“Fuck,” Christian said softly. That made a terrible sense, especially coming from Hubert. That’s the way it was in Europe, a hundred little territories in the same amount of space where in North America, there would be only one. It was why the European continent was so damn crowded, and why they wanted North America so badly. But Anthony? Jesus, he’d sacrificed his own people, murdered his own people, to further his greed and ambition. Had he really believed the North American Council would accept him after this? That they’d add a seat for the Lord of New Orleans, as if nothing had happened? He was fool. Raphael was already gunning for him over what he’d done to Cibor. Add this to his crimes, and the entire Council would hunt him down and execute him. Vampire law stated that might was right, but not when you butchered your own people to gain territory.
“What about Vincent?” he asked Scoville. “Is he a part of it?”
Scoville shook his head slowly. He was slumped over, barely able to sit, as if the effort of talking to Christian had drained what little strength he had left. “Sorry,” he gasped. “I used everything I had left to hide from your scan.” He swallowed dryly, then said, “Anthony didn’t confide in me . . . obviously. But I knew Vincent pretty well when he was still Enrique’s lieutenant, and I don’t think he’d go along with this.”
Christian glanced up and met Marc’s worried gaze. “I wonder if he even spoke to Vincent?”
“So, let’s get the fuck out of here,” Marc suggested.
But Christian shook his head. We’re not done yet,” he said, remembering that brief whiff of power he’d detected. “Anthony didn’t trick us down here for nothing. Hubert’s on his way, and it’s up to us to stop him somehow. Our friend here lied about everything else, but not that. If we don’t manage to stop Hubert, he’ll march up the 35, killing as he goes. It’s what he does.”
Scoville gave another weak cough, and Christian eyed the injured vampire. He required blood, but the only humans available were the chopper pilots—assuming they’d even volunteer, which he doubted. Besides, they’d be needed at full strength later to do their job. He grimaced. He hated giving his own blood to save the bastard, but he needed vampires, and Scoville was the only one available. Assuming he’d step up and fight.
“What’s your plan, Scoville?” he asked. “What’s next?”
“There is no next. I’m dying. It’s a question of minutes, not hours.”
“What if I agreed to help you?”
“Why would you do that?”
Christian shrugged. “I need firepower, and you’re it. I assume you can fight, and I’ve felt your power. You have enough to make a difference if we all stand together. If not . . . your dust will be a fine addition to the landscape.”
Scoville didn’t say anything, just hung his head and breathed for long enough that Christian thought he might be dying right now. But then he lifted his head, and said, “I’ll stand with you. I’ll fight. Not because I give a fuck about you or your ambitions. Because of the vampires who fought and died here tonight believing help was coming, believing their rightful lord was on his way. I give a fuck about them. And I want to see Anthony pay.” He was gasping for breath after that speech.
Christian eyed him for a moment, then sighed, knowing what he had to do. He pulled off his leather jacket, and shoved up the long sleeve of his T-shirt.
Marc put a hand on his arm, and said, “Let me.”
But Christian shook his head. “This is my duty, not yours, mon ami.” He lifted his forearm to his mouth and dug in his fangs, opening a vertical slash down the center to his wrist. Scoville’s head came up at the rich smell of blood, his eyes taking on a yellowed gleam. This was the blood of a powerful vampire, a vampire strong enough to rule a territory. It was ambrosia, catnip to a vampire’s senses. And it was life itself to a vampire as wounded as Scoville.
“You have a name besides Scoville?” Christian asked tightly.
Scoville shook his head. “Not anymore, my lord.”
Christian nodded. “All right. Scoville, do you come to me of your own free will and desire?”
He nodded, his yellowed gaze never leaving the rich bounty of blood now dripping down to pool in Christian’s cupped palm. “I do, my lord,” he whispered.
“And is this what you truly desire?”
“It is my truest desire.”
“Then drink, Scoville, and be mine.”
Scoville cupped Christian’s hand in both of his, holding it reverently as he leaned forward to lap up the blood. He licked Christian’s palm nearly clean, then followed the flow of red up to his wrist, where he latched on and began sucking.
Christian imagined that he could feel every tug of Scoville’s mouth from his vein all the way to his heart. This was going to cost him before the battle was over. He needed all of his strength for what was coming, but he couldn’t simply let Scoville die. He wasn’t Anthony. He lifted his other hand, ready to tap the vamp out, to tell him that it was time to stop . . . When suddenly there was a surge of power nearby.
“Scoville,” he said urgently. “Enough.” He disengaged without waiting, holding his wrist, and squeezing the two sides of the wound together. It would heal fast, but not fast enough. Not for what was coming. “Marc,” he said, turning to his lieutenant. “I need to wrap this right now.”
Marc nodded and ran for the chopper, which was still on the ground, rotor still turning. There was a first aid kit in there. Christian had noticed it on the flight over. Marc disappeared into the helicopter briefly, then jumped down with the white metal box in his hand. He opened it and set it on the wall. Scoville had slipped all the way to the ground and now sat there, breathing slow and heavy, almost as if he was drugged. Which he was, in a way. Christian only hoped he’d come around before Hubert attacked.
Ripping open a roll of gauze, Marc wrapped Christian’s torn wrist, layer after layer, using almost the entire roll, before he ripped the material off and dropped the roll back into the box. Tearing the end in two, he tied off the bandage, then looked up to study Christian carefully. “Are you good to go?” he asked.
Christian nodded, flexing his hand and wrist as he yanked his T-shirt sleeve back down. “It takes more than this to knock me out of a fight.”
“That’s good, because if what I’m feeling is right—”
“It is,” Christian confirmed.
“Then hell itself is about to descend on us.”
Christian agreed completely with Marc’s assessment. Hell was indeed about to descend on them, and all he had to fight it with was Marc and a blood-drunk Scoville. “I’ll take Hubert,” he told Marc. “You and Scoville—” He looked down at the sated vampire. “You ready to fight?” he asked.
The vampire sucked in a deep breath, shook all over like a wet dog, then climbed to his feet slowly, but with surprising grace. “Ready and willing, my lord,” he said, his voice gravelly but strong. “Let’s kill those fuckers.”
“Fuckin’ A,” Marc agreed.
Christian smiled, despite the grim circumstances. “I don’t know what Hubert’s bringing to the fight, but I guarantee we’ll be badly outnumbered. So we fight as a team, covering each other’s backs. Once Hubert shows his face, I’ll go after him. We have a history, and he’ll want to settle it. I was supposed to be fighting with him, not against him. But no one checked with me first. I had no interest in gaining the South for him when I wanted it for myself. That didn’t make him happy. So I think he’ll want a one-on-one. That means I shouldn’t have to worry about his other vampires coming at me while we’re fighting, but stay alert in case I’m wrong.”
Marc didn’t look happy about the plan, but he nodded his agreement. Scoville’s nod was more matter-of-fact, a warrior obeying orders. Christian was his sworn lord now. That two-minute ceremony was all they needed. Everything else was irrelevant.
“Do
we have any guns?” Marc asked Scoville. “Those would help even the odds.”
He grunted an affirmative, but said, “Guns aren’t the problem. It’s ammo. We used everything we had in fighting off Hubert’s creatures. Have you seen those fuckers? They’re vampires, but not like anything I’ve ever seen. They’re like—”
“Zombies,” Christian supplied, and Scoville nodded.
“That’s exactly it. It’s like they’re alive, but not. Like they don’t have a mind of their own.”
“I don’t think they do. I’ve seen Hubert do this before, though on a smaller scale. The poor souls he turned had no purpose other than to serve him.”
“Fucking creepy is what it is. But they’re effective. They swarm like insects, simply overrun you until you can’t even move. We must have killed thirty or forty of them, injured more, but it didn’t stop them. As long as they could crawl, they kept coming.”
“But you killed some of them, and they’re too new to dust when they die. Which means they carried away their dead,” Christian observed thoughtfully. “Hubert didn’t know you had survived, and he didn’t want me to see the bodies. Maybe he feared I’d retreat right away to wait for reinforcements, and he doesn’t want that. He wants me here, with no one but Marc to back me up.”
“And me,” Scoville reminded him.
“But you’re supposed to be dead.”
“I nearly was, and I’d prefer he didn’t get another go at it. So let’s talk ammo. We can probably salvage four mags, thirty rounds each. The weapons are MP5s. You know how to operate one?” he asked Marc.
“Of course,” Marc said, his tone conveying his insult at the question. Marc had been in the military when Christian found him, and he remained a military man, through and through. Even though he was a vampire now, with power and strength he’d never had as a human, he still kept up on human weaponry of all kinds, big and small.
“Had to ask,” Scoville said, by way of apology. “Let’s see what we can round up.” He turned for the deserted building and Marc followed.
Christian remained outside while the two of them disappeared into the outpost. He kept a mental eye on Marc. Scoville had sworn to him, but Christian didn’t fully trust him yet. Not with Marc’s life. Standing in the yard, he studied the battlefield, hands braced on his hips. The outpost was in a desolate area, with no other structures for miles on all sides. He could see the dim lights of a single structure in the distance, probably industrial from the number and location of the lights. Far beyond that were the much brighter lights of Laredo. It was unlikely anyone would come from there to investigate. He hoped not, because humans could only die in the coming battle, and this wasn’t their fight.
Turning his head to look in the other direction, Christian saw nothing but endless black desert, dotted with clumps of cactus in the moonlight. There were plenty of low hills out there in the darkness, more than enough to hide an army. Christian opened his senses to a cautious probe, but he was immediately swamped with the life force of so many vampires that he couldn’t count them all. And hiding behind them, or driving them forward, was Hubert. Christian knew Hubert well. He and Mathilde had been friends of a sort, and Christian had spent decades in Mathilde’s court. He knew the taste of Hubert’s power, the feel of his mind. And he had no doubt that it was Hubert he’d be facing tonight.
“Marc,” he called, then waited until his lieutenant poked his head through the open doorway.
“Time’s up. They’re coming.”
“Right,” Marc acknowledged, and Christian could hear him calling to Scoville deep inside the building.
The helicopter had been idling beyond the yard, far enough away that their rotor wash didn’t blow everything to pieces. Christian did a crouching run over there, climbed into the passenger compartment, and donned a headset to talk to the pilots. “You need to get out of here,” he told them. “Do you have a place in Laredo where you can wait for us?”
The co-pilot nodded. “Yes, sir. How long?”
“An hour or two at most.”
“We’ll fuel up while we wait. You have our number?”
“I do.” Christian climbed out of the chopper, and moved away, watching as it flew off toward Laredo and was soon out of sight. He heard footsteps behind him.
“That was our ride back,” Marc observed.
Christian had trouble concentrating on what Marc was saying, his senses nearly overwhelmed by awareness of the vampire army now bearing down on them. He stared out into the darkness, unable to see them yet. But they were coming.
“They’ll come back when we call,” he told Marc absently, as they started walking back to the outpost. He glanced over, his gaze sharpening as he noted the HK MP5 that Marc now wore on a combat harness in front of him. Christian nodded his approval of the gun. “Get ready,” he said. “They’re coming.”
He’d just reached the yard of the building when a flicker of movement caught his eye, and the first enemy vampire appeared in the near distance. “Hold your fire,” he told Marc quietly. He didn’t want anyone killing this vamp before he had a chance to scan it, to ferret out what Hubert had done, so he could figure out how to kill them.
The vampire was quickly followed by another, and then several more. But Christian kept his attention on that first outlier, digging deep into the creature’s brain to determine what made him tick. He was Mexican, more indigenous than European in appearance, probably some poor farmer Hubert had captured and changed. The vampire’s eyes glowed a dull red, but seemed focused on nothing. And while he moved well, it was slowly, as if he had difficulty getting his body to obey his brain.
But then, there wasn’t much brain left, at least not if one only counted the functioning parts. Christian smashed easily through the vampire’s natural shield, the bare minimum that every vampire was born with, and immediately saw what Hubert had done. It was the same here as in Europe. He’d turned all of these vampires, then starved them of blood, giving them only enough for their basic instincts to kick in. Since the most basic instinct of all was a vampire’s link to his Sire, these creatures would do anything Hubert asked, without question or any sense of self-preservation. They would be merciless in their defense of him, and from what Scoville had said, they were vicious fighters.
Christian fired off a sharp jolt of power, and took down the vampire he’d been scanning. The vamp dropped to the ground in a boneless heap, but he didn’t turn to dust. As Christian had surmised, they were far too new to dust upon death. The bodies would lie there until the sun rose. More incentive to make this short and brutal.
The vampire’s abrupt death had no effect on the army behind him. They plowed on, stepping over, on, and around their former companion’s body, as if he were no more than a rock in their way. A steady noise emanated from their throats, a high-pitched keening that seemed never to stop, as if they didn’t need to breathe. Or maybe it was just that there were so many of them, he couldn’t detect the break when the creatures drew breath.
“Now, my lord?” Marc asked, coming up to stand next to him.
“Now,” Christian agreed, as Scoville took his place on the other side of Marc.
The night came alive with the sound of the two submachine guns. With ammunition so short, they didn’t go to full auto, but their vampire-enhanced vision and reflexes made their single-shot rhythm sound every bit as fast as automatic fire. The two vampires swept their weapons from side to side, taking out one zombie vamp after another. But despite the carnage they were wreaking, none of the approaching vamps made any attempt to evade their fire. They didn’t even slow down. They just kept coming.
Christian didn’t try to count, but instinct told him there were at least a hundred of the zombie vampires still out there. He resisted the impulse to grab a gun, or even to drop a few of the oncoming zombies with his vampire abilities. He could sense Hubert out there be
hind his fighters, and didn’t want to give the European lord any more data than necessary about his power. He figured Anthony had probably shared whatever he knew, but fortunately, not even Anthony knew everything that Christian was capable of.
When the main force finally reached them, however, Christian knew the time for caution was over. He stood side-by-side with Marc and Scoville, sending bolts of his power to take down the zombie fighters as they charged forward. A small contingent made a dash for it, trying to outflank Christian and his small team. But Christian caught their charge, and dropped them mid-stride. Despite his success, however, it seemed inevitable that they would be surrounded in relatively short order. There were so many more of the creatures than the hundred he’d estimated at the beginning of the assault. Their power levels were so low that they barely pinged against his vampire senses even now, when he could see them in the flesh. As a group, they were noticeable, but as individuals, they were barely there.
“We need to pull back,” Marc yelled, dropping the mag from his MP5, checking to verify it was empty, then slapping it back in. “I’m out.”
“Same here,” Scoville called. He slung his weapon over his back, freeing his hands to fight.
“Back to the outpost.” Christian had to shout to be heard over the unceasing and high-pitched growl of the enemy. “On my mark.” He killed another two zombie vamps who tried to slip behind them and cut off their retreat, before shouting, “Now!”
The three of them ran back to the outpost and the horde followed. By the time they put their backs to the building, they were trapped. The only way out was through the bodies of their enemies. So be it.
The fight was brutal and bloody. The attacking vampires had no weapons but their bodies, and they used them without regard for survival, launching themselves into the air, fingers curled into claws, nascent fangs protruding through bloodied lips. With no ammo, Marc and Scoville fell back on their own vampiric powers. They weren’t as strong as Christian, but they weren’t lacking, either. Together, the three of them fought systematically, taking out vampire after vampire with controlled bursts of power. Christian knew that eventually the other two would run out of juice. Their strength would drain well before his did. He had the power to end it before that happened, to mow these pitiful creatures down with a single massive blow. It would kill most of them, and knock the rest senseless. Marc and Scoville could then deliver the coups de grâce. But while it was tempting to get it over with, he was wary of using up too much of his power in a fight against these weaklings. Not with Hubert still lurking out there somewhere.
Christian (Vampires in America: The Vampire Wars Book 10) Page 30
