“Hey,” said Lindle, hefting her flamethrower. “We should use a little more speed, a little less hurry.”
Danny turned back to the woman, saw the soldier pause. “Why?”
“Uh,” said Lindle. “You know your eyes are yellow? Like, glowing.”
“It’s time for hunting,” said Danny.
“Uh,” said Lindle. “Ok. You go, girl. Uh. It’s just, you know, the rest of us can’t see so well, and if there really are vampires—”
“Vampires are real,” said Jeremy, sliding up to Lindle, a hand on her arm. Silent. Danny would have to be careful. They didn’t have a heartbeat she could hear, and there was no wind down here to carry their scent.
Lindle jerked away. “Don’t touch me,” she said. “Fucking weirdo.”
“Fucking vampire, actually,” said Jeremy.
“Whatever,” said Lindle. “Look, if there are vampires, we’re going to need—”
“CONTACT!” screamed Mallory, his gun roaring into life. Danny whirled, saw big chunks of stone falling away as Mallory’s weapon fired into the dark. It was hard to see through the dust, but yes, there was something there, moving fast, running up the walls as bullets chased it. Finch’s weapon joined in, the huge gun adding to the noise, bits of stone spraying and raining all down the tunnel. Danny could see the thing down there—
Hated, vile enemy of the Night.
—explode into a cloud of locusts, their buzzing lost against the rage of the guns.
Lindle was moving, her flamethrower coughing once, twice, before a jet of bright white fire roared into the tunnel. She held the weapon on, engulfing the cloud of locusts in cleansing fire. The guns stopped, but the flames streamed on, and Danny could hear a hundred screams of dying things as the fire ate, and ate, and ate the darkness.
Silence. Lindle’s flamethrower snapped out, a tiny pilot light still on at the front. Jeremy walked to her side, looking at the chewed and charred stonework of the tunnel. “Did you get it?”
“Fucken’ A,” said Lindle. “Barbecue.”
Jeremy turned to look at Mallory, then at Finch. “And how many rounds?”
“About a hundred of the five point five six,” said Mallory.
“Yeah,” agreed Finch. “About that.”
“Okay,” said Jeremy, looking at Danny. “Two hundred rounds and a bunch of flamethrower fuel for one vampire. How many bullets did we bring?”
Ginger frowned. “We just got to hold the line.”
“Yeah,” said Jeremy. “But we need to get to the line to hold it.”
“How much further?” said Danny. “How much deeper do we have to go?”
“All the way,” said the vampire, its eyes reflecting her face back at her.
Lindle screamed, and Danny spun towards her. None of them had seen what happened, but she was being dragged back into the tunnel, and she was — on the roof. A vampire — same one, different one? — had her, and it was on the ceiling. Lindle would be gone in less than a second, dragged somewhere to be killed, to be fed on, to be food for these, these things. Danny sprinted into the tunnel, bunched up, leapt—
We will have our kill.
—and crashed into Lindle and the vampire. Lindle fell heavy, hard, her flamethrower tumbling free, the light going out with a click. Danny looked into the dark, yellow eyes seeing all. The vampire was in front of her, crouched, perfectly balanced after the fall. She had time enough to see that before it jumped on her, teeth bared. Danny had her arms out in front of her, the reflex action saving her. She got an impression of the thing, grotesquely extended jaw, teeth, so many teeth, charred skin — same damn vampire, how do you kill them? — and then it was biting at her neck, the strength of a train behind it.
She held it away, she didn’t know how, it was so strong, and they tumbled together in the dark. Danny heard snatches of sound from where Ginger’s team stood, guns readying, people not sure of where to fire, and Oh God where’s Lindle? Danny felt the sound fall around her, snatches of reason coming to her from a place where this impossible thing wasn’t trying to bite her throat out.
Crystal clear, she heard one voice above the others. Jeremy. “If you fall, they will kill your child.”
The rage hit her then, the rage and the fear and all the hopeless fear of a thousand thousand dead Pack before her, stretching out, a timeline of the dead, and knew—
No more.
—that this thing would die. It would die because Danny wouldn’t let her daughter—
No more.
—fall, wouldn’t let her lover—
No more.
—die, wouldn’t let these people who came into the terror and the darkness throw their lives away—
NO MORE.
—for nothing, for nothing more than a meal. She yelled at it, and pulled with all her strength, and the strength of the thing inside her, until her yell grew into a roar, and her hands turned to claws. Roared, and felt the tiny thing she held come apart like taffy. She held the pieces of it up like a prize, and screamed her triumph.
• • •
The creature turned lambent, hungry eyes about her. Saw the human—
They aren’t prey. They are here for us.
—ally at her feet. She looked at the torn, wet, bloody thing she held, the meat already trying to heal, to become an enemy again. She bit down, began to feed. Tasted the wet salty tang, tasted the squirt of marrow as she crunched. She was so very, very hungry.
“Hey.” Another small creature, but she could smell the death on him. He was one of the enemy, the hated foe.
His name is Jeremy. He’s here with us. Please don’t hurt him.
Her claws flexed and curled, wanting to grab it, to end it, like this other one.
Remember his name. Jeremy.
“Look,” said the small creature, “and far be it for me to get between a … a … between you and your meal, but we need to be moving on.”
She crunched, and licked her jaws. Looked down at the fallen human at her feet.
“Yeah,” said the small creature—
Jeremy.
—said Jeremy. “Look, she’ll be okay. She wouldn’t be, if you hadn’t … you know, done your thing. Go team.”
She knew how these things hid their fear behind words that made no sense. How they were always afraid of her. She bit down again, the last morsel going into her mouth. A growl escaped her. So hungry.
“Right. Thing is, there’s more.” Jeremy shuffled his feet, mirrored eyes glinting her yellow ones back at her. “And if we don’t move it, your daughter’s going to be lunch. Or, I don’t know, something worse.” He held up his hands. “Not that I know what ‘worse’ might be.”
Adalia!
Our cub. Our cub is in danger.
Yes. Our little girl.
We will save her.
Yes. She’s everything.
Then we will get to kill the enemies of the Night.
Yes. All of them.
She reached to the ground, picking up the ally at her feet.
Lindle. Her name is Emily Lindle, and she tried to burn away the dark for us.
Lifted the one named Lindle as if she was no heavier than gossamer. She turned to Jeremy, lumbered past him with massive feet. Into the light the soldiers had brought.
“Fuck me!”
“What the fuck is that fucking thing?”
“Fuck!”
“Shoot it!”
“Lindle! It’s got Lindle!”
She looked at them. Heard their panting, their racing hearts. Laid Lindle, who had tried to burn away the dark for her, at their feet.
The one called Jeremy stood beside her. Ancient enemy of the Night, at her side. He said, “She got Lindle back. Before, you know, the whole teeth thing.”
The biggest of them, still tiny, stood forward. “This is … this is Danny?”
Jeremy looked up at her, and she looked back at him. He frowned, then turned back to the biggest. “Not … quite? Not … not anymore, I don’t think.”
“Fucking awesome,” said one of the humans behind the big one.
That is Sawyer Diego, who has a cool name.
Sawyer Diego stepped up to her. “Lady? Thanks. For Lindle.”
As if Lindle wouldn’t be here without her. What is this feeling?
It is guilt. It is shame.
She didn’t like guilt. She didn’t like shame. She bowed her massive head to Lindle, nuzzled her. The fallen soldier groaned, opened an eye. Looked up at her, eyes widened. Reached a hand out to touch her muzzle. Then said, “Don’t touch me.”
If she could have smiled, she would have. What is this feeling?
It is happiness.
She liked happiness. It felt as foreign as guilt and shame. Lost, behind the hunger.
“We should go,” said Jeremy.
She looked down at him. Licked her muzzle. Made a noise, like a growl, or a whine, or both at once. Because she felt happy, and guilty, and shameful. And fearful, and hopeful. She wanted her Pack Mate—
Our Valentine.
—at her side, so they could find her Cub.
Adalia. Perfect Adalia.
She looked back down the tunnel, and took a step towards the dark. Then cast a glance back at them, these tiny creatures who would throw their lives away to help the Night. She set yellow eyes on the biggest of them. “Now We Hunt.”
CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED THIRTY-ONE
“Whose fucking idea was this?” said Carlisle. She pointed her flashlight up the ladder, rusty rungs leading up to a small circle of daylight at the top. The air around her smelled like a sewer, because that’s what it was.
“Old tunnels like this are everywhere,” said Rex, looking up the shaft. Carlisle was waiting with him at the bottom of the ladder for Pearce. “Hard to work out which way we’re coming from.”
“I knew it was your idea,” said Carlisle. “I knew it.”
“Heads up,” said Pearce’s voice from above. The small circle of daylight was occluded by a something, and with a whine a box descended the shaft, knocking against a rung or two as it came down. The clang, clang echoed around the dark quiet surrounding Carlisle. It made her nervous. Nerves were to be expected though, because they were in an unmapped sewer system underneath Manhattan. That wasn’t the worst part of it, of course: some idiot thought walking around in the dark where there were actual vampires that could dodge bullets was a good idea.
Also, it was a sewer. Like you saw in the damn movies, dark let’s-call-it-water lapping in the middle of a canal of sorts, something that was probably ancient brick curving up to form a ceiling. A narrow path either side of the let’s-call-it-water. Rats, or something like rats out there at the very brink of her flashlight’s reach. They better not be cockroaches, that’s for sure, because a cockroach that size was a thing to be feared.
The box Pearce was lowering hit the bottom, a big black Pelican case, the kind that military people seemed to pack their underwear in whenever they were going to Miami on vacation. This one was a rifle case, the size of which might have prompted a question like are you trying to compensate for something if it weren’t Pearce lowering it. It wasn’t so much a matter of compensation with Pearce, more that the right caliber weapon just hadn’t been made yet. She was still carrying around survivor’s guilt under her jacket like an old war wound, and that was okay. Carlisle knew what guilt felt like, especially if you were alone in the dark. Especially if you’d done terrible things in the dark.
“Hey,” said Rex. “You okay, Melissa?”
“Call me Carlisle,” she said, but with a smile. Because it was Rex, and she wasn’t alone in the dark. Not anymore, and not ever again.
Pearce, now there was a woman Carlisle liked having at her back. Or her shoulder. Or anywhere, really. Got the job done. She looked like civilian life was working okay for her, thank you very much, and maybe that was because her return to civilian life came with vampires and werewolves and an excuse to get out there. Get on the front line of a war that needed fighting, for people that mattered.
Like a ghost from the dark, Everard came back from his patrol. He made plenty of noise coming back, because — werewolf or not — he didn’t like getting shot. “We’re all good,” he said.
“All good like ‘there are no vampires’ or all good like ‘the sewer ends just around the corner?’” said Carlisle. “Because anything in a sewer isn’t ‘all good.’”
Everard looked back at her, the beam of light from her flashlight making stark shadows of his nose, cheekbones, and chin. He didn’t have a gun, just a bunch of wooden stakes in a bandoleer going from shoulder to waist. “You should try having my sense of smell,” he said. “To you, it’s your everyday garden-variety sewer—”
“There is nothing everyday about a sewer, Everard,” said Carlisle. “I’m expecting hazard pay for this.”
“Right,” he said. “For me, it’s a sewer that’s a hundred years old, with a little piece of everything that went through here still stuck around.”
“Son,” said Rex, “that sounds horrible.”
“It smells horrible,” said Everard. “Anyway. No vampires.”
Pearce slid down the ladder, boots scuffing the rails as she descended. Machine gun strapped to her back, barrel down. Leather jacket, but she’d ditched the aviators and hat for the trip underground. Boots on the ground with a functional crunch, she looked at the other three, then wrinkled her nose. “Whose fucking idea was this?” she was.
“It’s just—” started Rex.
“Because,” said Pearce, “I don’t want to die in a sewer.”
“Then we better get moving,” said Carlisle. “Call me soft like a marshmallow, but I just don’t want to die.”
“Copy that,” said Pearce. She hefted the Pelican case.
Carlisle nodded at it. “You really want to bring it?”
Pearce ran her free hand across the black of the case, almost gentle. “Never leave home without your favorite weapon,” she said.
Carlisle’s hand found the hilt of the Eagle at her back, the motion almost subconscious. “Yeah,” she said. “Let’s go get our family.”
• • •
Everard had gone on ahead. Like he knew where he was going. Probably did — what that thing living inside of him let him do was equal parts terrifying and magical.
Okay, okay. It was more terrifying.
Carlisle was on one side of the canal, Pearce on the other. Rex was behind Carlisle, looking back behind them. He held the shotgun in his right hand, the grenade launcher — mercifully pointed towards the ground — in his left. Pearce had ditched the case holding her rifle, swapped her Light Fifty to her back, and let the nose of her machine gun lead her forward. They were both wearing some kind of night vision setup that you either got from having friends in the military or from having poor impulse control while watching infomercials. These were the real deal, genuine Uncle Sam equipment. They weren’t lowered at the moment, lenses pointed at the ceiling. Pearce had her own light attached to the machine gun, and Rex’s shotgun had a tiny flashlight under the barrel.
Carlisle checked her own loadout. Okay, you thought it would be a good idea to fight vampires with a seven-round magazine. Not your best move. But like Pearce had said, you never went into a fight without your favorite weapon. And the Eagle had lifted her on its wings for longer than she cared to remember. It wasn’t just a gun. It fit into her right hand like they’d never been apart, like it was tailored for her grip. Or that her hand had … tailored itself to hold the Eagle. The unfamiliar Glock was in her left hand, the comically absurd drum magazine underneath it. Plenty of drums for the Glock strapped to her, along with spare mags for the Eagle. Her flashlight was clipped to the Eagle, its light leading her forward. She had her own night vision goggles on her head, which made her feel like an idiot, because you only saw things like that in movies, and this wasn’t a movie. The number of flashlights felt ridiculous, but Carlisle didn’t want to die in the dark. Not today.
Seriously, Carlisle. Two pis
tols? You’re definitely going to die.
Wasn’t like it wasn’t due, though. She’d fumbled, and fumbled bad, and Adalia had been taken away. You had one damn job. That one job was to make sure that young woman didn’t have anything bad happen to her. Not because of some stupid words mumbled by a crazy prophet from across the seas. No, not because Carlisle was supposed to be some kind of mythical Shield for the Prophet.
It was because Adalia was her friend, and you didn’t let friends get taken by fucking vampires. That one was on Carlisle, and if it took dying to put it right, then that’s what it would take. Sure, Miles was there too, and they’d get him back, but he was a grown man — Man? Man child? Boy in a man’s body? — grown-up person, and he could look after himself. John Fucking Miles always had a way through. Not out, because John Fucking Miles didn’t quit. Through, to the end, and beyond.
Gunfire sounded from somewhere, lots of it. Not the soft pop pop pop of a pistol in the distance, but a steady stream of noise. Big guns, firing a lot.
It made them all stop walking. Carlisle gave Pearce a glance. “Sound like your guys?”
“Ginger’s guys,” Pearce said, but her heart wasn’t in it. Take the uniform off, and she couldn’t formally be Major Pearce anymore. But they didn’t stuff you into a uniform and make you a Major. You made yourself a Major and then they put a uniform on you. Born and bred to lead, that one. “Yeah, could be. Sounds like they’re letting off a few rounds.”
“Jessie,” said Rex, “does it sound like they’re winning?”
“It sounds like they’re shooting a lot of bullets,” said Pearce. “If we were up above ground, we’d have comms. We could, you know. Ask.”
“Huh,” said Rex. “God damn underground monsters.”
“God damn,” agreed Pearce.
Carlisle wasn’t paying attention, eyes drawn to Everard as he jogged back to them. “You guys hear that?” he said.
“If you mean all the gunfire, yeah,” said Carlisle. “If it was something else, no.”
There was something in Everard’s expression. Like a desire, or a hunger. Figures. If you’d been tracked for thousands of years by a group of psychopaths who were hunting you and everything like you to extinction, sure, you’d want a piece of the payback pie. He turned his head back down the tunnel. Back into the dark, beyond where Carlisle’s light could reach. “I should…”
The Night's Champion Collection: A supernatural werewolf thriller trilogy Page 102