Authors: Dean Murray
My
sights were perfectly lined up on Alec's fallen form, only that
wasn't right. I could see that he was breathing and breathing did
mean 'threat' but Alec wasn't a threat. I gritted my teeth and forced
my arms to raise my gun.
I
was shaking now, only that didn't make sense. Hadn't I just noticed
that I was warm and flushed?
The
shaking was so bad that I couldn't hold the gun steady enough to
guarantee a hit anymore. I
was
cold, but I was also warm. It was like the warmth had been injected
just underneath my skin, but it seemed powerless to warm up the
frozen core of my body.
I
emptied my magazine into the group of rushing vampires. I might have
managed to hit one of them, but I'd been right in thinking that the
shaking was too bad.
My
gun fell from fingers too cold and numb to hold it, but I couldn't
bring myself to care. There were steps behind me, big, heavy steps,
but that didn't matter either. The vampires were so determined to
kill me that they'd split up into two groups so that they could
circle around behind me. The joke was on them though, I'd given up
caring sometime in the last few seconds and they shouldn't have
wasted the effort. I wasn't going to fight them anymore.
Adriana Paige
Primary Target Site
Cloquet, Minnesota
The footsteps didn't turn out to be vampires. Instead it was Carson,
James, Jess and Jasmin. The resulting fight was nothing short of
brutal and the four newcomers would have still lost but for the
reappearance of the wolves Isaac had dispatched to clear the
perimeter of the building. That combined with help from the two
wolves who weren't unconscious or crippled by broken legs was just
barely enough to carry the day.
I
watched the fight with a mind that seemed to be at war with itself.
Part of me was numb and refused to care how the fight was going to
end, but the bigger part of me was determined to keep worrying at the
slippery nature of my thoughts. There was something wrong there and I
needed to understand it.
It
seemed to focus on a blank spot in my memory from just after the
vampires had taken the upper hand in the fighting. Why was it that
we'd come here in the first place? My parents, it had something to do
with my parents, with my mom in hysterics, silently screaming around
the gag in her mouth and my dad, who'd been looking at me with
concerned, proud eyes.
I
could feel the memory rising from the depths of my mind where my
subconscious had locked it away. It was like being tied to the train
tracks and watching a train barrel towards me. I knew that what was
about to happen wasn't good, but at the same time I'd asked for it
and I still wanted to know what had happened.
The
shaking had gotten worse, but the memory refused to surface all of
the way, refused to come completely together. All I knew was that I
needed to look to the left, away from the fighting in the far corner
of the building, and focus on the massive piece of machinery that had
moved out of the corner next to Heath.
I
forced my head around and tried to make sense of what I was seeing,
but some primitive part of my mind was fighting me still, refusing to
register the scene before me as anything other than abstract shapes.
There was a hint of something there, but in the last instant before I
would have finally understood what I was looking at, Taggart pulled
me into his arms and pressed my face into his chest.
"Don't
look, Adri. Don't torture yourself like that. I'm so sorry that we
couldn't save them."
The
memory finally reintegrated itself into my conscious mind and I
finally understood what I'd lost. My mother and father, crushed under
tons of uncaring metal. Cindi killed in the course of Alec's rescue
attempt. My world was never going to be the same.
Alec Graves
Primary Target Site
Cloquet, Minnesota
I was out for a while after using my power. It wasn't that long in
normal terms, but it would have been long enough to get myself killed
in the middle of a fight. I managed to hold on and continue fighting
for a while after killing the vampire leader, but that still wouldn't
have been enough to save me if Carson, James, Jasmin and Jess hadn't
jumped on a plane as soon as I'd finished talking to Carson.
Apparently
I hadn't been as good an actor as I'd thought, and there were some
really, really fast charter planes operating out of LA. Carson had
called in another favor and his friend had hidden their movements,
which had allowed them to land at the small airport just outside of
town, but we all knew that it was still just a matter of time before
Kaleb and the rest of the Coun'hij sent a team up to find out who
exactly had been on the plane.
It
might be a human PI to start out with, but sooner or later they'd
have hybrids up here. None of us could afford to remain in the area
for too long, not if we wanted to avoid another fight, one that we
had virtually no chance of winning in our battered and wounded state.
Fortunately
Isaac, Heath and Jenners all regained consciousness not too long
after I did, which gave us just enough manpower to get everyone
loaded back into the various vehicles we'd rented and back to the
motel that Isaac had initially been using as a base of operations. It
still only bought us a little time, but we had no choice but to stop
and get the wounded patched up.
Trying
to do all of that in the short time we had before we'd have to start
worrying about police or Coun'hij enforcers, plus making sure that
someone went back to the hotel to retrieve Brindi, Tristan, and all
of our gear, required the kind of frantic, concerted effort that
normally pushed every other concern out of my mind, but that wasn't
the case this time.
I
held myself together, giving orders where necessary and otherwise
pitching in to help where people were already doing what needed done,
because it was what I had to do if we were all going to escape, but I
operated under a haze of regret. I'd made nearly every mistake in the
book and it had cost Adri her parents.
Isaac
and Carson finally caught up with me as I was taping up a set of
really nasty, deep cuts in Jasmin's side that went all the way down
to her ribs.
"Okay,
we've cleared everything out of the hotel. Tristan is fine, but
Brindi is unconscious again. It's not as bad as last time, but you
should spend a few minutes with her soon to make sure that she
doesn't go into some kind of shock again. We left Tristan in there
with her to keep an eye on her."
"Thank
you both. I'm just about done with Jasmin and then I can patch you up
if either of you have injuries that need seen to."
I
looked up just in time to see Carson shake his head at me. "You're
the one who looks like you need a doctor, Alec."
"Yeah,
we're going to have to leave some extra cash at the front desk to pay
for them to replace the carpets from all of the blood everywhere, but
none of it seems to be mine."
Isaac
looked just as shocked as I'd been when I'd first realized that I
didn't seem to have a single mark on my body.
"How
is that possible, Alec?"
"I'm
not honestly sure. I thought I was a dead man just a short time ago.
The start of my assault on the secondary building went better than
I'd expected it to, but one of the last two vampires was an insanely
strong telekinetic. She immobilized me and then walked over and went
to stab me. Only as she thrust her sword forward my ability kicked
in."
Carson
looked grave. "What exactly is your ability, Alec? I was never
exactly clear on what happened in Los Angeles."
"It's
like a miniature black hole in my gut. Both times it's worked for me
I essentially sucked down all of the energy in the area. That's why
everyone collapsed, I took away all of their energy, only there's
only so much power that I can absorb before it overloads me. In LA I
was up against two fairly powerful vampires at the same time, so my
gift was saturated more quickly.
"Here
I was just up against the younger vampire first, so I was able to
deal with her and still have the capacity I needed in order to make
the run over to the main building and deal with the older vampire
before my ability was overloaded."
"So
your ability knocked her down before she could stab you and then you
killed her."
"Not
exactly. She still stabbed me. It was the most surreal thing. One
minute I thought I was dead, then my ability kicked in and for the
briefest of moments I thought I had a chance—right up until her
sword entered my chest."
Carson
cleared his throat. "Alec, even vampires who survive just a few
hundred years tend to be phenomenal masters with their chosen
weapons. It defies belief that she would have missed if she was
aiming for your heart."
"Yeah,
I had the same thought. All I can figure is that her knees going out
on her like that at the last second must have messed with her aim."
Only
back when I'd felt the sword enter my chest I'd been positive that
she hadn't missed. I could have sworn that I felt the tip of her
sword penetrate one of the chambers of my heart. That wasn't
something I was sure of though, and even if I had been, it still
wasn't something I would have been willing to share just yet.
Isaac
opened his mouth, closed it again and then shook his head at me.
"It's still hard for me to believe that everything came together
like that. I was unconscious for it and Carson wasn't there yet, but
it looks like it was a pretty amazing fight."
"No,
it was terrible. I killed the last vampire at the secondary building
and then I shifted to wolf form and sprinted the entire way to you
guys. Somehow I managed to mostly constrict my ability back down so
that it wasn't draining the power grid as I ran, but as I got closer
I could…feel everyone inside the building.
"The
master vampire was the easiest to pick out and I could tell that she
was on one side of the center room so I went in through that side,
shifted back to hybrid form at the last instant, and then I opened my
ability up as wide as it would go so that she wouldn't be able to
stop me like she had everyone else.
"I
was so focused on the vampire that I didn't even see Adri's parents
there. I killed her and then turned around and realized what I'd
done, but by then it was too late. I could feel my ability starting
to…wobble, so I charged over and started killing vampires, but
by then it was almost too late. If Adri hadn't shot most of them I
wouldn't have made it."
I
was actually pretty sure that I'd collapsed from blood loss, but I
wasn't going to tell them that. It was possible that I was being
unduly paranoid given that I'd just told them that I didn't have any
wounds now despite having been stabbed in the chest, but until I knew
more about my power I wasn't eager to get everyone's hopes up.
I
finished taping up Jasmin's ribs and let her drop her shirt back down
over her stomach. I still had most of a roll of tape, so I turned and
guided Carson down onto the bed as Jasmin moved out of the way.
Carson stopped me with a shake of his head.
"There
isn't anything you could have done differently, Alec. Once that
machine was hanging over their heads, there wasn't anything anyone
could have done to save Adri's parents."
"That's
easy for you to say, but we both know it isn't the truth, Carson. If
I hadn't just charged in like that there is a chance that Adri could
have tricked the telekinetic into moving the machinery off to one
side."
"That's
true, but it's equally possible that you would have lost control of
your ability before she was able to do so and found yourself just as
helpless before the vampire as the rest of us. It is far too easy to
second-guess your decisions after the fact, but I remain convinced
that you did the best you could in the face of a very dangerous, very
tricky situation. I said a few hours ago that I thought you had done
your ancestors proud. That hasn't changed. Now go talk to Adri before
the silence between the two of you turns into a wall that nothing can
breach. Isaac can tape me up."
"No,
I need Isaac to go on a drive for me."
Jasmin
shook her head at me. "Isaac probably has a concussion. I'll
drive—where am I headed?"
"Thanks,
Jas. Can I have your phone for a sec?"
I
punched in a number and then handed it back to her. "Call that
number and they'll tell you where they want to meet up."
I
handed the tape to Isaac and then headed outside before I realized
that I didn't actually know where Adri was. Once I was outside, it
wasn't hard to figure it out though. Her room had to be the one with
Taggart standing guard outside of it.
Taggart
looked up at me as I approached and all of a sudden I felt like a
nervous schoolboy about to pick up his date for the first time. The
long, deep set of scratches across his face made him look even more
foreboding than normal.
"Can
I talk to her, Taggart?"
"I'm
sorry, Alec, but she's sleeping right now. I think it would be best
if we let her sleep for as long as possible—she's having a hard
time coping with everything right now."
I
nodded and turned to go, but he stopped me with a word.
"You
saved all of our lives today, Graves. Thank you for that."
"Do
you think that Adri will see it that way? Do you think she'll be able
to get past the people she lost today?"
He
wanted to tell me yes, but he also didn't want to lie to me. "I
don't know. When everything was over she tried to get to you. She was
hysterical—I couldn't understand what she was saying, but her
first thought after losing her entire family was to go to you. For
good or ill, her feelings towards you are more intense than ever."