by Jess Haines
It was probably just a couple of minutes, but it felt like a lot longer before the last one fell, jaws still moving as it tried to latch onto one of the nearest hunters before the rest of the body caught on that its brain had just been turned to mush by the .22 bullet that rattled around in its skull like a crazed bumblebee in search of escape from its smoking hive.
Still, no vampires. And no Gideon.
Despite the adrenaline rush from the battle, I was getting more and more worried that this was a setup. We had to get the hell out of here, and we had to do it soon. Something bad was waiting for us in that house. I just knew it. Devon wasn’t anywhere in sight for me to tell, and Jesus had separated from us during the battle. There were other White Hats nearby, but I didn’t know any of them by name, and I wasn’t sure they would listen to me if I tried to tell them this must be some kind of trap.
It was too late, anyway. Half a dozen White Hats were already sprinting for the front door. One of them kicked it in even as a couple others were stage whispering at them to wait. After all the gunfire, I wasn’t sure waiting mattered or that the few with half a dozen brain cells between them were heard by the idiots rushing in. Any element of surprise we might have had was long lost, and whatever was waiting for us inside was going to force us to fight on its terms.
A garbled scream came from inside. More White Hats moved in. Devon and Jesus were among them, and I thought I saw Tiny, too. Sara and I clutched at each other until we grabbed hands, dashing forward to see what had gone wrong.
All the lights were burning inside the house, but there were so many hunters crowded in the foyer that I wasn’t sure what had happened or what was going on. There was blood on the floor and walls, but only a little of it was recent. Some had already started drying to a tacky coat, evidence of a different battle that must have taken place before we arrived.
Movement somewhere farther along in the ranks had me standing on tiptoe to see. Soon there was shouting, but no one was firing—probably didn’t dare in such close quarters. This was not the best thought-out firefight I had ever attended. Jack had kept better rein over the New York White Hats than whoever was in charge of this branch. I was starting to hope it wasn’t Devon, because that meant he was far less competent than I had thought. Though it answered my questions about why he had temporarily defected to New York a few months ago.
Then someone was thrust up until his spine and back of his head cracked against the ceiling, and the shouting reached a decibel that made it impossible for me to tell what the hell was going on.
People were being shoved this way and that. Sara’s fingers slipped out of mine, and then it was far too chaotic to keep track of anything.
We were all shoving against one another, panicked, animals in a trap. A spatter of warm, wet liquid against my cheek was all the warning I had as to what was going on, and why everyone was so desperate to get out of there.
One of the vampires had found us. And he was tearing through the people like paper dolls, a frenzy of deadly motion like nothing I had ever encountered before.
No Other I had ever seen had so blatantly disregarded human life before. Not this way.
Yes, Max Carlyle had killed an entire club full of people once. That was calculated, cold; he had been making a point. He had even killed one of Royce’s donors right in front of me. Again, it hadn’t been because he had lost his senses. He had known exactly what he was doing. Feeding because he needed it and establishing his dominance over an already beaten people.
A pack of werewolves had once torn apart a vampire and a sorcerer, too. Feasted on them like lions taking down a pair of gazelles. It was coordinated, predatory, and brutal—but again, they had known who they were attacking and why. That had been an act of revenge; payback for enslaving them.
This was different. There weren’t words for this kind of slaughter.
This was a vampire gone mad.
Warm blood fell like summer rain, sprinkling over the screaming, running hunters. I fought my way through the crowd until I reached the nearest stairwell, needing higher ground for what I had planned.
Once I was up a few steps, I turned around and hefted the rifle to my shoulder.
The vampire’s face was covered in a thick, red coat, even his hair color unrecognizable under the mess. His face was twisted with demonic hunger, eyes matching the liquid splashed all over his skin and clothing and fangs fully extended, but he didn’t bite anyone. He was using his hands, moving like a whirling dervish as he cut a swath of carnage across the room, following the thick of the crowd as they fought one another to flee from the monster in their midst. Not an elder. His movements were visible, if inhumanly fast.
One breath. Hunter in front of him. Two breaths. The hunter was ducking, screaming as talons raked down his back. Three. The vampire was looking at me.
Four. The bullet entered the pinpoint of crimson gleaming in his right eye and exited the back of his skull, leaving a spatter of brains and blackish blood on the wall behind him.
From somewhere deeper in the house, a howl of anguish split the night. The windows and even some of the framed pictures hanging on the walls rattled at the sound of it. The White Hats stopped in their tracks, wild eyes searching for the source, hunting for what was now undoubtedly hunting them.
Or, rather, hunting us.
Things were truly fucked if I was the one with the level head around here.
The chilling sound petered out, leaving nothing but the pounding pulses and heaving breaths of the people around me. As I shouldered the rifle again, it struck me that I could hear their pulses. The hammering of their hearts against their ribcages, calling out to me, stirring a strange hunger for something I was not about to put a name to.
Yeah. One crisis at a time.
Clamping down on the mixed desire to start licking the blood painting the walls and to toss my cookies, I moved down the stairs, breathing through my nose. Not that it helped much. It only made the sick feeling roiling my stomach worse with the mixed stink of the blood, piss, and rotting flesh sticking in my throat and nostrils.
Sara, stepping around the puddles of blood on the marble floor, was making her way back to my side. Pale and shaking, she handed me a hunting knife. I wasn’t about to ask where she’d gotten it from, but I tucked it into my jeans at the small of my back. Here’s hoping things wouldn’t get so up close and personal that I would need it.
I approached the vampire corpse slumped on the floor, toeing it onto its back. One of the security guards. I vaguely recognized his features under the blood, twisted as they were with the rabid hate and hunger that had driven him. It seemed unlikely that he would have acted like that without severe provocation, but I had no idea what could have set him over the edge.
“The hell was that about?”
Devon had come up close behind me, spattered with blood, his shirt plastered to him with sweat. He smelled delicious. Like food, delicious. I could really sink my teeth into—
Christ, there was something really wrong with me.
Closing my eyes and gritting my teeth, I took a moment to compose myself before answering. “Something must have driven him to it.”
“No shit. Any idea what?”
I shook my head, not daring to open my mouth. Running my tongue over my teeth was a bad idea. The taste of blood filled my mouth as one of my canines sliced through my tongue. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What was happening to me? And why now, damn it?
Swallowing the few drops, willing the taste away, I followed Devon as he turned away and led us deeper into the house. The desire to do something violent to him was getting worse. Having his back to me was such a bad idea, but it was impossible for me to tell him that right that moment without sounding like a crazy person. Even if that’s exactly what I was.
The only thing keeping me from falling on him in a frenzy was knowing that there were a necromancer, two elder vampires, a mess of zombies, and maybe a couple dozen more vampires of indeterminate ages after our asses.
/> Had to keep it together. Had. To.
Devon had stopped. His mouth was moving. The sound wasn’t quite registering. I shook my head. “Sorry?”
He was looking at me like I was a few beers short of a six pack. “Didn’t you hear me? I said we need to figure out where Clyde is holed up. Do you know where he might be?”
“Oh, sorry. I—no, I—”
“Yes. I think I know where they are.”
Everyone, including the other White Hats who hadn’t fled deeper into the house, turned to Sara. She ran her arm across her forehead, her sleeve smearing the blood on her brow instead of wiping it off.
“Downstairs. Remember, Shia? The first night we came here, there was a big party, and everyone was on the first floor except for Clyde and Fabian. They were down in some private place—maybe Clyde’s daytime hiding spot. Why don’t we look there first?”
“Yeah. Oh, yeah. That’s as good a place to start as any.
This place was a maze. Downstairs really was the best place to start as far as my addled senses could tell. Though running into the vampires no longer seemed like such a great plan. Even in the haze of hunger and with the need for violence crawling under my skin like thousands of invisible ants, I knew attacking Clyde or Fabian fell under the category of “epically bad idea.” Without the belt to augment my strength and speed, even the rifle wasn’t going to do me much good. Not in close quarters like this.
I was starting to see the wisdom of picking off Others from afar with a scope like someone had suggested at Devon’s house as a solution for our necromancer problem.
“Who has the grenades? I want you two in the lead in case we need to—yes, Jesus, Phil, you guys scout ahead. If you see the necromancer or the vampires, bombs away. Got it?”
The pair followed Sara as she led the way to the stairwell, the rest of us following a few steps behind. Devon looked to me and then Sara when we reached the door, but we were never given the security code. Jesus shouldered his way to the front and examined the pad. He punched a few buttons and the lock gave an audible “click” as it disengaged, the door swinging open.
He glanced at me over his shoulder, grinning in response to my look of surprise.
“That’s a vampire for you. Smart enough to lock away the goods, but too behind on technology to know anything about password exploits. Glad his security admin didn’t know enough to reset the default code.”
Devon gestured impatiently. “Enough showing off. Go check it out.”
Jesus and the other guy, Phil, gave him a sarcastic salute and disappeared into the dark of the stairwell.
Devon put an arm out when someone tried to follow the two down the stairs, lifting a finger to his lips for us all to be quiet and wait.
It didn’t take long for the two to come barreling back up the stairs, shouting, and the rest of us to scatter.
Right into the waiting arms of several vampires who had crept up behind us. Their eyes gleamed like bloody jewels and fangs glistened with saliva as they jerked the nearest hunters into their arms. Gideon stood behind them with a sly smirk and his arms folded.
“Well, look who decided to join us.”
Chapter 28
Jesus pushed Sara and me to one side with a sweep of his arms, putting himself between us and the open door leading to the basement level. It was just in time, because an explosion blew a wave of stench and deadly shrapnel of wood and metal chips through the opening. Some of the other hunters were cut down, screaming in pain and fear, clutching at their wounds.
Gideon flinched, but otherwise didn’t move. Some of the vampires paused, their expressions turning blank; others tightened their grips to the point at which the hunters they were holding cried out in pain.
“That was uncalled for. Now, who’s in charge here?”
Nobody said a thing.
Frowning, Gideon unfolded his arms, placing one hand on his hip, the other making a sharp gesture at the vampires. They moved as one, snapping the necks of the hunters they were holding.
My mouth dropped open, and some of the others in the room started screaming, scrambling back. The vampires dropped the lifeless bodies of the hunters they had just killed and swept forward, grabbing a new round of hunters—Jesus and Devon among them. A couple vamps leaned forward, their fangs stopping just short of sinking into the throats of the people they’d grabbed, but a hissed command from Gideon kept them from closing the distance.
“Let’s try that again, shall we? Who is in charge?”
Jesus was frantic, struggling against the unnaturally strong arms of his captor. “¡Chingue a su madre! ¡Voy a matarte, hijo de la chingada!”
The necromancer was nothing more than amused. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“¡Hijo de puta!”
“Right, that’s quite enough of that.”
With a snap of Gideon’s fingers, Jesus was out cold. Devon surged against the vampire holding him, grunting with effort. “Stop! I’m in charge. Just stop ! ”
“Ah, progress!” Gideon beamed. “You, pretty boy, are going to tell the rest of your hunters to vacate the premises. You, a-a-a-and . . . ah, yes. You two.” He pointed at me and Sara. I barely registered the movement before two of the vampires dropped the hunters they were holding in favor of grabbing onto us instead.
Perfect. My day just couldn’t get any better.
Sara squirmed, panting, but the vampire holding her gave her a shake until she stopped. She looked like she might faint at any moment. Anger drove me to fight against the cold fingers wrapped around my upper arms as well, a low growl vibrating in my chest.
Gideon moved forward to poke me in the shoulder with a manicured finger. “You just don’t know when to leave something alone, do you? Well, you ladies are in luck. You three are going to stay here with me and answer some questions. Doesn’t that sound fun?”
“No! Let them go. I’ll stay,” Devon shouted.
The necromancer shook his head, waving his hand airily at the remaining hunters. “Go on. The rest of you get out of here. And to make sure . . .”
With another curt gesture from Gideon, in unison, the vampires who weren’t holding Sara, Devon, or me took a menacing step forward.
Cowards that they were, the remaining hunters didn’t need a second invitation. They ran off, most of them rushing out as fast as they could. Only a few had the decency to assist the ones who were too hurt to accept Gideon’s offer under their own power, helping the injured get to their feet or dragging them when they couldn’t walk. Half a dozen vampires followed them out, probably ensuring that they got the hell out of Dodge instead of regrouping and coming back to save us.
I bit my lip so hard it bled, trying not to get us all in a world of trouble by saying something that would dig us a deeper hole. I wondered where Fabian and Clyde were, and if they knew what Gideon was doing down here with the younger vampires who were so obviously under his power. I wondered, too, if he had some version of the Dominari Focus that the sorcerer, David Borowsky, had used to control the Others of New York, or if being a necromancer was what gave Gideon his power over them.
The vampire holding me tightened his grip, his empty eyes shifting in the sockets, focusing on my lip as I tilted my head to look up at him. He nearly vibrated with hunger, lips peeling back from his fangs as he leaned in over me.
“Hey! Hey, hey, hey! Teasing them isn’t going to get them to let you go,” Gideon scolded, flicking the vampire in the temple. The vampire went rigid, no longer acting like he was on the verge of biting me. Instead he was frozen in place, fingers digging into my upper arms so hard it hurt.
The pain was good. It would make it easier to focus, not give in to the urge to scream or become a ravening animal.
Gideon waited until the last of the hunters were gone, then ran a hand down his face. “By Crowley’s gods-forsaken ghost, I can’t believe you guys threw a grenade at my minions. Do you know how long it took me to raise that many zombies? Fuck!”
He was more
annoyed than genuinely upset, I thought, though the bodies of the hunters littering the ground around us might have indicated otherwise. Hard to tell. The guy was nearly as unhinged as I was.
Without another word, he stalked off in the direction of the stairwell I had earlier used as high ground. The vampires dragged us along like errant children, taking us up the stairs and ignoring our squirming.
The room he led us to was wide and open and gave an excellent view of the front yard and the straggling White Hats still limping their way across the grass. No fucking wonder the zombies had been able to flank us out there.
I supposed we were lucky the vampires hadn’t thought to snipe us from here.
Speaking of, Clyde was on the floor, flat on his back, his eyes closed and blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. His bare chest didn’t rise and fall, but I didn’t think he was actually dead. Stunned, maybe, or out cold, but not the permanent kind of dead.
Fabian was thoughtfully picking between one of his fangs with his thumbnail, leaning against a desk by the windows, his gaze distant. He gave Devon a once-over—a rather lascivious once-over at that—and then turned a disinterested glance in Sara’s and then my direction. He then turned a pleased, cat-that-got-the-canary smile on Gideon.
“Very good. Yes, this is very good indeed.”
I didn’t like the sound of that.
“What’s with . . . ?” He jerked his chin in Devon’s direction.
Gideon arched his brows. Fabian’s sly smile grew, and Devon visibly paled. A sick fear for Devon coiled in my stomach like a serpent, waiting for a moment of weakness to strike.
“The stud’s a bit of insurance. Maybe a bonus, depending on whether we finish up here before the rest of the hunters regroup.”
Fabian nodded, then folded one sleeve up past his elbow. He lifted that hand, clenching and unclenching his fist a few times. He then raised his newly bared wrist to his mouth where he quickly cut a gash. Fangs gleamed with the splash of crimson before they were licked clean.
