She arrived at the mouth of Viper Canyon, where an old-fashioned sign pointed would-be tourists towards the town’s only attraction. There was no sight of Sam.
She walked now, briskly, holding the machete tightly in her hand, into the tight corridor of the canyon. The path snaked and wound and there were a few places where kids had drawn crude graffiti on its walls.
Zara ignored the artwork and moved briskly until she rounded a final corner and entered into a large area the size of roller rink. This must have been where Clay met his end, here among these inescapable sheer walls. Clay Sollero had foolishly underestimated his wily opponent that day—a mistake Zara did not intend to make.
She suddenly had the nauseating notion that Sam was working with the Casparis, that he had only led her here so that she would be easily destroyed. She shut the thought out, there was no turning back now, Drake wasn’t far behind. It was this or nothing. She just hoped Twig was ready.
Zara moved to the far end of the arena and leaned flat against the smooth wall. She crouched beside a rock and looked up at the canyon ridges. She shouted up to Twig and in a moment she saw him standing on the edge waving a flashlight.
The light went out and Zara waited. The wind was howling now, and the smoke was now drifting down from above in silky curves, curling over the lip of the canyon, rolling down toward her.
28.
“Stay close,” Abby said to the club kids, who followed her deeper into the canyon, single-file. The fire was making them nervous, and if Abby didn’t get to Zara quick, these cretins might start deserting. For this reason she had made a point of remembering each of their worried faces.
Why Drake, at the last minute, gave her command of these peasants was beyond her sense of reason. He told her to lead them in while he climbed to the ridge. A strange look had crept across his face. Maybe he knew it was a trap and was using Abby and his recently acquired soldiers as bait. He told her to keep Zara’s father out front, just in case.
Abby knew the ghost was clever. He would have to be to have survived so many years. But Zara and her little hipster boy toy? She didn’t see the need for so much force. She tried to remember anything good about her wilted friendship with Zara, but couldn’t summon a single memory worth revisiting. No matter what they were now, she would always see Zara as her lesser.
She pushed Mark forward, who coughed violently. “You were always such a little—” He began to say but Abby dug a nail into his side and he whimpered.
“No talking,” she said icily.
The smoke was now pouring down into the canyon and filling it like a mist. Either way he was going to be dead soon, she thought. She yelled back at the lagging club kids, who were now very nervous indeed. She reminded them that Damon would hear an honest account of everything that happened here once the dust had settled. This struck a chord in them, and they seemed to gain some courage.
Mark staggered forward, asking questions and pleading to his captors, but all it got him was a few more prods and curses.
The mob came through into a large opening. Abby held a firm hand on Mark’s shoulder. She saw Zara, standing there with a look of shock on her face.
Abby held up her hand to keep the club kids from charging in. She looked around and saw only a pool of wispy smoke. The club kids began to panic and push behind her, the smoke and now the sight of one of their targets making them entirely unstable.
Abby shoved Mark forward. Drake had been wrong; there was no trap here, only a stupid, scared little girl who was cornered. She didn’t need this pathetic human shield to deal with the likes of Zara Lane.
Mark ambled forward, calling to his daughter. Zara darted forward agilely and grabbed hold of him just as he was about to fall. She cradled him and shot Abby a look of seething hatred.
Much to Abby’s surprise, Zara suddenly lunged backwards with her father like he was a rag doll.
Twig couldn’t wait a minute longer. The wildfire was coming up the hill to his position, and he was gagging on the smoke. He could hear some shouting down in the canyon. With burning eyes he saw the mob directly below him, right where Zara said they would come. He counted at least ten bloodsuckers. He reached in and started the truck. He picked up the rock and almost dropped it down on the gas pedal before he remembered he had to light the rag first. He put the rock back on the seat, took the lighter out of his pocket and ran to the side of the truck to light the rag, but it was gone.
“So it’s only you,” said a familiar voice from behind him. He felt all his nerves jump at once.
Twig didn’t turn around, he just lowered his head. He had left the crossbow, stupidly, on the seat inside the truck while he was scrambling around. He was getting real sick of everyone getting the drop on him.
“Just me,” Twig said, turning and facing Drake. He made a face. “You got uglier since last time I saw you,” he said, trying to hide his fear that he was about to ripped to shreds. Drake was dressed in Army uniform and was holding a long and ancient looking sword.
Drake snarled for a moment, and then he smiled. “Gift from your father. I’m sorry to say it was the last one he will ever give.”
Twig could barely breath now from the smoke that was filling his lungs, and with the demon’s words he now felt a too sick to stand. The dizziness brought him to his knees. “You lie!” He wheezed. He couldn’t think straight, everything seemed to be pushing him down to the ground.
Drake shook his head at him. “So this is the last of the great vampire hunters. And you wonder why I get more satisfaction fighting my own kind. Look at you, it’s disgraceful.”
Twig struggled to his feet, and Drake gripped his sword tight.
Just then another voice came from the swirling smoke all around them.
“You will gain no satisfaction today Drachen,” the voice said.
Drake’s face grew serious and he spun around, narrowing his eyes.
“The peasant boy returns,” he grunted. “Come then, Szellum, become the ghost you were always meant to be!”
As the words left his lips Twig saw a dark shape dive towards Drake, brandishing the same curved sword and swinging wildly. Drake barely avoided the attack, raising his sword just in time, and the sound of the clashing metal rung in Twig’s ears.
The attacker vanished as quickly as he had struck.
Drake’s voice seemed shaky, but he stood his ground, turning wildly like the sped-up hand of a clock, waiting for the next attack. “I see you have been training. Such a waste of talent to die here. Why die here when you can join us?”
The shape darted in again, and this time Drake had moved too slow and felt the sting of steel across his shoulder. He cursed and swung his sword late, hitting nothing.
“You stole my life, now I take yours, pathetic as it is,” the voice said venomously as the hooded man darted in once again with a wild swing. This time though Drake had gathered a handful of dirt in his hand while he was rising from his injury, and threw it into the face of the attacker. This startled the hooded man and broke his momentum long enough for Drake to sidestep and swing his sword hard at his opponent’s midsection. The hooded man swayed backwards away from the arc, but the blade nipped his leg. Drake swung again but the wraith parried the blow.
The force of their swings pushed some of the smoke away, and Twig could see the newcomer’s face now, the same face as the man he was hunting in his dream. The two men fought wildly, appearing and disappearing as smoke swirled around them. Their movements were swift and calculating and both men snarled and hissed and spit and cursed. It sounded to
Twig suddenly remembered Zara, down bellow waiting for him to act. He didn’t care anymore about himself; he only wanted to take as many down with him as he could and protect Zara. He snatched the rag up off the ground and jammed it back into the gas tank, lighting the end with a shaking hand. The swords were still clashing behind him, and both Drake and the man he called Szellem were cursing and growling ferociously with each swing.
Twig wobbl
ed to the truck’s cab, his eyes burning and his sight blurred, and felt around for the rock. He found the rough edges of the rock and snatched it up. He got out, grabbing the crossbow off the seat with one hand, then reaching in and dropping the rock onto the accelerator with the other.
He heard the truck’s engine roar, the sound of the dirt and pebbles shooting out from under the tires, and the truck jumped forward,
The swords stopped clashing for a moment and he could hear both vampires panting nearby. Twig wiped his eyes with his sleeve and could see the hazy silhouette of one of them, shrouded in smoke, hunched over, either wounded or exhausted. He raised the crossbow, pointed it towards the creature’s body, and fired.
29.
Without thinking Abby dove forward away from the rest of the club kids, who looked upwards and began shrieking wildly. They were paralyzed at the sight of the plummeting truck.
The explosion was incredible, and the fire and metal shrapnel lashed across Abby’s back like a whip, sending searing pain throughout her body. She rolled hard as she landed, away from the smoldering carnage. A few animalistic screams came from the few soon-to-be-dead survivors. Above the wreckage, up on the ridge walls the sound of metal colliding with metal could be heard.
The smoke from the smoldering truck added to that of the smoke curling down the walls, creating a thick fog.
Abby fought through the pain and got to her feet. She couldn’t see an inch past the smokescreen in front of her. She swiped angrily, hoping to catch hold of Zara’s flesh but struck nothing. She was incensed and the pain only fed her anger.
30.
In the wild confusion Abby heard a dull thud behind her. Without thinking, she dived towards it, teeth bared and stake in hand, stabbing wildly into the area and hitting dirt. Eventually she hit something and felt the stake lodge into it with a pulpy sound.
She heard Zara now, calling out to her father and telling him to stay with her.
Abby shuddered and touched the chest of the body. It was decidedly male. She touched his face and felt a tremendous relief when she felt the facial hair under the man’s nose. It was that stupid mustache that Twig had. One down, she thought.
She stood and began swiping again into the fog of smoke.
Zara could hear the swooshing of Abby’s frenzied swipes and the panting of her hateful breaths. She knew that even vampires get tired and have to answer for the power they spend, so she bade her time, moving as quietly away from Abby as she could, dragging her wheezing and unconscious father as she went.
She stopped for a minute and ran her hands over the wall of the canyon, ignoring Abby’s deranged shouts.
After a lot of groping, she found what she was looking for: a large square rock that leaned up against the base of the wall. With great effort, she grasped the flat stone with either hand and moved it quietly to the side.
She reached her hand into the space that the rock covered and could feel a faint breeze. She dragged her father down into dark space of the mineshaft, which Szellem had revealed as the actual way he and his posse had escaped the canyon so many years before. She dragged him a good distance in before propping him up against a rock. Zara could see better in the dark cavern than in the smoky chaos in the canyon, and could see her father was in bad shape, but he was still breathing. She told him the shaft led out to the surface, and that if she didn’t return, he had to escape, to live and tell others about the Caspari family. Mark nodded and wheezed, clearly not understanding the words. His eyes fluttered in and out of consciousness, and Zara turned and stepped back up the mineshaft path.
Zara came out of the mineshaft boiling with hatred. She could hear the challenges of Abby and rose to meet them, diving headlong toward the bitch with her machete.
The two collided violently. Zara grabbed a handful of Abby’s hair, and in one swift, athletic motion dug her heels into the soft dirt and pivoted her torso, sending Abby flying like a sling.
The momentum of the throw cleared a path through the smoke and Abby went careening into the canyon wall. With the newfound visibility she now saw the wounded Drake, who was staggering onto his feet and trying to pull out a sword that been pushed clear to the hilt into his shoulder. His own sword was at his feet.
Abby was incapacitated by the blow and now Zara fixed her gaze on the helpless Drake. Looking at him, she felt the primal fury she had felt before grow once again, only it was angrier than before.
Zara pounced on Drake like a spider on a fly. He screamed in pain when the sword pushed out of his shoulder from the fall. He swung a fist at Zara but she grabbed it with one hand and twisted hard, turning it to an angle so swiftly she heard something snap under her tight grip. He howled in pain and brought up his other fist.
She was no longer herself, something else was firmly in control, and she snapped the other wrist before releasing Drake who rolled in agony on the dirt floor.
By now, Abby had lumbered up to her feet and cast a defiant yet terrified look towards Zara, whose eyes had become blood red and whose face was now as twisted as an old elm tree. Zara extended her two hands and fingers which had mutated into razor-sharp claws, and howled a single seething roar that made the smoke curl away from her from the pure force of the exhalation.
The sight was something to behold. Abby watched with ebbing bravado as Zara began to hunch and convulse, her body became more and more inhuman with each jarring contortion.
Abby looked over at Drake, still lying wounded in the dirt, before looking back at Zara. She spit contemptuously, her courage temporarily bolstered by the sight of her wounded love. She picked up her stake from the dirt and jumped forward and stabbed at the creature’s chest, hoping it still had a heart to stake, but the creature was too quick. “I’ll kill you!” Abby shouted.
The creature seemed to chortle and cackle for a moment, before it reached out and grabbed Abby by the throat and lift her up in the air.
Again Abby felt the sensation of being airborne. She had little time to consider how deadly quick Zara had become as her head struck the metal of the truck, which was still ablaze.
Abby screamed as the fire swept over her skin. She felt a million nerves all scream in unified pain at once. She rolled and rolled until she had gotten away from the blaze, but the damage was done. The hair was gone and her skin was charred. Smoke poured off of her.
Zara now stood over Drake, holding his scimitar in her clawed hand, turning it from side to side and admiring it and laughing maniacally. Strange words and voices raced through her head now, voices of the dead, the fallen-- hateful spirits that still demanded retribution and death. They shouted to her, screamed to her for blood, and the cacophony left no space for her own thoughts.
As she hovered over Drake, chanting strange words and licking her purplish lips, something suddenly fell from the sky like a heavy blanket.
She hadn’t heard the planes, but now could see and hear them above, streaming overhead and dumping greenish dust on them, like manna from the heavens. She returned her gaze to the ground but Drake had taken the momentary distraction to escape. She scanned the canyon but he was nowhere to be seen.
With her foes crippled or retreating, her rage subsided. Zara hunched over in pain as she transformed from her hideous demonic state back to her humanoid, albeit vampire form.
She wanted to weep and cry out as the planes continued to pass overhead, pouring down layer upon layer of this gritty and dry substance. She finally got to her feet and, now seeing the dust covered bodies of the club kids all laying in pieces near the truck, she understood the cost of survival.
She could barely stand, but she walked over to the body that still had an arrow in it. She reached down and swept the dust off his face. Two strange eyes gazed up at her. Eyes emptied of the torment she had seen in them once. Whoever Szellem was, whatever terrible events led him to this canyon, he was no more.
She looked around the canyon. There was no sign of Drake, and only a soft impression in the dirt where Abby had lay.
> Twig was shouting from high above on the canyon ledge, his big duster jacket covered in the greenish dust.
“Go around to the path!” She shouted. “There’s a shaft here that leads out of here!”
Twig stood befuddled for a minute, swiping at the dust on his face and cursing, before he nodded and staggered out of view.
Zara ducked down and crept into the mineshaft and saw her father slumped over down at the end of the long shaft. She approached him slowly. His chest was no longer heaving and he looked forward with two dead eyes. She squatted down and looked at him, and heavy ters welled up in her eyes. She could hear Twig, shouting and noisily entering the shaft. When he saw Zara he fell silent and became still.
“Oh Jesus Zar..” He said.
Zara stood stiff as Twig hugged her.
Bloodfire (Empire of Fangs) Page 10