by Kristie Cook
He shook his head. “I don’t think so, ma lykita. It’s impossible to tell without the right equipment, but I think the bullet is lodged very close to her spinal cord. Too close for me to even try to remove it. There’s another one, though, a little higher. All I can see is the entry point, so it could be somewhere in her kidney or liver. Even her heart. She could be bleeding out internally. I closed up the wounds to stop the external bleeding, but I don’t know if she can heal past this, Lex.”
I rubbed the back of my neck as I stared at her sleeping body, blinking against the tears, then squatted down and leaned against the wall. My heart ached so badly. How could I cope with another loss? How could any of us? Our morale was slowly deteriorating, and this would make it plummet. All because of the fucking Daemoni and their damned soldiers.
I dropped my head into my hands and pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes. I felt so helpless. So hopeless.
So powerless.
Here I was, supposed to be the matriarch of a powerful society that served as the Angels’ army on Earth. But my society had to disband in order for the individuals to survive. My warriors still fought, but we were losing every battle and likely the war. And the Angels we served? They seemed to have forgotten we even existed, abandoning us when we needed them most. No messages of wisdom and direction came from them. They’d said they’d always be near. They’d promised I would never be alone. But I sure as hell felt alone.
Chapter 23
Except for gunfire in the far distance, the rest of the night passed uneventfully. Sheree made it through, but she wasn’t doing too well. If the first hours were the most critical, though, maybe, just maybe she’d make it. I awoke to the gray morning light seeping under the curtains and Noah stirring. Tristan immediately awoke, too. We’d apparently dozed off as we leaned against the wall and each other.
Noah sat up in the far bed, his face contorted and his eyes glowing red. He sniffed the air, and his nostrils flared.
“Amadis,” he growled.
Tristan and I both sprang to our feet, and he instantly paralyzed Noah before he did anything threatening.
“Easy, Noah,” I said calmly. His eyes swung to me and narrowed. “Do you remember why you’re here?”
He looked around the room, and when his gaze returned to me, he seemed to be more confused than anything else.
“I mean with us,” I said. “We cut the stone out of you, remember? You wanted me to do it so they couldn’t control you anymore.”
“What? You want a cookie for it?” he snarled, although his eyes showed a tiny hint of gratitude.
“Actually, I’m really hoping you might want to convert.”
He barked out a laugh. “You’re as stupid as Kali said, aren’t you?”
I stepped closer to him, trusting Tristan’s hold on him. “I’ve felt hope in you, Noah. Especially when you saw Rina and Mom—your mother and twin sister. You still have feelings for them.”
“Yeah. It’s called hatred.”
“Hatred is a feeling. A pretty passionate one, at that.” I tilted my head. “But I don’t think that’s what you really feel for them. What you really feel is love, isn’t it? But maybe you don’t remember what it feels like.”
“And maybe I don’t want to remember what it feels like.” His upper lip curled. “What does it matter what I feel for them? They’re dead.”
He probably meant the reminder to hurt me, but I heard the undertone in his voice. I was onto him. “Except I think you do want to remember. You miss love—feeling it, having it. Know what else I think? I think you don’t really want to be Daemoni, do you? Whatever choice you made so long ago, you regret it. I can feel that in you.”
He rolled his eyes away from me. “Fuck off,” he muttered.
“I can help you, Noah. All you have to do is ask.” I held my hand up, palm facing him. His eyes darted back to me, filled with fear and anxiety, and his body twitched and convulsed against Tristan’s power.
“Leave me alone, you Amadis whore,” he growled.
His body flew backward, and the back of his head slammed against the wall with a crack. He lost consciousness again.
“Tristan!” I said with a gasp.
“Nobody talks to my wife like that,” he replied simply.
Owen came running into the room with Dorian on his heels.
“What’s going on?” Owen asked. He eyed Noah who was plastered against the wall. “Need some help?”
“Nope,” Tristan said. “We’re good. Unless you can make a portal now and get us out of this rathole.”
Owen rubbed a hand over his stomach. “Just need some food first. And everyone to wake up.”
Tristan nodded his head toward Noah. “Let’s take him to his own room before he hurts someone, and bind him up nice and tight. Then we’ll find food.”
He flicked his hand, and Noah’s body came away from the wall, hovering over the floor. He came to again, snarling and snapping like a wild animal as he tried to fight against Tristan’s hold. Owen led the way as Tristan directed Noah out of the room. Dorian looked at me with wide eyes and his brow lifted. I held my arm out to him to hug him. He slipped past me and dropped on the bed.
“You should let him go,” he said as he stared at the floor.
“We can’t just let him go.” I plopped down next to him. “We can’t take the chance. Especially if there’s any possibility he’ll convert.”
“He won’t, though. He can’t.”
“We don’t know that for sure. There’s hope for him.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
I ducked my head down to get a good look at his downturned face. “How do you know?”
He scowled at the floor, as if it had committed some personal offense against him. His hands twisted together in his lap, and he scuffed the toe of his shoe into the threadbare carpet.
“I just know,” he said, and he bolted up and out of the room.
Everyone but Sheree awoke when Tristan and Owen returned with a few measly packages of crackers and beef jerky they’d found stuffed in a desk drawer in the motel office. The looters who’d broken into all the vending machines apparently hadn’t thought to look there. The food wasn’t much once split between all of us, but it at least took the edge off of the hunger. Being the strongest out of all of us, Tristan and I offered up some blood for the vampires. Vanessa grinned like the Cheshire cat when I held my wrist out to her, knowing the powerful rush she was about to receive. Sonya, however, wasn’t prepared for it, nor had any tolerance, so only a couple of drops of Tristan’s blood had her chomping at the bit like an abused dog ready for a fight.
“Let’s fuck some Daemoni up!” she said with the growly enthusiasm of a pro wrestler as she bounced on the balls of her feet and punched at the air. Apparently she didn’t realize how close she stood to the wall or her strength, but her fist pushed right through the plaster. She yanked her hand free and laughed.
I closed my hands over hers, trying to calm her down. “We’re going to look for A.K.’s Angels, remember?”
“Okay. Cool.” She nodded, though she couldn’t keep still. “But if we see any Daemoni, I’m gonna fu—”
“Yeah, okay, we know,” I said.
With our bodies somewhat rested and our bellies not quite empty anymore, we gathered together in Sheree’s room. After taking a bathroom door off its hinges, we used sheets to strap Sheree to it, trying to keep her as still as possible. She woke up when we first moved her and passed out again as soon as she was strapped to the door. Tristan used his power to move Noah into the room against his will.
“Sonya and Jax, carry Sheree,” Char said. “Tristan and Vanessa, you better grab Noah. Going through the portal may interfere with your hold on him.”
Once we were ready, Owen made the portal with no problems, and we stepped through, onto the street in front of the entrance to the university’s campus. As soon as we did, arrows soared through the air at us from the school’s direction. Everyone dropped to the
ground, the stronger of us covering Sheree and the norms. Tristan, the mages, and I used our powers to bat the arrows away. At least this time they weren’t bullets. Which probably meant these weren’t soldiers.
“We have more,” a man called from somewhere right behind the gray brick wall of the gate to campus. “All covered in silver.”
“Silver won’t hurt us,” Tristan said.
“Liar,” a female voice yelled. “We’ve watched many of you die from it. You’re next.”
More arrows shot at us. They bounced off the shield one of the mages created, and Vanessa sprang up and blurred away. A second later, she stood behind the gate, holding a Norman by the neck in each hand—a girl and a guy. We all stood, leaving Sheree on the ground. Jax held a tight grip on Noah.
“How many more are there?” Vanessa demanded.
“Enough to kill you,” the girl spat.
The guy, looking to be around thirty years old, with black hair and a crooked nose, seemed somewhat familiar to me as he stared at Vanessa, but I couldn’t place him.
“How are you here?” he asked. “Behind the gate? This is sacred grounds.”
“Because I’m not evil, dumbass,” Vanessa snapped. “We protect idiots like you.”
“You’re not human, though,” the girl said, “of course you’re evil.”
She twisted and whipped her body, trying to break free of Vanessa’s hold.
I stepped forward. “You don’t know what you think you do.”
“We’re hunters,” the guy snarled. “We know enough.”
Oh, yay. More hunters, like the ones we’d run into in Russia. I sensed several dozen Normans beyond the gates, many in the big, gray building ahead of us with a clock tower that reached above the autumn-colored trees for the sky. A handful stood out here, by the gate—the other hunters, I presumed.
The guy had been appraising our group, his gaze traveling over everyone until it fell on me for the first time. His black eyes narrowed as they lingered. Then he let out an unattractive snort-chuckle. I could guarantee his nose had been broken in the past.
“Alexis,” he said to me. “The very reason I became a hunter. I knew you weren’t normal then, and since you haven’t aged more than a year or two, I was obviously right.”
I cocked my head. “Do I know you?”
The look he gave me made my skin crawl. “Oh, you used to know me pretty well. Babbled on and on, talking my ear off with all your stupid secrets when all I wanted was a piece of your ass.”
Tristan growled next to me. I placed a hand on his arm, his muscles tense under my touch.
“Good thing I didn’t, since you really are a freak. How’s that whore of a mother of yours, anyway?” the guy asked, and I immediately knew who he was. Yep, his nose had most definitely been broken in the past. And I’d been the one to break it.
“James,” I said, striding closer to him. “How long did it take for you to heal the last time you said that to me? Do you need a reminder?”
“What the hell, James?” the girl asked, still squirming in vain as Vanessa held her, watching us, seemingly bored. “Is this the bitch you’ve been looking for?”
James lifted his arm straight up in the air, his hand balled in a fist over his head. “After she and her mom ran away from the assault charges, the real monsters showed up, looking for them. Killed my best friend. Or so I thought. They turned him into a disgusting leech. Then I had to kill him. Yeah, this is the bitch. About time.”
As soon as he finished, his arm chopped downward. Arrows flew from various directions. These guys weren’t the brightest bulbs in the box. All of their arrows dropped to the asphalt before hitting any of us.
“Stop!” A blond woman came running out of the building, sprinting in our direction. The weird reunion became even weirder. “It’s Alexis! We told you to leave her alone!”
I’d recognize that voice anywhere. Besides Tristan, who I hadn’t been able to figure out that night we met, she was the first person to have been nice to me in ages. Unlike James, she hadn’t changed much. Sure, she’d grown older, around thirty now, but still had that cute girl-next-door look to her.
“Carlie?” I asked in disbelief.
“It’s really you!” She looked like she was going to run out to me, but she stopped at the gate. At the edge of the sacred grounds. She waved her hand at us. “Come in here where it’s safe.”
“Carlie,” James snarled.
“This is my place,” she snapped at him. “If you don’t like it, you and your so-called hunters can leave. We don’t need you. Especially not now.”
I led my team over, easily crossing onto sacred grounds.
“See?” Carlie said to James. “I told you they were good. Not all of these guys are bad. And these,” she ushered Heather, Teah, and Teal all the way through to stand by her, “are humans, James. And they’re still alive. Taken care of by Alexis and Tristan here, no doubt.” She held up Heather and Teah’s arms to show their tattoos. “And they’re part of us.”
James eyed them, then moved his glare to Sonya, Char, Owen, and me as we stood inside the gate. The girl stared at us, too, and then relaxed in Vanessa’s grip as she cut her eyes over to her comrade.
“Let me go,” she said. “I get it. He’s the dumbass.”
Vanessa looked at me, and I nodded. She released her hold on the self-described hunter, who strode over to stand by Carlie. Both women crossed their arms over their chests and glared at James. As did we all.
He jerked himself out of Vanessa’s loosened hold. “If they kill anyone, Carlie, that’s on you.”
When the tension in the air lightened, dozens of people poured out of the building, as though they’d been watching the whole thing and waiting for it to be safe. They gathered around us with an almost celebratory air, corralling us all the way through the gate.
But then we had trouble.
When Tristan and Jax tried to walk through with Noah between them, they couldn’t pull him across the line. He began shouting obscenities, and smoke rose from his flesh. Little patches of skin peeled away all over his body, exposing muscles and tendon underneath. Several of the hunters who’d gathered around us suddenly had their weapons drawn. Tristan and Jax stepped back, away from the grounds. The rest of us gathered in front of them.
“Don’t shoot!” I said, my arms held out protectively.
“I thought you said you were all good,” James said.
“We’re working on him,” I admitted.
James shook his head. “Not good enough. Kill him!”
“NO!” I yelled before any more arrows flew. “We obviously can’t bring him on the grounds. Just leave him alone. We’ll take care of him. We know how.”
“And let him murder how many of our own?” James demanded.
“None. We’ll keep him locked down.”
“Like I should believe your lying ass.”
The next thing I knew, Tristan held James by the neck three feet off the ground. “I’ve had enough of you. You show my wife some damn respect, and maybe we’ll try to keep you alive. If you don’t, well, then your death is on you.”
James’ eyes bulged out of his face, and his feet kicked at the air. Tristan tossed him to the ground.
“Asshole,” he muttered as he strode back over and relieved Jax from his hold on Noah. Vanessa held him from the other arm. She’d apparently moved in when Tristan had let go to give his mine’s-bigger-than-yours warning to James. “You take the others inside,” Tristan said to me. “Owen, Vanessa, and I will handle Noah.”
They pulled Noah to the other side of the street where a row of townhomes stood. The crowd began to swallow us up, excitement rising again.
And then screams.
Something blurred by Sonya and me. A couple of norms who’d been standing in the street—away from the line of consecration—fell to the ground, blood gushing from their throats. We spun around, and it blurred toward us again. Sonya punched her arm out, clotheslining the vampire. Reddish-blue ey
es glared at us from under a curtain of blonde waves.
“Lesley?” Sonya asked, in shock.
Where the hell were all of these people coming from? Had everyone we’d ever known decided to converge on D.C.? Lesley, a vampire who Sonya had been staying with in Tallahassee after she’d massacred our mages, bared her fangs in an unfriendly smile. Then she punched Sonya in the cheek. Sonya returned the swing, but Lesley blurred away, and Sonya went after her. The two vampires streaked this way and that, stopping only when one’s fist or foot landed on the other. From the roof of one of the townhomes, Lesley let out a trill of laughter, enjoying the game. Then she launched herself off the building. I lunged for her, but she kicked me in the head, flipped over me, and landed with a Norman girl in her arms.
“I’m tired of being so damn thirsty,” she growled, and she dove for the girl’s throat.
The next moment, her head rolled to the ground. A hunter stood behind her, holding a bloodied sword. Several people screamed, and others joined them when two more figures shot out of nowhere, appearing in front of the hunter. Two women with yellow, cat-like eyes, long, curved fangs, and claw-like fingernails. Rene and Cruz again. They both hissed at the hunter, and he ran for the gate. As they crouched down to gather Lesley’s two separate body parts, their gazes swept over the crowd. When they landed on me, they hissed again.
“We’ll see you again soon,” Cruz promised before disappearing with Lesley’s body, Rene following with the vamp’s head.
Chaos broke out. Above it all, a wail of “Noooo!” came from down the street. Another vamp streaked toward us.
“Go!” I yelled at the norms, waving my arms frantically at them, and they ran for the building, a few gathering their injured friends and helping them across the sacred line.
I held my hands out, about to shoot my powers, as did Char and Blossom.
“Wait! It’s me!” The vamp stopped running, showing herself. Nearly six-feet tall, long blonde hair, and blue eyes I knew.
“It’s okay,” I breathed, thankful to finally have a break. “She’s one of us.”