We’re going to die right here if we don’t get up, she thought, and the resulting bolt of adrenaline that coursed through her body helped to clear her mind. She pulled her leg out from under Theroen’s, rolled sideways and up on to her knees, and looked up in time to see the first black-clad figure come rushing at her, a gun in one hand and a sword in the other.
Allowing instinct to take over, Two reached out and grabbed one of the bottles of expensive wine that had fallen from the table. She cocked her arm back and hurled it at the man with all of her strength. The throw was awkward, delivered as it was from her knees, but luck was with her. Rather than bouncing off the man’s padded chest, the bottle crashed into his kneecap and he howled in pain and surprise, losing his footing and falling to the ground.
Two took the opportunity to haul herself to her feet. Beside her, Theroen was doing the same.
“This is fucking bad,” she said, looking around. Smoke had filled the upper half of the cathedral already; beyond the explosions, several areas of the building were now on fire. Groups of vampires were engaging with the Children’s forces, and Two could hear the clash of metal on metal and the occasional gunshot. Someone shrieked in agony.
“Get back. Two, get back!” Theroen roared, and she felt his hand grip her shoulder and pull, hauling her backwards and swinging her around so hard that she stumbled and bounced off the stone wall, the impact knocking the wind out of her. As he did this, Two heard the flat crack of a rifle firing and understood that Theroen had probably just saved her life.
The man who had been running at her was getting to his feet now, and Two, recovered somewhat from the crash against the wall, resolved not to let him do so. She dashed forward and swung her fist as hard as she could at his unprotected head. She heard his skull crack, and his body dropped again to the ground. She reached down, picked up his sword and pistol, and ducked into the rows of pews that stood on either side of the central nave.
“Theroen!” she shouted. “Get the fuck over here!”
Theroen came leaping over the top of the bench and landed with a thud beside her. He glanced up and said, “That’s my only thanks for keeping your head attached to your shoulders?”
“No, you get this too, here …” Two handed him the pistol, keeping the blade for herself. “Also, I owe you amazing post-trauma sex. Now, what the fuck do we do?”
“I don’t think leaving from the front door is an option,” Theroen said. “I suggest that we make our way toward—get down!”
They dropped again to the floor, and to their left a Molotov cocktail of some sort exploded, sending flames in every direction and lighting several pews on fire.
“This position is untenable,” Theroen commented.
“Seriously.”
“There is an emergency exit on the second floor, and a staircase that leads to it behind the sacristy.”
“The what?” Two asked, baffled. She had never set foot in a church in her life before coming to the vampire council.
“The holy storage closet,” Theroen said, pointing. “There.”
“Oh, OK. Let’s do that.”
“Yes. You go first. Keep your head down. If one of us is going to get shot in the back, I would prefer it be me.”
“Well, I wouldn’t! We should—”
“I am much older and much stronger than you, and thus more likely to survive if it happens,” Theroen said. “Two, this is simple logic. Just go.”
Two made a noise of disgust, turned, and began to scuttle out along the wall at the edge of the pews. They had almost reached the front when another explosion rocked the cathedral, this one coming from inside. Two could hear screams of agony and smell something like grilling meat.
“Was that a fucking grenade?!” she cried.
“I think so, yes,” Theroen called back. “Keep moving!”
Two reached the foremost pew and halted there, letting Theroen catch up to her. By the podium, she saw William doing furious battle, fighting an athletic black woman with long, braided hair. This must be the woman that Matthias had told them about, Two realized, but she couldn’t remember the name he had given them.
She looked very talented, and while William was old and quite fast, he was not a practiced fighter. He was having a hard time staving off her advances, particularly as she was using a sword and he was wielding what Two thought was a four-foot candlestick.
“We have to help—” Two began, and before she could finish, the woman made a spin move that would have left even Jakob impressed, twirling the blade around over her head and then driving it past William’s defenses and into his chest. He fell to his knees and the woman pulled the weapon from his body. Without hesitation, without showing the merest pang of sympathy, she cut his head from his shoulders.
A voice screamed from near them – a shrieking, broken cry that contained no words – and Two saw Naomi come stumbling down the nave, the right half of her face blackened and cracked, her clothes smoldering, her left arm pouring blood. She began to cry out a negative over and over again as if the word could somehow reverse what had happened.
The black woman glanced up at Naomi and also caught sight of Theroen, who was aiming his pistol at her. She dove down into the crawlspace behind the altar as he fired four shots in rapid succession. None connected.
“Damn it!” he snarled, and he leapt forward, intercepting Naomi, who had been racing toward the altar, and grabbing her around the waist.
“Let me go!” she screamed at him, turning and clawing at his face, but Theroen merely spun again and began hauling her back toward Two and the entrance to the stairwell.
It looked for a moment like they would make it, and then Theroen stopped in his tracks, looking up at the balcony above them and bearing his teeth. There was another harsh, cracking noise, and Theroen was spun sideways as the bullet caught him in the shoulder. The force of it threw him and Naomi to the ground.
Two heard herself screaming his name and turned to see a tall man with a dark crew-cut standing on the balcony, holding a rifle. He began to swing the weapon around toward her, and Two threw the blade she was holding at him. It flew through the air and hit the rifleman in the forehead, driving deep into his skull. His eyes rolled up and he dropped his weapon, then pitched forward and fell from the balcony.
By the time his body had landed, Two had already turned back, racing toward Theroen’s prone figure. He was lying in a rapidly expanding pool of his own blood, not moving, and Two dropped to her knees next to him. To her great relief, she felt him take a breath when she put her hands on him.
“That was very painful,” he said, coughing as she rolled him over, and Two made a noise that was half laugh, half sob.
“I thought you were dead,” she told him.
“Are you sure I am not?” Theroen asked. “I expected that to be a head shot.”
“He hit your shoulder. Here … no, keep pressure on it … Jesus fucking Christ, don’t you die again.”
“I will live,” Theroen said, and he struggled to a sitting position. “We have to get out of here.”
“Yeah, OK, but use this first.” Two pulled her thin leather belt off and handed it to Theroen. She then tore a length of fabric from the black skirt she was wearing. She pressed this against the exit wound in Theroen’s back – the bleeding was already slowing, to her relief – and with his help used the belt to cinch it there. Once she was sure he was going to survive she turned to Naomi, who was lying on the floor, sobbing.
“Naomi, you gotta get up.”
“Fuck you,” Naomi said, her voice muffled by the rug into which she was pressing her face.
“Sure, yeah, fuck me. Fuck everyone. You still have to get up.”
“Leave me alone. I’m dying. I want to die.”
“I want a bath and a massage and a glass of blood, but that’s not happening, either. You’re not dying – and you’re definitely not dying here, even if I have to drag you out by your ankles. Get up!”
Groaning, Naomi struggled
first to her knees and, taking Two’s outstretched hand, regained her feet. She glared at Two, tears coursing down her burnt face.
“Stop pretending that you care about me!” she snarled.
“Stop telling me I don’t!” Two shouted back.
“This is the single worst possible time to have this discussion,” Theroen said, putting his free hand on Two’s shoulder. He was using the other to keep the belt tight around his wound. “May I suggest we focus on surviving the night?”
“She started it,” Two muttered, but she turned back toward the sacristy, pushing Naomi ahead of her. They reached the body of the sniper and Two reached down to retrieve her weapon, putting her foot on the man’s neck for leverage.
Theroen and Naomi had reached the door to the stairwell just ahead of the rapidly encroaching flames, and stood waiting for Two. She took a step toward them and then heard a hoarse shout from behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw, through the haze of the smoke, two figures holding off a group of Children soldiers.
The haze broke, and she saw that it was Jakob and Sasha, battered and burned but still fighting. Jakob had acquired a blade from somewhere, but Sasha had been forced to improvise; she was wielding her prosthetic left arm with her right hand, using it as a sort of mace and doing so with surprising effectiveness.
Instinctively, Two turned to help them, and she heard Theroen call her name. Looking back at him, she shouted, “I can’t leave them. Get Naomi up on the fire escape! We’ll meet you there.”
Theroen gave her a long look and for a moment she thought he would abandon Naomi and come try to talk her out of it, but then he clenched his jaw, shook his head, took Naomi by the upper arm, and led her into the stairwell.
“Sorry, babe,” Two muttered, turning back toward Sasha and Jakob. “But you knew what you were getting into when you picked me.”
There were six soldiers surrounding Jakob and Sasha when Two reached them. She struck one down immediately and killed another before he could fully swing around to face her. A third managed to parry her blow, but Jakob stabbed him through the neck from behind, and within moments they had made short work of the other three.
“Good to see you alive,” Jakob said.
“You too. Anyone else left?”
“Not that I know of. I saw Richard’s body but couldn’t reach it. Leonore’s assistant James was killed as well. Kanene hauled Peter’s body out through the hole in the wall … I don’t know what she encountered outside, but there is no chance he’s alive. Did you see what happened to anyone else?”
“Naomi’s burnt up pretty bad and Theroen got shot in the shoulder, but they got out through the emergency exit on the second floor. William … William’s dead.”
“Are you sure?” Jakob asked, looking stunned.
“Yeah, I’m … they cut his head off, Jakob.”
“Animals,” he growled, teeth clenched.
Sasha started to say something and began coughing instead, choking on the thick black smoke that was filling up the room now that the cathedral’s main supports had caught fire. Her prosthetic arm would take several minutes to reattach, and they did not have the time. She tossed it away angrily, still coughing, and picked up a blade from one of her fallen enemies.
Two could hear sirens, which sounded like both police and fire vehicles, coming from outside. It seemed an eternity since the battle had started, and yet she suspected it had been only minutes.
“I think most of their forces have pulled back,” Jakob said. “That’s a fine thing, but we need to get out of here before we asphyxiate.”
“Yes, please,” Two said. “I told Theroen we’d meet them outside on the roof. Come on.”
She turned to go, but Jakob put a hand on her shoulder and pointed.
“The sacristy is an inferno. The staircase must be as well. We’ve no chance of getting up there.”
“Shit,” Two said. “I don’t … we can’t get back up front, either. Fire’s too big. Any ideas?”
“There’s an exit in the office wing, if it’s still in a state to be passed,” Sasha said, having regained her voice.
“I chased two soldiers back there earlier,” Jakob said, shaking his head. “The exit is under a pile of rubble. But there is another way out. At least, if it hasn’t been compromised as well. Come on.”
He led them toward the wing that held the cathedral’s offices, keeping his head low in case any members of the Children with firearms were still somewhere out in the smoke and flames. Two and Sasha followed, and they soon came to a hallway that had lower ceilings but much less smoke. On either side were a number of plain, brown doors that Two knew opened into offices for some of the higher members of the council. One of them was William’s, or had been; Two supposed whatever was left of it when the fires were put out would belong to Naomi.
They were headed toward a T-intersection at the end of the hallway when she heard voices behind them. “Three more!” someone cried.
The trio pulled up short, spinning to face whomever it was that was trailing them. Two saw before her the black woman that had killed William – Vanessa, Two remembered suddenly; her name was Vanessa – along with three men. The one standing in front, just behind the woman, had long, dirty-blonde hair in a ponytail and several days of beard growth. Behind him was a stout, pale man with short, red hair. A thin man with tan skin and dark hair brought up the rear.
The soldiers were all carrying blades, and the man with the blonde ponytail was also carrying an assault rifle. As the vampires turned to face them, he dropped to one knee and took aim.
“Give the word, lieutenant,” he said, but Vanessa held up her hand, cocking her head and appraising the vampires.
“No, not without the Captain,” she said. “Not these three.”
“Whoever your Captain is, he has probably died from smoke inhalation,” Jakob said.
“What, just like the rest of us?” Vanessa asked, her voice filled with disgusted loathing.
“Sasha, sa etrome icha, vi na prave ocha,” Jakob said, and Two felt a momentary pang of regret that she hadn’t worked harder to learn the constructed vampire language. The words went by too fast for her to decipher them.
“Da,” Sasha said, and without further comment the two of them rushed forward. Two, apparently forgotten, was caught momentarily off guard and had time to wonder about the sanity of rushing head-on at a man holding an assault rifle. Then she, too, found herself moving, blade held high. What choice was there?
“Christ!” The man with the red hair shouted.
The lieutenant seemed to agree, rethinking her previous order. “Fire! Fire!” she shouted, and the man with the ponytail didn’t argue. He leveled his weapon at Jakob and pulled the trigger.
There was a staccato burst of sound, and Two thought it sure she would see her friend riddled with bullets. But even as the man had begun shooting, Jakob had leapt and dove, rolling on the floor under the weapon’s line of fire in a movement that seemed more befitting a gymnast than a fighter. Acting with a sort of liquid grace that Two had never seen him display before, he came back to his feet on the left side of the man with the gun, struck out with his blade, and severed the man’s hand at the wrist. The gun dropped to the ground, hand still attached and jerking at the trigger, and it fired a few more shots into the wall before going silent.
Jakob paused for the merest instant, and Two had time to think, Jesus … I never really beat him. He could have killed me in the first minute every time we fought. Then the ponytailed man began to scream and Jakob was moving again, swinging his sword at the man’s neck. It was only thanks to Vanessa’s speed and proficiency that her soldier wasn’t immediately decapitated. She parried Jakob’s blow off to the right, and his sword hit the wall.
Sasha, meanwhile, had engaged with both of the other men at the same time, fighting with only one arm but nonetheless holding her own. Two caught up with her, having swung in that direction to avoid the gunfire, and attempted to stab the red-haired man in
the back. He spun at the last moment, avoiding her blow and swinging his own sword at her neck. Two blocked, stepped sideways, swung again. The man met her attack and stepped away from Sasha and her opponent, clearing space.
“That’s fucking honorable,” he snarled at Two as their blades crashed. “Stab a guy in the back? Fucking vampires.”
“Honorable like blowing up a church full of people without warning?” Two snapped back. “Or like murdering a woman who hadn’t harmed a fly in four thousand years?”
Two glanced over toward the others and saw that Sasha was still engaged with her opponent but clearly overwhelming him. He was backing away, desperately parrying her blows, but had gotten turned around and was actually moving deeper into the office wing instead of back toward his fellow soldiers. In another moment, the two of them disappeared around a corner.
Jakob was now fighting both Vanessa and the man whose hand he had chopped off. He didn’t seem to be struggling. If anything, it appeared that the two humans were in deep trouble. Two turned back, not willing to take her eyes off her adversary any longer.
“Looking for help?” the red-haired man asked her, and Two gave a scoffing laugh.
“Dude, I’m just keeping you busy ‘til my friends kill off the rest of you assholes. Then I’ll finish the job.”
The man scowled at her. “Keep talking, bat. Keep fucking talking. I made it through before, and there were three of you then.”
Two could see that he was tiring. More and more of his movements were focused on defense rather than pressing forward. Between her training, strength, and stamina, Two wasn’t even winded. She almost felt bad, for a moment, before remembering that this man and his friends had already slaughtered half of the council.
“Getting tired of this, buddy,” she said. She hazarded another glance over her shoulder and saw Jakob slash his blade across the throat of the man with the missing hand. His head lolled backward and the gash opened wide, spraying blood like a fountain. The black woman screamed a name – Two couldn’t make it out – but there was nothing she could do; her fellow soldier was already falling to the ground, dead. Furious, she redoubled her efforts against Jakob. Two turned back to her assailant.
The II AM Trilogy Collection Page 92