by Angela White
Not even the sound of wind rustling came, and her men knew to be ready. In the darkness, everything held its breath, including the night, as something moved toward them.
There were no footsteps, no shouted orders or torch lights in the distance, but the feeling of being tracked was unmistakable. Something was in the jungle, looking for them. Did it know where they were? The thought was common property, and each of them drew their weapon.
None of the men were sure what to expect as the dark, damp bushes parted, and it was no relief to see faces they recognized.
The three Vampyres, one with a napping child on her back, were arguing softly. Their words were so low, they were barely audible, and the language was foreign to tense ears.
The trio stopped under the trees the fighters were trying to blend into, and all seven of them saw the baby stir. Its eyes opened, now blood red like its parent’s, and the three walking dead glanced up in unison. "We have come for you."
Alexa answered immediately. "But to what end, Blood-takers?"
Although their red eyes were impossible to read, she knew. "There's a bounty you've been sent to collect."
The vampire mother's voice was chillingly alien as she forced English through cold lips. "I will not."
At that, Alexa dropped from the tree and her men landed around her.
"Then why are you here?" Edward demanded.
The male bared his fangs in disapproval.
"He's not sure," Alexa pointed out to the mother, ignoring Edward's question.
The female acknowledged her companions were not in agreement with her choice to spare them. "You have men. Those, they will not let pass."
Alexa's eyes narrowed into those dangerous chips. "They are mine. If not for their help, your infant would not be here."
The other female hissed angrily, and the mother translated. "You don't really need them."
"I do." Alexa took a step back, hands ready, "I'll die for them with your debt unpaid!"
The mother turned to her companions, and Alexa backed up further. Everything about her said get ready to fight, and her men took notice.
The trio began arguing, all ignoring the baby who was watching alertly from his seat. When the conversation settled down, the female turned back.
"If we let you go, we cannot stay here, but we cannot flee either."
"Because he is not immortal yet. He can be hurt, drowned."
The mother's eyes softened only the tiniest bit at Alexa's correct guess. "Until he's older, no such water crossing can be made."
"If not for us, he'd never see that day come."
"To let you live, we must die or flee!"
Alexa waved a hand toward the sky, where the golden stairs were nearly complete. "A way out."
"One we cannot pay for! The Ferryman never lets us cross."
Alexa's voice was soothing. "Tonight, he will."
There was another short talk between the trio and then the words only Alexa had expected.
"They will not survive the coming war with nature. Not even by your side."
Alexa's answer was far from emotionless. "Perhaps that is not what they were meant to do."
The blonde's words grew more forceful. "Perhaps they will be witnesses when I stop our enemy. To die in such a way would be an honor for my army."
Alexa turned toward the glowing stairs. "The invitation stands, but the child will be the first to die if you cross me." She spun a finger. "Rotating watch. Let's go."
5
The Ferryman didn't react when Alexa and her men moved into view, but he scowled fiercely at the pale trio behind them. Before he could protest, Alexa gestured with her injured wrist.
"Vampyre venom for passage." She extended her bleeding arm. "Imagine the price for each drop."
The creatures behind her hissed in anger, but the Ferryman nodded curtly, moving toward her with hungry lips. "Done."
Their second trip over the bridge was without excitement and full of unreadable sweeps of the three, red-eyed vampires following effortlessly behind them.
As they reached the ground, Alexa pointed to a nearby stack of bags. "Get our things. I'd travel until near light."
Each man was looking forward to the sleep shift that would come with the sun.
The male of their newest guests spoke. "We must hunt… for him."
"Will you stay here or search for your own kind?"
"You know of others."
"Yes. Don't you?"
'We've been in Laramie since man's war. There are no more like us here."
Alexa studied him for a long moment. "You owe a debt now. Would you triple it, killer?"
The pale man's red eyes flashed. "Agreed. And if you lie, we owe nothing!"
"Done."
Alexa closed her eyes, and the jungle around them went still once more. The air thickened, became sharper somehow, and a ghostly green light glimmered at them from the darkness. It slowly took the shape of a rope and the end coiled snugly around Alexa's fist.
"Jendon, I call you!" She jerked the wispy rope violently and an answering cry rang out.
"I come!"
Alexa gathered her cloak as Edward stood guard, and they all heard the slow-clip of a shod horse through the nearby trees.
The Troll's reaction upon seeing their guests was one of shock, but it was the vampires who surprised the six men the most. Their tones became friendly, their stiff posture relaxing…
When Jendon began to talk to them in their own language, the fighters realized there would only be the seven of them again come daylight and were relieved. It was a revolting thought that they might have had to protect the walking dead while they too slept, and the males were glad she wasn't asking it of them.
"My words are proven and so is your debt to me." Alexa drew the pale horrors back, her blue eyes without mercy. "In payment, none of you, the child included, will ever take another human life that has not been proven evil. I command it!"
All three of the night walkers flinched back.
Jendon's tone was full of bitter understanding. "Come, Masters. Let me take you home."
None of the trio acknowledged her order, and no vividly glowing bonds appeared, but her men didn't doubt the same magic would hold the Vampyres. It was another relief that they wouldn't be free to prey on survivors.
Alexa and her men watched them go in silence, listening to the songs of tiny, mad hoppers in the cart's wake. Apparently, the mutations started out on land like normal crickets.
"We'll see him again," David stated, meaning the baby.
The woman leading them voiced her agreement. "I feel so too."
Exhausted, she headed for the darkness, shifting her heavier kit more firmly onto her shoulders. As soon as they cleared the area, they would rest, and she was in sore need of it. The pain from her injury was little compared to the drained feeling that was making it hard to concentrate. She would need to recharge before the next battle.
"It’s a fine day's work we've done, my pets - supplies, a first clue, and a full crew. Let the amazing adventures and moments of stunning glory begin.”
6
“Your time has run out, Commander Corbin. Bring in the woman, or her body. You have three days to report.”
Rab didn’t smile, but kept his head down anyway. Shane hadn’t liked covering for the Commander’s lies, and it was worth so much more to be a spy…
Upon finding out that Alexa now had a full crew; those in the big bunker were panicking. It hadn’t taken much for them to believe it was all Commander Corbin’s fault that she may actually succeed in reaching Safe Haven.
Rab smothered another grin. Shane had been sweet to him, and he had told Shane everything. That thoughtful soldier was back at the base now, filling out reports on the last six months. Corbin would be tried for his crimes as soon as they returned to base, with or without Alexa.
“There they are.”
Corbin gave the signal to fall back, and Rab carefully rolled them out of view. There would be
one last attempt to recapture Alexa and then it would all collapse.
Still fighting his happiness, Rab didn’t care if the commander found out and killed him for his part in the betrayal. It would be worth it to see the evil man punished.
Twelve
1
Not posting a guard had been a mistake.
An hour after they settled down to sleep, the soldiers moved in. Alexa woke to see the jeeps and trucks rolling their way through the clouds of grit.
“On your feet!” she shouted, rising to hers.
She kicked at those who hadn’t moved, bringing them harshly awake.
The trucks were clearly government and flying over the uneven Wyoming land. Masked men with rifles slid into view and Alexa turned.
“Fall back!” she ordered, seeing all six were up.
They spun to race toward the shape of the only building in sight, and the soldiers opened fire.
“Ugg!”
Alexa hit her knees as the well-aimed dart plunged into the back of her neck.
She staggered to the dirt and her men rushed to carry her along as they fled. After her story, there was no doubt as to who was chasing them, and the males used their natural strength to stay ahead of the vehicles being pounded by the fast flight over unforgiving terrain.
Unable to help, Alexa’s body was slung over Edward’s broad shoulder as they ducked into the front doors of the water treatment plant.
They didn’t stop once inside, but moved immediately to the lower levels so that the soldiers would have to come in on foot. Above them, the engines hovered, rumbling angrily.
They pounded down the littered basement stairs, and Edward motioned two of them to search for a way out while he carefully pulled the dart from her neck. She wouldn’t have headed them this way if it was a dead-end.
A clear liquid oozed from the hole in her skin and Edward sent his mouth to it, drawing out as much of the drugs as he could. The horseman felt his tongue go numb and spat before he could swallow any of it. He repeated the process until he tasted only the coppery salt of her blood.
Daniel handed him an already taped bandage and Edward slapped it on as the door above them crashed-in.
“Move! Move!”
“Over here!” Mark called.
The fighters fled into the sewers with Alexa’s body now over Daniel’s shoulder. Every time they had to stop to choose a direction, she would be shifted to a fresh man, keeping them all moving quickly through the slimy darkness.
The tunnel floors were mostly dry, flooding hadn’t been a problem here, but there were huge cracks in the gray walls that kept the fighters watching for an avalanche. In their path was debris of all sorts, and Alexa’s resourceful males snatched up items of value.
As they moved, the horrors of the War that had been undisturbed for half a decade shattered under their feet. The bones snapped like wood and each one sent a chill of hatred through their hearts. The very people who’d caused all this were the ones chasing them, trying to take what was theirs - Alexa.
They fled by underground tunnels that could have taken them in any direction, but Edward kept them moving in only one – where they’d have the advantage. When the others realized where he was taking them, they stepped up the pace. Cheyenne would be the perfect chaotic place to hunker down and wait for their leader to wake up and tell them what to do next.
2
Corbin stood at the entrance to the sewer, the large group of men behind him frowning impatiently. They didn’t understand why he hadn’t ordered them to follow the fugitives, but they hadn’t been there for Alexa’s sessions.
“It is working?” he demanded of the white-garbed man on his right.
Busy fumbling with the dials of a hand-held computer, the bi-polar genius jerked.
The computer flew into the air to be caught by Corbin and handed back. “At ease, Rabbit!”
The soldiers snickered and laughed. Chasing Beth Rider was currently circling the barracks, but the scientist had been called that long before they’d found the book.
Flustered, Rab flashed a happy grin that didn’t match the years of servitude on his weathered face. Though only twenty, he appeared to be a grandfather, complete with huge knuckles and a hunched back. “It works!”
Corbin tore the screen from his hand, cruel face fixating. On it, a tiny dot moved east. What lay there?
They hadn’t been close enough to see which of the black-cloaked fighters had been hit, but it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t leave one of them, and they wouldn’t abandon her, either.
“We’ll wait and see where they come up. They’ll think we’ve been left behind.”
“Won’t they leave her body with the tracker?” one of the men asked. He was sure of his shot.
Corbin turned around in a blur. He pulled the trigger, not worried about the noise carrying, as the ignorant man slid to the dusty floor.
“Anyone stupid enough to kill her, any of them, will meet the same end!”
Corbin holstered and headed for the stairs, dropping the screen into Rab’s twitchy hands as he went. “Alive or not at all, gentlemen. If you can’t dart them, let them go.”
As he disappeared from their view, there was a short conversation Alexa would have found interesting.
“He’s in love with her,” the Rabbit muttered in a flash of intuition that drew the stares of three dozen soldiers.
Rab looked down at the dot on the screen, seeing they were headed toward Cheyenne. “It won’t matter when he gets her back, though. He’s been obsessed with finding Safe Haven as long as I’ve known him. Something as powerless as love won’t keep him from finding out everything she knows this time.”
3
They didn’t travel for very long before Edward stopped and ducked into a wide intersection with several tunnels branching off into foreboding darkness. It would be easy to get lost down here and wander in circles for days.
Hearing no sounds of pursuit, he gently shifted her weight into his arms. “Give us some light.”
The wound on her neck was already clotting, but her face was pale.
“What was it?”
“Knock-out juice.” David stated, helping Edward move her to the floor. “If she’s unconscious, she can’t draw from us and fight back.”
“How long will it last?”
The blacksmith shrugged. “Hard to tell. I’d say twelve hours at least. They’d want to be careful with her.”
“We need to hole-up somewhere.”
“They’ll be on us as soon as we pop up a head,” Jacob informed them, remembering his days as a soldier. “Those darts are trackers, too.”
“Then we’ll make ‘em come down here for her.”
“We only have a couple weeks of supplies. They can track her for a lot longer.”
Alexa’s men knew only the details from her story, and they tried to remember every word as they struggled to form a plan to save her from being recaptured.
“What if we surrender… sort of?” Billy asked softly, loving the lethal way she’d trained his mind to work. It was as dangerous as his hands now. “On the way back, we change our minds.”
Silence held them all for a full minute as each man considered the images that brought and then went further, into the development. If an idea couldn’t be planned, it couldn’t be done. She’d taught them to think it through.
“We have to do it now, while she’s still out. They’ll take our guns and tie us, separate us into different jeeps for the trip.”
“What if we use a decoy instead?”
They looked to the angry preacher standing watch with his gun in hand.
Edward took the lead. “Half one way, the other half closes the trap?”
Jacob gave a curt nod. “If they think all of us are in the first group, a second wave would give us the advantage.
There was silence except for the creaks of the sewer around them as they considered the new idea. It wouldn’t be hard to cluster together and give the impression of se
ven where there were really four.
“We’ll need her awake for that, have to wait till she’s ready. They’ll know the juice has worn off.”
“Maybe not,” Edward stated. “I got a lot of it out. She might come around sooner than they think.”
Jacob finished the deadly plan, hating the death he was suggesting, but eager enough to be a part of it to secure her freedom. “When we come out, the first group turns and we catch them between us.”
“Carefully.” Mark warned. He’d lost friends to careless crossfire.
“Yes. It’ll be a blur, movement everywhere,” David said evenly, starting to feel the need to get on the move again. “Are we agreed?”
Four heads nodded. It was a big risk, to plan this and give her only an hour to confirm it or change it. The location she would have no choice on, and Edward went over as much of the area as he knew, not pulling up much.
Billy, on the other hand, had driven these streets, and he began to grin as Alexa’s training helped him zero in on their solution, “Wait. I think I’ve got something better. Get the map out.”
4
“We’re picking up a message on the short-wave.”
Rab’s words drew Corbin from his stare at the apocalyptic landscape. He had spent the last hour trying to outguess Alexa’s reaction to their ambush, and he’d insisted on being left alone to concentrate.
“What?”
“They’re calling us on the CB, trying to surrender, I think.”
The scientists voice was reluctant, worried, and Corbin locked eyes with him. “What is it?”
“They said she’s dead.”
Corbin’s heart turned to ice. “How?”
Rab shrugged, hating to be the one to deliver the news. “The dart got her in the back of the head and did some type of damage. They said she had a seizure and stopped breathing.”
Corbin strode to the small communications area they had set up inside a big green tent. He moved for the radioman and gestured impatiently.
The taped call wasn’t comforting. The cold attitude of the hard-ass who’d made the call hid grief. It was clear in the voice, and Corbin listened in growing rage. Dead!