by Terry Spear
“I invited him in,” Adonis said. “The house is mine.”
Zachary assumed they would have a fight as soon as Adonis said so. But he could also understand how Adonis would feel about losing their home to the vampires and then pretending he had no claim to it. Zachary would have said something similar.
“Crichton owns it and every home along a stretch of beach here,” the vampire said, looking a little uneasy, glancing from one to the other.
He knew Zachary and he were vampires, unless they’d had teeth work done, but they had extended their canines and that couldn’t be faked with dental work. So Zachary assumed the vampire feared some new vampires had come into the area and were thinking of taking over from Crichton now that he had killed off the hunter families.
“That’s where you are deadly mistaken,” Adonis said in a smoothly dark and vampiric way. Or maybe a hunter’s way. Both could sound ominous and chilling enough to convey the threat.
Then someone burst in through the front door, and three hosts screamed. Pasha led the charge.
“Hunters!” someone yelled. It had to be a female host as vampires would have used telepathic communication.
What bothered Zachary the most was that Danai wasn’t here and he feared Michael would run off to search for her alone when they all needed to be here to fight the vampires.
“Hunters,” Zachary said with a sneer. “Easily taken care of.”
The hosts quickly fled the house. But the rogue vampires left congregated in the living room to fight Michael, Rachael, and Pasha. With Adonis and Zachary fighting the vampires from behind, that made only five hunters. They needed Danai.
Michael was a little distracted, looking around for Danai.
Until she suddenly appeared in the room and began to hunt the vampires like a good huntress would.
A male vampire attacked Michael, catching him off-guard because he was so shocked to see Danai suddenly appear as a vampire would. Zachary felt sorry for his brother as he turned his attention to the vampire who had left the couch and questioned him about the hunter’s sword.
“You are killing our own kind,” the vampire hissed at him.
“No, I’m killing rogues, like I have always done. You are not my kind and never will be.” And then Zachary swung his sword and beheaded the vampire, hoping that none of them had telepathically communicated to the others about the hunter trouble they now faced.
There would be more here before long if so. But vampires could be so arrogant, and he suspected they might figure with their significant numbers, they’d defeat the hunters here and then crow about it to Crichton afterward.
Several of the vampires they killed had been newly turned, and they didn’t fade away to wizened skin clinging to bones or turn to dust like the ancients did. Two were ancients, the woman Zachary had killed, and the one who had questioned him. The two ancients had taken over the house in Crichton’s name.
Pasha skewered another ancient. Pasha looked like one angry huntress—almost ballet-like as she shoved her sword into a newly turned vampire, then pirouetted to face a new threat. She was amazing to watch, now that she seemed to have her full strength back. She glanced up and saw Zachary watching her, scowled at him, and motioned for him to watch his back. He turned and pushed his sword into another vampire’s heart before the bastard ripped out his throat.
Hell, would Zachary always be this distracted when he was in her presence? He realized how much the adrenaline surged through his veins, hunter or vampire, it didn’t matter. He was born for the hunt, lived for it. And he was damned good at it, if he could keep his focus where it needed to be.
Chapter 7
As soon as she heard the vampire scream in her death throes in her parents’ home, Pasha had to rush in and help fight the rogues. She couldn’t wait for Adonis to tell her and the others to join the fight and she didn’t think he’d have time to ask for her help either. She wasn’t about to let the vampires get the best of her brother and Zachary.
She was right too. They were fighting already, and they’d needed her and the others’ help. Michael and Rachael were holding their own against the vampires. All the hunters were outnumbered, but they were fighting the threat with heart and sword.
Two vampires attacked Danai and Pasha quickly moved to help her. She prayed Zachary was watching his own back and not observing her fight like he’d been doing before he was nearly killed. It was foolhardiness, yet she couldn’t help but appreciate the unbridled look of admiration on his face while he watched her fight the bloodsuckers.
Her sword clanged as she caught the edge of the vampire’s blade, but he suddenly dropped the sword and lunged at her. A newly turned vampire, she suspected, who didn’t have the control of an ancient. They could fight for hours, enjoying the combat with a hunter, taking their time, toying with them. She stabbed her sword into the new vampire’s heart, and he dropped to the floor, dead. Feeling some remorse, she wished she could convince the newly turned ones to leave here and find a clan that wasn’t causing trouble for anyone. What if he’d been turned against his will like Zachary and her brother and sister had?
She saw Michael destroy an ancient and quickly turn to fight another vampire, his hair as long as the first, another ancient.
She kept expecting Crichton and more vampires to join the fight, but the number of ones they were dealing with now were dwindling, and no one else came to the house to aid them. Thankfully.
A vampire flew across the room, intending to fight Zachary and she jumped over a footstool to reach it and stabbed the vampire in the back. She pulled her sword free and the new vampire collapsed on the floor in death. Zachary turned and Pasha’s and his gazes collided. He inclined his head briefly and whipped around to take on another vampire. She sliced at the vampire’s arm when he tried to grab for Zachary’s throat.
The vampire screamed and both Pasha and Zachary killed the beast.
Three other vampires left to go. Danai was handling one, Adonis another. She admired the way they could move, disappear, reappear, and stake the vampires. Michael took care of the other. And then they were done.
With the vampires dead, they had no hunter clean-up crew to handle the bodies. Adonis said to Pasha, “Call the police for a vampire pick-up. I don’t want them to know I’m in charge here. It’s better if it sounds like we only have a couple of hunters who arrived to deal with this scourge.”
“All right.” Pasha called the police then. “I’m calling for a vampire pick up. You still handle those, don’t you?”
Sometimes when a city was overrun by vampires, the police were also corrupted and would call the head of the vampires to tell him or her what had happened. If that happened, the hunters would be in real trouble.
Even the hosts could alert Crichton, but if they were afraid the hunters would win back the territory and the head of the vampires would die, they might wait it out to see who came out on top.
Pasha put the phone on speaker so everyone could hear what the police said.
“Crichton has taken over that area of the beachfront properties,” the police sergeant said. “The hunter families that kept them in check are dead. We had to pick up their bodies,” Sergeant Hammerstein said.
“Right. But I’ve returned to put the situation to right. I’m Pasha, head of the family for now.”
“We’ll send a crew right over. I’ll be with the team. We need to talk.”
“We’ll be here.” Pasha gave him the address, then ended the call and took a deep breath. “As you heard, the clean-up crew is coming.”
“Good,” Adonis said. “We need to be prepared for them if Crichton’s gotten to them.” Before Michael could say anything to Danai about her appearance in the fight as a vampire would arrive, Adonis asked her, “Where have you been? You should have stayed at the hotel until we were ready to leave.” He sounded angry, but he tempered his ire as if he worried about her mental state.
“Carissa called me. She’s been trying to get a hold of any of u
s. Dad was calling everyone in the family and finally reached her and gave her my number.”
“Carissa? We thought everyone had died.” Adonis sounded incredulous. “Yet one of the vampires said others had escaped. She truly lives? And her baby?”
Zachary was glad to hear the other family members had made it out alive.
With tears in her eyes, Danai nodded. “She and her baby. Her mate sent her away once Crichton attacked and the hunters were losing the battle. Grandma and Grandpa were away fishing, and Carissa warned them not to return to the city. Cousin Laura and her mate, Jeremy, had taken their twins to Disney World. Jeremy tried to return to help, but he was too late. Before any vampires were aware that he was in the area, he returned to Orlando to protect his family, awaiting orders from our dad, if he still lived.”
Adonis took a relieved breath. “Then the whole family hadn’t been exterminated.”
“Enough of them. Seven families in all—twenty of our family members,” Danai said.
Which meant Zachary and the others here with him today that were ready to take down the threat wouldn’t succeed unless they added more hunters to their numbers.
“Did you tell her what had happened to us?” Adonis was cautious about how he spoke to her about it this time.
“I did.” Danai’s eyes were filled with tears and Michael wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze, telling her without words he was there for her no matter what.
As much of a hunter as he was, Zachary couldn’t believe that Michael would accept Danai for what she was. Zachary was proud of his brother for being so openminded about this.
Everyone watched them for a moment as Danai sobbed against Michael’s chest. Zachary thought she still wasn’t comfortable with what she had become. And Zachary was certain that she was still afraid of how this would affect her relationship with Michael. He shushed her and rubbed his hand over her back. It was one thing to comfort her when they could all die with the fight that was coming with the vampires, another to agree to mate her though.
Rachael joined Adonis and the two of them embraced. “How do you feel about coming home to this?” She sounded sympathetic.
Adonis shook his head. “It’s unreal. We were all very close, celebrating the little things and the bigger things in our lives. It’s just…unreal.”
Pasha was watching Danai with Michael, her mouth gaping a little, as if she couldn’t believe Michael would accept her sister, despite what she had become.
“Where is Carissa now?” Pasha finally asked.
“Hiding. She killed as many of the bloodsuckers as she could, then her mate forced her to leave the house with the baby, knowing they wouldn’t survive the onslaught,” Danai said. “She fled with the baby and had to hide with a human couple, unsure as to where our family had gone. She warned our grandparents to stay away, and her sister and brother-in-law that it was too late to do anything about it. To keep the twins safe. Carissa didn’t want to leave the city, hoping we’d return soon, and she would fight with us to end Crichton’s stranglehold. She also feared we had been lost wherever we went to and might not ever return. So she’s been killing a vampire here and there when she can do it as sneakily as possible while the humans care for the baby.”
Pasha shook her head. “She needed to take care of the baby and leave. They have to know a hunter is still after them and they would be after her.”
“She’s a huntress at heart. She feels she owes it to our kind, to our family, and to her fallen mate,” Danai said.
“She’s all right with what you’ve…become?” Pasha asked.
“Yes. She wanted to see my new teeth when I’m angry. And she thought it would give us an edge when we need it so badly. We’re horribly outnumbered, Pasha. We need whatever advantage we can have in the fight against evil,” Danai said.
Pasha nodded. “Where is she now?”
“At a condo a mile down the road. I said we’d come for her as soon as we could. We have to ensure the baby’s safety though. I hate leaving the three-month old with the humans, when they can so easily be brainwashed. Then we spied Crichton’s neon green Mercedes—showy, showing off that he doesn’t fear our kind—and I had to follow him,” Danai said.
“He had a black Camaro earlier. And you’re not to go it alone,” Adonis said. “We need you and your fighting skills if we’re going to make this right. We could use a couple of more hunter families.”
“Crichton has brought in a bunch of new vampires from other places and turned several people. With our enhanced hunter strength, we can easily kill the new vampires. The ancients he’s brought in from elsewhere, they’ll give us trouble,” Danai said.
“We shouldn’t stay here at our parents’ home,” Pasha warned. “As much as I want to declare that this is our family’s home again, the vampires in the area can easily get in since they have been invited in. We have no way to safeguard against it.”
“As soon as the clean-up crew has taken the bodies away, we will leave,” Adonis said. “We have to safeguard the clean-up crew in the meantime.”
They heard a police truck pull up outside and Rachael looked out the window. “Looks like the police, six men, unless they are really vampires in disguise.”
“Make yourselves scarce,” Rachael said to Adonis, his sister, and Zachary. “If they turn out to be vampires, come join us in the fight.”
Adonis kissed Rachael’s lips, then rested his forehead against hers. “Call us if you need us.”
Then Zachary, Adonis, and Danai vanished, but they wouldn’t be far, just in the den or someplace close by.
Chapter 8
Pasha opened the door for the police officers as they approached her parents’ home. “The bodies are mostly in the living room.”
“I’m glad to see some of the family has come back,” O’Connor said, the man she recalled who had always overseen vampire clean-up jobs. “We knew some of you weren’t accounted for. But we also kept finding some of Crichton’s dead vampires here and there. So we assumed some of you were still in the area.”
“We were in another fight, another place. I’m glad to see you are your same old self.” She felt a bit of relief that at least the vampires hadn’t turned the police force yet. She didn’t comment on who was in the area still, warring on the rogue vampires though. “We weren’t sure if you would have been turned.”
“No. We’re damn glad you’re back and can clean up things here,” O’Connor said. “For whatever reason, Crichton has left most of the human population in the area untouched.” He glanced at Michael and Rachael.
“New friends who hunt rogue vampires. Michael and Rachael.”
“Welcome. Where is the rest of your family?” O’Connor asked as Sergeant Hammerstein entered the living room and began directing the other men’s work.
“Dealing with another issue, another city. I came here with them,” Pasha said, waving at Michael and Rachael, “when we learned what went on here. We had enough to do the job.” She wasn’t a fool. She had no plan to tell these men anything if someone might be on Crichton’s payroll. Just the fact O’Connor was asking about the family could mean he was informing on them to Crichton. A vampire could easily persuade a human to tell him anything he wanted to know. Crichton would know that her father and mother and the rest of their close family hadn’t been killed in the onslaught. Which meant they’d be back for revenge.
That might be why the vampires hadn’t turned the police force, hoping to convince the hunter family that was left that Crichton didn’t have that much of a stranglehold over the city yet.
“We found an awful lot of bodies—lots of yours, lots of theirs.” O’Connor shook his head.
“Do you have any idea how many of them there are?”
“It’s hard to say. Six ancients were killed, thirty-four newly turned. A host said that Crichton brought the newly turned vampires here from other locations. All of them had ID on them, and not one was local. You know we can’t tell which are vampires fr
om humans unless they show their teeth. The same with hunters, they look just like they’re purely human. Crichton could have a ton of vampires with him, but we don’t have any real idea. A hunter, or more, have killed five more vampires, one of them an ancient. If you could hook up with the hunter or hunters, they could aid your cause. Actually, they must be some of your own family who escaped the battle.”
“Thank you. Do you know where Crichton’s staying?”
“No. He moves all the time. Even though the host said he controls the area, he seems worried that some of you might come for him. And after some of his people were killed, I’d say his concern is warranted.”
“Okay, thanks.” Pasha motioned to the bodies the men were carrying out. “We’ll be calling on you again, I’m sure.”
“Will you be staying here? We tried calling your father with the news about your family, but we never got a response. We assumed he hadn’t made it, but we didn’t find his body here, so we thought he might have perished somewhere else,” O’Connor said.
“We had no way to communicate with you.” Pasha didn’t want to share any real details.
O’Connor nodded. “If you need anything from us, just let us know. We want things back the way they were. I don’t trust that Crichton will leave our people alone. Your family was well-respected, and we felt protected while they were here.”
“I agree. Crichton might continue to target people from other areas, but he might change tactics at any time, if he feels he is losing control.” But Pasha did have an idea. What if her sister or brother, Zachary even, could control the policemen’s minds before Crichton could? “Michael, can you oversee things here for a moment? I need to make a call.”
“Yeah, sure, Rachael and I will stay here.”
“Thanks.” Pasha went looking for Adonis and when she found him, Danai, and Zachary in the den, she said, “Everything seems to be all right with the officers. But I wondered if one of you could control their minds like Crichton could.”