Phantom Shadows ig-3

by Dianne Duvall

  “Answer the question, asshole,” the blond said and took what Bastien assumed was supposed to be a menacing step forward.

  “I’m here for the same reason you are. This place means something to me.” He let his fangs descend.

  “He’s a vampire like us,” one of the Tar Heel vamps murmured.

  “I don’t know,” the other muttered. “The woman is human. Doesn’t one of the Immortal Guardians have a female Second?”

  The vamps all tensed.

  “Are you Roland?” the blond demanded.

  Bastien sighed and looked at Melanie. “Why do so many vampires think Roland is the only man infected with the virus who has a human consort?”

  “Consort?” she repeated with an intriguing amount of interest. “Am I your consort then?”

  “Don’t tempt me.” Seriously. The mere suggestion sent erotic images writhing through his brain and he needed to keep his head clear at the moment.

  Later though . . .

  No. Not even later. Melanie was off-limits.

  “What’s a consort?” the Murray’s man asked.

  Bastien turned back to the vamps. “Why are you here?”

  The blond raised his chin. “I lived here once. I was one of Bastien’s soldiers.”

  “No, you weren’t.” Bastien had never seen the little snot before.

  “Was, too,” he retorted in a petulant singsong. “I wasn’t a grunt either. I was his second in command.”

  “No, you weren’t,” Bastien repeated.

  “How the hell do you know?” The vamp blurted, his face broadcasting his frustration.

  “Because I’m Bastien, dumbass.”

  Melanie sighed loudly and sent Bastien a look that said, Really? This is how you try to gain their cooperation?

  Inwardly, Bastien shrugged. He’d tried. But he had always had a low threshold for bullshit. Particularly when that bullshit was doled out with a great big steaming pile of arrogance.

  The blond shot forward in a blur, but stopped short before the others could do more than tense to follow. His expression stunned, he stared down at the dagger sticking out of his chest.

  The dagger Melanie had thrown.

  Bastien turned to Melanie. “And this would be your method of forging an alliance?”

  She grimaced. “Sorry. Instinct.”

  Once more fighting the urge to laugh—the two of them were really botching this—Bastien leaped forward.

  While Melanie cursed herself for reacting too quickly, Bastien sped forward and plowed into the blond like an NFL linebacker. Without slowing, he caught the Panthers fan, too, and took them both down. The three slammed to the ground, dirt and winter brown foliage spraying up from the small crater they formed. Bastien reared back and hit the two vamps with the auto-injectors just as the other three vampires shot forward.

  Melanie threw two daggers. One hit the vampire with the slicked back hair in the chest. The other hit one of the Tar Heels in the biceps. Both jerked to a halt and reached up to yank the blades out, giving Bastien enough time to deliver the full doses to the vampires he straddled.

  The other Tar Heel kept going, streaking past Bastien and the others toward Melanie.

  Fear sliced through her. She hurled another dagger, but the vamp dodged it, letting it fly past and land in the neck of the vamp with the slicked-back hair.

  Down to her last two daggers, Melanie began to walk backward as she swung the blades in front of her. Mortals couldn’t combat a vampire’s strength. Nor could they match a vampire’s speed. The best chance they had was to try to anticipate where the vampire would strike and swing to deflect the blow long before the vamp actually made it. Melanie had always been good at guessing the next move. And vampires did tend to underestimate any mortals who challenged them, toying with them first before they attacked in earnest.

  At the last minute, Melanie dropped to the ground. A breeze combed through her hair as the vampire sailed overhead.

  Heart pounding, she jumped to her feet and faced the vampire as he hit the ground and spun around.

  His face mottled with anger. His hands closed into fists. His blue eyes began to glow as brightly as the moon above them. Lips curling into a sneer, he drew a butterfly knife from his back pocket, fanned it open with a flourish, and gripped the handles.

  Melanie balanced her weight lightly on the balls of her feet, gripped her daggers, and waited.

  The vampire blurred.

  Swiveling to the side, Melanie swung both blades and stepped back.

  A sharp pain stung her thigh. Again raising her weapons, she watched the vampire halt and stare down at the two long rips in his sweatshirt. One tore the material open from the middle of his chest to his hip. The other opened his side and lower back. The edges of both swiftly turned crimson, the stain spreading beneath each opening.

  Jaw clenching, he charged forward.

  Melanie again dropped to the ground. This time the vampire tripped on her, his foot lodging painfully in her ribs, then flew several yards to land in an ignominious heap.

  Not too bright, this one.

  Melanie rose and fought the urge to clutch her sore ribs. Another lesson she had learned when training was to never tip off her opponents to a weakness. Show them an injury and they would exploit it.

  Rustles and thumps sounded behind her. She wanted desperately to peek and see how Bastien was faring, but didn’t dare take her eyes from the vampire stumbling to his feet and facing her. Dirt clung to the wet ruby patches on his clothes. His hair stood up on one side.

  Growling in fury, he lunged in her direction, then froze, his gaze going over her shoulder.

  A body brushed up against Melanie’s back.

  Jumping, she spun around and swung one of the daggers.

  Bastien caught her wrist before the blade could sink into his throat. “It’s all right. It’s just me.”

  Relief rushed through her. “Make a sound next time. Or say my name. Something. I thought you were one of the other vampires.”

  “I realize that now. My mistake. I’ve never fought alongside a human before.” He pointed at the vampire, who was easing back a step. “You,” he pronounced in an authoritative tone. “Stay where you are. We need to talk and if you run away you won’t escape. You’ll just piss me off.” His expression darkened. “And you do not want to piss me off.”

  The vampire blanched and swallowed audibly.

  Melanie looked behind Bastien at the others. The blond, the Panthers fan, and the other Tar Heel were unconscious on the ground, successfully tranqed by the auto-injectors. The vamp in black with the slicked back hair was rapidly shriveling up as the virus that infected him devoured him from the inside out in a frantic bid to continue living. He could have survived the knife to the chest. It had hit near his shoulder. But the throat . . . Her borrowed dagger had severed the carotid artery.

  Vampires weren’t like immortals. Immortals wouldn’t die from blood loss alone. If the blood loss was extreme enough, the immortal would slip into a sort of stasis or hibernation until another blood source came along. Vampires like this one, however, simply bled out, dying before the virus could repair the damage.

  Melanie stared. She had never killed anyone before. Had never even imagined doing so, even while undergoing her training. It left a sick feeling in her stomach. A heaviness in her chest.

  Bastien’s hand on her wrist loosened, sliding up to her biceps to brush up and down in a gentle caress.

  She looked up, met his gaze. “It was an accident.”

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t mean to kill him. The second dagger was supposed to hit that one.” She motioned to the sole upright vampire, who glanced around frantically, seeking some avenue of escape.

  “I know,” Bastien murmured softly, then maneuvered her around so her back was to the others. “What about your leg? How deep is the wound?”

  She glanced down. The blue jean material clinging to her left thigh had parted in a clean slice about half a f
oot long. Shifting the dagger in her left hand to join that in her right, she poked the wound. “It’s shallow. I don’t think I even need stitches.”

  Bastien suddenly pointed in the vamp’s direction. “Boy, do not make me chase you.”

  The vampire, who must have been about to bolt, went still, eyes wide.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?” Bastien asked Melanie, his voice much softer.

  She nodded.

  “Why aren’t the others shriveling up?” the vampire blurted. Melanie could almost hear his nerves jangling.

  “They aren’t dead,” Bastien told him and held up the used auto-injectors. “They’re drugged.”

  “Drugs don’t work on us,” the vampire countered. “I used to be hooked on Ketamine. Now it doesn’t do shit to me.”

  “This,” Bastien told him, again drawing his attention to the auto-injectors, “will.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Have you ever seen a dead vampire not disintegrate?”

  “No,” he admitted. “But I haven’t seen very many dead vampires.”

  Melanie eyed the vamp. Could they have lucked out and actually found a newly turned one so soon? “How long have you been infected?”

  “Since Spring Break.” Less than a year then. “I went to Acapulco, got high, passed out on the beach, and woke up like this.” His gaze, still luminescent blue, strayed to his companions.

  “Listen for their pulse, if it will make you feel better,” Melanie suggested.

  All were silent for a long moment.

  “They really are still alive,” he said. “But they’re out? They’re unconscious?”

  “Yes.”

  He started forward.

  Bastien reached out, touched Melanie’s hip, and eased her behind him.

  She tried to resist—she could take care of herself—but Bastien got his way through sheer strength, keeping himself between her and the vampire at all times as the boy went to stand over his friends.

  All but growling with frustration, Melanie poked Bastien in the ribs.

  A bark of startled laughter escaped him when she inadvertently hit a ticklish spot. He quickly cut it off and frowned down at her.

  Raising up the daggers she still held in one hand, she pushed him away with the other. “I don’t think he’s stupid enough to try to hurt me,” she said dryly. “Are you . . . what’s your name?”

  The vampire stopped next to the blond. “Stuart.” Without answering her first question, he crouched down and started rifling through the pockets of the blond’s leather jacket.

  Bastien grumbled something she couldn’t hear under his breath. Truth be told, she wouldn’t mind being in his arms under other circumstances.

  Stuart made a sound of discovery and withdrew an iPod and what appeared to be Bose earbuds from the blond’s pocket. Rising, he wrapped the cord around and around the iPod, then tucked both into his back pocket.

  “He won’t remember any of this?” Stuart asked, his eyes on the blond.

  “No,” Bastien answered.

  A second later, Stuart drew his foot back and kicked the blond hard in the head. “Asshole. Takin’ my shit.” A second kick followed.

  “I take it you two weren’t close,” Bastien drawled.

  “Hell, no. But if there’s one thing we vampires learned from . . .” he motioned to Bastien “. . . well, from you, it’s that there’s strength in numbers. Dick here was the strongest among us and seemed to be doing pretty well, so I joined him.”

  Lovely, Bastien thought. The immortals were going to enjoy holding this over his head.

  “So . . .” Stuart said, easing back a step and clapping his hands together. “I guess I’ll just be going now.”

  “Nice try.” Bastien drawled and motioned to a pile of dirt that bordered a crater in the soil, a remnant of the last battle fought here. A battle he had missed, damn it. It may have turned out differently had he not. “Park it.”

  Face grim, Stuart perched awkwardly on the soil. “It’s damp.”

  “I care. Now pay attention. We have something to discuss.” Bastien untucked his shirt and began to tear a long strip from the hem like someone trying to pare away an apple’s skin in one long piece.

  “Is it what we heard you talking about before we reached the clearing?”

  “Yes. We’ve a new enemy.”

  “The Immortal Guardians do?”

  “Both of us—vampires and immortals—do. One bent on destroying us all so he can usurp our power.”

  “Yeah. Right.”

  “What are you doing?” Melanie asked, watching him curiously.

  Bastien knelt before her. “Remember what I said, Stuart. Don’t make me chase you.” Taking the long strip of cloth, Bastien began to wind it snugly around and around Melanie’s thigh where the vamp had cut her.

  She braced a hand on his shoulder. “Thank you.”

  Bastien completely lost his train of thought as warmth flowed into him at the sweet contact. He heard her pulse leap at his touch. Felt her breath catch as though it were his own.

  “Our new enemy developed the sedative, Stuart,” she said.

  “And yet, you’re using it.”

  “I didn’t get my hands on the drug,” she said, “until it was used against vampires and immortals during the vampire king’s uprising.”

  Bastien tied a knot in the makeshift bandage. “The enemy’s name is Emrys and he runs a mercenary group.” Rising, he glanced at the vamp. “At least we think it’s mercenary and not military.”

  Stuart frowned. “What, you mean like Blackwater?”

  “Yes, but think smaller and more elite. Only those who need to know are even aware of this shadow army’s existence. It’s so secretive we haven’t been able to ascertain its name or location, only that of the leader.”

  “We wouldn’t have even known that,” Melanie said, “if he hadn’t duped the vampire king.”

  Stuart looked doubtful, but at least he was listening.

  Bastien hadn’t really anticipated accomplishing this much when he had proposed his plan. He and Melanie had really lucked out.

  Of course, there were a lot more recently turned vampires in the area, thanks to the vampire king. Near the end, he had told his followers to turn others at will, and his soldiers had taken that order and run with it. Chris Reordon was still sorting through all of the Missing Person reports that had inundated the police and sheriff ’s departments in North Carolina and surrounding states.

  “Was this before or after you killed the king?” Stuart asked with an abundance of sarcasm.

  Bastien stood too close to Melanie. Every time their arms brushed, he was struck by little shocks of her emotions, many of which revolved around his sorry ass. “Before. What do you think weakened the king’s ranks enough for us to destroy them?”

  Stuart frowned.

  “This mercenary—Emrys—promised the vampire king power, an army . . . everything the king desired basically . . . in exchange for the capture of one of us. The vampire king trusted him and was taken down with the drug, many of his followers with him.”

  Sure it was a fabrication. Well, not the deal part, but the Emrys taking down the vampire king part. That had been pure Immortal Guardian handiwork accomplished with the aid of Reordon and his network.

  And a butt-load of Napalm-B.

  “So they want one of you guys?” Stuart asked, a speculative gleam entering his eye.

  “They want you, too,” Melanie said in that soft, genuine voice of hers. “We don’t know what their aim is. I assume they want to study you, possibly expose you to the public.”

  “What’s so wrong with going public?”

  Bastien snorted. “Nothing if you invest your money in repeating pump-action crossbow manufacturing. Because as soon as word breaks, an ass-load of religious fanatics, hunting aficionados, and horror movie fans are going to come after us. All of us. But, since vampires are the ones who actively prey upon humans, they’ll come after you first.”

>   “Shit.”

  “Precisely.”

  “It isn’t just that,” Melanie said. “This man and those he commands are butchers. We’ve seen their handiwork. They may promise you wealth and power and anything else they think you desire, but they will use the drug when you least expect it. It may be at your first meeting. Or at your fifth or fiftieth, when they feel you’re no longer useful to them. They think you’re an expendable animal. And when they have you at their mercy, they will torture you.”

  Bastien nodded. “When I say they want to study you, I don’t mean they want to take your blood pressure or ask you to turn your head and cough. They’ll torture your ass. The pain and discomfort you experienced during your transformation will be as minor as a paper cut in comparison.”

  Stuart swore.

  Bastien tensed when the boy jumped up and began to pace.

  “So what you’re saying is I’m screwed. This mercenary fuck wants me and every other vampire dead and so do you immortals.”

  “No, we don’t. You’d be an empty pile of clothing like Murray’s man over there if that were true. The immortals are looking for vampires with whom we can form an alliance of sorts.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Melanie caught Stuart’s eye. “This isn’t the first time an immortal has approached a vampire with an offer of aid. You wouldn’t be in this clearing tonight if you hadn’t heard that Bastien had done so in the past.”

  “Yeah,” Stuart said, voice high with anxiety, “because he thought he was a vampire!”

  “But that’s a good thing,” she insisted. “He lived with vampires for two centuries. He knows what you’re going through. I know what you’re going through. Two vampires have already joined our fight. Had they not, I wouldn’t have been able to alter the drug so that it only sedates and doesn’t kill vampires.”

  Stuart stopped short. “Really?”

  “The two were members of my army,” Bastien said, “who had the foresight to surrender and ask the Immortal Guardians for help rather than continuing to fight once I was taken.”

  “Once you were taken?” Stuart repeated. “Like as a prisoner?”

  Bastien shrugged. “I had spent too many years wrongly blaming immortals for something they didn’t do to go willingly. And, yet—as you can see—they didn’t harm me. They won’t harm you either if you help us.”