The three turned and fled the cemetery, a terrible sense of dread driving them like the crack of a whip. They knew that by the time they reached Jerusa, it would be too late to help her. They ran all the faster.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
It was easier to hijack a plane than Jerusa would have guessed.
They parted ways with the Furies, then crammed into the Escalade, and headed for the nearest airport. Ming and Ralgar refused to look at her, which was good, she supposed. They were going against every code and creed they believed in by allowing her to live this long.
Jerusa stared out the window, watching as the bright lights and bustling city sped past her like a meteor shower. Beautiful, but unreachable. She wondered if her mother was still alive. And what about poor Thad? She tried to turn her mind elsewhere, but the only other thing she could think about was Silvanus allowing the Furies to feed from him. Their mouths on his body.
She punched the window, shattering it into a thousand little pieces. The others all turned to look at her, but surprisingly, no one said a word. She brushed the shards off of her lap while the wind ripped through her hair.
They ditched the Escalade in a mostly empty parking lot not too far from the airport. The bigger planes were out of the question. Too many humans, too many variables. They passed on to the other parts, where private jets loaded their passengers straight from the runway. Dawn was drawing near and they were running out of time. Finally, they found what they were looking for.
A small passenger jet was being refueled on a quiet runway. When the maintenance crew was finished and gone, leaving only the pilot to tend to his jet, Ming nodded at Celeste. The augur stepped out of the shadows, strolling across the well-lit runway as though she belonged there. An enamored smile spread across the pilot’s face as Celeste approached him. Taos stiffened, his lip curled in a snarl, but he resisted the urge to disembowel the pilot.
“We need your jet,” Celeste said in a calm tone. The man laughed as though she had just told him he was the man of her dreams. She gave him the exact location in South Carolina and the man said that he could land them close by. “We’ll need you to secure the jet until sundown. No one comes inside. Can you do that?” He gave a starry-eyed nod. Celeste motioned for the others to come ahead.
Jerusa knew that vampires could dazzle humans. It was just one of their many predatory talents. But Celeste had completely brainwashed the pilot in just mere seconds. Must be an augur thing.
They entered the jet, making sure every window shade was secure, and doing all they could to ensure the sunlight would not reach them. The pilot made all the necessary changes with the control tower and by dawn, they were in the air.
The flight from New Mexico to South Carolina was a short one, just under three hours. There was too much daylight in front of them, and to Jerusa, it felt as though the minutes were ticking backwards. The pilot secured the jet in a private hanger, then he smashed his cell phone on the ground and went to look for the nearest liquor store so that he could get so mind-numbingly drunk that by the time he sobered up, the vampires would be gone and he’d have no idea why he was in South Carolina.
Ming and Ralgar kept to the rear of the jet, whispering and scheming, occasionally glancing over at Jerusa. If they were trying to be inconspicuous, they were doing it wrong. Taos and Celeste sat together, holding hands, but not speaking. They no longer felt the need to hide their relationship from the rest of the group. Being on the verge of a deadly battle with an army of savages will have that effect on people.
Jerusa sat by herself at the front of the jet, wrapping her wounded shoulder in gauze she had found in a first aid kit. The bleeding had slowed to a trickle, but the puncture hole hadn’t yet sealed itself shut. Vampires don’t get infections, so she had skipped the antiseptic, but as she rolled her arm in a circle to make sure the wrap would hold, a stitch of pain hit her from the wrist to her ribcage.
Alicia appeared next to her. The ghost looked as she always did, dressed in her blue prom dress, her hair done up in curls, her feet bare for some reason. Though time no longer held any power over her, and physical weariness was no longer a concern, Alicia, nonetheless, looked tired. There was something in her eyes that spoke of a burden too large for her to carry. She reached out and gently touched Jerusa’s shoulder. The small amount of pressure sent a spark of pain through her arm. Jerusa winced and Alicia snatched her hand back, sympathy and sorrow welling up in her eyes.
“Yeah, well, you should be sorry,” Jerusa said to her. She didn’t care if the others heard her. The time for hiding Alicia and the other spirits was over. “It’s your fault I’m in this mess.” Alicia stared at her with one raised eyebrow. “Okay, the being turned into a vampire part is my fault, but the rest is all on you.” The ghost nodded her agreement with that. “Tell me the truth. Is it that you couldn’t lead me to Shufah, Silvanus or Suhail, or is it that you wouldn’t?”
Alicia simply shook her head no. It wasn’t much of an answer, but Jerusa thought she understood what she meant.
“I don’t want to die,” Jerusa said. It was a selfish thing to say to a ghost, but she still meant it. Alicia took her hand and squeezed it. That was all the comfort she could give.
Jerusa passed in and out of sleep the rest of the day. She could feel the sun drifting across the sky, pushing down on her, desiring nothing more than to dissolve her into a putrid puddle. She dreamed of her mother. Of Thad. Even of that strange dwarf, Sebastian. She saw Silvanus running away from her. And the part that made her stomach churn, even in her sleep, was when she dreamed of Shufah embracing Marjek.
She slowly opened her eyes as Taos shook her awake. The power of the sun had diminished. Night was upon them. It was time to hunt savages. Jerusa slid her feet into her boots, slipped on her tattered duster, and secured her skewer in its holder. She exited the jet with the other Hunters and stole off into the night.
The briny scent of the ocean came to her even before she could hear the repetitive shushing of the waves slapping the shore. The air was warm, but the breeze had a frigid bite to it. They stayed clear of people as much as possible, moving quickly over the rocky terrain. They broke over a steep embankment and there was the Atlantic Ocean, stretching as far as they could see.
Large round rocks lined the steep hill that led down to a tiny sliver of sand. The small beach, washed clean of imperfections by the waves, glistened in the moonlight. They were far enough away from the light pollution of town that the stars still reigned in the sky. There were no people here to sully what nature had perfected, and Jerusa wondered if the planet wouldn’t be better off without the human race… Or the vampire race, for that matter.
They moved along the beach, which was sometimes so narrow that they walked ankle deep in the water. This was not a tourist area. These were privately owned beaches. Every now and then, they would pass by a large house perched high on the stone bluff, like an eagle watching the water for prey. Not all of the houses were inhabited. Perhaps they were vacation homes, or rentals awaiting their next eager family. In others, Jerusa detected humans milling about, carrying out their short lives, unaware of what stalked the night around them. But when they came to the final house, a gray behemoth half on the rocky slope, half on the beach, it felt so devoid of life, so utterly empty, that it might have been a sea monster, long since beached and decaying in the open air.
“This is it,” Celeste said. She pointed out to sea where a large boat (not quite a yacht, but not far off) was anchored just off shore. “That’s what Suhail is going to use to transport the savages overseas.”
“Is Suhail here now,” Ming asked.
Celeste closed her eyes and tilted her head back and forth. “No. I don’t sense anyone.”
“Not even the other team of Hunters?” Ralgar asked.
Celeste shook her head. “I don’t sense anyone else. No savages. No vampires. Not even any humans. Not in the house or on the ship. I think we’re alone here.”
“Maybe it’s th
e wrong spot,” Taos suggested, which was going to cost him judging from the look he received from Celeste. He shrugged. “Maybe the Watchtower got it wrong.”
Ming’s eyes shifted from the house to the ship, then back again. “Where is the Blood Vengeance? They should be here by now.”
“What if we take the house?” Ralgar suggested. “From inside, we could watch all directions and see Suhail and the savages coming from a ways off.”
Ming nodded.
They approached the house. The ocean lapped at their feet, while the moon and stars watched in breathless expectation. The wet sand gripped her feet as if begging her not to go any further. Her heart beat with such ferocity that the scar on her chest ached. Something wasn’t right here.
They made it to the house without incident. The rear of the gray mansion faced the ocean, with the front fixed into the rock ledge. A large wooden deck extended off the back, reaching out toward the ocean, with a broad staircase dividing it in the middle, leading down to the sand.
Movement from the ocean caught her eye, and Jerusa turned with a start. Nothing was there. Perhaps it had been a dolphin or some other sea creature breaking the surface of the water. At least she hoped. Something else moved on the hilltop, causing Jerusa to stop altogether.
“What is it?” Taos whispered. The others gawked at her with fear-filled fish eyes. She shook her head that she didn’t know. “We need to go. We’re vulnerable out in the open.”
Jerusa motioned for them to give her a moment. She panned from the cliffs out to the ocean, then back again. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. Just when she was about to apologize and tell her group to continue, she saw them.
They were difficult to see in the darkness. They didn’t have an illuminating aura like true spirits. They were more like half-formed shadows, three-dimensional, yet full of holes like Swiss cheese. They rushed along the rock face, as do insects in the dark, up and over the ledge toward the front of the house. They moved atop the rolling waves, no weight to sink them, gathering around the ship anchored just off shore.
By the look on Jerusa’s face, they could tell she was seeing something they couldn’t. Celeste stepped to her. “Is it Alicia?”
“No,” Jerusa said. “It’s the spirits of savages. Dozens of them.”
At about the same time that Jerusa had discovered that she could see the ghosts of vampires, she also witnessed the first of the savage spirits. The savage spirit was not the ghost of a person that had gone savage, more like the dark force that had turned them. Occasionally, the demon entities would show up, usually when she was hunting live savages, and spook her spirit friends. It was never a good sign when they were around.
Alicia and Foster appeared on either side of Jerusa, their bright auras chasing the savage spirits away. The other ghosts appeared for a moment before fanning out in all directions in search of something.
“Celeste,” Jerusa said. She tried to whisper, but the quiver in her voice made it difficult to speak. “Are you sure we’re alone here?”
“Yes,” Celeste said. “I don’t sense anything.”
“You don’t sense any savages, or you don’t sense anything at all?” There was a subtle difference. “What about us? Can you sense us?”
Celeste’s cute little round face screwed tight, as though she had tasted something bitter. She clenched her eyes tight for a moment, then they sprang open, wide as the moon. “No, I can’t sense us. I can’t sense anything. It’s like I’m being blinded.”
“Someone’s coming,” Taos said, almost loud enough to be a shout. The Crimson Storm lined up across the thin strip of sand in battle formation. Ming stood with her hands open before her. Taos and Ralgar summoned orbs of fire. And Jerusa and Celeste drew their skewers.
Five figures, silhouetted in the moonlight, continued toward them, unperturbed by the Crimson Storm’s show of aggression. The five intruders all wore matching leather dusters, and each wore a ring on both hands: one with the Hunter’s symbol, the other with their team symbol. As the five Hunters from Blood Vengeance stepped into Taos’s and Ralgar’s firelight, it was clear from their blood filled eyes and withered, snarling lips, they had all been turned savage.
Jerusa’s army of spirits returned, several of them rushing up to Alicia and Foster before running off again. They pointed behind Jerusa and she turned to look. Coming up the other side of the beach was another team of savage Hunters. Other savages appeared along the top of the rocky ledge spanning both sides of the house.
Celeste gasped as whatever telepathic veil had been used to blind her was pulled away. She turned sharply toward the ship. “There are humans with savages on that boat.”
“They’re dead meat,” Ralgar said, spinning in circles, tiny suns dancing above his palms. “We’ve got our own problems.”
“No,” Celeste said. “The humans aren’t in danger. They’re helping the savages.”
Though it went against every Hunter instinct, they turned to glance at the ship. Sure enough, watching them from the deck of the luxurious boat, was a handful of humans standing next to a group of savages.
Heads surfaced above the rolling waves as more savages, hidden beneath the briny water, moved from the depths toward the shore. They stopped with the water surging around their waists.
“Bllloooddd wiiitttccchhh,” a voice croaked from behind, only it wasn’t really a voice. More like a collection of growls and snarls pitched this way and that to mimic speech. Jerusa’s flesh broke into goosebumps, her blood congealed in her veins. She looked to the top of the stairs where Suhail stood, surrounded by several other savages. “Wwhhheeerrree iisss Shhhuuuuffffaaahh? Wwwhhheeerrreee iiisss mmyy ssiisstteerr?”
Suhail’s right hand—the one Shufah had chopped off to save her—had been regenerated with the flesh of another. The skin was pale white and looked almost as if he were wearing a glove. All was at a standstill. The only noise came from the unrelenting tide. Jerusa felt compelled to answer him, but she couldn’t draw enough breath to speak. Nothing she could say would matter, though. Even in life, Suhail had been twisted and deranged, conniving and evil. The savage entity controlling him amplified that a hundredfold.
Ming moved first. She had faced countless savages over the centuries, and had walked away to tell the stories. Ming swatted her hands to the side as though shooing flies and the two teams of savage Hunters were blown off of their feet. “Kill them,” she screamed. Her voice echoed off the cliff face like a war cry of old. “Fulfill your oaths! Kill them all!”
Taos and Ralgar launched their fireballs at Suhail. The flames soared like comets, but Suhail didn’t even flinch. One of the savages at his side slapped the air with this hand, the two fireballs were knocked off course by his telekinetic hand, and fell to the sand in an explosion of newly formed glass.
“They’ve regained consciousness,” Ming shouted. “Kill the Hunters first!”
Just then, fire shot in from both sides and the Crimson Storm dove to the wet sand to keep from being cooked.
“Stay down.” Ming rose to her knees and spun her arms in a circle over her head. The savage pyros from the two teams flanking them were, once again, blown off of their feet, as were the two augurs. The four telekinetics, however, threw up their hands, shielding themselves from the blast. The impact of telekinetic energy upon telekinetic energy caused the air to ripple and light to bend. For just a split second, the invisible became visible. “Get into formation.”
They stood in a tight circle, their backs inward. Taos and Ralgar faced opposite directions, each casting fire at the teams of savage Hunters. The savage telekinetics batted the fire away as quickly as they could conjure it. The savage pyros cast their own flames. Ming swatted their fire while driving invisible fists into any savage that tried to rush them.
Jerusa stood close to Ralgar, her skewer in hand, feeling utterly helpless. Celeste stood near to Taos. The augur from Blood Vengeance slipped in around the burst of fire, and nearly latched his teeth into Taos’s arm. Celeste
skewered him through the throat, holding him long enough for Taos to douse him in flames. The augur ripped his burning body from the skewer and dove into the ocean. He emerged several minutes later, crispy and black, but very much alive.
They were at a near stalemate. The savages Hunters couldn’t penetrate the Crimson Storm’s defensive perimeter, but neither could they effectively kill the savages with so many attacks coming at once.
Suhail watched from the top of the stairs. He nodded to the savage next to him (the one that had blocked the fire) who then made a series of noises that sounded like a cross between coughing and barking. Several savages descended from the cliff on either side of the house, while just as many moved from their place in the surf. Even though many of the savages joining the fight didn’t have the gifts of fire or telekinesis, they would overwhelm them with sheer force of numbers. They were going to die and there was nothing Jerusa could do about it. The only advantage to her peculiar gift, was that if she touched a savage, then her army of ghosts could blind it with their collective auras.
Wait! That was it.
“Stop casting fire at the savages,” Jerusa said. Neither Taos nor Ralgar stopped, but both had a very vocal opinion about Jerusa’s mental health. “You can’t hit them like this, but you can blind them. We need an explosion.”
“Do it,” Ming said. “I can keep them off of us for a few seconds.”
With a cry of fury, Ming created a maelstrom of sand and seawater. The storm created a thick wall swirling around them, but already, the savages began to chip away at it. Several rushed into the storm, only to be swept away. Dim flashes of light could be seen as the savages tried to burn their way through. The savage telekinetics hacked at the wall with their minds, busting large voids that were quickly gobbled up by the shifting sand.
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