“It’s more than that. We also don’t want to attract any attention from other—” she sighed dramatically and made a face at Thomas, “—supernatural communities here in the city itself. If there are other factions who felt like this war was making life too dangerous for them, they’d jump in and possibly tip the balance.”
Thomas straightened, preparing to leave. Nelson was right behind him.
“Wait? Other communities? Not vampires?” Penny asked.
“Werewolves.” Thomas said, shivering at the memory of being chased in the woods.
“Yes, werewolves. My mother, Sara, has worked hard to keep a kind of peace with them. Despite Ernest resenting everything my father has done for our kind, he still respected the unspoken rules set by my mother because that was the most practical thing to do. He bent the rules here and there, but nothing like this.”
Julia paused for a moment, falling deep into thought. In her silence, Thomas catalogued his medical equipment as he approached the front door. Everything should be ready for him—he’d cleaned it earlier after finishing mending a few minor injuries from last night’s strike teams. As long as no one helped themselves to treating their own injuries while he was gone. . . . It did happen quite often.
“We all knew he wanted to do something like this, but we’d never thought he would actually go through with it,” Julia admitted, interrupting his thoughts. “Leaving him alone for so long has cost us dearly.”
Nelson grunted behind Thomas. He’d seen some of what Ernest and his crew were capable of. Murder, kidnapping, assault, to name a few, and much of it done to his close friends.
“And this Ernest has enough people to cause a major problem? I mean, Lawrence might not be a paragon of hospitality, no offense, but he seems like a decent enough guy. Plus, there are some police on our side, right? And some extra strong vampires Nelson told us about. Boston Bob and Jericho? How could Ernest beat that?” Penny asked.
The answer didn’t soothe anyone.
“Unfortunately, Ernest’s particular brand of crazy has always been an easy sell to the desperate. Those who don’t have anyone to help them when they’re turned become desperate,” Julia bemoaned. “Once he’s them fooled into thinking he wants to help, it’s easy to hook them on drinking straight from the source.”
“But how could they do that when they used to be human?” Artemis protested.
“None of you understand what the red thirst is like,” Thomas said, his voice low as he released the door handled and turned around. He had to have time to stay for a few more minutes. His friends needed to know. “You have no idea how much it consumes you. After a couple days of that I imagine it would be pretty easy to believe the guy who tells you it’s okay to give in to your hunger. If Lawrence hadn’t found me, I might have ended up like that.”
His friends were watching him with horrified expressions, none of them having realized how close Thomas had been to becoming a real monster.
“You have to stop him,” Artemis whispered.
Julia grimaced. “Believe me, we’re doing the best we can.”
The air felt heavy in the room, making breathing difficult. It wasn’t easy information to process. They’d been protected from most of the details and gore as they hadn’t been a part of the war effort. Only Nelson had seen how brutal the war was on each vampire who fought and survived.
Thomas had nothing left to add and began to make his exit. As he turned the door handle, Julia’s phone vibrated again. He paused, expecting to receive more instructions from Lawrence. Maybe it was good he hadn’t left yet.
Julia didn’t excuse herself as she answered the call in front of everyone. She held the flat phone to her ear, listening and snorting.
“Pocket dial.”
She moved her thumb to hang up but paused as a wave of muffled gun shots hummed through the speakers. She shifted her thumb two inches and turned on the speaker phone.
“Hey! Al! Your dumb ass still breathin’ out there?” Lawrence’s shouting was muffled, but it was definitely him.
“You ain’t gettin’ paid at all.”
Thomas guessed that voice to be Boston Bob, but he wasn’t entirely certain. It definitely wasn’t Al, which meant they hadn’t heard his answer.
Another round of shooting echoed through the phone speakers, followed by a long silence and some sort of jostling.
No one in the apartment breathed. Hearts pounded as they listened in shock.
“Alright, this is gonna be tricky but it’s all I got on short notice,” Lawrence said. “Use some of that muscle of yours and make a back door to this place. It’s only concrete, after all. Shouldn’t be too hard for you, right?”
Something smashed in the background, and Artemis and Penny jumped in their seats.
“Yeah. It’ll take me a minute but I can make that back window bigger.”
“Do it,” Lawrence said. “Alright, you mugs, listen up. Leave the gal. She’s already dead. Once the distraction happens, we split.”
“What distraction?” two voices asked, making the words garbled and almost incomprehensible.
“The one that Al is gonna make,” Lawrence said before shouting. “Hey, Al. You got a lighter?”
There was a pause for an answer the phone’s microphone couldn’t pick up.
“Don’t want your cheap cigs, dummy. I need you to light the truck on fire. That’ll blind everyone, and we can get outta this slum before Ernest shows up with someone who knows what they’re doing.”
Another pause.
“Shove your shirt in the gas tank and light the shirt on fire. Then run like hell.” Boston Bob’s shouting was barely understandable.
Heavy thuds made the speaker cackle as they repeated with a slow rhythm. Someone had to be breaking the wall as planned. Thomas watched the phone shake in Julia’s hands. He abandoned the door and rushed to Julia, pulling her into his shoulders. He wasn’t sure how else to comfort her.
“No! My plan was to ditch the blood bag and leave with the first load of ammo I took. But you wanted to save her, and now she’s dead anyway,” Lawrence said. “That’s the best I got. The truck blowin’ up should sting enough eyes to make sure we can split without gettin’ picked off one by one.”
“Al’s still recovering. He’ll never clear the explosion.”
“Oi, Al,” Lawrence shouted. “Can you walk?”
Another pause.
“Listen, you’re gonna have to make it through this hail, you got it?” Lawrence shouted, and the speaker phone cackled.
More gun shots and swearing.
“See you in hell, you bastard,” Lawrence said.
“See you in hell.” Was that Charles’ voice?
A loud crash rattled the speaker phone, and everyone in the apartment flinched. Thomas guessed the wall they were smashing through had collapsed.
“Light that thing, Charlie,” Lawrence shouted over more muted gunfire. More jostling and the phone went silent.
“Oh God,” Julia whispered, setting her phone on the table.
An ambush. Lawrence and the best fighters he had were trapped. The old vampire had said everything had gone well earlier. Thomas didn’t know how a successful strike team’s job could turn into a bloody mess that required lighting a truck on fire.
“Ernest got them. He got my dad.” Julia could barely string words together. “I need to find them.”
“No,” Nelson said as he sat down at the table by Penny. “You don’t know where they are. You’ll be a target by yourself.”
Thomas couldn’t agree more. He liked Lawrence, but he didn’t want Julia to die trying to save the old vampire.
Tears puddled in the corners of her eyes. “I have to.”
“No,” Thomas said, “Someone has to stay here and protect the pub. The people living in the apartments. The vampires still recovering from previous fights. Julia, you can’t leave. You have to stay and help here. If Lawrence is gone, they might come here next. You have to protect people here, too.”
She didn’t respond, instead picking up her phone and calling her father. No answer.
“How do you win a war against the undead? How do you fight them?” Penny asked. Her face was white, and she still stared at the phone.
“They aren’t undead,” Artemis said. “Remember? Nelson could feel Thomas’ pulse, and they can still die.”
Nelson nodded. “Your biological functions mimic the same ones humans have, but it seems to be driven by something else. I mean, just the sheer number of raw calories you would need for your bodies to heal the way they do couldn’t be found in blood. You guys not only break the boundaries of medical science but break the laws of science itself. You aren’t undead, you’re otherworldly. Not that it helps you win the war faster.”
Julia dropped her phone as she gave up. No one was answering.
“I like that term,” Artemis said. “It’s much better than undead. Sounds mysterious.”
“But can you die?” Penny glared at Thomas.
“Yes,” Julia said. Her voice was flat. “We can die.”
Thomas flinched. No vampire had died on him yet, but healing and recovering had been excruciating for some. Nelson caught his eye—they were probably thinking the same thing.
“Death would be more merciful for some of the injuries I’ve treated,” Thomas said.
Nelson nodded. “We probably should get downstairs. They’ll need help when they start arriving.”
Thomas released Julia, kissing her head. “I’m going downstairs. I can help there.”
She didn’t respond. Thomas waited another minute, but she remained silent. Everyone did.
Someone pounded on the door, and everyone jumped in their seats.
“Lawrence?” Nelson asked.
Thomas shook his head and approached the door. “Can’t be. That’s too fast.” Lawrence’s earlier text had said 20 minutes. Thomas expected people to arrive on a similar timeline, if not slower for the injured.
“Maybe it’s Sean,” whispered Artemis.
Thomas pressed his face against the door’s peephole. “Vivian?” he asked and opened the door.
Every time Thomas had seen Vivian, she’d been the epitome of nonchalance and certainty, but none of that was evident in her now. Her ebony hair was untamed and her face was strained with fear. With the worried wrinkles around her eyes, she almost appeared as old as she claimed to be.
“Vivian,” Julia said, energy filling her vacant expression.
Vivian ignored Julia and grabbed Thomas’ arm.
“We must go,” Vivian whispered. “There was an ambush. Some of the men are too injured to move. I’m supposed to take you to them.”
“Too injured to move?” Julia panicked. “No, they were able to run. Dad’s plan should have worked.
“You know nothing,” Vivian said. Thomas was reminded of an angry cat. Her eyes transformed into two black pits of restrained rage. Charles had been on the strike team.
“Now,” Vivian screamed, her face contorting with anger and fangs clearly visible.
“Vivian, calm down. I’m coming,” Thomas said.
Julia charged to the door. “I’m coming, too.”
“No,” Vivian hissed, “You’re to stay here. Lawrence’s orders. Protect the pub.”
Julia cursed and slammed the door all the way open so Thomas and Vivian could leave.
“I should probably stay here,” Nelson said as Thomas was dragged out the door. “I’ll help anyone else who comes to the club while the chief physician is away.”
Thomas nodded as he disappeared around the corner toward the stairs.
Vivian walked at a frightening pace, pulling Thomas along behind her. He tripped on the stairs as she yanked his arm, causing him to lose balance.
“Vivian, talk to me,” Thomas said for the third time. “What’s going on? Who’s in the ambush?”
Vivian kept her mouth shut tight, looking sick.
“Vivian?”
“I got a call,” Vivian said. “Lawrence and the others are in bad shape and Charles was caught by the blood junkies.”
“Who called?” Thomas asked.
Again, Vivian chose not to answer, and her tense expression kept him from probing further.
Outside on the street, they entered an alley to their right. Vivian’s vice-like grip cut off the circulation in his arm. She was a much stronger vampire than him—and faster. He tripped trying to keep up, stumbling and falling onto the grimy pavement. Vivian paused long enough for him to right himself.
“Quickly,” she hissed.
Thomas bit back an annoyed retort and wiped the grime from his knees. He continued to trot behind her, amazed at how panicked she was. She hadn’t lost composure when Charles had been injured in the other attacks. Now her face was gaunt, her makeup smeared under her eyes. Her lips moved as if she was debating with herself as her eyes darted back and forth. She looked haunted, almost possessed.
“Vivian, where the hell are we going?” Thomas said in exasperation, stopping in his tracks. He was becoming more and more convinced they weren’t headed to a battle site as they took another alley way turn opposite of where Thomas remembered the strike team running off to before dinner. He pulled out his phone, preparing to dial Julia to get an address. Vivian stopped in front of him and turned, her face a ghost in the moonlight.
“I’m so sorry, Thomas,” she whispered.
“What? Why?”
“They had Charlie. I couldn’t say no.” Tears traced silver and black lines down her cheeks, spreading her makeup stain. “Please, please understand. If there’d been another way . . .”
Adrenaline surged into Thomas’ system as his mind connected the dots. Before he could dart away, an unseen force behind him seized his body as if he were a light body pillow. Thick hands gripped his neck and arms with such strength that Thomas cried out. He struggled, but there were too many hands and no way to escape.
“Well, well, well, what have we here?”
Thomas closed his eyes, trying to shut out the sudden wave of panic engulfing him.
He knew that voice.
Ernest, dressed in his usual finery, stood thirty feet from them, flanked by a squad of his most hardened, loyal vampires. He sauntered toward Thomas. Clutched in one of his hands was his favored weapon, his murderous cane.
Thomas’ blood ran cold. He looked around desperately for help, his eyes connecting with Vivian’s watery gaze.
“Vivian. Help me.”
“I can’t lose him, Thomas.” Vivian’s voice cracked with hundreds of years of loneliness.
Ernest cackled and grabbed Thomas’ face, examining him with predatorial eyes.
“Now, what shall we do with you?”
16 The Final Battle
Thomas lay immobile on the street. He’d never been beaten so severely in his life. Sharp lightning spread through his nerves as his body alerted him of the damage. Shattered foot and ankle. Broken femur. Dislocated and cracked hips. Broken and cracked ribs. Several shattered fingers and two broken wrists. Broken and dislocated shoulder. Torn muscles and internal bruising, if not internal bleeding.
Ernest’s men had repeatedly shattered his bones then forced him to drink a dark red sludge that tasted rotten. Didn’t Ernest know how to store blood properly? The sour blood provided enough energy to mend Thomas’ body but not enough to help him fight the entire group. After he’d healed, they repeated the process. His bones had been broken so often in the last hour they were starting to repair themselves at an agonizingly slow pace, even with drinking blood.
Vivian, who Thomas had thought was his friend, watched everything with a dead expression. Near her feet, his watch beeped. Thomas tried to turn his head to find the sound, but pain spread from his nose to behind his eyeballs as a vampire stomped on his nose, shattering it. The pain blinded him, and he cried out. His watch kept beeping, the obnoxious sound off-beat from the pounding in his skull—someone needed him. The hospital would end his residency if he didn’t hurry. He
wanted to be a surgeon. He wanted to help people. The foot smashed into his face again, and Thomas howled. When he could open his eyes, he was staring at Vivian’s blank eyes. By her foot his phone beeped again. His phone—not his watch. There wasn’t a patient at the hospital, but he was supposed to be helping Lawrence.
He was failing. He hadn’t found Lawrence. Now both he and Lawrence would die. He shook from the pain as he turned his head upward. One of Ernest’s men leered at him from above, shifting his weight in preparation to stomp on Thomas again. The torment wasn’t over.
The foot landed on the side of his face, breaking his cheekbone. Fireworks exploded in Thomas’ mind. When he opened his eyes, Ernest crouched next to him, grimacing. Ernest grabbed a fistful of Thomas’ hair and pulled him upward. Thomas cried out, and Ernest’s vampires snickered around him.
“Now doesn’t this kind of remind you of the last time we met?” Ernest asked with a nostalgic chuckle.
“You were as ugly then, too,” Thomas mumbled through the waterfall of blood gushing from his nose.
Ernest tossed his head back, cackling. “I was torn between killing you or keeping you alive back then. You’ve turned out to be more interesting than I ever could have imagined. Useful, you know?”
“Why?” Thomas spat, spraying the ground with blood.
“Well, you see,” Ernest said, checking to make sure none of the blood had gotten on his immaculate clothes, “I rather don’t like you fixing up the people I’m trying to kill. It makes this a lot more difficult than it should be. This would’ve been over quicker without your annoying meddling. Why, all those innocent humans might still be alive if it wasn’t for you.”
Thomas let out a gurgled, disdainful laugh. “Like my interference would’ve stopped you from killing people.”
Ernest chuckled. “I guess you have a point there.”
“Then again, who could take anyone seriously in those fancy ass clothes? No wonder you have others do all your dirty work.”
A scowl replaced Ernest’s smile. He twisted Thomas with one hand and slammed his face into the ground. Colors exploded in his head as his broken nose and cheekbone smashed into the pavement. Ernest released Thomas, but the injured vampire was in too much pain to move and remained facedown.
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