Amplified (2 page)

Narrow Paths

Slot canyons and
sand. Sand, all over this blasted place. In my boots, sticking to my fingers and clinging to the sweat on my face. I wasn’t a girly girl or anything, I just wasn’t a fan of being dirty. Thank goodness it wasn’t muddy at the moment. The torrential rains which had been pouring down the last few weeks, unrelenting, like the sky had to take a major bathroom break, had subsided for now. Otherwise we’d have been swept away into the rivers these places became in a flash.

Stomp, stomp!
Everyone turned around to see Elijah doing a funky dance, kicking up dirt, clouding up the air with flying sand.
Great.

“What the hell?
” I hissed, throwing him a nasty glare. “Not like my damn allergies aren’t bad enough already without you kicking that shit up!” I covered my face with my shirt, sending daggers in his direction to let him know how much he was on my shit list for doing that.

“Fucking snake!” He pulled his shirt down, kicking the corps
e of a snake he’d just pulverized to the side. He cursed even more under his breath.

I he
ard a stifled giggle from Sarah, who followed close behind me as she attempted to choke it back with a faked cough. It was amusing, to say the least, seeing a big guy like Elijah lose his cool over a snake. Let’s not take into account that we were in the middle of a barren, sun-blasted desert. I swear, God meant this to be hell on earth. I would’ve joined Sarah in a chuckle if I hadn’t been in such a foul mood from the constant barrage of dust in this pit of nothingness. My throat was raw and scratchy from the dust and pollen flying about. The rain had done nothing to settle it all down and relieve my itchy eyes. I used to work in a pet shop before my allergies made it intolerable, but snakes didn’t bother me as much as spiders did. Those made me shriek like a banshee and sent me sprinting faster than an Olympic gold medalist.

“Focus
, guys.” Christian’s agitation flashed across his face, and everyone quieted down. If someone would’ve told me I’d be in the middle of the desert with nothing even resembling civilization in sight and stuck in an overbearing but gorgeous slot canyon with him leading this group of human hybrids alongside two vampire hybrids,
near sundown
… let’s not forget that… to find another secret facility which supposedly housed experiments on everything you could think of…. Well, I’d call that bullshit. Yeah, it was bad enough it had been my stupid idea to go there for some answers about my mother’s suicide. But I wanted answers. I wanted to know the man who had driven my mother to the point of insanity.

Rye huffed behind me. Not a fan of Christian,
whatsoever.

Who could blame him? Rye
’s jealous streak was something I tended to ignore, but it got downright annoying enough that I threw him a warning look. He reciprocated with an innocent smile, one that made me smile back and roll my eyes at the ridiculousness of it all. I’d dragged them to do this for me, and I had to show them some gratitude for doing so. None of us wanted to be there. Finding the notorious Rick was my mission, not theirs. Still, I was relieved I didn’t have to do it alone. I was done with being solo. I’d spent far too long stuck in a bunker alone with just my mother and an un-relatable brother for company. Human connections kept me from losing my mind. At least that was something I’d come to understand about myself.

Then there were the things I didn
’t even comprehend. For one, Christian being my supposed “blood mate” didn’t make things any easier. He’d tried to kill me once, when he was the deranged and sick leader of an enemy hive. But, unbeknownst to me, he’d been cured and imprisoned alongside me in the city of Vida. Katrina, the city’s Hitleresque leader, had hoped leaving me with him long enough would make him want to munch on me for a little snack since he’d been starved before I’d arrived. I had to hand it to him, he had resisted it like a champ. I was thoroughly impressed. But when we’d touched, it had ignited a bond between us which had turned out to be more than unwanted. It meant I was his one and only, and all the intricacies that went along with that. This damned vampire virus had found more than one way to be a nuisance, and this had turned into a problem for all of us, especially when he was near me.

The bond had turned us each into some sort of pheromone drug to
the other, and staying apart was the only thing that kept it in check. Unfortunately, we both had to be on this mission, which sucked for all parties involved.

Al
l right, I admit it, it didn’t suck for me or Christian as much as it royally bummed out Rye, my vampire hybrid boyfriend. I still didn’t actually call him my boyfriend, but it was close enough. When the world has swirled down the toilet, you pretty much avoid thinking about any luxuries, including love.

Jeremy, my brother
, had stayed behind at the hive, our headquarters underneath the Las Vegas McCarren International Airport. It was home for now, even though we’d been spending tons of time in the underground city of Vida, where the last of the unmutated humans lived.

I wasn
’t sure yet, but Jeremy had been hinting that he wanted to move permanently to Vida. There were more human children his age there, so I couldn’t very well disagree. Still, the crowds made me nervous and jumpy. He’d already adapted to it like he’d been there the whole darn time. Me, I stuck out like a thorn embedded into someone’s thumb when I walked down the city’s streets. I’d get terrified and curious stares all the time since I preferred to dress to the nines with my weapons displayed in my various sheaths, bandoleer and other holders. So I was the female Rambo walking about the place. Most residents left that up to the human hybrid protectors of Vida…the Twelve. Well, they were eleven now that one of them had died in the battle against Katrina, but that was beside the point. They rarely mingled with the humans and preferred to stay on the periphery. Walking around with my brother kept me in sight. Yep, it was mighty painful.

If M
om was still alive, she’d know what to do about Jeremy. Well, there’d be no decision to make, he’d be with her. No if, ands or buts. I wasn’t maternal material, and I knew that, was totally cool with it. Each time I decapitated another vampire or dragged myself home with vampire guts and blood sticking to my skin, I really couldn’t picture myself as the vision of domestic bliss.

“Keep your eyes sharp and weapons out. We
’re entering the monitored area of Asylum Fortress.” Christian yelled back at everyone. “There’s traps, by the way, and they’re changed all the time to keep out intruders. I can’t tell you where they’ll be. I’ve been gone for a long time, so be careful.”

I pulled out my dual machetes, ready for action.
I didn’t need to be told twice. This was what I lived for. I’d been stuck inside for a while, heading out only to clear out infested casinos or guard posts of invading feral vampires, duly named Zompires by the hybrid vampires due to their lack of humanity and lust for blood and flesh. This particular mission was dangerous, only because Christian hadn’t returned to his hive’s home base in the Valley of Fire in several weeks.

They had probably assumed he was dead and gone. New leadership was probably in command now. Christian
’s second in command had not been at the Stratosphere when Blaze’s hive, our hive, had blown it to hell. He’d lost a major part of his troops, hybrid and mutated Zompires, but his second in command, Mercer, who from the sound of him was as cold as a vampire should be, wasn’t there that day. Christian had described him as absolutely emotionless, stiff and perfectly calculating. I wondered how someone like Christian, who had a warm heart under his hardened exterior, had picked someone like Mercer as his second. There was a lot I didn’t know about the other hive of the City of Las Vegas.

“Hey.
” Rye stepped up beside me, his long sword held in his hands and guns strapped to his waist. He wore all black with long sleeves and a cap. Blaze and Christian had also donned something similar. They looked paler than they usually did, even though I knew they had fed today. The sunblock fifty thousand or so they had smeared on made them look like painted aborigines. I couldn’t even see his grey eyes underneath the heavily tinted sunglasses propped on his face.

“Hey.” I wasn
’t a big talker lately. Losing family can do that to someone.

“Listen, I
’m still not sure you and the others should be coming along. It’s a hive full of vampires, and I don’t think humans are part of this one, hybrid or not.” His voice stung, though it was barely above a whisper. I didn’t bother looking at him, fearing I would just snap at his unsolicited advice.

“Sarah and Elijah
know the deal. They’d never let me go without them,” I muttered. He was so overprotective of me, it got downright annoying. Sucking in a breath, I tamed my inner beast and threw him a soft smile. “Plus, you’re here, too. You wouldn’t let me go without you either, so you must understand.”

Rye
’s face brightened, as if I’d told him I loved him. It was nice to see him smiling rather than frowning, which from my constant moping about lately surely had him doing that a lot. I had good reasons to be sad; I’d just lost my mother. She’d died in an explosion I believed she caused herself. I was still devastated, and it hadn’t left me much room for happy thoughts. She’d been so together, tough and resilient. That is, until Christian’s hive had stolen her and my brother and experimented on them. It had left her broken in body and in mind. The damage had been so irreparable that I’d been left to care for my brother most of the time before her death.

She
’d feared she’d turn into a vampire, the one thing she could not tolerate. She’d had symptoms, yes, but I had assumed she’d become a hybrid vampire, not a feral. Well, the explosion she’d rigged while I’d been trapped in Vida had made sure she wouldn’t become either one. I’d been too late, and it had left us, Jeremy and me, utterly alone.

I swallowed the bad taste the memories left in my mouth. Keeping my eyes focused on our surroundings,
I felt the sun disappear below the mountains where the slot canyon began. The tall, smooth orange rock curved as it sent us around several corners, narrowing into walkways too small to fit more than one person at a time.

This was an
unusual place for a fortress, but at the end of times, who would visit this popular tourist attraction now? It was a perfect funnel to pick off enemies one at a time. It made me nervous as we rounded the turns and nooks that littered the area. Flicking my eyes up toward the towering walls around us, I was sure that sooner or later, a perched feral hiding in darkness or a hybrid would drop in from above and do its best to slaughter us all.

Pessimism
was my middle name lately.

Mercer

“I don’t want to sound like I’m freaking out or anything, but does anyone else feel like the walls are moving?” Sarah scrunched her nose up as she scanned the stone surrounding the slit we were quietly maneuvering. Her long red hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail spilling halfway down her back. It was braided into two thick braids, which I envied with all my heart. My own hair was medium length, black, thin and straight. Nothing spectacular.

“I feel it
, too.” The hairs on my back stood on end, not only from the feeling of being watched, but from the scant wafting scent of death slowly floating around us, its unseen tendrils wrapping around our heads like an ominous fragrance. “They know we’re here,” I whispered, gripping the hilts of my two blades tighter. The entire group was on alert, and we had stopped moving to listen to the echoes lightly treading across the walls of the canyon.

It was dead silent, not a good sign
, but the Zompires weren’t always silent. Their telltale groans and growls usually gave them away before they pounced. I was sure this was a trick of some sort, and I wasn’t feeling reassured as minutes passed and nothing happened. The scent of death diminished, and we were left stunned and on edge.

“Come on, keep moving.” Christian waved us forward and we
cautiously followed, still listening for anything to give away the death awaiting us. I didn’t like it, and I hoped we’d reach the fortress soon.

As we rounded yet another turn in the
endless maze, I was beginning to think we were lost and wouldn’t make it out before sundown, dying a miserable death at the jaws of a thousand ferals that probably lingered in the deeper recesses during the daylight hours. Though I didn’t know where they hid while the sun burned down like a fiery inferno across the barren rock, I was pretty sure there were some ferals here who had managed to find shelter during the hot hours of the daytime.

Christian held up his hand
, and we halted, studying the walls around us and behind, ready for anything. What were we looking for? Straining hard to hear something echoing across the canyon, I was getting tired of false alarms. I wanted blood and some fighting action. Enough of this hurry up and wait.

We continued on into a large opening in the canyon. The wavy walls hovered around us like giants
bearing down on us, and the sand beneath our feet was cool and partially damp. I hoped a flash flood wasn’t going to come through here any time soon. It would obviously fill with water when that happened. Though it would be a fast drowning death, it wasn’t on my bucket list.

A crow cawed in the distance,
and the rocks amplified its scream like a haunting melody. Something was wrong. I readied my blades as a horrendous gust of wind brought back the stench of death. Everyone was ready now, blades out and knees bent, hearts racing.

Clicking noises
, followed by a variety of screeches and squealing metal, echoed across the rock. The walls opened, revealing small, coffin-shaped slots as some hidden mechanism turned, and Zompires poured out of them like pipes bursting. There were dozens of slots, and the things were piling out. I swung my machetes as the first approached me, slashing at its neck and sending its head flying. Another had its wild eyes trained on me before he met the same fate, his slick blood gushing like a fountain from the stump left behind. A chain rattled as it fell off his neck, no longer held in place by his head.

The chorus of
clinking metal made me realize they were all chained by the neck, controlled by someone who could retract the chains when they wanted to pull them back into the holes. These were guard dogs, kept to attack the enemy at the entrance of the hidden fortress. They were nothing but puppets packed like sardines in the hidden encasements, starved and ready for anything living to chew on.
Great.
Who knew how many were holed up in the slots, as more and more poured out, hungry and ready for fresh blood?

“There
’s too many!” Sarah shrieked above the groans and screeches of the dead. Her sword slashed though two of them at one time, separating one from his arm and cutting the other cleanly in half. Swinging the sword around one more time, she decapitated the armless one, who was still headed for her, before finishing off the one crawling on the ground in a sticky pile of guts and gore.

This was going to be
an epic mess.

Elijah had his foot on one Zompire, crushing his chest down as he took his spear and stabbed the fucker right in the head. Another was already rushing toward him
, but he sliced through that one like butter with a huge hunting knife. He was covered with sticky, black-red blood, as was everyone else. It was a bloodbath. We were outnumbered, but definitely not out skilled. There was still daylight out, but the sun was beyond the ceiling of the canyon, throwing the entire path and clearing into shade, which was perfect for them to attack us.

I wondered who was holding the reins on these guys as
I crossed my machetes on one charging corpse as he tried desperately to chomp his incisors down on my arms. A quick jerk and his head went rolling. His body twitched frantically until it fell silent.

Minutes later, the
two dozen or so Zompires were all down, and the few left dangling from the chains were backing up, and not willingly. The chains were being reeled back into the slots carved in the canyon walls. I wondered where the coffin-like exits went, but the chains made one quick last jerk, rattling wildly enough that if anyone tried to enter while the doors were retracting, they’d get shredded by the chains. The doors slammed shut before I could get to one. I dropped my machetes and patted the wall to find any kind of opening. Scraping my fingers against the hard stone, I found nothing, not even an indention where the doors met the walls. Frustrated, I hit my fist against it before picking up my weapons and rejoining the group.

“Wher
e’s the entrance to this motherfucker? I’ve had enough of their games. You said there might be traps, but you didn’t say it was a suicide mission!” I pointed a finger at Christian, anger surging through my veins as I ached for more blood. I hadn’t had vampire blood in ages, not since I’d taken some from his veins, sealing our bond. It wasn’t that I’d wanted to, but once you bond with a hybrid, the exchange of blood was necessary. Otherwise, we would have died.

Yeah, that was one of the worst days of my life.

Now digging a finger into his shoulder, I wanted to slap him. It didn’t help that I also wanted to kiss him at the same damn time and see if he was okay. I think that infuriated me even more, especially since I could hear Rye chuckling at the sight of me going off on his number one enemy.

Damn them both to hell.

“I told you. They probably don’t think I’m still alive. Mercer probably set this up after I disappeared. Looks like one of his sick contraptions.” He stepped away, trying to control the stillness of his features, but I could see him steaming, too. So he didn’t know this would happen, just wonderful. That deflated me a bit.

“Just
get this circus moving already. Where do we get into this fortress of yours, Christian?” I hissed. Elijah was next to me as I stepped forward again, waving my bloody machete around like a mad woman. I liked action and getting things done. This unorganized mission was driving me bonkers, especially since I didn’t plan on dying there. But someone, apparently, had other plans.

“Calm down, April. No
need to expend all the energy on a vamp.” Elijah spit out the last word like it was garbage. He wasn’t a fan of the hybrid vampires, especially since he’d spent most of the end of the world exterminating the feral ones. If there’d been someone more skeptical about the hybrids, they’d really have nothing on him. He looked at the vamps like they were abominations of some sort. Hell, weren’t we all some sort of mutated freak? It was really hypocritical if you asked me, but no one was asking, and he didn’t care what anyone else thought of his antics.

I muttered under my breath and stomped forward, feeling foolish for losing my top, especially since Christian had remained so calm. Nothing grated my nerves more than not knowing what to expect. The city was predictable. This walking into an enemy hive was looking more and more like a trip into an asylum. I do
ubted we’d be welcomed by this Mercer. He sounded like cold-blooded psychopath.

I rounded the corner, still fuming, leaving my group to scamper behind me
, and ran right into the meanest son of a bitch ever. Cold, calculating blue eyes drilled into me as I approached, making me halt in my steps. The seven burly body guards surrounding him not only were armed with guns, they also had hold of a bunch of feral vampires chained at the necks and torsos. If that wasn’t a shocker of my lifetime. I wasn’t ready for it. I had literally almost walked into the clutches of one of these ferals. His blood red eyes flashed at me as his jaws snapped wildly. He looked starved. So why wasn’t he just turning around and pouncing on the hybrid vampire yanking his chain? Well, a moment later, he did try that, only to be zapped by a Taser baton as a reward. He hissed at the culprit but did not try to bite him again.

That
’s interesting.

I
’d seen trained ferals before, back when Blaze’s hive had attacked Christian’s at the Stratosphere. Still, it made my skin crawl, and I eyed the eight vampires staring me down like killer animals. They treated these ferals like savage dogs, and it made me furious.

“Mercer.” Christian gave him a curt nod but didn
’t approach him. The rest of us took his example and didn’t venture any closer.

“I wrote you off as dead.” Mercer
’s stoic looks made him appear frozen, like a marble statue. His dark black hair was cut short, almost buzzed to the scalp, and his skin was a golden tan, as if he’d spent some time in the sun. Golden halos flashed in his irises from the remaining light and made his bright blue eyes a buzzing neon color as he scanned them over us without a lick of approval. “Where have you been hiding these days?”

No one moved. Christian was the obvious ticket into this compound. I still couldn
’t see where the entrance was, just more turns and curves in the slot canyon walls. My stomach rolled, instantly complaining that this was not the best idea I’d ever had. Still, I had to speak to Rick if I was to find out what had really happened to my mother. “Well, as you can tell, I’m very much alive. I was caught in the city of Vida, under the Strip, for a while. Their leader was less than welcoming.” Christian’s face matched Mercer’s, eye for eye, frown for frown, then smirk for smirk.

I
saw why he’d pick this guy as his second. So different, yet perfectly matched in every way.

“What can I do for you?”
Mercer tilted his head down, narrowing his eyes as he scanned each and every one of us. When he was done, the disgust on his face told me he wasn’t impressed. Oh well, right?

“We need to speak to Rick.”
Christian stepped forward, close enough to almost invade Mercer’s personal space.

“For what reason?”

“April’s family was held in our station at the Stratosphere. Rick did something to her mother, caused her to change into something, possibly a hybrid. It drove her insane.” He hesitated before he continued, “The change affected her mind to the point of driving her to suicide.”

“
Rick killed her.” I stepped forward, drilling my glare into Mercer. He didn’t even flinch at it, but I noticed a tiny drop of amusement dancing in his eyes.

He sniffed the air and the excitement grew tenfold on his face.
“Human.” His smirk slowly melted into a charming smile. “How so? Rick is human, just like you.”

“I thought he was a h
ybrid human.”

Mercer sighed and his grin faded.
Apparently, we’d already pushed his welcome to the max. “He was. But he’s developed a ‘cure,’ if you can call it that. It’s far from perfect, but he no longer has a need to drink blood to survive. He’s no longer one of us, just plain human.” His fangs slipped out and a malicious grin spread slowly across his face. “I don’t think he’d like visitors, though. He’s quite the recluse.”

“I don
’t care what he likes. I demand to see him.”

Mercer
’s stare bore into me, and my skin tingled from the strain. He was an alpha vampire for a reason, but I was betting Christian could muster the same kind of threatening stare if he wanted to, if he needed to.

Right on
cue, Christian stepped up to Mercer. He was obviously at least two inches taller than his former second and definitely bulkier. Mercer didn’t back down, though. His glare shifted from me to his former leader, and a challenging eye match followed.

“I suggest you let us through. This is still my hive.”

“It hasn’t been your hive in months. I’m leader here now, and the hive does as I say.”

“Mercer….
” Christian was losing his patience, but he did well not allowing it to show.

“Your human army won
’t get far. I don’t suggest you try to oppose me.”

Christian snarled. B
oth had their fangs in full show now, their eyes flashing even brighter as their halos overtook the colored irises. Their growls made my skin crawl, but I readied myself to slice through Mercer’s henchmen at any second now. His seven bodyguards shifted on their feet, similarly prepared for a fight.