The Savage War (The Vampire World Saga Book 5)

by P. T. Hylton

  Jaden was the last line of defense, dispatching Twisted who’d survived the gauntlet of gunfire. It seemed many of the Twisted were targeting him. He was the prize that Maryana desired, and her followers intended to claim it. He stood among a pile of corpses, blood pouring from his arm, side and leg. His face was speckled with the dark blood of his foes. Alex had never seen him look so tired.

  Six more Twisted rushed toward him. He raised his swords and headed for his attackers.

  Suddenly, something whooshed past Alex from behind. It took her a moment to recognize the vampire running past her.

  Natalie sprinted forward, moving like a bullet. She let out a fierce cry that echoed above the gunfire. The sword in her hand gleamed in the light as she held it aloft. She reached Jaden’s side and sank her blade into the nearest Twisted.

  The other vampires of Agartha followed close behind. They flowed around Ed, Felix, Chuck and Alex. Their blades sliced through the enemies. Alex continued to fire on the Twisted, trying to drive them toward the vampires. The close combat in the crowded tunnel was complete chaos. Alex was forced to slow her rate of fire, selecting each shot carefully to avoid the friendly vampires.

  Up ahead, a Twisted grabbed Jaden’s left arm with both hands, pulling it back, just as another grabbed his right arm. They yanked the arms in opposite directions, spreading them wide as a third Twisted leveled a rifle at his face. Natalie’s blade sliced through the air, removing the rifleman’s head before he could fire. She stabbed a blade into the heart of the vampire holding Jaden’s left arm. As soon as one arm was free, Jaden used his sword to dispatch the Twisted on his other arm.

  Jaden and Natalie led the vampires toward the opening in the blast door. It was clear to Alex why Jaden’s vampires followed him with such undying loyalty. He did not lead from behind the lines; instead, he led from the heart of battle. The GMT hung back, picking off Twisted on the edge of the battle, but the vampires of Agartha didn’t leave many for them. They were truly the superior warriors. They worked as a unit, defending each other’s flanks, while they advanced.

  The battle only lasted a few more minutes. The remaining Twisted seemed confused and disorganized. They continued to fight, but the vampires of Agartha had superior numbers and superior skill. And they had the GMT picking off any Twisted who strayed too far from the heart of the battle.

  Jaden pulled his sword from the chest of a Twisted on the ground in front of him. He looked around to see a line of vampires in formation on both sides of him. He nodded toward Alex. “Let’s check outside.”

  The GMT followed Jaden through the hole in the outer blast door, stepping around the Twisted bodies. Outside, patches of fire lit the forest and bodies covered the ground. One evergreen tree stood taller than the others in the grove in front of them. It was on fire and moved more than it should have in the slight breeze. With a loud crack, the old tree gave up and fell to the ground.

  Jaden scanned the area for movement. When he was finally satisfied that there was none, he stepped back inside.

  Natalie smiled and put a hand on his shoulder. “We won.”

  Jaden looked back at her, his misshapen face scrunched up with emotion. A tear escaped the corner of his eye and turned red as it mixed with the blood splattered on his face. “No, Natalie, we’ve lost everything. The virus is in you now.”

  “We did our jobs,” Natalie said. “We protected Agartha.”

  Alex turned and ran back up the tunnel. She found Owl where Jaden had propped her near the concrete divider, a dead Twisted lying across her lap. Alex threw the body to the side and gasped at the amount of blood that covered her friend. Alex knelt next to her, lifting her head. “Owl, can you hear me?”

  One of Owl’s eyelids was scorched and it stayed shut. The other blinked open. “Did we win?”

  Alex hugged her. “Yes.”

  “Ow. No hugs, yet. I think I still have pieces of grenade in me. I would not advise playing catch with those things.”

  “Holy shit, Owl. I can’t believe you lived through that. You’re a badass” Ed grinned down at her.

  “Always have been.” She sat up slowly. “So, who got Maryana? Was it you, or Jaden?”

  Alex’s eyes widened. “Felix, get her inside. Everyone else come with me.” She stood up and ran out of the tunnel.

  37

  The first thing that struck Alex when she exited the tunnel for the second time was the sheer number of dead. The largest number of bullet-ridden bodies were near the ruined blast door, but there were plenty farther back, the ones who’d been killed by the turrets, the hidden explosives, or the GMT’s initial assault.

  Alex turned to Ed and Chuck. “Help me check the bodies. We need to figure out if Maryana is among the dead.”

  Chuck gingerly rolled one of the bodies over with his foot. It appeared that this Twisted had taken a lethal hit of napalm. His face and torso were burned and blackened. “Uh, some of these are going to be a little difficult to identify.”

  Alex grabbed the closest facedown Twisted and rolled it over. This one was a male and he had taken a bullet to the face. “At least we can rule most of them out. Let me know if you see any bodies that could be hers.”

  She searched for a few minutes, turning over bodies, looking for anyone that even bore a passing resemblance to Maryana. As she searched, she realized she hadn’t seen the evil Twisted leader the entire fight. Unlike Jaden, Maryana clearly didn’t lead from the front.

  While she was still searching, Jaden appeared beside her. “No sign of her?”

  “No,” Alex said. “She either ran away or…” She stopped when she saw the distant look in Jaden’s eyes. “What is it?”

  “I killed them,” he said.

  “You killed plenty, I’ll give you that. The way you were working that sword--”

  “Not the Twisted,” Jaden said, his voice hollow. “The Agartha vampires. My vampires. They were locked safely in their sleeping quarters, and I gave the orders to let them out. They’ve been exposed to the virus now. It’s only a matter of time.”

  Alex stood up and put her hands on her hips. “You did what had to be done. You think they would have survived, once Maryana took over the city? She probably would have starved them. Or worse. You’ve always said the vampires are here to protect Agartha, right? All you did was give them a chance to defend their city instead of watching helplessly as it was destroyed.”

  “Still, they’ll die, all the same.” Jaden stared out at the battlefield for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Alex wondered what he was thinking about. He must have seen dozens, maybe hundreds of battlefields over the course of his long life. What was it about this one that was affecting him so much more deeply? She supposed maybe it was the fact that there were all his grandchildren, in a way. He’d made Maryana a vampire, and she’d made every one of the Twisted. Not only that, but she’d unmade the world.

  “Do you still think you did the right thing?” Jaden asked Alex. “Was releasing the virus the right call?”

  Alex considered a moment, then shrugged. “Of course, it was. Humans are going to be able to come back to the surface. Out of the sky and out from under the mountain.”

  “Yes,” Jaden said, carefully. “But the price was high.”

  “No argument there.” Alex sighed. She wasn’t in the mood to get all philosophical. Not until this was really over. “What do you think about Maryana? Where would she have gone?”

  Jaden scanned the horizon. “She would have had a plan in place for this possibility. Something to hurt us, even if she lost.”

  Something about Jaden’s words made Alex think. He was always talking about Maryana like she was some brilliant strategist. Yet, her battleplan today hadn’t exactly been the work of a tactical savant. Why had she held back that group of Twisted that had attacked the GMT from behind? Why allow the GMT to get to the blast door, where they could get inside and defend Agartha? The Twisted had come from the trees, the same direction from which the GMT had entered the
fray.

  None of it made any sense. Unless…

  Alex’s head snapped up, her eyes suddenly alive with fear. “It was a distraction.”

  Jaden tilted his head. “What was?”

  “This.” She raised a hand, indicating the battlefield. “All this. The attack on Agartha.”

  “A distraction from what?” The skepticism was clear in Jaden’s voice.

  Alex didn’t have time to explain. “We have to get to the ship. Ed, Chuck, follow me.”

  She turned and ran toward the tree line. Toward the area the from which Twisted’s reinforcements had come, the same area where they had landed Jaden’s transport ship. She pumped her arms, running hard, leaping over Twisted corpses and destroyed scraps of turrets. With every step, the fear inside her grew, and her suspicion that they’d been duped began to grow.

  If there was one thing Alex knew about Maryana, it was that she was an egomaniac. She might not lead her troops in a suicide run at Agartha’s defenses, but Alex couldn’t believe she’d sit out a fight against Jaden. She’d want to be up in his face, hurling disgusting insults and rubbing his face in every past mistake, in an attempt to mentally weaken him.

  But Alex hadn’t seen Maryana once during the battle. It was as if she’d never been there at all.

  Alex crossed the tree line and weaved her way between massive pines, working her way toward the transport ship.

  Jaden’s voice carried through the forest from behind her. “Alex, hold on!”

  But she couldn’t. She needed to know if what she suspected was true.

  “Alex!” Jaden called again, and once again she ignored him.

  She was just about to reach the far edge of the patch of trees, when a hand grabbed the back of her vest, jerking her to a stop. She turned and saw Jaden behind her. “Let me go! I have to—”

  “No,” he said. “Look.” He pointed at something up ahead, but her non-vampire eyes couldn’t make it out. He picked up a large stone off the ground and threw it.

  The stone hit the ground a hundred feet ahead of them. As soon as it landed, the ground around it exploded.

  A landmine, Alex realized.

  Another explosion, five feet to the left of the first, followed almost immediately, and then it was as if they were once again on a battlefield. The first mine set off a chain-reaction of explosions all along the tree line ahead. There must have been thirty of them.

  “She rigged the whole area,” Jaden said. “But why would she do that?”

  “Is it clear up ahead?” Alex asked.

  He scanned the area with his eyes, then nodded. Alex immediately took off running again. Past the tree line, she sprinted through the disturbed ground and ran up the small incline that led to the clearing where they’d landed. As she reached the top, she stopped, her heart suddenly in her throat.

  Jaden joined her a moment later, his eyes widening with dawning realization. “No.”

  Ed and Chuck trotted to the top, both panting.

  “What the hell?” Chuck asked as he observed the empty clearing ahead. “What happened to our transport?”

  Alex ignored the question and turned to Jaden. “We need a ship.”

  Jaden nodded slowly. “I can help you there. It might not be the smoothest ride, but—”

  “As long as it gets us in the sky.”

  “I don’t understand,” Ed said.

  “Maryana played us. The attack on Agartha was a distraction so she could steal our ship and strand us down here.”

  “Why does she need a ship?”

  Alex shivered. “Because she’s going to New Haven.”

  38

  Alex and Jaden stepped through the inner blast door, to the area where the Agartha soldiers had waited in case the Twisted made it past the tunnel.

  George stepped forward, a wide smile on his face. “Jaden, I knew you’d save us. It’s so good to have…” He trailed off as he took his first look at the vampire. Whether it was the Twisted features, the fact that Jaden was covered in blood, or a combination of the two, George looked taken aback at the sight of his friend.

  Jaden put a hand on George’s shoulder. “It’s good to see you, too, George. I know I’m a lot to take in, but time is against us. Can you focus?”

  George nodded stiffly and gave Jaden a quick hug. The blood on the vampire’s clothes smeared onto George, and he stepped back. “What do you need me to do?”

  “The new ship. I need you to get it ready to fly. We have to be in the air as fast as you can make it happen.”

  “That ship isn’t even tested. Are you sure?”

  Jaden shrugged. “It will be tested within the hour. Go.”

  Alex turned to her team. “See what you can do to help George get the ship ready. Load up whatever weapons you can find. I want to be in the air as quickly as possible. I’ll be there shortly.”

  Jaden led Alex to the control room. As they entered, it was clear that a celebration was in progress, but the room fell silent as the techs got their first look at Jaden’s new form. Cynthia stood up slowly from the desk in the center of the room.

  “Cynthia,” Jaden said. “I need you to get New Haven on the radio.”

  No one moved. They all stared at Jaden in shocked silence.

  “This is not over,” he said slowly. “Every moment counts. Please, get New Haven on the radio.”

  This time the room sprang into motion, and a moment later, CB’s voice came through the speaker. “Do you have a status update?”

  Alex grabbed the handset. “CB, the battle on the ground is over, but Maryana has our ship. She is on her way to New Haven.”

  “How did that happen? Are you sure she’s coming here?”

  “I’ll tell you all about it later. I just know she has our transport ship and she wants a city. If that ship comes into range, shoot it down. Make sure your defenses are ready. I’m headed back up with Jaden and his backup ship.”

  “Understood. The transport ship will not get anywhere near this city.”

  Alex paused a moment. “CB, she’s a monster. You need to be ready for anything. I’ll be up there as fast as I can.”

  Five minutes later, Alex and Jaden entered the hangar. The place was alive with activity as the engineering team prepped the ship. George called out commands as he checked his tablet. Five workers were bolting a panel onto one of the wings of the craft. Vampires moved quickly around the hangar, carrying gear and boxes of tools for the workers. There were several large cables and tubes that were attached to the craft.

  Alex glanced from person to person. She couldn’t tell if she was observing an efficient team or complete chaos. A worker dropped a pneumatic drill from the side of the craft. A vampire caught it before it hit the ground and jumped up to hand it back to the tech.

  Ed shook his head when he saw Jaden. “I thought you said you had a ship, not a craft project. Does that thing even fly?”

  “Have faith in our skills,” George answered. “New Haven is not the only city that can build aircraft.”

  Alex raised an eyebrow. “That isn’t an answer. Can that thing fly?”

  Jaden clapped her on the back. “We’ll be taking it on its maiden voyage, so I guess we’ll find out soon.”

  Ed shook his head again. “Hey, Alex, have you seen the armory in this place? It’s amazing.” He pulled an Uzi out of a holster on his belt and popped out the clip. “These things hold thirty-two rounds and can go fully automatic.”

  Chuck looked at Jaden, “I hope you don’t mind, but we geared up from your stash.”

  “Of course,” Jaden said. “Now is the time to use our resources. We need to use everything at our disposal to take Maryana down.”

  “Great, we are loading it all onto the ship. We can work out who gets what on the way up.”

  “Don’t just talk about it, get that gear on the ship,” Alex ordered.

  Jaden walked over to George, “How long until it is ready?”

  George continued tapping the screen on his tablet for
a few moments before he looked up. “We are almost there. I’m guessing we’ll be ready in less than thirty minutes.”

  “See if you can make it fifteen.”

  The door behind them opened up and Felix walked in, Owl close behind him. Owl was moving slowly and her right hand was wrapped in bandages. Both eyes were open now, but one of them looked wrong. Alex stared at the eye for a moment and realized that it had been cut open. Owl limped her way over to Alex, her eyes fixed on the aircraft. “Now that’s a ship with personality.”

  “What are you doing up?” Alex asked.

  “Someone has to fly that piece of crap.”

  “You have done enough for one day,” Jaden said, his voice quiet but firm. “I’ll have them bring you some blood. You need to heal.”

  “I told her to stay put, but she wouldn't listen to me,” Felix said. “I knew you guys were hardcore, but a grenade to the face deserves at least half a day off, even on the GMT.”

  “Felix, help Chuck and Ed load up the ship.” Alex turned to Owl. “I know you want to go with us, but I need you healed up.”

  Owl shook her head. “I’m good. I know I look a little rough, but this body heals fast. I’ll be ready by the time we reach New Haven.”

  “You’re sitting this one out, and that’s an order. Jaden can fly us home.” She turned to Jaden, “Right?”

  “Of course,” he said with a smile. “I’ll be the best pilot this ship has ever had.”

  The sound of boots hitting the metal floor filled the badges’ armory. CB watched as all five hundred active duty badges filed past, grabbing rifles, batons, whatever was available. There weren’t enough firearms for all of them, but he made sure no one left the armory empty handed.

  This was the first time he’d seen every badge together. He just hoped that they were ready for what was coming. They’d all trained with firearms, but most of them had no real combat experience. Bullets and ships did not go well together, so none of the badges carried firearms on a regular basis. In truth, the badges were mostly there to help the citizens and remind everyone that there was law in the city.