemies. Loren knelt next to Ume, and Verchiel fought a pair of vampires with flashing swords. Jorick threw down another vampire that had a gory hole where his heart had been.

  Katelina tried to make sense of the chaos when a new vampire dropped to the ground from the top of the ruined tower. He landed in a crouch and rose slowly. He wore a long black coat, emblazoned on the back with a golden eye. On one arm he wore a weapon straight from a comic book; a metal glove reached to his elbow and blades extended out between his fingers.

  It was Ronnell, the wind walker, one of Malick’s former henchmen.

  Ronnell set upon them like a whirlwind. He moved so fast that Katelina couldn’t see him, only the reactions of those he injured. Verchiel abandoned his adversaries and disappeared too. He and Ronnell reappeared, their weapons locked, and then Ronnell ripped loose and they disappeared again.

  The lights came back on, brighter than before, and Oren gave a shout. Katelina and the other vampires followed his gaze to the top of the wall where a vampire stood. Katelina squinted and could see long copper hair blowing around his face and a black trench coat whipping behind him like a cape.

  It was Cyprus.

  “Where is Wolfe?” he shouted.

  Jorick ran toward the building and, like a preternatural panther, bounced his way up. He stopped at the top, one hand reaching for Cyprus’ feet, and the other clutching the wall, the tip of Cyprus’ bladed weapon at his throat.

  “Where is Wolfe?” Cyprus shouted again.

  Katelina couldn’t hear Jorick’s answer, but she guessed it was to the effect of “He’s not here.”

  Cyprus roared in frustration. “Where is he?”

  Micah called out what she was thinking, “Why don’t you use your fucking demon eye shit. You’re supposed to be able to see the future!”

  The shadows in the abandoned buildings suddenly came to life and ten vampires dressed in black swarmed into the fray. Like cartoon characters, they wore black masks over their eyes. Ornate sickles glittered in their hands.

  The Black Vigil had finally arrived.

  Jorick used the distraction to grab Cyprus’ foot. Unbalanced, the demon eye lashed out with his weapon and Jorick jerked back. Katelina muffled a squeal, but Jorick didn’t fall.

  A sound filled the air, steadily growing louder, like the beat of a drum or the rotor of…

  “A helicopter?”

  Etsuko made a noise of surprise and Katelina looked to see the Russians’ retreating figures racing up the street in the opposite direction of the commotion.

  “God dammit! Don’t they understand we’re helping them?” Katelina hesitated for a minute and then pounded after them. Police cars screamed past her, no doubt headed to the mess at the Birlik, and Katelina wondered whether they were humans or vampires. That scene was going to take a hellacious cover up.

  She gained steadily on the escapees, and finally cornered them against a tiled building. The woman broke into sobs and Katelina’s patience ran out. “What in the hell is your problem? God, we should’ve left you in Russia!”

  She regretted her words, but it didn’t matter. They couldn’t understand her anyway.

  She grabbed the woman’s arm and tugged on her. “We need to go.”

  The woman cried out and struggled to get free. The male snapped something in Russian and snatched at Katelina. Impatiently, shea lashed back and sent him sprawling on the sidewalk.

  The woman gave a little cry and melted into terrified compliance. The man slowly slid backwards, lifting himself on his elbows and waving his hands in surrender. Katelina couldn’t believe she’d been able to knock him over so easily. He might be half starved, but he was taller than she was, and surely a life of work had made him stronger.

  Blue lights flashed and a police car pulled over. The cop popped out, and called to her in a foreign language. He definitely wasn’t a vampire, which meant she was in real trouble.

  Before she had time to analyze that thought, he was on the sidewalk. He looked from her to the other two and suspicion settled over his face. He changed to broken Engl
ish and asked to see their documentation.

  Shit.

  The policeman turned his full attention to the Russians, and Katelina used the momentary distraction to do the only thing she could think of: she threw a punch directly at his head.

  He turned a nanosecond before it connected, and her fist slammed into the side of his face. She could see it all in slow motion, feel his nose crack against her knuckles, see the way he stumbled sideways but didn’t fall. He recovered quickly and lunged toward her.

  Get away!

  His eyes went wide and he fell back. His feet slipped and he crashed to the pavement and lay immobile.

  Oh God, is he dead?

  “Does it matter?” another voice asked.

  The other door of the police car opened and a second man leaped out and shouted something. She grabbed the gun from the fallen officer’s belt and pointed it with as much ferocity as she could muster. She didn’t want to shoot the guy. He probably had a family and friends. Her imagination was instantly populated with the people he knew and the hole he’d leave if she had to kill him.

  Shit!

  “Katelina!”

  She looked to see Jorick running toward her. He had a cut on his face and his forearm, but seemed otherwise unharmed. He skidded to a stop, grabbed the gun from her hands, and threw it to the ground. The man standing by the car, hands in the air, went slack and Jorick snapped, “What are you doing?”

  “They ran away.” She motioned to the cringing couple. “After I caught them this cop showed up. I hit him. Harder than I’ve ever hit anyone! His nose broke! And then he slipped or something and I think I killed him!”

  Jorick poked the bleeding cop with his foot. “He’s still alive, though he’ll wake up angry.” He grabbed her hand. “We need to leave.”

  Katelina glanced back to the Russians. “What about them? You said you were going to turn them in at the Birlik.”

  “Change of plans. We need to go. Now.”

  Annoying or not, she couldn’t abandon them, so she grabbed the woman. “Come on, we’re going!” she shouted, though even she didn’t know where they were going to.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Where’s Ume?” Katelina scrambled into a seat next to Loren as the helicopter lifted off. No one answered and she quickly scanned the passengers. The Black Vigil sat at the opposite end, a gulf of empty seats between them and the others. In the corner nearest the cockpit Sushel bent over an unfamiliar vampire. A prisoner?

  Verchiel leaned nearby, half-naked, and pressed a folded cloth to the wound on his shoulder. She had a momentary view of his bullet marked back before he turned and winked. “I don’t suppose you have some tweezers?”

  She glared and Etsuko quickly dug through her overstuffed backpack and presented him with a small first aid kit.

  The redhead grinned. “Thanks. Now would someone mind taking the bullets out?”

  “You?” Micah asked sarcastically. Katelina turned to him and gasped. His chest and stomach were chewed up like raw hamburger and bled freely. “I got at least a dozen of the fucking things. Someone wanna help me?”

  “I think Kately is volunteering,” Verchiel teased.

  “Fuck that. Lunch would use the excuse to stab the tweezers through my heart, right vampire killer?”

  If only that would work. She looked to the other passengers. Oren and Jorick were talking in low tones, and Torina stood in the middle of the aisle, unabashedly sliding out of one dress and into another. Ume wasn’t there.

  Katelina’s stomach twisted. Was the vampiress really – she couldn’t think the word, so she poked Loren and asked hesitantly, “Is Ume…”

  Loren shook his head. “She was just wounded.”

  Katelina relaxed. “Thank God. But where is she?”

  “They took her.” Katelina gaped, and Loren gave her a long play-by-play that wound up with “—so this helicopter gets lower and lower. It had this ladder hanging down, and Cyprus jumped onto it. Jorick told him if he ran we’d slaughter everyone he left behind and Cyprus shouted, ‘I don’t care, kill them all.’ And then the helicopter took off with him hanging on the ladder, like something out of a movie. That’s when Ronnell clocked me and took Ume, and they disappeared. Jorick said not to worry. We’re going to get her back.”

  Katelina stopped from saying she hoped he was right. “What were they doing there? Why did Cyprus think Wolfe was with us?”

  Jorick took the seat next to her and looked to the pair of huddled Russians. “We’d have to ask Sushel about that.”

  “Why?”

  Verchiel moved to join the conversation. “Sushel told our Russian host Yaroslav that Wolfe was traveling with us.” He nodded to the pair of humans. “The male overheard it. Though I don’t speak Russian I can hear Sushel saying the name ‘Wolfe’ in his memory.”

  She tried not to look at the shirtless redhead. “Maybe they were talking about a wolf?”

  “Then why use the English word?” Jorick asked. “They speak Russian.”

  “Even if Sushel said that, how did Cyprus find out? Unless you’re saying Yaroslav told him.”

  Jorick nodded. “No doubt he used the radio to contact the Children of Shadows, or at least someone who would pass on the message. Maybe while we were there.” He turned his gaze back to the humans and narrowed his eyes. Katelina could imagine him scraping through their memories, trying to make sense of the foreign words.

  “The question is whether Sushel knew the Russians would betray us,” Verchiel said. The humor left his violet eyes and nothing but cold anger remained. “I don’t doubt he did and hoped the false information would lure Cyprus.”

  “I should’ve paid attention,” Jorick said with something close to self-reproach. “When we parted he was thinking about fighting Cyprus, but I assumed it was more a wish than an expected outcome.”

  Katelina thought of the plot she’d overheard. “We’re stronger than they are and better fighters. We’ll survive but they won’t, and if Ume happens to get killed in the crossfire...”

  “That was his plan,” she whispered. “The one he was working on in Finland to kill us.”

  “I’m sure,” Jorick said. He glanced at Sushel. “I can’t see into his thoughts. He’s blocking me. I could force the issue but…”

  “That would raise the alarm and we’d have the others to contend with,” Verchiel said. “If we could get him alone we could break him.”

  Jorick nodded and Katelina tried not to stare at the vampire in question. “Do you think kidnapping Ume was part of the plan?”

  “No,” Jorick said. “I think Sushel planned to kill her ‘accidentally’. When Wolfe wasn’t there, I believe Cyprus improvised. No doubt he chose Ume because she was wounded, unconscious, and a woman. Men will always fight harder to retrieve a female captive, even one they have no emotional attachment to, because their pride is wounded at the loss; their basic instincts say they must protect the women, and when the women are taken it means they’ve failed.”

  “That sounds like chauvinistic crap,” Katelina muttered. “But why kidnap anyone? Is he after a ransom?”

  Jorick nodded. “He wants Wolfe. However, even if we planned a trade, the first thing we’d have to do is find him.”

  It felt like a moment of karma. Finding Wolfe was the one thing Jorick hadn’t planned to do, and now it looked like they might have to. It served him right.

  They made it to their previous refueling stop. From the relief on Fethillen’s face Katelina suspected it had been close. The airport wasn’t particularly large, but there were still official looking people. Fethillen handed over a wad of cash, probably bribes for everyone, and they were given permission to refuel. Someone came out and pantomimed looking through luggage and checking passports. The man’s eyes went to the prisoner more than once, and then his hand drifted to his pocket, as if reminding himself of his priorities.

  When he was finished Katelina made a quick trip to a staff bathroom and Jorick managed to buy several bottles of wa
ter. She was tempted to slam one, but knew if she did she’d have to pee again and there would be nowhere to go until they landed.

  When they got back on the helicopter Fethillen was already onboard. Katelina overheard her saying she’d radioed Hector and he would make all the arrangements. The name Hector was familiar, but Katelina couldn’t place it.

  They landed in a mountainous region amid winter flurries. Katelina disembarked to get a face full of screaming wind and biting snow. She shielded her eyes and looked hopefully for a house. What she saw were three huge tanks on rusting legs and a collection of windowless, tin roofed sheds. The door on the largest building hung on a hinge and the walls were pockmarked with bullets. The others were in similar shape; forced doors and gouged walls. If this was the summer headquarters they needed a new place!

  Sushel hopped out of the helicopter. With a cry of outrage he raced to the largest building. His fellows gave a similar performance, and soon most of the Black Vigil had fanned out among the destruction.

  The rotors slowed, and Fethillen dropped out of the copter, a bag over her shoulder. She paused to take in the damage. “This is unfortunate.” She glanced up to the heavy sky. “Morning will be here soon, and though we can withstand some sunlight, we have our limits. We will have to do makeshift repairs.” She called sharply to one of the other pilots as he climbed out of the helicopter. “Check the tanks and see if they left us any fuel.”

  Fuel. Katelina hoped that meant that the lonely spot was just a stop on the way to warmer places.

  “Fuck,” Micah muttered. “I’m starting to think sugar babes was right and we shoulda stayed in Munich.”

  No one argued, so they headed for the largest building. Inside, Katelina squinted through the gloom to see a bare floor littered with chunks of plaster.

  Sushel kicked at something and Katelina took a step closer. She could barely see the outline of a slumped body on the floor. In the dark she couldn’t tell if it was human or vampire, alive or dead.