I almost brought the bat down one final time to finish him off, but I decided against it. Instead, I grabbed him by the throat and body-slammed him into the floor. Once I had kicked away the bloodsucker’s two knives, I pressed my fingers a little more firmly into his throat.
“Where the fuck is Isaac?” I demanded.
The vamp tried to shake his head, but it only made my fingers dig deeper into his neck.
“Do you have any humans?” I asked. “Maybe if you tell me where they are, I’ll let you live.”
The bloodsucker nodded that time, so I relaxed my grip on his throat ever so slightly.
“Three?” I asked, because even though I knew that was the wrong number, I wanted to see if this man would go along with anything I said, or if he might actually tell me the truth.
“Two,” he gasped. “Just two.”
“Well, if you won’t tell me where Isaac is, you could at least tell me where they are,” I said.
“Up--” The vamp tried to claw at my fingers to pull them away from my throat.
“Up where?” I growled.
“Up yours,” the asshole gasped again as he reached for the Mark 23 that was holstered on my belt.
I never let him get that far.
Before his fingers could even brush against the pistol, I used my full strength to sink my fingers into his neck. They pushed through his thick skin, through the dense muscles along either side of his throat, and then through his windpipe itself.
It crumpled underneath my grip, and the vamp had just enough time for his eyes to go wide before I completely crushed the rest of his throat. Even as the blood gushed out through the two massive holes that I’d made in the side of his neck, I knew it still wouldn’t be enough to kill him past the point of no return.
But as much as I would have liked to just put a bullet straight through his skull, I knew that he’d already made more noise than I wanted him to, so I couldn’t throw a gunshot in on top of everything else.
I decided to just use the fact that my hand alone had already halfway severed his neck, so I kept squeezing until thick black pulp glooped out of his neck on top of all the dark blood. By the time my hand had tightened into a fist inside his neck, I knew it wouldn’t take that much effort to just twist his head off, so I pulled out my bloody fingers, wrapped both hands around his skull, and then twisted and tugged on his head until the rest of the tissue tore loose, and his head was separated from his body.
“Thanks for nothing, asshole,” I said with a roll of my eyes.
After I wiped my hands off on his shirt, I stood back up and ducked into one of the book aisles to text Isaac again. Since he had been so goddamn uncooperative about everything, I wasn’t sure if this vamp had told the truth about the human girls or not. But even if he had lied about that, that wasn’t my biggest issue right now.
My biggest problem was that Isaac had definitely heard the sounds of our fight, and the only way that I could think of to address that was to play dumb.
Almost there, I texted from Nat’s phone. Sam had to kill a vamp on the loose.
Hopefully, Isaac would believe that I still didn’t know that he was a vampire himself. If anything, he might just think that I had killed this stray bloodsucker and not made any kind of connection between this dead asshole and himself.
I flipped my girlfriend’s phone into night mode and turned down the brightness, so the screen would be pretty dark if I needed to use it again. And if Isaac did text me back, I didn’t want my phone to light up and broadcast my location, not even from the inside of my pocket.
Since there was only one flight of stairs left between me and the top floor, I took my time as I moved toward the last stairwell that I planned to take. There were fewer bodies on the fifth floor than there had been on the main floor downstairs, but there were still a few corpses of students who had tucked themselves away up here to try and find a quiet place where they could study.
I wondered if we would ever know how many people had gotten the AIDS vaccine and then turned into bloodsucking monsters, just like I wondered if we would ever know how many humans had been killed in the aftermath. I had no way to tell how many vamps were still in the city, much less humans, and even though it would have been helpful to know both, I hoped those statistics wouldn’t matter too much longer.
Because I was much more interested in how many vamps and humans would be on our route to Colorado. Sure, we had a lot of territory to cover before we got all the way out to Catherine’s family’s ranch, but that was all the more reason that I wished we had some idea of what was waiting for us up ahead.
Of course, for all I knew, Erika had been able to hijack some kind of signal in the back of the armored truck, and she might even now be looking up information that would help us get out of the city and then help us start to head west.
I smiled as I reached the entrance of the stairwell at the back of the library floor. I loved that the girls were all so different, but everything they were good at seemed to complement each other so well. Erika was ridiculously good with technology-- and apparently, she had just managed to teach herself some basic lockpicking. Natalie had surprising amounts of knowledge on survival skills, and that included how to shoot, while Catherine was a fierce fighter and was always quick to break the tension with a joke.
And even though Lily hadn’t been with us for very long, I already knew that she was brave and tough, or she never would have been able to survive on her own for as long as she had. Plus, I had a feeling that even though she hadn’t finished nursing school, she had enough basic knowledge that it could really come in handy.
Now that I thought about it, the girls were a lot like the way their blood made me feel. Erika’s blood made me feel as focused and persistent as she was, Catherine’s made me feel like I was on a powerful high, and Natalie’s made me feel as calm and steady as my girlfriend was whenever she loaded and aimed one of her guns.
I had only had Lily’s blood once, so I wasn’t sure how exactly it made me feel, but I did know that it allowed me to see clearly almost a mile in the distance. So even though I wasn’t sure how that worked, I knew that meant that she was pretty fucking special.
I moved silently up the last flight of stairs, and when I came to the entrance to the sixth floor, I paused for one more second just to steel myself against whatever was about to happen. I would do whatever it took to protect the girls, and if that meant I would have to kill Natalie’s brother, then that’s exactly what the fuck I would do.
I touched the grip of my Mark 23 just for reassurance, did the same thing with my Daniel Defense rifle slung across my back, and then raised my Louisville slugger to get ready for whatever I was about to walk into.
Then I stepped onto the sixth floor.
I still hadn’t gotten a text back from Isaac after I told him that I’d had to kill a stray vamp, so I wasn’t sure what to make of that. But as soon as I entered the sixth floor, I saw that I wouldn’t have long to think about it because the rare book room was immediately on my left.
The double doors of the rare book room were made of glass, so I jumped into one of the rows of books outside it. I pressed my body up against the shelves to try and make myself invisible, and then I stayed perfectly still as I glanced over into the room itself.
It was a pretty good hiding spot, at least for a vampire. A human would never have chosen a room like that to try and hide from a horde of bloodsuckers, so that was just one more reason to think that Isaac was a vamp.
From where I stood, the rare book room looked like nothing but glass and reflections. There were rows of cases inside the room with books and manuscripts behind thick sheets of glass, and on top of the glass of the double doors, it almost made it look like a funhouse of mirrors inside. If the power had been on, then it might have been pretty, but in the darkness, it just looked like a series of dim reflections and shadows that seemed to twitch every time I exhaled.
I knew that I could only see part of the room from whe
re I stood, but with all of the reflections inside, I felt like I should have seen some kind of sign of Isaac or of the two girls who were supposed to have been with him. When I inhaled I smelled human, vampire, but old paper smell dominated the room and I couldn’t pinpoint anything precise. I exhaled again to try to focus on the shadows inside the rare book room, but no matter how much I stared at the room, I didn’t see a single sign of real movement inside it.
Well, that certainly seemed suspicious.
It was possible that Isaac and the girls were hidden somewhere deeper inside the room, and maybe I just couldn’t see them from my position. But the fact that I couldn’t see any kind of reflection, even with my vamp vision, made me feel skeptical that they were even inside the room at all.
Especially since Isaac still hadn’t texted me back yet.
But since I also hadn’t heard or seen any traces of another person outside the room, I figured that I might as well get a little closer just to double-check. After all, since the doors were glass, I should be able to see into most of the room if I got close enough.
I inched forward until I was at the end of the bookshelves, glanced in both directions, and then hurried across the open space between me and the rare book room. As soon as I had my back pressed up against the wall, I crept forward until I was just beside the glass doors.
But even from this closer angle, I couldn’t see a goddamn thing inside the room. As far as I could tell, there weren’t even any dead bodies, much less anyone still alive, so I had the very definite feeling that Isaac had fucking lied to me when he said that he and the girls were hiding inside.
I took one more step forward so that I would be able to hear any noises from inside the room, but just like I had expected, there was only silence. That could mean a couple of different things, but none of them were good.
One option was that Isaac might have set up some kind of ambush or trap inside the rare book room. He would expect me and my girls to walk right in, he could spring his trap, and then he would have us all at his mercy.
Of course, I didn’t see a whole lot of hidden places inside the room for him to have set up a trap, but I still didn’t want to rule it out as a possibility. And I sure as hell wasn’t about to waltz right into the room like I wasn’t fully aware that Nat’s brother was a vamp.
But there was only one other possibility that I could think of to explain why Isaac would have lied to me about the rare book room. And that was because he was prowling around the top floor of Butler Library, and he planned to catch me out in the open, while I was busy with the rare book room.
I still couldn’t hear anything from inside the rare book room, so I ducked back in between two rows of bookshelves so that I would be better hidden from any bloodsucking assholes who were looking for me. As much as I wanted to knock over a stack of books and make Isaac come running, I knew that if I could surprise him, I would have a better chance in my fight against him.
Besides, if I surprised him, that would take him off guard, and that meant the human girls with him would stand a better chance of survival. The last thing I wanted was to come all this way, just to have Isaac kill his girlfriend and her friend out of spite.
It would be much better to just surprise him out here in the open, fight him, and then go find the girls myself once I took care of Isaac.
And since Isaac hadn’t leaped out of the shadows to attack me yet, I figured that he still didn’t know where I was. He had probably been watching another stairwell, or he might have even gone down to the fifth floor to check on his vampy friend after I texted him that I’d had to kill someone.
Whatever the reason was, I just needed to make sure that I found him before he found me.
I pulled out Natalie’s phone since it was in night mode and its light wouldn’t draw any attention to myself. I hoped that Isaac hadn’t been smart enough to turn his phone on silent, so maybe I would hear it buzz and then be able to follow its noise and find him. I quickly typed up and sent another text to Isaac.
Where is rare book room? I texted. On sixth floor, but don’t see it.
Isaac’s phone didn’t buzz.
But it did light up.
Chapter 12
I saw a quick flash of light reflected on the ceiling about two aisles behind me. Almost as soon as it flashed, it turned off again, so I knew Isaac would be on the move to try and get away from his current position.
But that definitely meant that he didn’t know where I was yet, and I intended to keep it that way.
Immediately, I ducked around the corner of the shelves and ran in the opposite direction from where I had seen the flash of light. It led me away from the stairwell that I had taken up to the sixth floor, so I had to sprint until I reached the other side of the room and then could duck into another aisle of books.
I stayed still and tried to listen for any noise from Isaac.
There were footsteps that hurried along in front of the rare book room, and as soon as I realized they were headed for me, I fled down the aisle and came out on the opposite side. I started to move back to the other side of the floor, and as I moved, I pulled out my phone to type another quick text.
Isaac had already texted back.
Back wall, he said. Are you here yet? You move really quiet for four people.
Practice, I texted back. I don’t see you inside the room.
I don’t see you outside of it, Isaac responded immediately. And I definitely haven’t seen my sister.
Well, shit.
He must have either caught a glimpse of my reflection as I ran past the glass doors of the rare book room, or he had just finally guessed that I was here alone.
I continued to duck and weave back and forth around the top floor, but even though I kept looking for the glow of Isaac’s cell phone, he must have flipped it into night mode, too, so I couldn’t use it to pinpoint his location anymore.
When I was halfway down another aisle, I stopped long enough to pull out a heavy book from one of the shelves. I shifted my bat into my left hand so I carried the book in my right hand, and then after I reached the end of the aisle, I took aim at the double glass doors of the rare book room.
If Isaac wanted to play games, then I would just have to do something to draw his attention.
I hurled the heavy book with as much power as my enhanced muscles could manage. If a human had thrown it, even a strong-ass human, the book would have just bounced harmlessly off the thick glass. But with the strength of all the blood in my system, the book sailed right through the glass, and shattered fragments of the door scattered all across the floor.
Immediately, I heard heavy footsteps sprint in the direction of the broken glass. I ran back down the aisle so I could approach Isaac from another direction, but before I could head back to the shattered door of the rare book room, I heard a different noise from somewhere past the restrooms on the left side of the sixth floor.
It sounded like somebody was crying.
I moved a little closer to the sniffling sound, and it took me past the restrooms and the stairwell entrance. After I swung a left and started down the side hallway, I saw that there were several study rooms along the perimeter of the top floor. Some of them had computers, but most of them only had empty desks inside, and like everything else on campus, all of the rooms were completely dark.
I followed the sniffling sound along the hallway, but I had to turn another corner before I narrowed its location down to one of the smaller study rooms along the front wall. At least Isaac was probably still preoccupied with the rare book room, and I hoped that would keep him busy for about another minute before he realized that it had just been a distraction.
I tried the door, and to my surprise, it was unlocked. I opened it without any noise, slipped inside, and slowly closed it behind me. It felt like it took half a minute just to close the door, but it kept it from making any noise. And since I didn’t know what I was about to find when I turned around in the study room, I wanted as much time as p
ossible before Isaac found me.
I turned around and saw the source of the sniffling sound at almost the exact same time that I smelled it.
Two human girls were huddled together underneath a table on the far side of the room. It looked like their wrists had been tied together with zip ties, and they’d been gagged with giant wads of rolled-up paper towels.
Well, just in case there’d been any question about it, this sure as fuck confirmed it.
Isaac was as much a barbaric asshole now as he was a vampire.
The petite girl on the right looked like she might be Japanese, but her hair was a faded pink color, and I recognized the blonde girl as Isaac’s girlfriend. They had only been dating for a few weeks, so I had never met her before, but I had seen her in pictures on Nat’s phone.
As soon as the two girls saw me, they looked like they might try to scream even through their makeshift gags, so I put my finger to my lips and shook my head.
They immediately fell still.
I hurried across the room and knelt down beside them. Their scent was still strong, so I didn’t think they were wounded, but I wanted to make sure before I left them alone for a few minutes. As much as I wanted to free them right away, I needed them to stay put and to stay calm until I killed Isaac. But if they needed some kind of first aid before that, I would have to adjust my plans.
When I was right beside them, they looked even more scared than they had from across the room, and I didn’t want to think about how long Isaac might have kept these two girls as prisoners. At least they still seemed strong, even if their hands were zip-tied together.
I put my fingers to my lips again, and then I took out the wadded up paper towels from their mouths, so they were free to talk and breathe. I was relieved that they didn’t just start screaming right away, but then again, they probably wanted Isaac dead even more than I did.
Conquering A Bloodthirsty Earth (Book 3): Vampire Lord 3 Page 14