He looked at me, then at Manny, then back at me.
Just then, the ground under our feet rumbled.
There was no pre-shock that time, no light tremble to warn us what was coming.
The first jerk came hard and fast, the stone rippling like liquid under my feet.
It threw me down, hard.
The motion jerked me off my feet before I had time to think about keeping my balance. I landed on the palm of my left hand, the gun I gripped in my right hand, and my knees––slamming into the rock hard enough to jar the bones and crush my right hand under the gun, making me cry out right as Manny landed on top of me.
I groaned, sure I’d broken at least a few fingers, when the gun in Manny’s hand went off.
I stared up past his shoulder to see everyone around us lose their balance and fall.
Screams echoed in the cave, more gunshots.
Then everything around us erupted in chaos.
23
DEATH AND DYING
GUNS STARTED GOING off for real, seemingly all around me.
I flinched at each one, even as I looked up, right as Black launched himself at Wolf, moving as the earth continued to move and shake under my hands. The shifting tectonic plates threw Black sideways so that he half-landed on Charles.
Wolf’s gun went off and I saw Black jerk back and flinch.
Then he snarled at Wolf, his teeth bared.
I gasped when I realized he’d been hit, groaning in pain as if the bullet hit me.
Then he and Wolf were wrestling over Charles’ body, the knife and gun both gripped in each of Wolf’s hands. I saw Black catch hold of one of Wolf’s wrists, slamming it viciously against the rock. He did it hard enough that I swear I heard the bone break, even above the sound of the rumbling earth.
From the way Wolf held it after Black pulled it off the rock, I wasn’t wrong.
Wolf let out an animal-sounding howl, dropping the gun.
Black tried to slam Wolf’s other wrist against the rock in the same way, but couldn’t get the same leverage on that side, and Wolf flipped the knife, forcing Black to loosen his grip and slashing him across the chest with the silver blade.
Black let out an angry sound, then punched Wolf right in the face.
He hit him again when Wolf slashed his arm with the knife, then Black caught hold of his wrist again, that time with both hands.
By then, Manny had rolled off me, groaning as he gripped the rock floor, panting.
I was crawling towards Black, still getting thrown sideways by the shaking ground.
I’d only made it about halfway when something large and furry leapt on my back. The weight of it slammed me into the rock, knocking the wind out of me. Teeth sank into my shoulder, and I shrieked out in pain.
Around me, guns continued to go off, but I couldn’t track who was firing, or at what.
I tried to twist under the wolf, to pull my arm out from under me. My right hand still, miraculously, gripped the handle of the XDM Compact, despite the fact that it practically broke my hand when I fell on it.
I managed to pull it out from under me, gasping, but Black’s body was between me and Wolf, and I couldn’t get it at the right angle to fire it at the animal on my back. Taking a deep breath, I flung my weight to one side, shrieking when the teeth sank deeper into my shoulder, tearing at the flesh and muscle.
I got the room I wanted though, flipping enough to my side that I could aim.
I shot the wolf in the chest. I fired again when its jaws didn’t loosen.
The second shot did the trick.
Gasping, fighting to crawl out from under the dead wolf, I got most of it off me when another set of teeth sank into my leg.
Those didn’t feel like they belonged to a wolf.
I let out a drawn-out shriek, as much in terror as pain that time, shoving at the wolf to try and sit up, to look at what had attached itself to the artery on my thigh.
I finally got vertical enough to see it. Red eyes glared up at me from where the vampire was drinking straight from the vein.
I felt my vision tilt as something hit my bloodstream, slamming into me like a few shots of tequila. I fought the gun out from under me again, and shot the vampire in the chest, even as a second one attached itself to my other leg, making me gasp again as another jolt of that drug-like substance hit my system.
I raised the gun again, with more of an effort that time.
My vision was already doubling when I fired that time.
Another one was feeding on me already though, that time on my shoulder, where the wolf had torn me open before. Still half-pinned by the wolf on my chest and side, I let out a weaker cry, raising the gun, but the angle was bad, and I couldn’t quite see the vampire, which now had me pinned to the rock floor.
I barely noticed when another one pinned my arm, the same arm with the hand gripping the gun. I didn’t feel it at all when I let that gun go.
A warm wash of sensual light flowed through me, blanking my mind.
I felt their arousal, felt it swimming through me and around me, even as my light opened, confusing me as my mind filled with images.
I saw Black from the night before.
I saw his face hanging over mine, his eyes close as his expression went soft.
I heard his soft voice, him coaxing me, asking me for––
Pain rippled through me as I felt him open his light, gripping my hips in both of his hands. His light shifted, turned aggressive––
The scene dissolved around me and reformed.
I found myself in a cave, staring up at a high rock ceiling.
Pain wracked my body, fogging my mind.
The hot, liquid, pulling, sensual sensation strengthened, feeling even more like Black, confusing me. I felt the desire around me worsen, coming from all sides now, blinding me. I didn’t see Black anymore––images flickered through my mind of other beings fucking me instead, faceless beings with long hair and crystal eyes. They groaned, seething with pleasure through my light, coaxing me, pulling me inside them.
The images made me flinch; they also rippled heat through my skin, confusing me, making me pull on them in return.
I don’t know how long I was laying there.
I heard my heart beating in my ears, my breath.
Somewhere beyond that, I heard gunshots, shouts, the sounds of fighting, wolves growling, vampires hissing and snarling. I just lay there, half-pinned by the wolf’s warm, heavy body, staring up at the volcanic rock of the ceiling.
I grew aware of the light storm overhead.
I stared up, into the eye of that gold and red storm. I saw the deep black of the night sky through that eye, stars shining in that velvety space, like distant flames.
There was a ringing sound, directly overhead.
It jarred me to my bones, the harsh clang of metal on metal. I saw a flash of silver, and thought––just for the briefest instant––that it was all over.
I thought it was over now.
I was about to die.
Then, hissing erupted by my ear as the vampire feeding on my shoulder raised its head. I saw its greasy black hair hanging down on either side of its face, blood running down its ghostly white chin. Its long, vein-y teeth extended perceptibly as it stared up with its cold, blood-colored eyes.
Then, even as I blinked, its head was gone.
It was just… gone.
“Miriam!” A frantic voice, even as another ringing, almost musical tone whistled through the air over me. I heard another hiss, grew vaguely aware of another vampire somewhere lower on my body. There was a third flash of silver overhead, then a fourth.
The hissing stopped.
“Miri!” the voice said, louder.
My eyes snapped open.
I looked up, meeting gold eyes.
Black stared down at me, terror on his face. He looked away long enough to grasp the wolf in both of his hands yanking it off me. He dragged it off the half of my body it had pinned and I exhaled
in relief, even as I felt my mind slowly starting to clear.
I still felt underwater, like my mind was trapped in some thick, gelatinous substance.
“Black,” I managed.
“Gaos, Miri.” He grabbed my arm, the one that hurt slightly less. Then he had me around the waist and I was upright, leaning against his hard, muscular form.
I looked up at him, at the blood on his arms, his neck, his chest.
“You got shot,” I said, my voice faintly accusing.
“Miri,” he said. “Gaos, Miri… we have to get you to a doctor. Now.”
I looked around us, trying to make sense of the scene before me.
People and vampires were still fighting, but a lot of it seemed to be dying down now. I saw the girl with the bow and arrow down on one knee, shooting at vampires from a distance, hitting them in the neck only to hit them with a second arrow in the chest when they turned towards her, hissing, fangs outstretched. I saw the terror in her eyes, the tautness of her face as she stared at them, but her hands never wavered, nor did her aim.
On the other side of her, Cowboy’s swords flashed in the dim light, cutting through vampire after vampire while Angel stood behind him, covering Cowboy with her guns, shooting at any humans who might shoot at him.
Most of Wolf’s people seemed more or less subdued, though.
I saw Easton, Joseph, Joseph’s wife Geraldine, and Manny standing in front of the kids from the town, holding guns on them while Dog and Frank searched them all, taking guns and a handful of knives from the kids sitting there.
Rather than murderous, the kids looked bewildered now though, almost dazed.
I didn’t really understand why until I turned, looking at Charles, who was leaning against the rock wall, breathing hard, blood running down his face. He was staring into that corner of the room, and from the look in his eyes, it struck me that he was probably controlling the kids’ minds, using his seer abilities.
Next to him lay a very dead-looking man they’d called Wolf.
It hit me that the vampires wouldn’t be able to protect the light of those kids while they were in the process of feeding or being decapitated. Moreover, why would they bother, with Wolf dead? Their human master was gone.
I glanced up at Black, and saw him looking down at me in relief.
Realizing he was reacting to the tiny semblance of clarity coming back to my mind after being fed on by at least three vampires, I leaned deeper into him, opening my light.
“You still need a doctor,” he muttered, gripping me tighter. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, Miri.”
I grunted. “Says the guy who just got shot and stabbed.”
“Miri, I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
I was about to say more, when a flash of light pulled my eyes back to the right. I found myself staring directly into the crystal-lined fissure in the rock.
Truthfully, I’d forgotten all about the door.
Now I stared at it uncomprehendingly for a few blinks, still fighting to clear my head, and my vision, as another dark outline grew visible in that blinding light.
“We have to close that door,” I said, raising my voice so Black would hear me.
I glanced up, and saw Black frowning in the same direction.
“Yeah,” Black muttered. “I have an idea about that.” Looking at me apologetically, he gripped me tighter. “Well––it was your idea really, doc.”
I nodded, knowing what he meant.
“It’s worth a try,” I said.
I looked back at the lit opening, watching in disbelief as more than one figure walked through that time. Three tall, definitely seer-looking forms entered the cave.
I saw their eyes widen as they left the lit opening, as they focused on the chaos still erupting around them inside the high-ceilinged cavern. The one in front gaped, his oddly-colored light eyes staring around in disbelief.
His gaze found the pile of seer corpses and vampires then, not far from the door’s opening, and he reached for his hip.
If he’d expected to find a sidearm there, it clearly hadn’t come through the door with him.
Looking down at his hip with a frown, he looked behind him, motioning for the two seers who’d walked through the opening with him in a graceful, elaborate way I couldn’t help following with my eyes.
It looked like a form of sign language.
I was still staring at them, following the motion of their hands, half in fascination and half in disbelief, when Black pulled me backwards, closer to where Charles leaned against the wall.
“Miri,” he said, kissing the side of my face. “Can you wait here? Do you need to sit?”
He put my hand on the rock wall for balance.
Gripping it tightly in my fingers, I shook my head.
“No, I’m good,” I managed.
Black looked at me, skeptical, but he released me, watching me for a long beat before he turned back to face the cave.
Six of the tall, weirdly-dressed people with odd-colored eyes had now come through the crystal-lined door. They clustered together, staring around the cave or down at the seer corpses piled in the corner. I saw a few of them gasp and cry out, seemingly recognizing some of the seers Wolf had killed. One crouched over the female with the orange and black braids, tears in her eyes as she touched her face in a near-caress.
Others among them appeared to be watching the fighting, staring around warily as if not sure if they should join in, and on which side if they did.
The one who seemed like their leader was one of the latter group.
I saw him watch as Cowboy decapitated another of the vampires, right before Easton stepped forward, shooting the last of the wolves in the head when it snarled at him, already half-down with an arrow sticking out of its side.
I felt a flush of anger, looking at it.
I liked wolves.
I blamed Wolf for this, not those poor animals.
Asshole. Psychotic, delusional asshole.
When I glanced over that time, I saw the leader of the newcomers, the male seer with those odd-colored pale eyes, staring at me, almost like he’d heard me. I was still staring at him, when a commotion on the other side of the room pulled my gaze.
Black had ahold of one of the last vampires. Cowboy gripped the arm of another, his other arm looped tightly around the thing’s pale throat.
Black held a sword to the neck of his.
Really, his sword was in its neck, embedded a few inches on one side.
He forced the vampire forward, ignoring where it snapped and hissed at him. I watched as Black wrenched its arm behind its back, keeping it off-balance. Cowboy handled the second one with somewhat more effort, but that one was missing one of its arms, which might have made it easier at least.
I watched them walk the vampires to the crystal-lined opening in the rock.
The newcomer seers moved out of the way, staring at them, including their leader, the male who’d just been staring at me.
I watched as Black shoved the vampire towards the fissure in the stone.
Once he had it lined up with the opening, he kicked it through the jagged, light-filled cut.
Cowboy did the same.
The light flared in the opening, bright that time.
Black and Cowboy stepped back, staring at it.
Both of them were panting now. Black had a blood-covered sword gripped tightly in one hand. Cowboy’s fingers gripped the pearl handle of his Colt Python.
I watched light spark in the opening, bright enough that they stepped back again, as if giving the door room. The newcomer seers stepped back with them, along with those of Joseph’s people who were standing close enough to be alarmed.
Pretty soon all of us were staring into that fissure in the stone.
The light grew sun-bright, a sharp, vibrant yellow somehow shot through with paler blue and laced with darker gold. I stared at it, stunned by how beautiful that light was, even as fear rose in my heart that it might swallow
us up, pulling everyone in the cave inside that opening.
Gradually, though, the light began to dim.
I thought I was imagining it at first.
It happened so gradually, I doubted my eyes.
After a few more minutes though, I realized the light was definitely dimming.
It waned slowly, like watching a campfire turn from flames to coals, then to gradually go out as the coals burned down. I don’t know how long we were all staring at it like that, but eventually it began to flicker for real.
As it did, I saw the crystals in that door dim and turn black, one by one.
Somehow I knew, without knowing how I knew, that they were dying.
They’d been alive, but now they were dying.
None of us moved, or spoke, as we watched that opening lose its life.
When it finally went dark altogether, leaving only the torches stuck in iron brackets around the walls of the cave to light the high-ceilinged space, all of us just looked at one another for a moment, as if waking from a trance.
It felt like we’d just seen the end of a world.
I honestly just wasn’t sure which world it was.
24
WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?
WHEN THE DOOR was well and truly dead, Black turned, looking for me.
Seeing me leaning against the rock wall where he’d left me, still more or less vertical, relief shone in his eyes. He walked to me, even as Charles was struggling to get back to his feet.
Black barely gave him a glance, walking directly to me.
Being careful of my torn up shoulder and leg, he wrapped me in his arms, pulling me carefully towards him. I felt him wince from the gunshot wound in his shoulder, but he still held me almost tightly, exhaling into my hair, cupping my head gently in his hand.
“Gaos, Miri,” he breathed. “That was way too fucking close.”
I agreed.
Gripping his arms in my hands, including the hand that still hurt from where I’d bruised it with the gun, I leaned my face into his chest, breathing him in. Then, taking a last breath, I raised my head, looking past him at the rest of the room.
Half the kids in the corner were crying now, looking around at the blood and bodies covering the floor. Frowning, I gazed around the edges of the room, and saw the adult townspeople staring at us, their faces filled with a numbed kind of shock.
Black To Dust: A Quentin Black Paranormal Mystery (Quentin Black Mystery Book 7) Page 33