I had just begun to grope for the waistline of his jeans with my right hand when he froze. If it hadn’t been for the iron grip of my left arm around his neck, he would have climbed to his feet.
“We need to stop,” he said, sounding as breathless as I felt.
“What? Why?” I asked.
“I promised you not to kiss you until Sedgrave was dead.”
“I started this.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Josh ducked out of my grasp and climbed to his feet. I quickly sat up, pulling my rumpled shirt back over my stomach.
“You want to make sure it’s all real before you commit,” I said, the pain of the realization causing my gut to tighten in anger.
“No, Ashley. On the slim chance you are right, and this is all just Sedgrave’s doing, I don’t want to hurt you. If we have sex, then Sedgrave dies, and I turn into a jerk, it’s you who will suffer. I can’t live with that.”
“Whatever. Just get out,” I growled, unwilling to hear his logic.
I didn’t look up when the door thumped loudly with Josh’s removal. Hot tears pierced my eyes, and before I could sort through what had just happened, I had slipped to the floor and buried my face in my hands. It wasn’t just the fight with Josh that caused me to cry. It was everything.
I was so tired and so confused by everything that was happening to me. More specifically, I was hungry. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d fed.
As if on cue, I heard a knock on my door.
“What?” I snapped, assuming it was a man here to woo me with flowers and chocolates.
I was almost right.
Emma poked her head in, her delicate brows pulled down in a front. From behind her I could hear multiple heartbeats.
“What’s eating you?” she asked as she pushed the door open and escorted Jordan, Danielle, and Dennis into my tiny room.
Between the two vampires and three humans, we were pushing the maximum capacity of the room.
“Hey, shorty,” said Jordan softly as he lowered himself to the floor next to me.
I had no doubt my face was red and puffy from crying.
“Hey,” I said, sounding extremely pathetic.
“I saw Josh making tracks away from here,” said Emma as she leaned against my nightstand.
“Don’t want to talk about it,” I grumbled into my hands.
“Right. Well… I thought you might need a bite. It’s been a long time since you’ve fed.”
I nodded weakly. She had no idea how right she was.
“Will you stay while I feed?” I asked Emma, looking up for the first time. “I can’t trust myself right now.”
She nodded as though this had been her plan all along. I still couldn’t believe how close I felt to Emma, considering how our acquaintance started. We had started with hatred and somehow found our way to a genuine friendship.
“Thank you.”
“Use me first,” ordered Jordan.
He held out his arm, his sleeve already rolled up to reveal his wrist. I took his arm, my thought process already lost to the need to feed, and sunk my teeth into it. I heard him give a little yelp of surprise and pain, but couldn’t register it as a bad thing. I drank deeply, holding his arm to my mouth when he tried to pull away.
“Ashley!” called multiple voices from a distant room; they were far away, I didn’t have to obey them.
I felt a hand shake my shoulder before fingers tightened over the joint until I gave my own yelp of pain, thereby releasing Jordan’s arm.
I glanced up, suddenly myself again.
Jordan was cradling his mutilated arm, not looking at me. The other two humans had backed away, putting as much distance as my tiny room would allow between them and the hunger-crazed vampire. Emma was staring at me, a new layer of concern masking her features.
“Ashley, if you can’t get a grip on your emotions, I can’t let you feed on the others,” she said, her eyes flicking to Jordan’s bleeding arm.
I nodded, only half understanding what she was saying. “I’m sorry,” I began. “I’m so tired. Why am I so tired?”
“Sedgrave must be taking more from you, just like in San Francisco.” Emma paused. “I talked with Mikhail. He says that Sedgrave attacked again, right about the time we were fighting in San Fran.”
I nodded weakly, feeling as though all my muscles were turning into cooked spaghetti.
I rolled my head until I could look up at Emma.
“He’s here,” I said, not understanding my own words.
Chapter Eighteen
Emma’s eyes jerked up to the door. From the depths of the seethe, we couldn’t hear what was happening on the ground level, but I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Sedgrave was there.
I rolled to my feet, staggering against my bed frame. “Get him bandaged, and get all the humans in the bunker,” I ordered, directing my words to Danielle and Dennis.
They didn’t move until Emma and I were rushing through the door of my room. Emma quickly outstripped me, running full-tilt toward the higher levels. I did my best to follow her, but my legs just didn’t seem to want to work. It wasn’t until I reached the middle level, where Josh lived, and found the masses streaming upwards, that I remembered the sun was rising. All but the oldest vampires looked to be affected by the returning daylight, even though it didn’t reach our inner sanctum.
I followed the others up to the main level, where the common room and a few bedrooms sat. The wide hallway was packed with bodies working to see what the commotion was. I spotted Nik heading up the stairs that led to the restaurant.
From the restaurant level I could hear the sound of breaking glass and cries of pain. I was right. Sedgrave was here and ready for a fight.
“To arms!” I yelled dramatically over the hubbub, sounding ridiculous.
Some of my fellow vampires looked at me as though I was just as crazy as I sounded, but most surged toward the narrow stairs and followed Nikolai. It was a long time before I made it up the stairs, which could only accommodate a few bodies at a time.
By the time I surfaced into the restaurant, the scene was a gruesome disaster. Most of the large, darkened windows of the Viewer’s Lounge had been shattered. Surging into the restaurant came a swath of Valkyries, surrounding a single man. I recognized Sedgrave from my nightmares and our few brief encounters.
Like Sedgrave, Valkyries were something I could have gone centuries without seeing again. They were women astride skeletal horses. Their clothing was made up of the skins of their past victims, the scraps of flesh still dripping blood down their arms and legs. We had encountered them the last time we fought Sedgrave outside the state capital.
I charged at Sedgrave with as much strength as I could muster. He couldn’t attack me without hurting himself. Then again, anyone who did him any damage would be hurting me too.
This was going to get interesting.
I was nearly halfway through the cacophony of battle taking place within the restaurant when I felt something thud against my back, taking me off my feet. I landed hard against a booth, my forehead meeting the table in a bloody thud. I rolled onto my backside to see what had taken me out. To my disgust, it was the arm of a Valkyrie. I gagged and scrambled across the slick floor until I bumped into someone’s leg.
Looking up, I prayed for a friendly face. Samuel, the seethe’s third highest ranking vamp, smirked down at me.
“You can’t take any pictures from down there, sonny,” Samuel said in a perfect imitation of Sam Elliot.
I rolled my eyes before struggling to my feet. Samuel was already engaged with another enemy by the time I had regained my footing. I left him to it and began threading my way toward Sedgrave. I’m not sure what I planned on doing once I got to him, but I had to get him to stop somehow.
Suddenly, it seemed as though the mass of bodies swarming the restaurant increased until it was difficult to move without receiving a wayward elbow to the face. I ducked under the nearest table and began
to crawl, feeling very much like a freshman avoiding a cafeteria food fight.
I reached a row of booths and stopped, unsure how next to travel. I needed to get to Sedgrave, but the throbbing mass of fighting bodies continued to block my way. I glanced up and noticed the second-story balcony was mostly empty. I climbed over the row of booths and grabbed the nearest support. I’ve never been much of a climber, but a little vampire strength makes a big difference. I shimmied up the thin column and tumbled over the balcony’s railing.
Staying low, I half ran half crawled to the far end of the balcony, quickly passing over most of the fighting below. Annoyingly, one of the Valkyries noticed my movement. Worst yet, it turns out they can jump really far. The creepy woman’s horse gave an awkward little hop onto a booth table before launching itself toward the balcony. In the same movement, the woman pulled her legs up until her knees touched her chin and tucked her feet under her body. Just as the horse’s jump began to fail, she launched herself off her saddle and slammed into the railing of the balcony.
I’m not sure what the expression on my face said at that moment, but I’m pretty sure it was somewhere between “Ah shit!” and “Why can’t I do that?”
I grabbed up a chair and threw it at her, but she ducked easily out of its way and vaulted over the few pieces of furniture still between us. I crouched, ready to respond to whatever she was about to do. From within the folds of her skin-made clothing, she withdrew a long dagger. I squinted my eyes at her and let a little grin appear on my face; evidently she didn’t know who I was, or what would happen if she wounded me.
Part of me wanted to let her draw a little blood in the hopes that it would hurt Sedgrave, but instincts are a rather strong force, especially in a life and death situation. She lunged at me and I blocked her lunge, driving her weapon-hand away from me. With the same movement, I grabbed her shoulders and pushed her toward the railing.
I pushed her a little harder than I had intended. Okay, a lot harder. In my defense, I was angry and afraid. She toppled over the railing, taking me with her. It was pure luck that she landed on a table rather than on the head of a vampire. The mystical woman broke my fall, taking all the damage herself. Rather than give her time to recover, I snapped her neck and rolled off the table.
I was within just a few yards from the warlock, fully feeling the effects of the rising sun, when he suddenly lifted his arms. A sudden blinding, and painful, light erupted across the wide spans of the restaurant ceiling.
I screamed. The other vampires screamed. We all screamed, but not for ice cream.
As I screamed in pain, I felt the last of my strength disappear. My legs gave out and I landed on the floor. It felt as though my bones had dissolved and all my muscles had turned into mud. I strained to lift my head.
Through the legs of the tables, I could see the warlock, his hands still thrust up toward the ceiling, light spilling out from his fingertips.
The shrieking from the vampires increased as his spell began to burn each one of them. I would have screamed some more too, if I had had the energy.
How can he manage to make the spell so big? I wondered as I lay on top of a broken chair and watched his efforts, my flesh slowly burning.
Realization suddenly struck, just as my eyelids began to droop: He was siphoning power from me. As a vampire, he could take and take and take, and I wouldn’t die. I might feel like I wanted to die, but I wouldn’t. What would happen, though, if I sapped some of my own power? What would happen, say, if I began to bleed?
I hefted myself up onto my elbows, feeling as though my spine might crack under my own weight. With a mighty effort, I pushed myself over onto my back, while simultaneously grabbing up one of the broken chair legs. I lifted it up and slammed it down into my stomach, well away from my heart.
If you had asked me four months ago if I would have the gumption to skewer myself with a chair leg, I would have laughed in your face.
Now, if you’d asked me to do it again, I would have cried. Stabbing yourself hurts, a lot.
At the same moment, the sunlight spell disappeared. I tilted my head until I could see Sedgrave. His child-like face was wreathed in panic as he glanced around the bedlam of the battle field, no doubt looking for yours truly.
I raised a bloody hand up above the debris and flipped him off.
His eyes narrowed on me as I grabbed the chair leg and prepared to stab myself again. I hoped he would believe my threat. I really didn’t feel like stabbing myself again.
His eyes widened in terror as his hand shot out, as though to stop me. I raised the chair leg a little higher, glaring at him with my fiercest “try me” expression.
“Retreat!” he yelled just as I prepared to drive the chair leg back into my mangled gut.
Though my arm was shaking, I didn’t lower the leg, but kept the threat up in the air for him to see. The Valkyries glanced around, surprised by the order when they had clearly been winning.
“Retreat!” the warlock repeated, waving his arms to catch his militia’s attention.
I’m not sure if it was very sporting, but a number of the retreating Valkyries didn’t make it out of our destroyed restaurant. The enraged vampires did their best to kill them as they ran toward the street and the protection of the rising sun. The few vampires who tried to pursue them stopped at the edge of the building’s awning and watched them run into the morning sunlight.
“All vampires downstairs. Get the wounded out of here,” ordered Mikhail. “Humans, get this place boarded up and prepare to turn customers away.”
I stared at Mikhail. I had never seen him take part in the business that acted as our front to the human world. Usually Jim took care of such mundane details. Now, though, I had a suspicion Mikhail could function just fine without his assistant.
I was also surprised to find that a number of humans were lining the large room. I could hear their heartbeats from where I lay. Had they been here the whole time? Were my humans even alive?
I stayed where I was, waiting for my body to heal.
After a few moments of waiting, I tried to sit up to examine my self-inflicted wound. It wasn’t looking too hot. In fact, most of the burns caused by Sedgrave’s sunlight spell hadn’t healed either. Damn that warlock for zapping me of my strength. I flopped back down on my back.
I noticed the masses begin to shift slowly toward the one, narrow door leading down to the basement. Just a few more minutes, I thought as those nearest me passed by, unaware of my presence.
“Where’s Ashley?” someone asked from a few feet away.
“Here,” I moaned, raising the hand I had used to stab myself.
“Ashley!” called Josh and Nik at the same time as they ran to my side, throwing tables and chair out of their way.
“Get one of her humans here!” ordered Josh.
“No,” I croaked, sounding as pathetic as I felt. “If I feed, it just gives Sedgrave strength.”
“Josh, let’s get her downstairs. We can debate this more in private.”
I watched as the two men glanced around at the listening vampires, waiting their turn to climb down into the bunker. Josh nodded before scooping me up in his arms. The healthy vampires were making way for those with wounds, some being carried, some limping on their own, and some popping shoulders back into place as they walked.
Evidently I was the worst off, or the looks on Josh and Nik’s face had people running scared, but even the wounded moved out of their way as they made their way to the door. As we descended into the comparative darkness of the underground seethe, I felt a small uptick of energy. I knew older vampires weren’t as affected by the rising of the sun, though direct sunlight still burned them. I wondered how long I had to survive to get that benefit of age.
We caught Mikhail’s eye as we passed him in the hallway and he followed us to his office. As I looked back over Josh’s shoulder, I noticed Emma and Thomas break off from a group and join Mikhail. Josh entered Mikhail’s office and lowered me to the couch b
efore examining my wound.
“How the hell did you get this?” he asked just as Thomas shut the door.
“A chair leg.”
“The angle looks off,” commented Nik from the foot of the couch.
“That’s ‘cause I did it to myself?”
“What?” “Why?” “What were you…?” A hullabaloo of protests erupted from the small group, each person finding three different ways to exclaim at my idiocy.
I weakly lifted a hand to signal a call for silence. Even Mikhail obeyed.
“Sedgrave has a weakness. It’s me. He knows I’m his battery, and that damage to me weakens him. I stabbed myself to get his attention and then threatened to do it again. It was me stabbing myself that stopped the sunlight spell. And it was my threat that caused him to retreat.”
The others were silent. I could tell they wanted to continue their barrage of “your stupid” comments, but were reluctantly admitting to themselves that I was right.
“You need to feed,” Josh finally said, breaking the long silence.
I feebly shook my head. “If we can keep me weak, then Sedgrave will be weak.”
“Weak yes,” agreed Mikhail. “On the verge of dying, no. Emma, go find one of her humans. We will feed you just enough to heal you. Josh, Nik, and Thomas will be with you at all times to keep you from attacking a human. The hungrier you get, the more dangerous you will become.”
I nodded, not relishing the idea of starving myself.
Mikhail had barely finished his speech when Emma returned, Danielle in tow.
“Danielle, my dear,” said Mikhail, a smile on his lips to ease the human’s nerves. It didn’t work. “I can’t have Ashely feed from you directly. She’s on a special diet. May I cut you just a little bit?”
Danielle glanced at me before nodding once. Mikhail took the human to the other end of the office, and with Emma’s help, they drained a little blood into a cup. Emma stayed with Danielle to properly bind the wound while Mikhail brought me the drink.
It was barely more than a mouthful. I gulped it down before glaring up at my primus.
The Series that Just Plain Sucks: The Complete Trilogy Page 64