She took in several deep breaths and willed her mind to stay blank. She would not betray the fact that Andor was so injured and that all of the Carpathians were weak. They didn’t want to leave her alone during daylight hours, so they slept in shallow depressions, rather than sinking deep in the earth where they would have been safe and could recuperate. They did take turns, with Gary insisting he take a turn as well. She thought he should always go to ground, but no one listened to her. The ancients were still living in the dark ages as far as women were concerned.
The jab hit her shields and bounced back, leaving an oily residue behind. The feel of it made her gag. She knew she had to get back to camp. The Carpathians had constructed a shelter to prevent any ray of the sun from reaching them. They had also built a strong safeguard around their camp, the three ancients weaving it so that the invisible barricade would be nearly impossible for even the greatest master vampire to unravel.
She reached for the flamethrower she kept close to her at all times as a flutter of wings told her she wasn’t alone. Intellectually, she knew the hideous creatures couldn’t penetrate the barrier the Carpathians had woven, but that didn’t make it any easier emotionally. She wanted to run. She swallowed hard and slowly rose to her feet, looking up at the surrounding trees.
There were five crows sitting on the branches overhead, looking down at her. Their eyes looked evil as they stared steadily at her. She forced herself to look away from them to the foliage around her. From the many battles she’d studied in each of the ancient’s heads, she knew not to be deceived. If she could see the undead in any form, it was because they wanted her to see them, and most likely the attack would come from another direction.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of movement and she turned to face the new assailant. A man strode out from the trees, walking with a confident stride and a smile on his face. Her heart pounded and clenched hard. Her mouth went dry. They’d warned her. All of them had, but she still wasn’t prepared. The last time she’d seen him, her brother had lain in a pool of blood on the floor. Now, there he was, looking like he always had.
Theodore had been an athletic man. Really good-looking. He had the same chestnut-colored hair that she did, the same green eyes and easy smile. “Little sister.”
That greeting stiffened her spine. Ferro and Sandu called her sisarke, which meant “little sister” in their native language. Sometimes they called her that in English, but Theodore had never called her that. She moistened her lips and watched him come closer. She stepped back, taking a firmer grasp on the flamethrower. This replica of her brother was perfect. That easy stride that showed with every step that he was a fluid, perfect fighter. She had always admired the way his muscles flowed when he moved, giving him such an advantage over every opponent.
She’d been thinking of Theodore just minutes before. How much she loved him. How well they’d gotten along. He was older by several years and had never once seemed to resent having a baby sister come along. He’d always seemed proud of her, not jealous. He’d helped her learn difficult moves and train when she’d needed someone to work against. He’d always been patient with her. She preferred being alone in the wilderness where she could have those beautiful memories of her brother, rather than the lurid headlines people remembered him for.
Now her stomach lurched as he walked right up to that invisible barrier with Theodore’s confidence. He ran into it, and it flung him backward so hard he landed a good twenty feet away on his butt. He sat there a moment, shook his head and burst out laughing. Even his laugh was the same. Exactly. That laughter hit her hard. She had to fight not to cry. Tears burned behind her eyes but she refused to shed them.
“You don’t get to use my brother like that,” she reprimanded.
The replica of Theodore stood up, dusted the seat of his jeans off and grinned at her good-naturedly. “Invite me in. I have so much to talk to you about and unless you invite me in, I’ll have to go away.”
She wanted him to leave, yet perversely, she didn’t. Seeing Theodore happy, grinning that old familiar smirk of camaraderie when it had been the two of them against the world, made her happy. She knew that was dangerous. This was a trick. An illusion. Still, it was a perfect one.
“Say my name.”
The clone of her brother frowned at her. “What game are you playing? Invite me in.”
“You have to say my name.”
At once there was that powerful jab at her brain. This was concentrated, like an ice pick seeking to poke a hole through her shields to get at the information the replica of Theodore needed. She pressed her palm to her temple and shook her head. “Teddy, you can’t get your way like that. Don’t you remember my name?”
She had to find the courage to lure him close and then destroy him with the flamethrower. That would start the war. While she was distracted with the clone of her brother, the others would work to get the safeguards down. They would work together. Gary, Sandu and Ferro had gone over it with her a hundred times.
The clone of her brother moved closer, looking a little wary of the invisible barrier that separated them. He stretched out a hand to her. “You are my beloved little sister.”
“I am,” she agreed. “Why did you do the terrible things you did, Teddy?” She knew this image had no idea why, but she had always wanted the opportunity to ask him and he was standing right in front of her. Close now. She was going to have to do this. She had no choice if she was going to protect Andor and the others. They were in it together.
She had saved Andor when she couldn’t save her brother or parents. She wasn’t going to allow a replica of Theodore to kill him or one of the others. She already thought of Sandu, Ferro and Gary as family. They might not feel anything for her in the same way she did, but she knew their souls were bound together. That meant their fates were.
Theodore stepped closer. “I had no choice. They gave me no choice.”
“Who gave you no choice?” She needed him a couple of feet closer to ensure accuracy. She leaned toward him as if to hear him better.
At once the vampire pawn took the bait and came almost right up to her, stopping just short of the safeguards. She heard the rustle of wings as one of those watching grew restless and shifted his position in anticipation of success. The crow’s wings spread wide and then settled once more against his feathered body.
Steeling herself, Lorraine took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She kept the flamethrower along her thigh, waiting. The clone stepped right into the space where she had practiced hitting and she whipped it up and hit him with the one thousand degrees Celsius of heat and flames. The clone exploded into a fiery blaze so that his entire body was enveloped in orange and red. She kept the flamethrower trained on his chest in the exact spot where his heart should be.
The crows raised their voices with his to a shriek that clawed at her insides. They left the branches in a diving attack, swooping low and at the last minute rising, not as birds, but as their truer forms—the undead. They looked terrifying and hideous with their stained teeth and rotting flesh. They came directly at her face. She didn’t make the mistake of switching targets, although self-preservation demanded that she do so. She hung on grimly to the canister they’d given her, that ever-flowing flamethrower the ancients had constructed for her protection.
The sounds were so awful it hurt her ears. She knew she was crying because her vision was blurred, but she held steady. The five vampires spread out, making a semicircle around her, just outside the invisible line of defense. They were swaying, tapping out a rhythm. She’d seen that before. The sound of the branches in the trees picked it up. Tap. Tap. Tap.
The clone, on fire, began to make gruesome noises, each shriek in time with that odd rhythm. Her heart began to thud with the sound so that her pulse beat with that strange rap, rap, rap. She felt it echo in her mind. Rap. Rap. Rap. Like a knock. They were seeking a way into he
r mind. She couldn’t change her heartbeat. Now her breath exploded from her lungs on each tap of their fingers against their thighs, each click of the tree branches. Still, she kept her finger on the trigger of the flamethrower, refusing to back off.
The clone went to his knees, writhing, screaming, the sound punctuating that same drumming beat. He pitched forward facedown. She snapped off the flamethrower and stepped back from the barrier, staring defiantly at the vampires facing her. None of them spoke, but they continued to keep the same beat. She was afraid it might drive her mad. More than anything, she wanted to reach for the ancients, but she knew she couldn’t open her mind.
Other than the tapping sound, the night went silent. At once dread filled her. A terrible ominous sensation that raised the hair on her arms and at the back of her neck. She felt fear creep down her spine. Her mouth was dry, and the urge to step forward, to move out of her place of safety, was strong—so strong she knew it was a compulsion.
Lorraine forced her body backward a few steps at a time. Her boots dragged in the dirt, unwilling to obey her. It was only because she was disciplined that she was able to manage. It only took her a few feet from the barrier, but it gave her a sense of triumph that she’d managed to.
This was what they had all been waiting for. Not this. Who. The ancients had known a master vampire had been harassing them, sending his pawns. No one believed it was the head of the army, the undead so cunning that he had fooled everyone; there was more than one master vampire. Each was extremely dangerous.
Sergey Malinov, the master vampire commanding all others, would not travel or attack without pawns, and also some of his best fighters. The ancients also believed he would show himself eventually. He couldn’t wait too long, because circumstances would change and their little band might grow stronger.
“Come to me,” the vampire whispered, gesturing with his hand, his fingers moving over and over to the sound of the tapping.
He was beautiful. Far more beautiful than Andor, Ferro, Sandu or Gary. His skin was smooth, without a single blemish. His beauty seemed almost blasphemous beside his hideous companions.
She shook her head and managed to stumble back. He didn’t take his eyes from her, all the while those fingers beckoning her at that same rhythm. It was nearly impossible to resist him. She took her first step forward, and he smiled, his teeth gleaming white. Pristine.
Movement behind and to the left of the semicircle of the undead caught the master vampire’s eye. He swung toward the movement. Gary stepped out of the tree line. Ten feet from him was Sandu. Another ten feet was Ferro. A fourth man she didn’t know was there and then a fifth. Relief hit her knees so that she nearly crumpled to the ground. As it was, she went down on one knee, breathing deeply to try to clear her head.
“The plan worked, sisarke,” Sandu said. “You did very well. Go inside. This slaughter will not be for your eyes.”
Lorraine wanted to watch, not for the gore, but to learn. The master vampire spun around to face the five ancients. Each of those faces was grim and scarred. He spat onto the ground, and she saw something wiggling in the dark matter. He pointed to the maggoty creatures, and they replicated over and over and began to grow. She gasped, scrambled to her feet and backed farther away.
“I know none of you,” the master vampire stated, as if by claiming that, all of them were inferior to him.
“You have no need of knowing us,” one of the two men she didn’t know answered.
“Have you no names, then? I am not afraid to tell you I am Karcsi. Perhaps you have heard of me.” As he spoke, the tapping got louder, more insistent.
Lorraine realize it was affecting her. She had moved back, but now she was close to the barrier again. Karcsi was targeting her in the hopes that she would come out from behind her shield of safety and he could use her against the ancients. She could have told the vampire it would do him no good. None of those men would stop what they were about to do. They had been born to fight vampires. They had spent centuries honing their skills with battle after battle. Nothing would dissuade them from their ultimate goal—destroying the master vampire.
The man who had spoken before bowed slightly. “I am Dragomir, a monk from the monastery high in the Carpathian Mountains. Now that we have that out of the way, let us proceed.”
The words were barely out of his mouth before he moved, his speed so fast he blurred as he attacked, not the master vampire, but one of the lesser ones. Sandu and Gary also joined him, along with the man she didn’t know, each targeting one of the vampires tapping.
Ferro went after the master vampire. She hated that it was Ferro, although he looked far more fit than he had before. Presumably, the ancients had given him blood before they had sprung the trap. Now that Karcsi was completely engaged in a life-and-death struggle and the other vampires had been unable to continue their hypnotic tapping, she was able to pull out from under the spell completely.
She ran along the barrier, keeping her eyes on the last of the lesser vampires, the one who was circling around trying to come up behind Ferro. The ancient and the master vampire rose into the air, hurling fiery spears at each other. The undead hit some kind of impediment and sank toward earth. A lightning whip found his ankle as he dove toward Sandu’s head. The whip jerked the vampire back toward Ferro.
Ferro and the undead crashed together as they hit the ground, lightning sizzling all around them. The wiggling creatures rushed toward their master and his attacker, some instantly incinerated as they came into contact with the lightning whip. The stench was foul, making her retch. She kept her eyes on the lesser vampire with difficulty. There was so much happening at once, it was difficult to follow all the action.
She needed to get back to Andor. He would be going insane, worried about her and wondering what was going on, unless one of the ancients was keeping him informed, and she didn’t see how that was possible. She was getting anxious, although Ferro, Gary and Sandu had all three assured her over and over that nothing would get through their safeguards above- or belowground to threaten Andor while they sprang their trap.
She also knew Andor wasn’t going to be happy with any of them for using her as bait. It wouldn’t matter that she had come up with the idea. They knew they had to have time to heal Andor. He was still in jeopardy. After the terrible fight for his life, she wasn’t about to lose him now. She’d known that fighting a master vampire would be impossible for her, but she hadn’t had any idea of how incredibly powerful that undead was. She never would have been able to resist his compulsions, even with the safeguards up.
The lesser vampire circled around Ferro, who had his back to her. The vampire was stealthy, stepping through the wiggling maggots as they squirmed toward the ancient. Some had already reached him and were swarming up his leg. She could see a blood trail circling his ankle. The lesser vampire, in order to get behind him, moved right in front of her, almost in position. Ferro stepped to his right to avoid an attack by Karcsi.
Lorraine realized Ferro had inched around, bringing the fight back right in front of her so that the lesser vampire, doing his master’s bidding, would be forced to creep up on the ancient using the path closest to her. It shocked her how skilled these men were, that they were able to know where everyone else was on the battlefield.
She had to figure exactly where the vampire’s heart was, something a little more difficult when his back was turned. She sent up a silent prayer that she got it right and hit him with the flamethrower. It occurred to her that she’d come into the wilderness to find peace. She really had been on a journey of personal discovery, hoping to find a way to subdue her temper and make herself into a better person. Instead, she’d found a group of people far more violent—out of necessity—than her family had ever been. They didn’t fight for glory, fame, trophies or medals. They fought to save lives.
The smell of burning flesh, rotting as it was, disgusted her. She hoped she cou
ld just destroy him and his heart quickly, but he spun around and threw the flames back at her. She dropped the flamethrower as she stumbled back. The flames hit the defensive obstruction and roared back at the vampire.
He screamed, rushing toward the barricade as if by his anger alone he could break through it to get at her. She managed to get her hands on the canister and hit him with another steady stream, this time directly over his heart. He hit the barrier over and over, that invisible line of woven safeguards. Each time sparks and embers flew into the air.
The wind intensified and the flames engulfed him completely. Gary came up behind the vampire and whirled him around. Get to Andor. We’ve got this.
She’d never been so happy to hear anything in her life. The horror of what she was witnessing was too much. All the blood covering the ancients from where the vampires had ripped open their bodies made her physically ill. She couldn’t help them anymore. Her job had been to be bait and then, if possible, take out the last vampire who they knew would try to do his master’s bidding to kill Ferro.
Lorraine rushed back to the invisible structure that was over Andor. His indigo eyes were an inky mixture of midnight purple and blue. He was furious. There was no getting around that fact, not when he’d never been angry at her before.
“You used yourself as bait to lure the master vampire in.” It was an accusation, nothing less. “You knew I would not approve of such a thing, but you did it anyway.”
She couldn’t exactly deny it. “It was necessary.”
“It is never necessary for you to put yourself in danger. I would not have been able to get to you, although I would have tried if Karcsi had managed to lure you beyond the safeguards.”
The fact that he knew the master vampire’s chosen name meant someone, or all of them, was sharing information. “I know you’re angry, but I did what I felt was right.” She tried not to sound defiant. She wasn’t a child and had every right to make her own decisions based on what she thought was right for all of them, but he looked more than angry, he looked hurt. Guilty. Ashamed. Shame was the last thing she wanted him to feel.
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