Eighteen shouted in alarm, and Lanny turned his head to see one crowding on that side, too.
The boy held up a tiny hand, though, and a little jet of yellow flame shot into the thing’s face.
Lanny barked a laugh. “Good job, short stuff.”
Ahead of them, Sasha was ducked low, spinning in tight circles, snapping at hands and hips and whatever he could reach. One of the monsters got a grip on his tail, and another grabbed at his thick ruff.
“See if you can get them off Sasha,” Lanny told Twelve. Behind him, Nik growled, “Sashka.” “Carefully,” he added.
Twelve shot fire. Greasy-haired vamps went up like matchsticks. They immediately let go of Sasha and panicked, instead, crashing into each other, squealing, yelping like dogs.
If their lives continued to be a violent shitshow, Lanny was thinking he really needed to get himself a fire-throwing Familiar.
~*~
Now was a terrible time for Alexei to remember that he’d never been much of a fighter. And that he was weaponless.
Severin shoved a ball of fire into a vampire’s face and it recoiled hissing, its hair alight, its skin blistering.
Dante was struggling. His nose kept bleeding; he’d stopped trying to wipe it, and thick lines of blood ran down over his lips, and dripped off his chin. The skin of his face looked waxy, and his gaze was growing more and more detached. Why wasn’t his body healing itself? Why was this happening at all, after Severin had healed him back at the apartment? Clearly, he was healing some – or else he would have been unconscious by now – but not enough. Alexei didn’t know how long they had before he became dead weight.
Just as that morbid thought struck, so did one of the vampires. It came lunging in on Dante’s far side. Alexei saw bared fangs, and a seemingly cavernous mouth, and he didn’t think, only reacted.
He dragged Dante into his chest, and then shoved him around behind his back, getting his hands up just in time to catch the attacking vamp by both wrists.
He thought of the time Lanny had attacked him, and how he’d been useless, pinned down and pummeled. Not the time.
That had been different; that had been his own offspring, trusted and loved as any sire loved his creation, and he hadn’t expected violence. I’m strong, he thought, and tried to will it so. Braced his feet, tensed all the muscles of his core, and strained against the monster bearing down on him, knuckles popping as he gripped tight.
The vamp dropped his head and leaned in anyway, fetid breath hot on Alexei’s face, saliva spraying against his cheeks. Teeth snapped together, fangs flashing, as the thing tried to bite at him, neck not long enough to allow it.
“Duck,” Severin said behind him.
Alexei ducked, and heat poured over him as Severin threw fire into the vampire’s face.
It tried to pull back, then, wanting to get away.
Alexei let go of one of its wrists, reached beneath the melting ruin of its face, and tore its throat out with his bare hand.
It was messy, ugly work; he felt skin and sinew get caught under his nails. But he was strong, and he did it quickly, efficiently. The body dropped, spitting blood and flames.
“Sev.” Alexei turned to the mage, an idea sparking. “I need you to do your flamethrower trick.”
The boy’s eyes widened, but he nodded. Dante leaned against him, looking half-asleep.
Alexei gathered him into his own arms, one of Dante’s arms pulled across his shoulders. “Get down!” he shouted ahead, at the others. “Get to the floor, now! Incoming!”
They dropped.
Val took a head off, first, swinging like a Major League ballplayer, and then went to his belly with the others.
Severin lifted both hands, took a huge breath, and the fire roared out.
The backdraft swept Alexei’s hair back, and stung his eyes. The flames looked breathed by a dragon, red, and orange, and yellow, flickering tongues. It didn’t merely set the vampires alight; it melted them. Alexei smelled scorched flesh, and the charcoal stink of blackened bone.
The fire seemed to pour from the skin of Severin’s hands, rippling, ceaseless, shocking.
But, finally, it ended, and the second the flames winked out with a sucking sound, Severin swayed and nearly collapsed. Alexei twisted at the last second, and got his other arm around his waist. “Go!” he shouted to the others. “Move!”
He didn’t look at the charred, screaming, melting, burning vampires around them. Only hoped they had enough of a chance, and ran, dragging his two stumbling dependents with him.
~*~
The vast sea of cubicles was dark, which would have been a mark in their favor, but the soldiers had lights attached to their guns.
“Targets for us,” Much said at her shoulder, as they clambered over the pile of bodies Fulk and Anna had dropped just outside the door to the conference room.
She fumbled around with the neck strap, and finally managed to pilfer an AK-47 from one of the corpses. It was set to semi-auto, and the first time she fired, straight at one of the approaching lights, squinting against its brightness, she had to squeeze the trigger three times before the light fell back.
She took aim at another–
Only for it to turn, for all of them to. The soldiers were retreating, finally.
She gave chase, firing at what she could see of their backs. One went down. The others headed for the elevators.
“Keep moving!” Fulk shouted behind her. “Don’t stop, don’t look back!”
Don’t look back.
Why? she wondered.
Then she heard a snarl, and something crashed into her.
Trina went sprawling. Her hand tightened on the gun, on instinct; she pulled it into her chest and gripped it tight. Her shoulder hit first, and the impact knocked the breath from her. She rolled twice – she’d been hit hard. When she landed on her back, she scrambled for the gun.
And something pounced on her.
Hands slapped the ground on either side of her head. In the glow of the exit sign, and she saw long, tangled hair hanging down on either side of a face; saw the glint of gleaming eyes, and the points of bare fangs. Something hot dripped onto her face – saliva. One of the vampires.
Devils, Dr. Fowler had said.
Yes, yes it was that.
It dove for her.
She lifted the gun just in time – she wasn’t breathing, or thinking, her heart wasn’t even beating, but muscle memory brought the gun up. The muzzle caught it in the throat, and it made a sound as the pressure choked it. She pulled the trigger – and kept pulling it.
The hot, wet stuff on her, getting in her eyes, stinging, was blood this time. She lost track of how many times she shot, but finally the vampire collapsed on top of her, boneless, hot blood pouring across her neck, down into the collar of her shirt, down her chest.
It wasn’t dead; she felt its ribs move as it breathed; it made terrible gurgling sounds in the open ruin of its throat, the skin sticking and sucking as the shredded trachea tried to draw air. But she must have hit the spinal cord, because it didn’t move otherwise.
Above her, around her, in the gloaming, there were more shots, and the sound of swords doing nasty work. Shouts, curses, grunts, growls; someone breathing high and fast through an open mouth, struggling.
Another sound, too. Distant, but getting closer; a sound she could feel shuddering through the floor at her back.
The chop of helicopter blades. A steady whump-whump-whump.
She didn’t want to think about what that meant.
She gritted her teeth and tried to shove the body off of her. It was dense, and heavy, and it stank of unwashed human, and now blood. Her arms were shaking, and it took three tries; more than anything, she clawed across the carpet and dragged herself out from under it.
She sucked in a deep breath, and prepared to sit up–
And a hand latched onto her ankle, and dragged her.
She didn’t scream. Ekaterina Baskin was not a screamer.
Something clipped her in the back of the head, and she saw stars.
If that thing got her into the cubicle…
No, no, no…
A light came in through the wide windows along the far wall. Not a flashlight beam, not the glow of city lights, but a blinding spotlight. Its fat beam cut through the dark like the sun. She slammed her eyes closed, just a second, against the onslaught. Still being dragged, still heading for that cubicle.
And then the windows shattered.
Wind roared into the openings, tossing bits of forgotten paper, buffeting her skin, making her want to duck and shield her face. The whump-whump-whump of the helicopter was right there. That was the source of the wind: its blades beating right outside the windows.
Someone howled. A wild, high wolf howl.
The thing dragging her had let go. She squinted, and, silhouetted by the light, she saw Much, his slender frame bowed backward, head flung up; he was the one howling, loudly – joyously.
Figures on ropes swung in through the window. Four, five, six. One was smaller and slighter than the others; it lifted one hand, and Trina saw a bright curl of flame fill its palm.
A man’s voice shouted: “Everybody who’s got a thinking brain in their head, hit the deck! It’s about to get real hot in here.”
“Much, you okay?” another voice asked.
“Yes! Burn the fuckers!” he called back, and dropped.
Trina lay down flat, covered her face with her hands, and fire exploded overhead. She could see it through the gaps in her fingers, orange-red, its heat bearing down on her, its wind more ferocious than that generated by the helo hovering outside.
Snarls and growls filled the air, and the stink of burned hair, and scorched flesh.
The fire receded, and she heard the crack of gunshots, the rat-a-tat-tat of full auto.
She rolled onto her side, and saw them coming in, guns up, firing at the burning, smoking vampires left standing: their saviors.
Someone knelt down in front of her, teeth bright white in his dark face. “Trina? You alright?”
She blinked. “Deshawn?”
“Yes, ma’am. Cavalry’s here. You good to get up?”
“Yeah.” She took the offered hand, though, and let him tow her up to her feet. She cast a glance around the office, and saw the bodies, so many bodies, human and vampire. The vampires were sad things, dressed in ragged clothes, dirty and grimy and looking less than human – in a matter of speaking. The troops who’d come in the window wore urban environment camo, and flak vests, helmets.
One man knelt and drove a silver spike through the heart of a vampire flopping across the floor like a landed fish. When it stilled, he pulled out a knife, and began the grisly task of killing it for good.
She spotted fire, still; a preparatory curl of it in the palm of the small figure who’d wielded it. Red, she realized with a start. Severin’s sister, her bright hair braided and tucked up into her helmet.
It was Lionheart. Lionheart had come for them.
“How…” she started, dazed-feeling. “How did you know…?”
Deshawn chuckled, not unkindly. “Much called us days ago. You guys did good, but he wasn’t gonna leave it to chance, and neither were we.”
“Right,” she said, numbly.
Around them, troops were killing vampires. A pile of hearts was growing in the center of the office.
One of them called out, “Marian says she can’t hold off PD much longer. We’ve got birds inbound.”
“That’s our cue to go, then,” Deshawn said. “Roo, is that all of ‘em?”
A tall man with broad shoulders added another heart to the pile, wiped his palms on his tac pants, and said, “Yeah, that’s it. Light it up, kiddo.”
Red flicked her wrist, threw a ball of flame, and set it alight.
Deshawn took hold of Trina’s arm. “Ready to get out of here?”
“God, yes.”
46
“It’s spell work,” the old man – who was Friar Tuck, Alexei reminded himself, numbly – said, hands held to either side of Dante’s head. He was laid out on a makeshift table made of plywood and a few sawhorses, cotton swabbing from a med kit stuffed up his nostrils to stop the bleeding, and he’d been unconscious for a while now. “The brain bleed – it’s being generated faster than his body can heal it by a spell.”
“Is that even possible?” Alexei asked, and, despite the exhausted numbness of his face, felt his brows go up.
“Oh yes, quite.”
“Can you remove it?”
“Yes. It will take a moment, though.”
Not reassuring.
“Red,” Tuck called, “will you come and help me a moment, dear?”
“Yes.” She’d taken her helmet off, but still wore her modern soldier gear. Her hair, braided into a crown around her head, gleamed under the cage lights overhead, the same red as Severin’s.
Severin who stood beside Alexei now, watching his older sister with rapt, almost fearful attentiveness. He shivered, a little movement Alexei felt where their shoulders touched.
Fleeing the Institute was all a big blur. They’d gotten down the hall, and out to the parking garage. There were vehicles there. There had been an argument, low, fast, and heated, between Nikita and Will. Will wanted to double back and make sure there weren’t anymore of those awful vampires left; Nikita rightly pointed out that they didn’t have enough strength – of limb nor numbers – to do that now. Lanny had smashed the window of a Hummer, and been trying fruitlessly to hotwire it…
When a different Hummer had pulled in. Two had. Nikita had cracked off a shot at the first’s windshield before a hand waved out the window and a British-accented voice called, “Don’t shoot, we’re friends.”
It had been Rob. Robin of Locksley.
Alexei had dragged his charges gratefully into one of the vehicles and promptly spaced out for the extent of the drive. His last coherent thought, as they peeled out onto the street and shot the gap between two approaching patrol cars, was that the Institute was on fire, and that he was glad.
He thought, based on the length of their drive, that they must be in Jersey somewhere, now, in this empty warehouse conveniently staged with first-aid gear, lights, and enough coffee and blankets to service a small army after a skirmish.
He needed to feed again, probably, and eat some real food, and his stomach grumbled over the sharp scent of black coffee, but his central worry now was for Dante, too pale and lifeless on his makeshift hospital bed.
“That’s her?” Severin asked, dragging him from his worried thoughts.
“Who? Oh.” He followed the boy’s line of sight. “Yeah, that’s Red. Only ever saw her once.” In Virginia. “But you guys have the same nose.”
Severin stared at her, lips parted.
“You should say hi. After,” he amended quickly. “After she helps fix Dante’s brain.”
“Yes,” Severin said faintly. “After.”
~*~
Trina thought she was doing a pretty good job of nodding, saying she was okay, and holding it mostly together until they walked into the warehouse, its golden light more than welcome, and saw the rest of her pack, all on their feet, all more or less whole. She had a thought that Sasha looked a little scratched-up, and leaned too heavily against Nik’s side, and then Lanny was coming at her, and she let herself fall into his arms – and fall apart a little.
He was covered in blood, and smelled like blood, but so was she.
“I don’t think any of that’s yours,” he said into the top of her head, squeezing her tight, hand landing on the
sticky patch above her ribs. “But ease my mind, will you?”
“It’s not,” she said, sniffling, and pressed her face tighter into his filthy shirt.
She didn’t protest when someone eased her down into a chair, and a blanket was draped across her shoulders. She drank the hot coffee a man in fatigues brought her. The heat and the caffeine loaned her a little energy, and after half the cup was gone, she found that she was taking proper note of her surroundings again.
Dante had been laid out on a table of plywood and sawhorses, an older, balding man and Red attending to him, hovering near his head, hands cupping the air around it. Alexei and Severin watched, shoulders touching. Severin leaned in a fraction, saying something she couldn’t hear, and Alexei put an arm around him.
She didn’t see Val, or Mia, but she could glimpse feet moving behind a curtain that had been hastily erected, and thought one pair of black boots gummed with dried blood were Val’s.
She must have asked aloud, because Jamie – standing so far unseen just to her left – said, “They’re going to see if there are any bullets left, and go ahead and dig them out.” He made a face, and lifted his bandaged arm. “Mine was a through-and-through.”
“Good,” she said, lips trembling on her next sip of coffee.
Lanny was on her other side, sitting beside her on the bench, touching her at shoulders, and hips, and calves; he was leaning into her, providing pressure, shoring her up. She felt stupid and terrible: despite some bruises, scrapes, and general exhaustion, she was uninjured. They were digging bullets out of Mia, and trying to figure out why Dante’s nose wouldn’t stop bleeding, and here she was behaving like a trauma victim.
She tried to twitch the blanket off her shoulders, and Lanny put it back in place.
“Nuh-uh. You’re in shock.”
“Am not,” she muttered, but drank more coffee. It was helping immensely, and not just because of the caffeine – she had seen the signs of emotional shock enough to know she was exhibiting the symptoms. It was an unhappy realization.
Golden Eagle (Sons of Rome Book 4) Page 67
