by Mary Hughes
“They’re all at Luke’s.”
“Yes. But it doesn’t hurt to make absolutely sure.” Dashing away, he zipped around the place vampire-fast then ran inside.
My chest gave a little lurch, as if a piece of my heart had dashed away with him. Nobody gave a crap about me but Rey, and nobody protected me but me.
And now Ryker.
My sight glossed for a moment, a sheen of tears I blinked away. From the warmth ballooning beneath my breastbone, his “I need you” was turning into a two-way street.
When Ryker had cleared the place, Rey and I went inside, followed by Luke and Hardison. Ryker and Logan remained on guard outside.
I emptied my war chest of anything remotely useful. I already carried Joyce, Spyke and Angel, Sam and Dean, the remainder of my Jewels, Fleur, Lucille, and the Chances. Now I picked up my compact crossbow, Black Widow.
“What’s this?” Rey held up the satin-covered confectionery’s box.
I winced. “What does it look like?”
“Candy. But where’d it come from?” She opened the box. “Finished off all the chocolate cremes already?”
Though I didn’t want to lie to her, I really didn’t want to admit I’d polished off a vampire’s chocolate cremes. She’d accepted being surrounded by the Alliance suckers really well, but she wasn’t ready to hear I was in love with one.
As I loaded my shotgun, Max (well-placed at close range, he could decapitate), I hedged, “Can’t I buy candy?”
Rey plucked an orange creme from its paper and popped it in her mouth. “Doesn’t look like regular candy. Looks like date candy.” She chewed with obvious pleasure.
“It’s not.” Date candy, really. As if Ryker would lower himself to anything as mundane as a date.
Hardison let out another soft laugh.
I put Max in his carrying case, which also had a sleeve for my axe, Lizzie. Most vamps didn’t have talons like guillotines, so one of the Alliance males probably could use her. I attached my garlic grenades to my vest.
“Can I carry Cupid’s Revenge?” Rey pointed at my heavy crossbow.
“He’s Dixon, and no, you can’t, because you’re not going.”
“I’m not staying back,” she retorted.
“You need to, Rey. Hell, I need to stay back. These aren’t your usual sloppy bloodsuckers. They’re well trained and there are a lot of them. I’m not getting any closer than crossbow range while Ryker and the rest handle things.”
She crossed her arms, a sure sign she was digging in. “No way I’m staying here while you go play with your vampire.”
“M-my vampire?”
“Don’t think I haven’t seen those heartfelt glances he gives you,” she said significantly. “Or how you look at him in return.”
I had no reply for that, so I busied myself stocking two bags with crossbow quarrels. “Fine, you can go. We need a getaway driver anyway, if things go spectacularly wrong. Take this.” I handed her Ruby, my Glock 19 handgun with her cartridge of serum-coated silver bullets.
“Thanks.” Rey also plucked Harry, my UV flashlight, from my chest.
“That’s not generally useful,” I objected.
“Then you won’t miss it,” she shot back. “Let’s just say I have a feeling this’ll come in handy.”
“Fine.” Loaded up, we left the flat. I rode shotgun while Luke, Logan, and Hardison sat in the back. Ryker, in extreme protection mode, ran alongside the car. I was already keyed up, and seeing big, dark, and protectory looking so grim cranked me another notch. When Rey pulled to a stop six blocks away from Luke’s apartment, I would have leaped out and gotten down to business.
Before I could, she threw her arms around me, clutching my shoulders tight. “Come back safe, Kat. You may have an extra sister now, but I only have the one.” She swallowed audibly and squeezed me, short and hard. “Bring my sister back safe.”
My heart thumped hard, and the gloss was back in my eyes. When she would have released me, I gripped her hard, just for a moment, returning her desperate hug. I’d been running ahead of my worries, gathering weapons. Her words brought this insane mission sharply into focus. Three vampires, an ancient, and me, going up against a highly trained cadre of enhanced vampires and the monster who’d killed our parents?
With a final breath for courage, I let go of her. “Don’t worry. I’ll be back in no time.”
I got out, hoping I could keep that promise.
Chapter Twenty-Six
As I emerged from the car, I expected the same lecture from Ryker that I’d given Rey, so I short-circuited it with a whispered, “Ready?”
He surprised me with a boyish grin. “To fight alongside you? Always.” He also kept his voice low.
A splash of pleasure collided with a wave of doubt. I couldn’t help retorting, “What happened to ‘I work alone’?”
Rey popped the trunk, where we’d stowed my weapons.
Ryker glided toward the back. “That was a strategy that had worked for centuries…and then it didn’t.”
Following, I asked, “What changed?”
“I met you.”
Pleasure intensified. I stopped in my tracks. “That’s just crazy talk. Explain.”
Despite our danger, I hungered for his answer. Dared to hope for something beyond his “I need you.”
Even hoped for an “I love you.”
But the back door clicked open and the Steels and Hardison joined us. Ryker’s answer would have to wait.
Damn. If we survived this, we were absolutely having The Talk.
“What’s the plan here?” Hardison asked.
“Let’s make this simple,” Logan said. “You three, clear out the shadow goons around Strigorul. Distance weapons first, take out as many as possible. Follow up with hand-to-hand—Kat, you stay back. As soon as you’ve cleared a space around the Destroyer, Ryker and I go in. He uses his ancient mojo to open up a piece of Strigorul’s hide. I’ll hit him with a drop of this.” He produced the liquid gold serum from his pocket.
Though I wanted to be fighting at Ryker’s side, I’d had my chance with the serum and had blown it. Logan was right, but it made me cranky.
The Alliance vampire caught it. Gently, he added, “You’d be great handling the serum, Kat, especially since you can touch it without harming yourself. I’m faster, though, and with the speed ancients move, we’ll need that advantage.”
Under the fangs and faceplate, he really was a thoughtful guy. Had vamps been acting like this all along, and I’d missed it? Not that my line of work brought me in contact with all that many good suckers.
“You have your own weapons,” I said, a tacit nod to his kindness. “But I brought extra distance arms for everyone.” Pulling my crossbow Dixon from the trunk, I handed him to Hardison, along with a bag of ruby-serum-tipped bolts.
Then I rubbed a little ruby serum on Lizzie’s blade before handing the gun/axe case to Luke. “Careful not to cut yourself on the axe.”
“There’s already a shotgun in here.” Luke’s head tilt said he was puzzled. “Why would I need the axe?”
“Max holds six in the magazine and one in the chamber. Hardison has two dozen quarrels. You’ll run out of ammo before he does.”
“Ah.”
“The shells are shot, by the way. Aim for the neck. If you do it right, you can blast the head off. Remember—neither weapon will be effective on Strigorul, not with his ancient’s speed. They’ll work well enough on the lesser suckers, though. Do you want me to coat your personal blades with ruby serum?”
They did. The only one who didn’t have a weapon was Ryker, who had brought only his own formidable self. Not enough. I wanted to encase him in an armored tank, now that I loved him…or rather, while he owed me an explanation of that time-stopped moment between us.
“Do me a favor?” I raised my arms an
d twirled before him. “Pick one.”
He raised that caustic brow. “Only one? You have so many exceptional attributes.”
“Ass. I mean weapon.” I gestured at my vest. But ha. He regarded my attributes as exceptional.
He considered my vest quite seriously then plucked half a dozen Chances from the fringe of stakes around my waist.
I made a noise, disgust and admiration in equal parts. Leave it to him to pick the most up-close hardware I had. No playing it safe for my king. If there was a future, an “us” after this, it wasn’t going to be a lawn-tractors-and-swing-sets-in-the-suburbs type.
Fully armed, the five of us sneaked up on the apartment building via the alleyways, leap-frogging in pairs to make sure no one ambushed us.
We’d reached the last house east of Thirteen Street when I got a shiver of premonition. I cautiously tiptoed across the street, snugging myself to the back wall of Adelaide’s Heart, Alexis’s shelter. We advanced along the back of the building.
I dared a peek around the corner.
Adelaide’s Heart and Luke Steel’s apartments were the only two structures on the south half of the block, separated by a wide-open area that was half gardens, half playground. And in the gardens…
A dozen males in fatigues stood scowling at the apartment building.
Delight bubbled up in me. A mere dozen? Had Ryker and I taken out most of the shadow grunts back at the business park? Twelve wasn’t quite a slam-dunk, but it was a lot better than I’d feared.
As I turned to give the guys the good news, the Destroyer’s bellow stopped me.
“The cowards have finally come out of hiding. Umbra’s Lieutenants, to me!”
I ducked my head back out. Vampires poured from around the corners of the apartment, more and more, and even more, to gather on the west side of Luke’s building. Strigorul stood at their head.
My delight turned sour. So many. Strong, fit males jogged into formation—a few blue badges but mostly red and silver. These were his crack teams, the vamps who’d tasted ancient blood.
Stab me sideways with stilettos. Today was not a good day to die.
Strigorul, that giant bloodsucking bastard, just stood there, smug and sure of himself.
My fingers wrapped around Black Widow so tightly my knuckles turned white. Strigorul, the vampire who’d destroyed my family, my life. My blood began to boil, burning away any fear. The sucker who’d beaten, kidnapped, and drugged Elias, a leader my father Race considered noble. A low growl erupted in my throat. The evil monster who’d nearly succeeded killing Ryker, the love of my life. My vision went red.
I’d had it with that SOB.
Screaming a warrior’s cry, I charged the Destroyer, firing off half a dozen bolts. They probably wouldn’t penetrate his faux-ancient hide, and even then, the ruby serum would only hurt a little. Still, he’d made my life hell and I had to do something to let him taste the pain he’d given me.
Bloodsuckers boiled up to encircle him. The quarrels hit them instead. Fuck. I screeched to a halt in front of Adelaide’s Heart. Picking off the shadow fodder was better for our plan, but it did nothing to appease the fire raging inside me.
Hardison and Luke flickered to my side and unloaded their weapons into the shadow goons. Luke got solid hits on three, silver buckshot shearing their heads off.
Hardison and I hit as many tactical vests as we did vamp hide. The ones we hit on skin dissolved—eventually.
The delay worried me. Sure, the ruby serum worked on the red and even silver badges, but it took so much longer than it had against the blue badges. We weren’t cutting them down fast enough.
And when half Strigorul’s force switched from defense to offense, thundering toward us like King Leonidas and his 300, most reached us, despite our skewering them with serum.
I dropped Black Widow and drew Joyce. Luke dropped Max, kicking him back toward Logan and Ryker, watching for an opening to mist in. Hardison shot off his last few quarrels, slid Dixon back to Logan, and double-drew a serum-coated switchblade and an electrified sword. Luke switched to his estoc blade and Lizzie.
We braced as the first wave of shadow goons hit us.
Ryker whirled out of nowhere like a tornado to come between us and them. He staked six vampires in a row, spinning like a timing belt. Pop, pop, pop, he drove wood into hearts so deep there wasn’t any part left for the vamps to pull on, only craters around the top of the handle.
While they could’ve misted and lost the stakes that way, the first impulse of any sucker is to pluck the stake out and laugh. Guarantees a nice sweet sear of terror in the victim.
Their overconfidence meant we had a moment of attitude adjustment as the six plucked ineffectually at their chests. Luke, Hardison, and I used it to finish off two each with a stab or slice of serum-coated blade.
Then the shadow force hit us in earnest.
Luke chopped and hacked. Hardison’s electrified sword zapped and snarled as he swung it, doing major damage to vamps trying to mist. Logan and Ryker joined the fight—with that number of shadow grunts, they had to for us to stand any kind of chance.
“Alliance,” Strigorul cried, his voice ringing with compulsion. “Drop your weapons!”
Gritting their teeth, the Alliance males began to set down their arms. My blood went bright with terror.
“Don’t listen to him,” Ryker countermanded in dark tones rich with force. “All his commands are void.”
Logan and the rest reacted as if struck by lightning, snatching up their weapons. The terror drained from my body in relief. Not only was Ryker more powerful than Strigorul, his sharing blood with the Alliance males must’ve enhanced his ability to compel them. Our side went on fighting.
We had some surprises, too. Hardison pulled a stun gun at one point, literally shocking three of them before the rest caught on. I surprised another couple clumps with a few well-placed garlic grenades.
Logan had a particularly nasty trick he used with the rapier, one that worked even on the silver badges, one that might even have worked on Strigorul, had he bothered to join the fight. The elder Steel stabbed his slim blade into the enemy’s vulnerable eye hole. Each shadow-warrior goon he stabbed lost interest in the fight, either sitting down in the middle of it or simply wandering away.
The Alliance vampires were exceedingly well trained, and their stamina was astounding. Otherwise I don’t think we’d have lasted as long as we did.
Still, eventually we ran out of tricks, and we were tiring. Luke was slashing one-handed, his humanized hand hanging limp. And our big gun, Ryker, was fighting alongside us while the Destroyer and half his troops hung back, completely fresh.
Sweat stung my eyes when Strigorul finally attacked.
Misting straight for me. Terror dumped adrenaline into my blood.
He boiled up before me, machete-like claws already formed, slashing toward my neck.
Expecting Ryker to interpose bodily again.
Ryker had already misted in behind me, snared me by the scabbards, and yanked me out of the path of Strigorul’s talons, so fast I came off my feet.
“What a one-trick pony you are, Strigorul.” Ryker met the Destroyer with a vicious jab of Wolverine-size talons, up under the Destroyer’s jaw, so fast Strigorul could only take the hit. If his skin hadn’t been armored, he would’ve lost his brain stem.
As it was, he left a spray of blood when he misted away.
“That’s what you get, drinking ancient power without putting in the corresponding time,” Ryker taunted. “Strength without wisdom.”
“There are no shortcuts, kids,” Logan murmured. “Study hard and don’t do drugs.”
Ryker misted in pursuit of the Destroyer. They began that vicious mist-fighting again, blasting away from attack, forming a moment later in an unexpected place with a devastating sneak assault. It was almost impossible to te
ar my attention from the deadly ballet.
Not just me. The shadow goons paused to watch, too.
Which was when Logan drew out the gold serum.
I got a jolt. This is it. He was about to pull our major play of the mission. I got in there and doubled my efforts slashing at shadow vamp flunkies, distracting them from Steel.
Beyond us, Ryker and Strigorul were a veritable hurricane of vampire mist, whirling toward the playground. Collapsing solid near a slanted climbing ramp.
A slim hand reached out from under the tented wood.
Ice speared me. My sister’s hand.
Rey, while Strigorul was grappling with Ryker, lightly searched him.
My heart stuttered.
She wasn’t being incredibly stupid. My sister was naturally gifted, physically and mentally. If anyone could touch someone and not get caught, it was her.
Still, it was an insane risk. If the Destroyer should see or feel her…
Her hand paused. Gently lifted a cylindrical tube from his tactical belt.
For fuck’s sake. She’d patted down a deadly vampire for her dear friend Greyson’s antidote.
She leaned out of the dark to better see what she held. Her pleased expression turned annoyed at the koppo stick in her hand.
Her face went shocked when the Destroyer yanked her bodily into his grasp.
I was already shoving through vampires, trying to get to her, my heart in my throat.
Strigorul leaped away from Ryker. “Stop, all of you,” he bellowed. “Come near me, even a step, and I’ll kill her.”
Around me, shadow vamps fell still, but that wasn’t what froze me.
His hand was around her throat. His other arm held her struggling slim form. In that position, the Destroyer could break my sister in two as fast as he’d snatched her.
“Rey.” Terror roughened my voice. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“You were all so fixated on destroying him.” She stopped struggling to vent at me. “What if you destroyed Greyson’s medicine as collateral damage? I couldn’t chance that.”
I groaned. “Greyson won’t need his medicine if we fail our mission.”