“I don’t understand what’s happening,” someone murmured.
“They’re saving our asses is what’s happening,” another said. “The ones in black are saving our asses.”
“Yeah, but what the fuck are they?”
Pounding erupted on the access doors above. General Lane leaned forward to examine one of the smaller monitors and swore. Several vampires had yanked a damned tree up by its roots and were using it as a battering ram to try to break through the heavy doors and reach the men below.
Marcus pointed to the monitor. “Where is this?”
General Lane took an AK-47 from a nearby soldier, then turned to the door and started shouldering his way through the wide-eyed throng. “I’ll show you.”
“Bring a couple dozen men with us,” Marcus ordered as he and his wife followed.
Colonel Colson, the officer who had greeted them upon their arrival, immediately began to issue orders.
Booms echoed down the hallway, a marcato accompaniment to the boots clomping rhythmically on the floor. Heavy doors that would ordinarily withstand the direct hit of a bunker-busting missile began to buckle.
The strength the vampires must be applying to it boggled the mind.
The immortal Marcus planted himself a few yards in front of the doors and turned to face them.
Gasps sounded as the soldiers in their midst got a better look at his attire and finally realized that one of the preternatural beings in black stood in their midst.
Marcus motioned to them. “Put your backs to the walls so they can only come at you from one direction.”
When no one moved, General Lane commanded, “Do as he says.”
The soldiers parted like the Red Sea and put their backs to the walls.
More heavily armed soldiers from the surveillance room jogged up the hallway and did the same, faces grim with determination.
Marcus accepted their presence with a nod. “Torso shots will slow them down enough for you to hit the major arteries here, here, here, and here.” He pointed out all of the major arteries on his own body, then drew short swords. “General Lane, you should consider returning to the—”
“I’m staying here.” He wasn’t going to ask these soldiers to do anything he wasn’t prepared to do himself.
“So be it. But I want you in the back, ready to issue orders should we fall and . . .” He turned to the small woman beside him. “I ask that you take Ami with you and see to her safety.”
Ami drew a couple of Glock 18s. “I’m staying here with you. I can see to my own safety, husband. You’ve seen me in battle before.”
“This is different.”
She arched a brow. “Different than the two of us standing against and defeating thirty-four vampires?”
“Holy shit,” a soldier whispered. “They are vampires.”
“I’m pretty sure this guy is, too,” another responded as Marcus’s eyes flashed amber.
Marcus smiled at his petite wife and shook his head. “You always were too stubborn for your own good.”
Grinning, she winked up at him. “Like minds.”
He laughed and, dipping his head, captured her lips in a long, hot kiss.
Eyebrows shot up as soldiers exchanged looks.
Another loud thunk thundered through the hallway, followed by a groan as the doors buckled a little more beneath the pounding.
Marcus ended the kiss. “General Lane, I still want you in the back. You’re too valuable to lose.”
General Lane didn’t know what that meant and sure as hell didn’t like that Marcus made it sound as though these men’s lives were somehow worth less than his own.
Do it. Seth spoke in General Lane’s head. You’re the only one here who is certain we are friend and not foe. If you fall, your men may decide to disregard your orders. Trust me when I say you won’t like what will happen to them if they start targeting my Immortal Guardians.
Though it grated, General Lane sought a position at the back of the long line of soldiers.
Marcus swiveled to face the doors, his feet braced a shoulder’s width apart, short swords clutched in his hands, shoulders relaxed as though he had done this a thousand times.
And perhaps he had.
His wife, Ami, put her back to the wall at the head of one line of soldiers and knelt. She reached for a rope looped over her shoulder and removed a one-by-four board, perhaps two feet long, that the general hadn’t noticed hung down her back. Six dark stripes adorned it at regular intervals. As General Lane and the other soldiers watched, she set her Glocks on the floor, drew six thirty-three-round magazines from her pockets, and attached them to the board. He frowned. By Velcro? That’s what those stripes on the board were? Velcro? And the other side of the Velcro had been glued to the bases of each mag.
When she finished, she had a Glock in each hand and six full magazines standing at attention before her.
She glanced at the soldiers and, noticing their curiosity, shrugged. “For fast and easy reload. Reaching into a pocket takes time I may not be able to afford.”
The soldier beside her cleared his throat. “You aren’t . . . one of them?” His eyes went to Marcus.
“No,” she said simply, “but they let me be part of the family anyway.”
“Here they come,” Marcus warned.
The soldiers all raised their weapons.
Tensions rose as the pounding continued.
Ami gasped.
Marcus jerked his head toward her. “What?”
She looked up at him with wide eyes. “Gershom is here.”
Seth appeared beside Ami, startling them all so badly General Lane was surprised no one fired a shot.
Katanas dripping scarlet liquid on the floor, he looked down at the redhead. “Where? Show me.”
Rising, she gripped his arm.
The two vanished.
Marcus swore as the first vampire clambered through the doors.
Chapter Seventeen
“Ethan!”
Ethan glanced over and saw Seth, with Ami at his side, motion to a long stairwell that led down to sunken doors.
Vampires gathering there used a huge tree trunk as a battering ram, pounding it over and over into the doors with such force that the trunk began to splinter apart. More vampires approached with a second uprooted tree, tearing away the foliage to hone their weapon.
Ethan looked to Seth. “Is General Lane down there?”
“Yes.”
Ethan finished off the vampire in front of him and shot toward the battering-ram vampires. No way in hell would he let anything happen to Heather’s father.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Roland and Sarah rush toward the same vampires and guessed that Marcus must be down there, too.
Ethan grunted as a vampire cut him across his middle. Lucky shot, the bastard. Ethan decapitated the vampire and pressed forward.
He, Roland, and Sarah reached the battering-ram vampires just as the doors bent enough to allow vampires to scramble inside, one or two at a time. Ethan and the others did their best to reduce those numbers, but more vampires raced up behind them as word spread that the compound had been breached.
How many damned vampires were there? This had to be the largest vampire army they had ever fought, which—considering recent events—was saying something.
Ethan had no idea how many he had slain. But he incurred so many wounds in the process that his energy began to flag, his movements to slow. He just wasn’t as strong as the older immortals present, something that always grated.
Richart and Jenna appeared in the vampires’ midst. Then Étienne and Lisette joined the fray.
Several vampires came at Ethan’s back. Gritting his teeth against the pain of yet another stab wound, he swung around to face them only to see them fly through the air as though they were mice being tossed by a playful cat.
Imhotep saluted him.
Ethan grinned. “Thanks.”
Smiling, the elder turned his blades on the other vam
pires bearing down on them.
Sean, Bastien, Melanie, and Krysta dove into the skirmish. They must have finally succeeded in wiping out all of the other vampires aboveground.
Seth and Zach were notably absent. But Ethan didn’t have time to ponder that as he cut his way to the damaged doors and dove through the hole after the remaining vampires.
Bullets sprayed him. Pain cut through his chest like a knife. Breathing became a struggle as a lung collapsed.
“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” Heather’s father bellowed. “He’s friendly!”
And damned if a human soldier didn’t dart forward and drag one of Ethan’s arms across his shoulders. Helping him to his feet (Ethan hadn’t even realized he had sunk to his knees), the soldier guided him to one side.
Ethan let the man take his weight for a moment as the virus within struggled to reinflate his lung. It succeeded, but the rest of Ethan’s wounds ceased healing.
Straightening, he nodded to the soldier. “Thanks. I’m okay now.”
The young man—he couldn’t have been more than twenty-one years old—gave him a disbelieving once-over.
Ethan laughed, then winced at the pain it caused. “I know. I look like shit. But I can still fight.” And fight he did, taking up a position beside Marcus and swinging his swords until the last damned vampire fell.
The human soldiers held their positions, still tucked up against the walls, none sporting injuries as far as Ethan could see.
Silence fell. At least he thought it did. His sensitive ears continued to ring from the loud gunfire even though it had ceased.
“All clear on this side,” Roland said outside the door.
“All clear up above, too,” Étienne added.
“All clear in here,” Marcus reported and sheathed his weapons. Turning, he examined Ethan. “You okay?”
Ethan nodded, trying not to wheeze too loudly. “I’m good.”
Turning his face up to the ceiling, Marcus bellowed, “Amiiiiiii!”
“I’m here!” she called from somewhere above.
Marcus shot through the damaged doors in a blur.
Ethan’s weapons hit the floor with a clatter as his grip faltered. Unable to remain standing, he dropped to his knees and sat back on his heels. His head drooped, too heavy to hold up, his chin touching his chest. He heard his fellow immortals moving around outside the doors and tried to muster enough energy to stand and go see how he could help them.
“Hey, man,” the young soldier who had helped Ethan earlier said tentatively, “you sure you’re okay?”
Weak from blood loss, Ethan nodded.
Heather’s father knelt beside him and touched his back. “Get a medic,” he ordered someone.
Now that the adrenaline rush had ceased, Ethan could feel every one of the dozens of cuts and gashes and puncture wounds the vampires had inflicted.
“Lie back,” General Lane ordered. Without waiting for a response, he eased Ethan onto his back on the floor.
Outside the door, Sarah said, “Roland, where’s Seth?”
“I don’t know. I don’t see him.”
“What about Zach?”
“I don’t see him either. Why? What’s up?”
“Ethan’s down,” she said.
“I’ll heal him.”
“You can’t. You’ve lost too much blood.”
“Richart!” Roland called. His ears must be ringing, too. He was talking a little louder than he normally would, as were all of the other immortals.
“Yeah?” Richart responded from a distance.
“Teleport to David’s, infuse yourself, then bring Ed and some of the Seconds back with you, along with a goodly supply of blood! Ethan’s down!” Roland stepped through the hole in the doors just as General Lane tore Ethan’s shirt open to examine his wounds.
Gasps sounded.
Oh, come on, Ethan thought. It can’t be that bad.
Based on Roland’s grim expression as he knelt beside the general, it could. “How the hell did you manage to stay on your feet?” the dour immortal growled.
Ethan couldn’t even manifest a shrug. And his head spun too much to shake it.
Shouldering the general aside, Roland rested a slick, ruby-soaked palm on Ethan’s chest.
Heat flowed into Ethan, easing the pain as Roland healed the worst of the wounds: those in Ethan’s chest and abdomen.
Soldiers crowded closer, whispering words of awe. A few crossed themselves.
Sarah clambered through the doors and caught Roland just as he began to sag to one side.
“Damn it,” she said, cradling her husband’s upper body in her arms and running a blood-streaked hand tenderly across his hair, “I told you you’d lost too much blood to heal him.”
“Ethan!” Ed shouted outside.
“Down here, Ed!” Sarah yelled back.
Ed scrambled through the hole in the door, pulling a cooler in after him.
Sarah looked to the general. “Could we get some privacy, General?”
General Lane looked to the soldiers. “Turn your backs and form a wall.”
The soldiers instantly did as bidden, standing shoulder to shoulder a few rows deep with their backs to them.
General Lane looked up at the camera attached to the ceiling near the doors. “Shut off the video feed!”
The red light on the camera went dark.
“Okay,” he said. “Go ahead.”
Ed knelt beside Ethan and opened the cooler.
Ethan thought the general’s face lost a little color when Ed started lifting out bags of blood and distributing them to the immortals.
His eyes on Heather’s father, Ethan raised the bag to his lips and sank his fangs into it, letting them siphon the blood into his veins. He was so depleted that he barely felt a difference after one bag, making him wonder just how much blood he had lost. Strength did flood Ethan’s limbs, however, with further infusions, drawing a sigh of relief from him.
Sitting up, he looked to the doors as Lisette and David entered.
“Where’s Seth?” Ethan asked.
Lisette swallowed. “We don’t know. He and Zach disappeared after Ami showed them where to find Gershom.”
A spark of worry flared. Both Seth and Zach could communicate telepathically over long distances. Surely they would have kept David and Lisette informed if they could.
“You’ve had no word from them at all?” he asked.
“None,” David admitted, face grim.
Heather paced David’s living room, unable to sit still.
An hour earlier, Richart had appeared out of nowhere, his face and form splattered with blood, and announced that Ethan was down. After ordering Ed to bring as much blood as he could carry, he had then teleported them both away. A moment later, he had returned for Tracy and Sheldon, then disappeared again.
“Ethan is okay, Heather,” Darnell assured her. “We would’ve heard by now if he wasn’t.”
He and the rest of the Seconds clustered around laptops, helping Chris and the network monitor the fallout, keeping an eye on the Internet to make sure none of the soldiers at the base tried to upload images or video to YouTube, Instagram, and similar sites.
Heather’s worry didn’t lessen. “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked, tucking her hands in her pockets. “The waiting is driving me crazy.”
Tanner, a tall blond who was so neat and tidy he looked like an accountant, entered from the hallway. “Would you like to help me get things ready for the immortals’ return?”
“Okay.” She thought Tanner might be Bastien’s Second.
Tanner guided her over to the dining room table, where they collected the leftover autoinjectors and returned them to a room he called the Armory.
Heather’s jaw dropped. Geez, it’s a good thing the ATF doesn’t know about this place.
The extent of the weapons stored there—so many that there were plenty left behind even with the immortals out and armed for bear—made her stare so long her eyes
dried out.
Tanner laughed. “I know, right? I had the same reaction the first time I saw it.”
Heather closed her gaping mouth and helped him put away the autoinjectors. “How exactly did you manage to buy so much without . . .”
“Triggering any government agency red flags?”
She nodded.
“Chris Reordon.”
Heather began to think that, even though he was human, Chris Reordon might just be as scary and intimidating as the immortals. That man had his hands in everything.
Once they had tucked away the autoinjectors, she and Tanner returned the handful of tranq guns and other weapons that had been left behind where they belonged. They then piled neatly folded towels on the dining room table and added bowls of fruit, along with a couple of platters heaped with dozens of sandwiches they prepared together.
“Judging by Richart’s appearance,” Heather broached hesitantly, “the battle was . . . pretty grisly. I don’t understand how they can eat after that.”
“It isn’t because they aren’t affected by it or have become desensitized to it over the centuries,” Tanner responded. “It’s just the way their bodies work. They burn through calories and energy faster than we do, particularly when fighting, so they’re always ravenously hungry after a battle.” He grinned. “Especially Lisette.”
Heather wrinkled her nose. “But won’t they be covered in blood?”
“Yeah. After a battle this size, they’ll pretty much look as if they went swimming in a vat of it. But they can shower it off and be back up here, ready to eat, in seconds. The towels are for their hair. None of them will take the time to dry it.”
Heather applauded Tanner for thinking of everything the immortals would need upon their return, things she would have never thought of herself. But at the same time, she thought it sad that the powerful men and women had been through nights like this so often that he would know what they would need afterward.
Theirs was a dark and dangerous world. So contrary to the afternoon she had shared with Ethan, Lisette, Zach, Tracy, and Sheldon. The romantic dinner. The dancing. The laughter.
As she waited for Ethan to return, Heather vowed to give him many more days and nights like that in the future.
Shadows Strike Page 28