Michael stepped up to his side, his gaze never leaving the approaching army. “More than fifty, jefe.”
Vincent nodded. His people were probably outnumbered three to one, but numbers were often the least important factor when it came to vampire battles. Vincent’s fighters were bigger, stronger, and sure as hell more capable than these poor creatures, many of whom had probably been fishermen only yesterday morning.
“I’m going after Hubert. You know what to do,” he told Michael. The two of them had fought side-by-side for decades. There was no one he trusted more at his back, except perhaps Lana. But not when it came to this battlefield.
Michael pulled his attention away from the approaching army long enough to exchange a manly embrace with Vincent. “Kill the fucker,” he said with a vicious grin.
Vincent matched his grin, then looked over Michael’s shoulder. Lana was perched on a rock outcropping, fifteen feet above the battleground, guns laid out beside her. He sent a surge of energy across the clearing, surrounding her in warmth. She looked up, searching for him, smiling when the moon emerged strongly enough that she could see him. He wanted to climb up there and kiss the hell out of her, wanted to taste her skin, feel the heat of her body against his one more time. Just in case. This was war, and he was going up against another vampire lord. Anything could happen.
But because this was war, he settled for blowing her a kiss before closing his mind to everything except the coming battle. Spinning away, he put on a burst of vampire speed and smashed through the approaching zombie vamps, as he went to confront their master. Those few who got in his way, he simply tossed aside, ripping off limbs as necessary, picking up one, and using him as a club to batter another at one point. None of them tried to stop him. They seemed incapable of recognizing that he was a greater threat than any other vampire on the field. He was merely one fighter, while their focus was on the larger group behind him. Their directions from Hubert were clear, and just as clearly one-dimensional. Once Vincent was through their lines, he was forgotten.
The sounds of battle rose behind him, as he started his climb. The zombies had come from somewhere within these hills, so it made sense that Hubert was concealed up there, directing the fight from the safety of his hiding place. Finding a spot beneath a heavy overhang, he sent his awareness outward, searching for the single, strong presence that would be Hubert. As before, when he’d searched from the chopper, the lone signal was bright, but muted, as if Hubert was attempting to camouflage his presence. It would have worked if Vincent hadn’t been a vampire lord himself, or if he’d sent someone else to head up this offensive. If the present battle was any indication, that’s what Hubert would have done. There he was tonight, hiding in the hills, letting his vampires die to protect him. Maybe he had assumed Vincent would do the same, and so had counted on his camouflage to shelter him from the actual fighting.
But Vincent was a vampire lord, and he was fucking powerful. He cut through the fog Hubert had walled himself behind, and started climbing. Turning Hubert’s own game on him, he kept his power signature locked down tight, so that the other lord wouldn’t know who was coming at him. Let him think Vincent was a soldier, a master vampire, but nothing more.
He scrambled up and over a final outcropping of rock so loose that, had he not had the enhanced physical abilities of his vampire nature, he almost certainly would have slid right back down the hill, probably breaking a few bones in the process. Hubert was a coward, but he had the smarts to choose a good hiding spot.
Vincent came over the edge cautiously, and crouched low, with senses wide open. A bolt of power blasted across the open space, pulverizing the rock behind him and sizzling by so close to his head, that it seared his cheek in passing.
“Fuck that,” he snarled. He snapped his shields into place, and straightened to force the challenge. Releasing the full measure of his power, he shuddered under the exquisite pleasure of it, feeling it flow out and around him in a rush of ecstasy that rivaled sex. In his mind’s eye, the power embraced him, caressing his skin like a lover, before soaring into the night to surround him. But this was no time for poetic musings. He had a vampire lord to kill.
“Fucking coward,” he called, aiming the taunt at a tight cluster of ancient prickly pear cactus that rose higher than his head, their big blooms shining yellow in the moonlight.
He waited for Hubert to answer his challenge, to come out of hiding and confront Vincent with a display of his own. But the only response was another bolt of sizzling energy that shot across the clearing and splashed harmlessly against his shields.
“If that’s the way you want it, old man,” he muttered, and sent a ball of vampire-fueled fire roaring into the cactus cluster, igniting it like a giant torch, with flames blasting twenty feet into the sky.
Hubert gave a high-pitched yell, and darted away from the conflagration, giving Vincent his first direct sight of the enemy. He’d never seen Hubert before, and hadn’t thought to ask what the vampire looked like. Physical appearance wasn’t important; only power mattered. And that’s what Vincent focused on when he studied the European invader. He could see the rainbow shimmer of the lord’s shields in the glimmer of the flames, could feel the unrelenting pressure as Hubert probed for a weakness in Vincent’s shields, as well. But other than that probe, his attack was curiously passive, his energies concentrated on maintaining his shields.
It wasn’t what Vincent would have expected from a lord as old and experienced as Hubert, and he wondered if the invader was a victim of his own strategy. The power necessary to maintain control over his zombie fighters might be taking such a toll on his strength that it was leaving him vulnerable to the far more dangerous enemy right in front of him.
But at the same time, Vincent knew that Hubert had a whole village full of blood donors sitting down below like a human buffet. The European should have been at peak strength.
All of these thoughts raced through his mind in an instant as he calculated the fastest way to dispose of Hubert and get back to his fighters, and to Lana. If Hubert was weakened by his own actions, then all the better. It was time to get this fight started.
Shifting his gaze to the tumble of rocks behind Hubert, who remained curiously unmoving, Vincent seized them with his power and sent them flying down the hill. They slammed into Hubert, who flinched visibly on impact. His shields held, but they wavered as he stumbled forward, nearly going to his knees. He grimaced in pain, his fangs flashing, as he struggled to regain his feet.
But this wasn’t an old-fashioned human sort of duel, with rules of honor and chivalry. Vincent struck while his enemy was down. Striding over the empty space between them, he curled hands together in front of his chest and shaped his power into a massive cudgel of energy. Swinging it around his head, building momentum as he drew closer, he stomped to a halt just before he would have hit Hubert’s shield, and powered the cudgel downward at the vampire lord’s head.
There was a fraction of resistance, a bare slowing of his downward stroke as the weapon penetrated Hubert’s shield. And then there were blood and brains splattering everywhere, trapped within the shield for a gruesome few seconds as Hubert struggled to stay alive, before his shield collapsed, and he crumpled to the ground.
Vincent stared, shocked at the ease of his victory, but not so stunned that he paused in delivering the final blow. Reaching into the gory mess, he punched a hole in Hubert’s chest, ripped out his heart, and tossed it onto the burning cactus. Seconds later, Lord Hubert of Lyon was gone, an unlamented footnote to the history of Vampire.
And yet . . . something wasn’t right about this. Vincent had never doubted he would prevail in this fight. This was his territory, and he knew his strength. But he’d expected more of a challenge. He thought again of the zombie vampires, and the toll they might have taken on Hubert’s strength. And perhaps that explained it, but it did nothing to ease the pebbl
e of unease that was building in his gut. Turning, he raced for the plateau’s edge and started downward.
He could see the battle still raging down below, could catch glimpses of movement as the moon flirted with the clouds overhead. He heard the crack of Lana’s rifle as she fired repeatedly, systematically. The closer he got, the more individual sounds carried up to him, the roars and grunts from his own fighters punctuating the almost steady keening growl that rose above Hubert’s zombie vampires.
The pebble in his gut became a boulder. He needed to get back to his people. The feeling of wrongness was driving him forward with a frenzy that had him leaping from foothold to foothold, rocks skidding beneath his feet in a shower of dirt and stone before him. Lana was down there. Michael and all of his fighters were, too. But Lana was so much more vulnerable, her connection to him too new to save her if the unimaginable happened. What if she’d been the ultimate target? What if Hubert hoped to destroy Vincent by killing his mate?
It would work. Vincent couldn’t imagine surviving the agony of losing Lana, couldn’t imagine wanting to go on without her.
Reaching the flat, he tore across the battleground, tearing through Hubert’s zombies, tossing them aside, ripping out hearts and tearing off heads in his urgency to destroy them all before disaster struck. He couldn’t have said what the disaster would be, couldn’t envision whatever Hubert’s plan had been. What kind of vampire lord weakened himself so severely that he couldn’t survive a challenge? What horrible revenge had he hoped to inflict?
Vincent reached the giant boulder where Lana was secured, her gun still firing at an almost inhuman pace. As he climbed, he could hear the battle winding down behind him. Even Lana’s steady gunfire was slowing. She rolled over in alarm when he made the final leap to her side, her gun coming up, finger on the trigger. She froze, eyes wide, when she recognized him, then lowered the weapon with a curse.
“God damn it, Vincent! I almost shot you. What the fuck?”
Vincent didn’t waste time on words, just gathered her up, and stretched his shields to cover them both, staring out into the moonlit night and listening as the battle was reduced to the muted growls of his fighters and the dying cries of their enemies. There was no mercy in vampire society. Vanquished enemies were destroyed. There was no other outcome.
“Vincent,” Lana said, drawing his attention with the soft intensity of her voice. “What’s going on, babe?”
He dragged his gaze from the battlefield where he’d been counting his fighters, noting each face, scanning for injuries.
“Querida,” he said fervently, stroking a hand over the long braid of her black hair.
“Vincent? You’re scaring me.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Something’s wrong with this. I was convinced Hubert had a surprise planned, something we hadn’t thought of, but . . .” He scowled, still unable to put words to his fear. “Come on,” he said suddenly. “I need to talk to Michael.”
He waited while she secured her weapons and slung the two rifles over her shoulder. Then he gripped her around the waist and stepped to the edge of the boulder.
“Hold on,” he warned her, and stepped off the rock, dropping them to the ground fifteen feet below. His knees bent, thighs flexing as he absorbed the impact. Lana uttered a tiny squeak, and gripped his arms briefly, but she couldn’t have been that surprised. She knew what he was capable of.
“Asshole,” she whispered. “A little warning next time.”
Vincent kissed the top of her head in apology, but his mind wasn’t on it. His arm tightened around her when she would have turned for the landing zone where they’d be meeting the helicopter. He was still consumed with the need to protect her, still waiting for the unknown to happen. Lana glanced up at him, but didn’t say anything, and didn’t try to break away.
“Jefe,” Michael said, coming toward him with a victorious grin. Behind him, Vincent’s warriors were dispatching the few remaining fallen enemies, and slapping each other’s backs in celebration. If they’d been in the city, the blood bars would be going wild tonight, his fighters pumping adrenaline and blood lust so thick, it would color the air.
“Michael,” Vincent said tightly, his attention never leaving the hills around them as he continued to scan with all his vampire senses.
“What is it?” Michael asked, suddenly tuning in to Vincent’s tension. “Hubert?” he asked, turning to mimic Vincent’s search of the surrounding area.
“Hubert’s dead,” Vincent said sharply, and that quickly, he realized what was bothering him. “They should have died,” he muttered, halfway to himself. “Why didn’t they die?” he asked louder, looking at Michael.
“Who?”
“These,” he said, waving a hand at the dead and dying zombie vamps. “Look at them. They’re so newly turned that they’re not even dusting. Their bodies will lie there until the sun destroys them in the morning.”
Michael nodded. “Okay,” he said, still not getting the point.
“So why didn’t they die when I killed Hubert?” Vincent asked quietly. “They shouldn’t have been able to survive the shock of his death. But when I came back here, you were still fully engaged, as if nothing had happened, as if . . . Fuck me,” he swore fervently.
Michael understood then. Without a word, he flicked on his headset and called the helicopter back. “Where to, my lord?”
“I don’t know yet. Let’s just get the fuck out of here for now.”
“What?” Lana was demanding, pounding a fist on his chest where he was still holding her tightly. “What happened?”
“That wasn’t Hubert I killed,” Vincent said bitterly. “I knew something was off. I just thought . . . Fuck.” The helicopter came into view, hovered briefly, then settled just above the ground. With no enemies alive to contest their arrival, the pilots could risk coming in closer.
Vincent steered Lana back to the chopper, boosting her up and in, before following her inside. As they donned their headsets against the noise, his thoughts were churning, playing back the sequence of events that had brought him here, to this remote fishing village, considering all the players and their reasons for wanting him distracted and out of the way.
“Anthony,” he growled.
“What about him?” Michael asked over the command channel, as he settled onto the seat on the other side of Vincent.
“He had a reason for sending us here. Get us to the airport. I need to call someone, and find out what the fuck is going on.”
Chapter Twelve
Houston, TX
NATALIE WATCHED the door close behind Christian, heard the heavy shutter roll down with the subdued rumble of well-oiled gears. Tiptoeing over, she peered through the peephole, and realized she could still see the outside. No one was there. She rolled her eyes. Of course, no one was there. And why was she tiptoeing?
“Get it together, Nat,” she whispered. But she couldn’t stop staring at that door, couldn’t stop thinking about how trapped she felt in this big empty house. Just to reassure herself, she crossed to the keypad and entered the code that Christian had given her.
The shutter responded instantly, raising itself with the same rumble of noise that had closed it. She opened the door and glanced outside. The neighborhood was quiet, the elegant homes each perched above a gently sloping lawn, most with soft light shining through windows, testifying to their occupation.
She breathed in a dose of the fresh air, then stepped back and closed the door. Christian was right. She needed to be smart and safe, even if Anthony was in hiding. He was sneaky and accustomed to getting his way. She punched in the code, and took comfort in the solid sound of the shutter dropping securely down again.
“Well, you can’t stand in front of the door all night like a dog, waiting for him to come home,” she muttered, then turned to survey the house. The ent
rance opened into a split-level living room that was filled with furniture. It was elegantly appointed, and probably very expensive. But she preferred the kitchen, where Christian’s giant espresso machine ruled the room. Her bedroom, or rather, the one she was using, was comfortable and nicely furnished, and now that she’d been there a few days, it was also cluttered with the stuff of daily living. She imagined the basement was like that, too.
That reminded her of what Christian had said about Alon being secure in a locked vault downstairs. She stared down the hallway on her right, contemplating the closed basement door, and what lay beyond it. She could go down there and see for herself. No one else was in the house, no one would ever know. She started in that direction, then stopped. No. It wouldn’t be right to snoop around while Christian was gone. She wouldn’t like it if he did that to her. She’d just have to wait, and ask him when he came back if he would show her what was down there.
She wrinkled her nose in irritation. Being a good person was a pain in the ass sometimes. She sighed and tried to decide what to do. The living room had a full entertainment suite, and she’d bet Christian had cable, or some equivalent. Probably hundreds of channels. She could find a movie to watch. But that didn’t hold any appeal. She was too nervous about what Christian and Marc would find when they reached the border, too worried about what might happen to them. She needed to distract her brain, or she’d drive herself crazy.
“Work,” she decided. Her work required full concentration. Once she started on a trail, she lost track of time and everything else. She stopped in her bedroom long enough to grab a sweatshirt and her laptop, then headed back to the kitchen.
She set her laptop on the kitchen island, and grabbed a Diet Coke from the fridge. She was going to need a lot of caffeine, and for all the beauty of Christian’s machine, cup by cup wasn’t going to do it. It was times like this that her Mr. Coffee was made for. Brew a pot and mainline the whole damn thing. Fortunately, she’d bought a twelve pack of Diet Coke when she was at the store. It’s not like the vamps needed all that room in the fridge anyway.
Christian (Vampires in America: The Vampire Wars Book 10) Page 28
