by Kate Wendley
His movements were painfully slow as he turned and pointed to one of the industrial lights that still brightly blazed. Smoke grew thicker all around him, seeping out from under his clothes, but his face was stoic as he grunted and forced his hand higher, an anxious arc of energy rising along with him. With a visible lurch, Anthony forced the electricity to the encased light and it exploded in a shower of glass, metal and sparks.
Vince turned back to Benicio and kept batting at the flames with his jacket while Benicio screamed and flailed around, burning alive right in front of him. His voice turned into an inhuman sounding screech as he looked more and more like he wasn’t going to make it, and Vince had never felt more helpless in his life.
Min-chul was suddenly on the other side of them, helping smother the flames with his suit jacket while the last of the lights exploded in a loud bang.
Benicio fell to the ground, his screams now silent as he lay motionless before them, his body burned black from head to toe.
“Benicio, no! Hang in there man! Come on!”
They beat at him until the flames finally died out, but what was left didn’t look anywhere close to human. Vince felt inept as he frantically shouted, “What do we do? Is he still alive?”
He nearly jumped out of his skin when Anthony spoke calmly beside him, though his voice sounded strained when he said, “He’s alive. Barely. He needs blood.” Anthony reeked of smoke, burnt hair and flesh, and his clothes were charred here and there, but otherwise he looked fine. Not like Benicio… not at all.
Vince nearly sobbed with relief. He dropped to his knees and said, “He can have mine.”
Min-chul snapped, “No. He can feed from me. Go find your woman.”
His temper rose. “Don’t tell me what to do. Ever.”
Min-chul’s eyebrow arched, but then he stilled with a knowing look on his face, which only ticked him off even more. “Have you ever fed a vampire before? And especially one in this bad of shape?”
Vince glared at Benicio’s motionless form because he didn’t want to look at his father. “No, but I’m not incapable of helping him.”
“Then you have no idea how long it’ll take you to heal and have your energy back afterwards. I know what my limits are. Now go find your woman.” Min-chul put his hand on his shoulder and Vince felt immediate disgust at his kindly gesture. He also hated that he was right.
He shrugged out from grasp and stepped aside as Anthony rolled Benicio’s charred body over, cringing in horror at what was left of him. All his hair was burned off along with some of the skin and tender parts of his face, but his fangs were bright and white. When Min-chul pressed his wrist into those sharp teeth, Benicio shuddered and somehow worked his jaw enough to feed.
Vince asked Anthony, “Are you ok man?”
He inclined his head as if to indicate everything was fine, but his slow movements and heavy eyelids told a different story. “Go. We’ll be fine.”
Vince took one last look at Min-chul and was reluctantly thankful for his presence here tonight for a lot of reasons he didn’t want to think about right now. For the time being, they exchanged a brisk nod before he took off to join Zach and the others.
**
Anthony needed to release some of this earth energy he’d unknowingly called upon and trapped within himself. Luckily, both Min-chul and Benicio were powerful enough to deal with him testing out his abilities on them. He hoped anyway, because he desperately needed an outlet before the force of it tore him apart, either figuratively or literally. He didn’t know enough about how to control these new powers he had to even know what kind of damage he could do to himself, but he had more than a feeling that he could use it to help others.
Benicio was looking slightly better, but he’d drain Min-chul and still need much more blood to fully heal after being nearly burned alive, and having a starved vampire around while they were trying to save a shifter wasn’t a good thing. “Benicio, let Min-chul go.”
He shook with need but obediently stopped feeding, and Min-chul looked droopy eyed as he pulled his wrist away.
“He’s not healed yet.”
Anthony reached for them both. He grasped Min-chul’s bare wrist, then carefully placed his other hand on Benicio’s raw, burnt chest. “I believe I can heal you both. Please stay still.”
Benicio’s short, pained breaths were distracting as Anthony closed his eyes. He tried to tune it out, focusing on both of their energies as they pulsed in the air around them. Warm and frenetic from Min-chul, cool and crisp from Benicio. He felt almost too attune with his senses, so he let his mind wander to a place of peace and serenity, a memory of Kaia in his arms, and the pressure inside him began to ease. The power of the earth ebbed out of him and flowed into these two men, and Anthony could feel them healing. Benicio ate hungrily at the energy, his body quickly soaking it up, while Min-chul took the scraps that Benicio missed.
When the excess power inside Anthony suddenly evaporated, he opened his eyes and slowly let them go.
Benicio curled into a naked ball of completely healed flesh, his clothes long gone to the flames. He hugged himself as he rocked back and forth trying to stifle whimpers of pain. Min-chul shook on all fours, his eyes glowing, his animal held barely below the surface. He stared in the direction of the house, the rumble of his growl sounding feral and deadly, making Anthony worry he’d turn jaguar and wreak havoc on everyone here.
“Min-chul! Look at me.”
The man jerked his head around, his snarl barely contained.
“Are you going to be all right? I can’t let you go if there’s a chance you’ll hurt Vince or Penny.”
He nearly lunged at Anthony, but rocked back on his knees and closed his eyes until he’d calmed. When he opened them again, he huffed out, “What did you do to me?”
“I… healed you. Do you feel all right?”
He looked down at Benicio, who’d finally stopped grunting in pain. “You healed him too?”
Anthony nodded.
“Then why don’t you heal Vince? Heal my son!”
“It’s not that easy. He’s not as powerful as the two of you, and this energy… it’s unpredictable.” He gestured to both of them. “I’m not a natural healer, but I gambled that you’d both survive my power. Would you have me gamble on your son’s life?”
“You gambled on our lives though?”
A loud noise forced their attention back to the house. Anthony said, “You should go. This is a shifter fight, not a vampire fight, and Vince may need your help whether he wants to admit it or not.”
Min-chul narrowed his eyes at him, then grudgingly said, “He’s as stubborn as his mother,” and raced off.
Chapter 29
Vince stuck with Zach and Ed as they crept closer to the house.
They stopped when a small window opened and a voice called out, “You’re wasting your time here. You’ll never get inside and we can stay in here as long as we need to.”
Suzanne shouted, “Let Penny go!”
“Nah, I think we’ll keep her. She’s useful.”
Anthony joined their group and whoever was inside laughed out loud. “Good luck getting in here, vampire. We all know you can’t enter this house.”
Anthony bellowed with the first bit of ego Vince had ever heard from him, “I am the Master of Atlanta! There is no protection from me!”
He spread his arms and made a gesture as if he were tearing the air apart in front of him while the outer walls of the house cracked and support beams on the porch snapped in two. With a deafening sound the front door and a huge chunk of wall were torn off and flung aside by an invisible hand, leaving three men and two women standing there looking stunned for a split second before Anthony used his power to yank them out of the house. He dropped them at Zach, Sebastian and Suzanne’s feet, and then all hell broke loose.
**
Penny startled when she heard a voice that she swore was only in her head.
‘Miss Thomason, it’s Anthony Foster. Can
you hear me? Speak to me in your mind.’
Her eyes went wide as her heart picked up its beat. Darius immediately looked at her and she feared he knew what was going on. ‘I can hear you. What just happened?’
‘We’re coming for you. Are you all right?’
‘Yeah. For now. These guys are nuts, though. They’ve got a ton of guns and they’re getting ready to use them.’
‘Try to stay out of harm’s way. We’re coming for you.’
She nearly sagged out of her chair in relief, even as ticked off as she was about being the damsel in distress tonight.
**
Vince made it into the house as Anthony used his power to somehow keep any of these people from using the weapons that were scattered absolutely everywhere.
He dodged a few blows from a crazy eyed woman in camouflage gear, only to have Suzanne get in the middle and her on. “Go find Penny!”
He ran around the house screaming her name, but it was too loud inside from everyone fighting, besides that he had no idea where he was going. He turned a corner down a hall and didn’t sense anyone, which shocked him into an idea. Anthony said not to ignore his gift to sense things in his environment, so he splayed his hands out on a wall and focused on what he felt.
Noise, fighting, yelling, people getting thrown into walls… He focused harder. He needed to get past the distractions and figure out who he felt.
Finally he started to pick something up. He was so used to the feel of the people he’d gotten to know in his short time at Brookhaven that he didn’t realize how well he knew them. He could now pick out exactly where Zach was, Sebastian, Torin, even Anthony as he moved like a black hole, void of an energy signature, outside the house.
And Penny. She was down a level from him. He just needed to find the stairs.
**
If the fighting above her was anything compared to what she’d just witnessed on the monitors, Penny was in over her head. Once again she cursed herself for getting into this mess and frantically looked around for an escape.
Everyone seemed to have dashed off to join the fighting so she ran for the door, only to have Quinn appear and grab her by the throat.
“Where do you think you’re going, sweetheart?”
She screamed and thrashed at him. “Let me go!” She tried to drop to the ground to surprise him into letting her go, but he held on tight to her neck, which only made it even harder to breathe. She tried kicking him in the knee then, but it was like a tree trunk, and when she aimed for his jewels instead, he’d already seen it coming and easily blocked her. Dammit!
He laughed in her face as he hauled her upright by the throat, then grabbed her round the torso and dragged her further into the room towards a hidden door she hadn’t noticed until now.
“You’re not getting away that easy, princess. We trained for shit like this. It doesn’t matter what they’re doing upstairs, we’ll still win the war.”
“Penny!”
Quinn turned and sneered at Vince, and warmth rushed through her at the site of him. He did still care about her!
“Let her go, asshole. Let’s you and me finish what we started.”
Quinn scoffed. “You can’t take me, pussy cat. If Benicio hadn’t been there that night−”
“Whatever. You talk a big game, loser.”
Quinn tensed and his hand around Penny’s throat shook with fury as the angry rumble in his throat turned into a full out growl. When he was good and furious, he threw her aside like a rag doll. She landed in a crash heap against one of the makeshift desks, knocking her head and cheekbone a good one.
Once her vision cleared, she watched in terror as the two fought. Where was their help? Vince wasn’t cut out for this! He was no match for Quinn the brute!
Except… Quinn wasn’t doing so well against him. Every punch Vince threw landed hard against the meathead, and when Vince growled and locked eyes with him, Quinn actually shook with the effort to not back down. That only happened when one shifter was more dominant than the other…
Vince was wild eyed and furious, quickly pouncing on Quinn and eventually landing a furious blow that knocked him out. The muscle headed, thick necked asshole went out like a light, but it wasn’t soon enough. A gun went off and Vince looked confused as he stumbled forward.
“Vince!” She lunged for him as he staggered and dropped to one knee, but froze when psycho Darius turned the gun on her.
“You. That way.” He pointed to that same hidden door that Quinn had tried to get her through.
“Fuck you, psycho.”
His eyes were cold as he stared her down. “I could shoot you instead. Or shoot your boyfriend again. Though why waste another silver bullet on him when one will surely do the job just fine. These are expensive you know.”
Tears stung at her eyes as pain tore through her heart. Vince probably didn’t even know he’d just been lethally poisoned on top of being shot.
She choked out, “Why are you doing this?”
“Really, Penny, I think the question is, why aren’t you? The world is going to shit, as if you haven’t noticed. You’ve been to all the same apocalypse survival groups I’ve been to, you’ve agreed with everything we’ve seen and learned, and you’ve even helped organize some of our outings. When some crazy dictator starts another world war, or when another virus like Ebola spreads across the world, what then? Do you think you’ll be all safe and sound in your cozy little apartment in Brookhaven for the rest of your life?” He stepped ominously closer. “And when humans finally find out about us? You know it’s only a matter of time. You should at least be on our side helping to plan for the inevitable war between humans and shifters, Penny.”
“Don’t you mean between humans and supernaturals? There are vampires out there too, dumbass.”
His eyes narrowed in anger and she wished she’d kept her mouth shut.
“Vampires only survive because shifters allow them to. If we didn’t watch over them every day, they’d have gone extinct a long time ago and you know it.”
“It’s not like that, Darius. We help each other. We’re supposed to help each other.”
He sneered at her. “The only thing vampires are good for is cash, and we’ve already squirreled away enough of that. So…” He pointed the gun more firmly on her. “Are you with us or against us? Time to decide.”
There was a blur of motion and the gun went off again as Vince and Darius fought. Vince was fast and a much better fighter than she’d ever realized, but there was too much blood. Vince was at least keeping Darius occupied, but he was hurt and it took away the edge he’d had over Quinn earlier.
Her heart clenched in aching fear because no matter who won this fight, and whether or not someone had been shot this time, Vince would still die. He had a silver bullet in him and another one didn’t make any difference at this point. She felt like her world had been pulled out from under her again.
Min-chul and Suzanne flew into the room just as another shot went off, and Penny frantically checked herself to make sure she hadn’t been hit. Darius screamed in crazy-man frustration as Suzanne tackled him, and Min-chul grabbed the gun.
Penny was in such shock as the action settled down that all she could do was numbly stare at everyone as she mumbled, “Silver. They’re silver bullets.”
**
Suzanne watched over Darius and Quinn while Min-chul and Penny helped Vince out of the house as fast as they could. He’d been shot twice, once in the back and once in the front of his shoulder. He was shaking and deathly pale, but he was still alive. For how long, she had no idea, and didn’t want to think about him dying. It made her choke back a sob.
The fighting was over by the time she emerged from the house, and her parents immediately latched onto her, keeping her from Vince’s side. Not that it mattered. There wasn’t anything else she could do for him since he’d been poisoned. She couldn’t feel like more of a failure if she tried.
Anthony, Zach, and Vince’s dad all frantically t
ried to do something for him while she was pulled to the far end of the driveway by her parents. They were distraught and fussing over her being safe and sound, and she knew they meant well, but right now all she cared about was Vince. He’d come out here to save her, so he had to still care about her, but she’d just be in the way by his side so she let the others help him while she distracted herself by taking stock of the group and the surreal scene around her.
Ed and Sebastian were keeping their eye on all the crazies sitting out here on the lawn. Shifters were on their knees with either their hands in the air or crossed angrily across their chests. There was a huge, gaping hole in the front of the house, and glass and metal debris were strewn everywhere. Soft snowflakes continued falling, and together with the thick forestry surrounding the property, it created a strange vibe of insidious violence being covered up by the purity and guiltlessness of Mother Nature.
A gentle breeze brought with it the smell of burnt flesh and she crinkled her nose in revulsion. She’d been horrified to watch a man burst into flames as she sat safely in the basement with her overeager captors cheering on their victory. She looked around now out of guilty curiosity for his charred body but didn’t see it, or even anyone watching over anyone that could be him.
What she did see was a vampire she vaguely recognized from Brookhaven. He paced back and forth in front of the jackass kidnapper shifters with a machine gun gripped tightly in his hands. Was that the same man who’d burst into flames? He looked crazed and jumpy and she hoped someone from the good guys’ side was keeping their eye on him. He was barefoot, had on ill-fitting pants that were way too short, and a t-shirt that stretched tightly across his broad chest. Combined with his wildly unkempt hair and the crazy, angry gleam in his eyes, she worried more about him right now than she did about the shifters from this stupid house. But if he’d somehow survived what she now realized were UV lights, then she couldn’t help but be in some serious awe of the man.
