Vampire Lord | Book 5 | Vampire Lord 5: Conquering A Bloodthirsty Earth

by Jacobs, Logan

  By the time I turned back around to check on the teenage girl, the two male vamps had started to hustle her inside the minivan, now that her brother was no longer an option. Even as the human girl flailed against both of them, they were so much stronger than her that they just jerked her inside, and then the male bloodsucker on the left started to close the van door behind them.

  Apparently, they didn’t feel much loyalty to the two female vamps that they had left outside.

  I threw myself toward the sliding van door and thrust my Louisville slugger into the crack just before the door could slam shut. The vamp just inside the door tried to keep the door from opening any more, but I slid my hands up the bat for better leverage and then pried it open just long enough for me to jump inside the minivan.

  As the two female vamps ran back to the van, they started to beat on the doors to try to get the driver to open them, but the driver was already twisted around in his seat to watch the fight between me and the two males in the back.

  “Just fucking drive, man!” the bigger male bloodsucker in the back said. “We’ll kill him on the way!”

  “Not today,” I growled, and then I jabbed the end of my Louisville slugger at the driver’s temple.

  It wasn’t enough to crush his skull, but the driver did at least sway in his seat, so I figured that I had a few seconds before he recovered and tried to drive away with me in the back of the van. I wished that the girls could shoot out the tires to make sure that didn’t happen, but I knew that even Natalie wouldn’t shoot at the minivan while either the human girl or I were still inside it.

  Now that the driver was temporarily out of the picture, I decided that the best thing I could do was take one of these assholes by surprise, so I didn’t immediately try to hit them. Instead, I leaned forward and shoved the human girl hard enough that she fell backward into the male bloodsucker on the right.

  He cursed and tried to crawl out from underneath her, but by then, I had already turned my attention toward the other fanged fucker inside the van. He swiped at me, grabbed my shirt, and then tried to twist me around toward the window, like he could just grip it and then break my head through the glass.

  I let him think that he was doing really well for just a second, and then as I pretended to stumble back toward the sliding door, I reached back with one hand. At the same time that I slid the door open behind me, I twisted my body, kneed my attacker in the stomach, and then grabbed the collar of his shirt.

  The moment the door was open, I swung the male vamp around and threw him out onto the gravel. The two females ran toward him and tried to help him back onto his feet, so I pulled myself back deeper into the van again to get the girl out.

  The male vamp inside the van had his arm around the teenager’s throat like he would choke the life out of her, so I did the only thing I could think of in the moment.

  I grabbed his forearm and sank my teeth into the bloodsucker’s flesh.

  He was so surprised that another vamp had attacked him that he released his hold on the girl, but I just pushed her out of the way and slammed the end of my Louisville slugger into his stomach. As all the air fled from his lungs, I grabbed his hair, twisted his neck to the side, and then sank my teeth into his throat until I felt blood gush out of his arteries and pour all down the front of my shirt.

  I couldn’t believe that the vamp’s blood actually tasted… like blood.

  I let my teeth tear into his flesh farther than I’d ever let myself go with the girls, and then I remembered the humans that I had killed when they tried to attack Lily back in the apartment building. As soon as I thought about them, I felt my teeth rip apart his skin, and after they tore through the outer layer of his muscles, I forced myself to step back and then swung my bat at his temple.

  His head spun clear off his body with the force of my blow, and as his corpse collapsed to the floor of the van, I spun back to get the girl out before the driver recovered and shifted the vehicle into drive.

  The teenage girl looked even more terrified now than she had before, but she was stunned enough to go along with whatever I did. So the moment I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the van, she went right along with me, and then I shoved her in the direction of the general store porch.

  The male and the two females outside the van almost started after her, but they must have thought better of it when they saw all my girls with guns just a few dozen paces away. So as the teenager ran forward to join her brother, and as my girls moved forward just far enough to help her, the three vamps outside the van snarled and turned back toward me.

  That was two down, four to go, and even though these motherfuckers looked pissed, I was starting to feel good about my odds. Before any of them could attack me, a gunshot suddenly went off from the porch with a crack as loud as thunder.

  The bullet fractured the windshield of the minivan, and the two bullets that immediately followed it made the bloodsucking driver slump forward against the wheel.

  For just a second, not even the vamps moved at the sound of the gunshots, and I wondered in all the times that James and the others had chased away the bloodsuckers with their guns, if they had ever actually managed to kill one of them.

  I glanced over to see Natalie raise her head from where it had been tucked down against her rifle. My gorgeous girlfriend gave me just a little smile to let me know that she’d been the one to fire the shots, as if I’d had any doubt, and then she closed one eye and aimed at the minivan again, just in case she was able to get another clear shot at any of the other bloodsuckers.

  If the driver was dead, then it was three down and only three to go, and those were definitely some odds that I could get behind.

  “Neko!” I shouted. “Check on the driver!”

  The petite Japanese girl instantly dashed forward to the opposite side of the van with her rifle still in her hands. Neko was surprisingly fast, almost vamp speed, but I didn’t want to give the three vamps in front of me even a second to try to get around the van and stop Neko.

  So while the pink-haired girl went around to check on the driver, I grinned at the three remaining vamps and let my pointed canines show, as I felt their friend’s blood drip down the front of my shirt.

  “Who is next?” I growled.

  The female vamp on my right sprang toward me first, but I ducked at the last second and then swung my legs around to hit the second female in the shins. Just as the first female turned and ran toward my back, I jumped up onto my feet again, slammed one end of the bat back into her stomach, and then rammed the other end into the second female’s abdomen.

  They both gagged and doubled over at about the same time that the male vamp finally reacted to the sight of his friend’s blood on my shirt. He bared his teeth and leaped toward me, but before he could tear into me with his own canines, I grabbed the female bloodsucker in front of me and jerked her body in front of mine.

  The male asshole’s teeth buried themselves into the side of her neck before he realized his mistake. He tried to pull away, but as the blood streamed down her chest, I saw that the female vamp was weak enough now that I could finish her off.

  “Driver’s dead!” Neko called out from the other side of the van.

  At the same time, I brought my Louisville slugger down on top of the bitten female’s head like a sledgehammer, and it was enough force to crumple in the top of her skull. I brought it down again to break her skull completely open, and then my bat came back from its next swing all dripping with blood and brains.

  The other female jumped onto my back again, and as she started to scratch at my throat with her long nails, I swung my bat again toward the male vamp. He jumped back out of the way, but that was exactly what I wanted him to do.

  Because Neko was now right behind him.

  She was too close to be able to fire the rifle, but that sure as hell didn’t stop her from using it. Instead, the petite Japanese girl stabbed the barrel of the rifle into the back of the man’s neck, and she must have hit a
pressure point, because his arms immediately went stiff at the same time that he staggered backward.

  Neko jabbed the rifle barrel into the same spot, and then she followed it up with another stab that made the male vamp’s eyes roll into the back of his head. She seemed to have everything under control, so I reached back with one hand and grabbed the female bloodsucker on my back by her long hair.

  I yanked on it hard enough to make her shriek right into my ear, but she still held on tight to my back, so I dropped the slugger for just a second so I could use both hands to fight her. Now that both my hands were free, I reached them both back so far that I was able to grab her by the throat.

  Since I didn’t have enough leverage to actually do anything yet, I just kept my hands around her throat and dropped down onto one knee so I could really get my full force into it. Then I slammed my head back into her nose, and the moment she released her grip on me, I flipped her over my head and brought her whole body to crash down on her spine in front of me.

  Her legs kicked out like she was still mid-fight, but the female struggled to keep her eyes open, so I figured that I must have really injured her spine. I reached over to grab the bat again, but before I swung it down onto her skull, I looked up to see if Neko’s target was still alive.

  I needed one of these motherfuckers alive in order to ask them some goddamn questions.

  Neko had brought her attacker to the ground, too, and now she had the barrel of her rifle pressed almost up against his forehead. There was a split second where I had to pick which bloodsucker looked like they might be more willing to talk, but in the end, I figured that Neko might as well finish her target off.

  After all, I didn’t want him to suddenly recover and spring up and attack the petite Japanese girl, so we would just use my bloodsucker to ask any questions that we had.

  Neko adjusted her stance so the kickback from the rifle wouldn’t just rock her right off her feet, and then she squeezed the trigger at the middle of the male vamp’s forehead. The bullet exploded the front of his skull like an overripe watermelon, and when I blinked, there was nothing left but a bloody shell where his head used to be.

  As soon as the male vamp was dead, Neko pivoted around to face me and raised her rifle like she wanted to finish off the female bloodsucker, too.

  “Not yet,” I said, and then I brought my baseball bat down on the female vamp’s knees.

  She howled in pain, but the blow kept her from getting up immediately. She halfway pushed herself up on her hands, so I just jabbed the end of my slugger into both her elbows to force her down again.

  “Keep everybody away,” I told Neko. “This might get ugly if she doesn’t tell me what I want to know.”

  “I’m on it,” the petite Japanese girl said, and then she hurried back toward the porch of the general store.

  “You…” the female vamp gasped. “You have no idea… who you’re dealing with.”

  “I could say the same thing to you,” I sighed. “So was this--”

  “You’re gonna die,” the bloodsucker panted. “You’re all gonna die, but not before we drain you to nothing but a husk of skin.”

  She started to push herself up again, so I just slammed my bat into her stomach with enough force to damage her internal organs. When she rolled over to dry heave and then collapsed onto her back again, I figured that I’d done enough damage that her organs would have to repair themselves before she tried to attack me again, so that should keep her busy for a minute.

  “So was this just another snatch-and-grab raiding party?” I finished my question. “Or were you sent here for any other reason?”

  “You’ve fucked with…” the female gasped again. “With the wrong fiefdom.”

  “And whose fiefdom is that?” I asked.

  “We belong to the fiefdom of Thaddeus,” the fanged female replied, “and you don’t stand a chance. We have over fifty vamps and a huge blood bank of humans.”

  “Hm,” I sighed. “That doesn’t sound great, I’ll give you that much. Any chance we could come to some kind of understanding?”

  The female suddenly launched herself up at me with her pointed teeth and sharp nails extended out in front of her, but I reacted even faster. I crashed my slugger into her stomach again, only this time, I aimed a little higher so I fractured a few of her lower ribs.

  When she fell back onto the gravel, I brought the bat down on her neck with about half my full force, just so she would stay down. Then I knelt on top of her, pinned the bat against her throat, and pressed it down hard enough that she could barely even swallow.

  “Let’s try that question again,” I hissed.

  “Not… a chance,” the female vamp wheezed. “You might as well surrender now. Thaddeus will be pissed when he finds out that you killed some of us.”

  “Well, it sounds like old Thaddeus is about to have a bad day,” I said, “but now that there are six less of you, I think my odds are looking up.”

  “But you…” the bloodsucker trailed off as she tried to crane her head back and count the bodies of her friends. “You only… you only killed five.”

  I lifted the bat off her neck, adjusted my grip on the handle, and then just bashed her brains into the gravel beneath her.

  “Now I killed six,” I muttered, and then I stood up next to her body.

  When I looked up at the porch of the general store, I suddenly remembered all of the people who were scattered around downtown Red House. The plump, middle-aged woman, Celia, had both her teenage children pulled into a tight embrace, while James just stared at me with his mouth open.

  The rest of the humans all watched me with a mix of admiration and terror, and I instantly realized that it wasn’t just because I was covered in the blood and guts of these assholes.

  It was because now they knew that I was a fucking vamp.

  Chapter 11

  I didn’t move at first. I didn’t want to move too fast and scare anyone, even though after everything that I just did, I doubted that a fast walk would be the thing to send the townspeople over the edge. I let the bat fall down to my side so it dangled from my hand and looked as non-threatening as possible, but I still just scanned the crowd before I moved.

  It had to count for something that I had just saved the two teenagers, and if bad came to worse, then it wasn’t like the humans could actually kill us. After all, I was a goddamn vamp, and I had six armed girls who would back me up no matter what. It would just be a little tricky to get the keys back from James, drive the Jeep back up to his cabin, and get Rhino down the mountain and out of town without running into a mob of armed humans.

  Sure, they wouldn’t stand a chance against us or Rhino, but it would be an extra annoyance, and I really didn’t feel like dealing with another fucking problem at the moment. I wanted the girls to be able to rest and recuperate for a couple of days, plus I hated for Catherine to leave on bad terms with her uncle after they had just seen each other for the first time in over a decade.

  Most of my women were looking at me, but Natalie had turned around and had taken a few steps back so she could look at all the people on the porch, and Neko quickly imitated her and faced the crowd in the other direction. Then Catherine backed up to stand beside my gorgeous girlfriend, so there was no doubt about where her loyalties were.

  If the humans of Red House were about to try anything, then they would know for damn sure that they wouldn’t be up against me alone.

  But before anyone else could say or do anything, Celia released her hold on her two teenagers, pushed her way through the crowd on the porch, and strode toward me like a woman on a mission. When she had almost reached me across the gravel, I shook my head at Nat so my girlfriend stayed put and didn’t follow the woman toward me.

  The moment she reached me, Celia just threw her arms around me and hugged me so tightly that the blood all down my front rubbed off on her own shirt. When she finally released me, she looked up at me with tears in her eyes.

  “Thank you,�
� she said with a smile. “I don’t even know your name, but… thank you.”

  “Sam,” I said and then offered her my hand.

  Celia shook it but didn’t let it go, and instead, she just turned to face the rest of the humans and raised my hand up into the air with hers.

  “Everybody, listen up!” Celia shouted as she blew a stray silver hair out of her eyes. “This here is Sam, and he just saved the lives of both my kids, and probably a bunch of your lives, too. So if any of you have a problem with him, with the fact that he’s a vamp, or with these girls, you take it the hell up with me!”

  The rest of the humans all flooded off the porch and from all over downtown to come over and join us. This time, Natalie and the other girls hurried over with them so they could stand close to me in case anybody decided to try something. As the humans strode across the gravel, James pushed his way to the front of the crowd so he reached me first.

  “Sam!” James said as the crowd formed a little semicircle around me. “Are you really… fuck me, are you really one of them?”

  “He’s not like other vamps, Uncle James,” Catherine said as she pushed herself forward to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with me.

  “Well, I can see that clearly enough,” the gray-bearded man snorted. “How is that even possible? I thought they were all monsters.”

  “That’s a pretty safe assumption,” I said, “at least for most of them.”

  “Sam can control his hunger,” Natalie said, “and we make sure that he gets enough blood, so his hunger never controls him.”

  “How?” Celia asked.

  “That’s not really important, is it?” Catherine cleared her throat.

  I didn’t blame her. They didn’t need to know that I drank from all six of my women just yet, not since they literally just found out that I was a bloodthirsty monster. There was no need to scare them any more.

  “I guess I did think it was kind of a miracle that you all made it down here all the way from New York,” James said as he glanced at his niece. “I just thought maybe you got real lucky.”