by Megan Hawke
“Yeah, that’ll happen,” Gabe said, scowling. “Apparently, Victoria’s brothers don’t care for her newfound appreciation of full moons.”
“He’s right. They won’t help us,” Dane said. “Those people hold grudges.”
Unfortunately, the Van Viegens and our group were it when it came to organized vampire slayers in North Texas. There were always rogue vamp slayers turning up here and there, some passing through, others protecting themselves by working alone, but nothing else organized. We had no one to call for backup.
Of course, while discussing all of that, Gabe got to show off all his sweet toys. He showed us how he made the silver bullets and buckshot. How he cased the swords, knives, and daggers in silver. He could even etch in the crucifixes. Gabe was Catholic, so he usually got his own priest to bless them. Since none of us were Jewish or Muslim, or any other non-Christian religion, there were no holy symbols other than Christian.
~**~**~
It was almost sundown, and we had polished off two pepperoni pizzas and one with everything, including anchovies. My phone rang again. “Hello?”
"Hello, Sable Hart."
"Hello, Yuri Romanov."
"It will be sunset soon, and time for us to meet. Dress sexy. I like my women in high heels and tight latex."
"Of course you do. Vampires are all perverts. Stop calling me."
He hung up. Again.
"I have an idea," Gabe said. "Did he call from a cell phone?"
I had to think. His voice was kinda tinny. "Maybe."
"Excellent," he said, now excited. "Y'all listen up. We can use that to locate them."
"How?" Dane said.
"Every tower within range of your phone picks up your signal," he said. "So the phone company can triangulate the signals and know exactly where you are."
"Not exactly," Dane said, but his face lit up. "They can narrow it down to an area, but not exactly where you are."
"Okay, maybe you're right. Basic area, but some cells, like Sabe’s smartphone, have GPS and if Yuri’s phone has that too…" he said, and was interrupted by my cell ringing.
I rolled my eyes. “It’s Yuri again. Jesus, can’t he take a hint?”
“Answer it,” Gabe said. “We need to keep stringing him along.”
I sighed. Talking to Yuri was not my idea of pleasant.
"What now, Yuri?"
"Hello Sable Hart. I hope you take my advice and change into something sexy for me. If you do, I will be easier on you. Just submit, and I will make it so sweet."
"You make me sick." I hung up. Point for me. I shrugged when I noticed everyone staring at me. "He's a perv. Wants me to dress sexy for him."
"Now I've seen everything," Wendy said, shaking her head. "A vampire slayer getting obscene phone calls from a vampire."
"Please continue, Gabe," Anson said. "I think you might be onto something."
"Thanks. Like I was saying, I can call my friend. I’ll give him your number, and you hit call back. Yuri answers, and you speak with him a few minutes. Long enough for my friend to trace the call to the vicinity he’s in, and we head over there. And if he has GPS on his phone, we’ll have an exact location."
"Brilliant, Gabe," Dane said. They actually high-fived each other. Men. "Once we know where to find them, as soon as the sun rises, we go over and stake every damned one of them."
"I like it," I said. “You guys are the best.” It was the first smile I’d felt all day.
We all sat there for a long moment grinning at each other.
I glanced at Gabe. "Wow, I'm impressed a second time with you today. That's got to be a record."
No sexual innuendo comeback, either. I think he was flattered speechless.
“Now is as good a time as any," Dane said. "While Gabe calls —"
My phone rang. Of course. It was Yuri. I needed to keep him on the line while Gabe called his friend and got the ball rolling.
"You really can’t get enough of me, can you, bloodsucker?"
"Hello Sable Hart. I think if you went down to Crazy Girls you might find an outfit I would like."
"Bastard! This is the last call I answer."
I hung up. I so wanted to slam the receiver down. Can't do that with a cell. So I punched End hard.
"What?" Dane said. “Why’d you hang up so fast?”
"His smug voice drives me crazy."
"Why does he keep calling?" Wendy said. “It doesn’t make sense.”
"He wants to harass me."
"Uh… you don't think…" Anson said. He looked kind of worried. "You don't think they had the same idea as we did, do you?"
"What idea?"
"You know, using the cell phone signals to track us."
"Don't be absurd," Gabe said.
"Vampires aren't that tech-savvy. I've heard that the older vamps…" I said, and then remembered his last comment about Crazy Girls. My chest tightened. "Gabe, what's the name of the strip bar at the other end?"
"You mean Crazy Girls?"
I was on my feet in an instant, wild-eyed and frantic. Trapped like a rat in a hole.
"He's found us!"
"What?" Dane said.
Everyone looked around warily.
"Yuri. He said… he told me to go down to Crazy Girls and get an outfit."
The sound of car doors slamming out front sent all of us scrambling for cover.
Chapter 4
"It's not dark yet," I said.
Could Yuri be out there? Answer: Yes. He could go anywhere inside a light-proof vehicle.
"Grab something big!" Gabe said. "Spears and javelins are only for the killing blow."
I yanked my hair back in a ponytail to keep it out of my face. I put on a Micro Uzi double shoulder holster. I wanted as many guns as possible at my disposal. I holstered two Micro Uzis and shoved four more magazines into my back pockets. I pushed an Uzi pistol down the front of my jeans. Then I strapped a katana across my back. Finally, I picked up an AK47 with a seventy-round drum magazine, along with four more drums. It fired 7.62mm, unlike the 5.56mm of the M16A2s he also had. I wanted bigger bullets hitting these undead bastards.
"Someone turn out the lights," Wendy said.
Dane and I looked at each other. He spoke first. "Why?"
"Yeah, vampires can see better in the dark than we can." I racked the AK47's charging handle as I spoke. "Light this place up. I want to see their eyes when I pump fifty rounds of silver into them in twenty seconds.”
"You're right. My bad," Wendy said, putting an ammo belt into an M60 and slapping it closed. She racked the charging handle. "Just a little rattled. Disregard."
"Consider yourself disregarded," Anson said, grinning.
Gabe's maroon pickup was parked in the inside bay, with Dane's Explorer by the far wall. Everyone froze as someone outside started to raise the bay door behind Gabe's truck.
Dane held up a warning hand. "Hold your fire. Be absolutely sure before you pull the trigger."
I was in the corner opposite the bay doors, crouched behind a heavy wooden work table. It offered no real protection from bullets, and only made it harder to see me. The table did provide a good place to steady my weapon and lay out four more drum magazines. I found two javelins and leaned against the table within easy reach. I propped my elbows up on the table, steadying the AK47 as I sighted in on the man opening that first bay.
"Get ready," Dane said. We all put on our wraparound sunglasses. "They're about to come in."
Ten men stormed through the bay door, all carrying Uzis. Big hulking men in their twenties or early thirties. Those boys never stood a chance. Dumb asses. The bay doors were a bottleneck, and our five automatic weapons butchered them. Wendy's M60 especially did a number on them, the rest of us were there to increase the overkill factor.
“Jesus,” Wendy said. She sounded strained, like she was about to get sick. “We killed… Oh God, this is not good.”
Bile rose in my throat and a queasy tremor filled my belly. I couldn’t look at the bod
ies. We hadn’t killed the undead. Yuri had made us kill mortals. I couldn’t dwell on it or I’d be worthless in the coming fight.
“One more thing Yuri has to pay for,” I muttered through clenched teeth.
Before the twitching bodies settled, the men still outside opened fire on the side of the building. The walls were mostly sheet metal and plywood. The bullets punched through them like sharp sticks through paper, and made a God-awful noise, too.
We turned our weapons towards the wall and fired back.
I shouted to be heard. "I'm afraid your little armory is history, Gabe. We'll probably cut the place in half."
"Cool. I have a better place down the street."
"You brought us to your castoff?"
"Yep. Besides, I haven't completely moved into the other place yet."
Figures. Gabe was the most secretive of the group. Wendy had been his partner for three years and she didn't know half of what Gabe did.
The thralls finally stopped firing. Our shots petered out a moment later. We looked back and forth between each other. I didn't hear any sirens yet. But the cops would arrive sooner or later. That much lead can't be traded without the government getting involved.
No one had to say it. We all knew what the sudden cessation of fire meant. Vampires. The Lords of the Night had arrived and were taking over the fight.
Gabe growled in the most frightening way.
Yuri's voice filled the night. "Sable Hart, come out, my love." That voice wasn't natural. There was power in it. I didn't like it. "I do so hope you have dressed for the occasion."
Gabe laughed. The sound echoed in the shot up building. Would he morph? Though I had known him for more than a year, I’d never seen Gabe in wolf or wolfman form. Dane said he was quite impressive. Huge.
"Monster," I shouted. "I'd rather die!"
"Oh, you will, but then I will reanimate you. Corpses can not fight back, Sable Hart. No one can stop me from doing anything I want with you."
Dane stood up, face fierce.
"Oh my God." It finally sank in. I really could be killed and reanimated. Yuri's undead plaything forever. "Dane, don't let them have me. If I die, cut my heart out and destroy it. Or chop off my head."
Dane looked horrified, but then nodded grimly.
“Gabe!” I cried. “Wendy! Anson! Promise me!”
“Consider it done, Sabe,” he said. Then he winked at me, his face still fierce with battlelust. “But I’d rather cut off Yuri’s head.”
Wendy and Anson nodded.
“Sounds good to me,” I said.
Dane said, “If any vamp touches you, I’ll chop off his head and shit down his throat.”
“That’s my man!”
"They're coming in!" Anson cried.
I could hear feet walking towards us. Yuri had seven or eight vampires following him. Did anyone really know for sure? I staked Yves in the club, but I suspected the twins had saved him by removing the stake.
"Does everyone have a sword?" I asked. "Stun them with silver bullets, and then move in for the kill."
Looking out the open bay door, I saw a line of red spots. It took me a moment to realize it was the vampires’ eyes reflecting the light. They rushed towards us as one. Yves was the first one to emerge from the darkness.
“Dammit,” I whispered as I took aim and pulled the trigger.
My AK47 hit him square in the chest, causing the pretty boy vamp to dance a little jig before falling down. Bet that hurt. The other vamps were blurs to me as I concentrated on Yves. People were screaming threats in English, Russian, and French as they closed with us.
Grabbing a javelin, I ran around the table. Yves was struggling to stand, so I hit him with another burst. When I reached him I dropped the assault rifle and thrust the javelin into his chest with both hands. He rolled at the last second, so I missed his heart.
“You!” Yves said.
I pulled my sword. “Yeah. Me.” I swung for his throat.
Yves threw up an arm to block my stroke. The katana’s keen blade sliced right through it, and as it fell, I took off his head with the next stroke.
“No coming back from that,” I said. I sheathed the bloody blade and picked up the AK47 as I looked around for Yuri. I so wanted to use that Russian assault rifle on the Russian vampire. “Hey, Yuri! I thought a big, bad vamp like you would lead the charge! Don’t you want to personally claim your bad conduct prize?”
Then I saw something scarier than Yuri. Claude was straddling Dane to my left. His had Dane by a fistful of hair and I watched as he jerked Dane's head back, exposing the throat. I screamed and pulled the trigger as I charged them. I pumped a dozen silver bullets into Claude’s chest in half as many seconds, knocking him off my boyfriend.
Dane rolled over and scrambled away. I didn't care. I was in a rage. They would not get Dane. He was mine. He was above their foul touch.
"Hello, Sable." I turned to find Petra grinning at me.
She backhanded me, breaking my sunglasses. I lost hold of my AK47 as I flew backwards over a table. I landed as gracefully as I could under the circumstances – on my head. Bullet-loading supplies rained down on me. Then she jumped clean over the table.
"I have to thank you for staking Anastasia." She leaned over me, her nose just an inch from mine. "I didn't like her."
Petra lifted me up off the floor and threw me across the room. I smashed into the wall, head and shoulder first. I hit the floor even less gracefully that time.
"She's mine," Claude said, pushing Petra aside as they strode towards me.
There was an Uzi pistol on the floor next to me. I picked it up and started pumping silver bullets into his chest. Claude stopped dead in his tracks. He grimaced and groaned, but Petra continued towards me. I turned the gun on her. The Uzi’s power stopped her too and she went down.
And then the Uzi locked open. Empty.
I dragged myself to my knees, tossing the gun away as I reached for the katana again. Dane was nowhere to be seen. Was he dead? Did he escape? I prayed he was smart and got the hell out of Dodge. Gabe was still fighting out front. I could hear his gun firing, and he was cursing a blue streak. The man had a foul mouth in the best of times.
“Ay!” a man cried.
I saw Wendy still holding a javelin she’d just thrust through a vampire. I hadn’t seen him before. She’d missed his heart, but raw wood still hurt enough to slow them down, and this time it had succeeded in pinning this one to the ground. Anson’s sword swung down and lobbed off his head. He yanked Wendy to her feet and they darted out through the bay door. They worked so well together.
Someone grabbed a fistful of my hair from behind. The vampire turned me to face him. I expected Yuri, but it was Olaf, with the twins right behind him. I was the only human in the shop now. The fighting had moved outside without me.
"Are you ready to meet Yuri, Sable Hart?"
"No." I reached both arms across my chest, and jerked out the two Micro Uzis. "Go to Hell!"
I pulled the triggers and blasted a large X across his undead chest. When he didn't release me, I kneed him in the nuts. That made him let go. I wished for a stake, or a javelin. He wouldn’t be vulnerable for long. Then I remembered the sword.
One of the twins jumped forward, startling me as I released one Micro Uzi and reached back for the hilt. I glanced at her. She smiled up at me. Her big blue eyes locked on mine.
I froze, a jolt of unholy magic ripping through me and squeezing all thought from my mind. I was caught in her hypnotic gaze.
"Stop fighting. Drop your weapons."
I stopped and dropped. I was hers to command.
"Look at me," Olaf said. I obeyed. His gaze proved more powerful, forcing a grunt from my lips as his power surged through me like ice water through my veins. I belonged to him. No second thoughts on my part. I knew my master when I saw him. "Good. Yuri wants you brought to him right away. Come with me."
"Okay." A bullet hit the bottom of my left breast, and straight across the b
ottom of the right. The impact made them bounce up as the wounds erupted in fiery pain. It broke Olaf's spell, and I was in control of myself again. "Sweet Jesus!"
It hurt like a hot brand to the eyeball. I'd never been shot before. I clutched at my breasts and tried to run away. One of the twins caught me by the ponytail, snapping the rubber band. Her savage jerk wrenched my neck and sent me flying backwards to smash my lower back into the left front bumper of Gabe's pickup.
In a heartbeat they were both on top of me, pushing me up on top of the hood. I was in too much pain to fight them. It felt like my back was broken, and maybe my neck too. They were killing me, one excruciating injury at a time.
As the platinum blonde twins crawled on top of me they sniffed and nuzzled the wounds on my boobs, so I reached my right hand to my waistband and pulled the Uzi pistol. One of them caught my wrist, pulled it slowly up to her mouth and sank those wicked fangs in.
"Bitch!" I screamed.
My hand convulsed and the Uzi pistol was lost.
"I'm fixin’ to stake your asses to a tree and watch the sun vaporize you."
"Oooh, she still has some spunk left," one twin said. Her nose, lips, and chin were smeared with blood. My blood. She gave me a lusty, hungry look. I averted my eyes. See? I can learn new tricks. "You taste delicious."
She forced my head back, exposing my throat. I tried to fight her, but my injuries sucked the strength from my limbs. I was like a babe in her arms.
Her fangs pressed into the soft flesh of my throat. The other twin was licking at the blood on one of my boobs, groaning with pleasure. My mind began to spin. I couldn't believe it would all end like this.
"No! Yuri wants to be first!" I cried.
She hesitated, breathing hard. They shared a look. Something passed between them, then they bared their fangs and turned back to me. So much for that ruse.
"She's not for you or Yuri," Dane said, and pressed two Uzis to their backs above their hearts and pulled the trigger.
The twins screamed in pain and scrambled away as bullets ripped all the way through their bodies and pounded into the hood of the pickup on either side of me.
“Jesus Christ! Are you fucking trying to kill me, too?” I cried.