Blood Prophecy (40 page)

“Well, Saga likes a good fight,” Lucy put in. “So that might help.”

“So we have a secret Black Lodge of students, a handful of vampires, and some weapons?” Hunter asked. “I’m not loving the odds yet.”

“And some tranq guns,” Lucy said. “I stole three.”

“And I hid a bunch of them up a tree near the Bower,” I added.

“You did?” Quinn asked. “When? Why?”

“Lucy and I were talking and it gave me some ideas. I got some of Uncle Geoffrey’s sedative and loaded a bunch of dart guns, just in case.”

“Because of London,” Nicholas guessed quietly.

“Partly.”

“There’s the Chandramaa too,” Quinn added before the moment stretched from awkward to sad. “They’ve got Mom’s ferocity and Lucy’s aim.”

“Aw, thanks.” Lucy beamed at him.

“But they were decimated earlier tonight,” I broke in. “Their numbers are definitely depleted.” When they stared at me I just waved it away. “Vampire assassin. Long story.”

“So maybe we need a new enemy,” Kieran suggested slowly. “One both sides have to stop fighting each other to defeat.”

“Like who?” Hunter asked.

“Saga’s
Hel-Blar.”

Nicholas gaped at him. “Why not just throw a live grenade and blow everyone up instead? Be quicker.”

“Those
Hel-Blar
aren’t quite as feral as the others,” I pointed out, agreeing with Kieran. “At least not while they’re wearing the collars.” I rubbed my neck. “It suppressed my pheromones. It does the same for them in some weird way.”

“Do we still not know how those work?” Hunter asked.

“Magic,” I said. “At least partly. So basically, no. No idea.”

We spread out between the trees, moving as quietly as we could. The students all had compasses with the coordinates Connor had sent Chloe. My brothers and I just followed the scent of the night, which was already tainted. It was faint but wrong, and very hard to describe, something between burning petals and wet, rusty iron.

I hung back, keeping pace with Kieran. “Can I talk to you?”

He stopped, turning to face me. His eyes were so dark, like a moonlit night. I tried not to stare at the faint scar on his throat. “I was hoping . . .” I trailed off, biting my lower lip. “That is, I know you’re going to the college in Scotland. But I wondered . . .”

“Solange, what are you trying to say?”

I drank in the sight of him, standing so tall and patient with the snow and the bare black trees all around him. “I’m saying I still love you,” I replied, forcing myself to be brave. If I could face the kind of fight we were about to walk into, I could face this. He deserved better than my shy, awkward fear. Especially now. I wanted him to remember
me,
not Viola. “And I know I hurt you but I’m hoping maybe you could give me a chance to make it up to you.”

“You fought your way back to me,” he replied, just as quietly; but his smile was like an ember, catching fire to all the cold inside my chest. “That’s all I care about.”

And then he finally kissed me.

It was like a first kiss, tentative, gentle, searching. I could remember who we used to be, could follow the trail of all the nights we’d spend talking, walking on the beach, driving around. I could follow them like fireflies, like shooting stars, like sparks.

Everything melted away for one brief, beautiful moment. The kiss seared through me as he slanted his mouth over mine. Our tongues met, our fingers tangled, our bodies touched. I could have kept kissing him for hours, if we’d had the time.

We parted reluctantly and kept walking through the snow silent and smiling.

The others were silhouettes all around us, but I could still hear them. I caught the occasional glint of light off a metal zipper, the rasp of a stake being passed anxiously from hand to hand. “So you’ve changed your mind about Solange?” Lucy was asking the girl with the red hair.

“No way.” She snorted. “I’ll do this for the League and for you and Hunter because you’re sisters-at-arms, but she’s a vampire.”

“She’s a
girl.”

“Who drinks blood.”

“Please,” Lucy scoffed. “I’ve seen you eat marzipan. On purpose. That stuff’s just gross.” She paused. I could hear her smirking. “So did Tyson ask you out?”

“Tell you what,” Jenna shot back. “If I don’t die horribly tonight, I’ll worry about my love life. It can wait.”

“Take it from me,” Lucy said drily. “If you’re waiting for all this drama to be over before making your move, you’ll be waiting forever.”

And then the nervous chatter, the sidelong glances, the checking of weapons all fell away.

There wasn’t room for anything but what we were about to do.

Chapter 36

Lucy

It was one thing to train in the gym, to practice kickboxing and archery, to read about wars and tactical strategy and listen to Helena threaten to pull organs out of various people’s noses.

It was quite another thing to walk right into a war.

Objectively speaking, we knew the vampires at the Blood Moon were inside the circle, with a ring of Hope’s followers around them, and the rest of us on the outside ring. On paper, this would have looked great—if the vampires in the center were armed. Because even super speed and strength could only go so far against stakes and arrows. And Hope wasn’t about to give them that chance anyway. She was waiting for sunrise when they’d be at their weakest.

So we’d take away their element of surprise.

Jenna was already climbing up a soot-covered chain ladder to get a better vantage point. She didn’t have just one hand crossbow, she had three. Chloe followed behind her but Hunter stayed on the ground with Quinn since she was better at hand-to-hand. Kieran went off with Solange and the rest of the Black Lodge dispersed around the perimeter. Nicholas was right at my side, or I was at his, it hardly mattered. Where one of us went, the other followed.

We hadn’t even reached the Chandramaa yet, we were still technically on the outskirts of the official camp. And we still had no idea if or when the
Hel-Blar
would be released. And if they would make things better or considerably worse.

I already felt like I was moving in slow motion but everything around me was sped up. Even the brightness of the snow looked different. The reality of a sound attack wasn’t just about the logic behind the plan, it was also the thrum of my blood in my veins, my heart stuttering, my mouth going dry.

Hunter looked perfectly calm but when Spencer came up beside her, she nearly staked him. He ducked even as Quinn grabbed her elbow to stop her follow-through.

“You have got to stop sneaking up on me,” she grumbled at him.

“Sorry,” he said. “My unit’s pretty small but I set up a few spells to compensate. And no, before you ask, no one will smell like cheese.” He gave her a friendly nudge with his shoulder. Neither of them were quite used to his vampire strength yet so Quinn had to catch her when she nearly plowed into him. “Don’t die,” Spencer ordered. “One of us is enough.”

“I’ll take care of her,” Quinn promised.

“And I’ll stake you both right now if you two don’t cut it out,” Hunter added drily.

In the trees above us, Jenna shot arrows into the camp, the shafts wrapped with notes addressed to Helena Drake and Liam Drake. I shot a few more from my position. We hoped at least one of the arrows made it through the compromised Chandramaa ranks.

Which officially made this our last chance to talk our way out of this.

“Are you sure about this?” Quinn bent his head to whisper in Hunter’s ear. She leaned into him briefly but her answer didn’t change.

“I have to try.” When he tried to follow her, fierce and charming as only a Drake brother could be, she stopped him. “I have to do this alone.”

“It’s not safe.”

“Nowhere’s safe anymore,” she reminded him. “But they won’t listen to me if my vampire boyfriend is standing next to me. They’re seriously old school.” A muscle in his jaw leaped. “Jenna’s got me covered from up there.” She kissed him quickly, despite her earlier contention that she couldn’t be seen standing with him right now, never mind kissing him. When she moved away he pulled her sharply back, lengthening the kiss until it looked as though it could have easily burned through all of our fears.

“Kick some ass, Buffy,” he murmured.

“I’m going with you,” I said, catching up to Hunter. “I’m technically one of you and one of them. Maybe it’ll help.”

Nicholas didn’t look thrilled. “Maybe you should stay here.”

I just looked at him.

He sighed. “Then I’m coming with you.”

“No way. Didn’t you hear what Hunter just told Quinn. And anyway, remember our last date? When Helios-Ra students and Huntsmen tried to kill you? How is that going to help me?” I went on my tiptoes and kissed him quickly. “I’ll be fine.”

Hunter and I followed the trail to where it ended, knowing full well that both Quinn and Nicholas were tailing us. We’d have done the same thing. There were dozens of other eyes watching as we stepped into the narrow clearing, the snow crunching under my school-issued boots. Hunter stood straight-backed and proud as any new recruit. I just nocked an arrow, feeling trapped.

“The vampires know you’re here,” Hunter called out. She didn’t even call them names. I totally would have. “You’ve lost the element of surprise and the weapon of dawn.” I knew she specifically used “dawn” instead of sunrise. “Any minute now they’ll be coming out to defend themselves. We can end this before it starts.”

“Why would we want to?” someone said with a snort. “Now get out of the way, vampire lover.”

“Yeah, we’re not the monsters here,” another hunter broke in. “Or have you forgotten which side you’re on?”

“Oh, I haven’t forgotten,” she answered grimly, nudging me when I opened my mouth to fire back a retort. “This isn’t defending an innocent from a vampire feeding or even a
Hel-Blar.
And I’m not suggesting some vampires shouldn’t be taken out for everyone’s safety. I think we can agree Lady Natasha and Montmartre aren’t going to be missed.”

There was a soft, menacing hiss from somewhere behind me. I tensed but refused to give in to fear. Hunter didn’t betray even a flutter of nerves. “Jenna has our back,” she murmured to me. And the vampire, no doubt once one of Montmartre’s Host, wouldn’t have bothered wasting his time hissing if he’d really wanted to kill us where we stood.

“We have a right to protect our town,” someone said.

“But that’s not what this is,” Kieran argued, stepping up beside us. He and Hunter stood shoulder to shoulder, as I imagined they had since they were little. It was the same way I would have stood with Solange or any of her brothers. “This is genocide and murder. It’s not who we are. We deserve better than what Dawn is making us into.”

“They’re vampires and we’re vampire hunters. Do the math. They’ve been killing in Violet Hill, leaving bodies behind every night. That queen of theirs is insane, worse than the last two.”

“Most of that was Dawn,” I argued, searching the undergrowth, hoping to see a hunter I recognized, someone who might actually listen. “She murdered humans to manipulate you all into this attack. She manipulated the vampires too. She framed Solange.” I thought about the vampires we’d found in Kieran’s house that night. “And she hired vampires to kill Kieran, to set Solange off, to set us all off.” I was sure of it. “She’s playing you.”

“Son of a bitch,” Kieran muttered, realizing I was right.

“We don’t care,” a hunter barked, though I still couldn’t see his face.

“You have to listen!” Hunter insisted.

“We’re doing right. Who the hell are you to tell us differently?”

“She’s my best student,” Bellwood barked back, suddenly emerging out of the shadows. I’d never seen her in her field gear outside of the old yearbooks in the library. “If I don’t expel her for this, of course.”

“Um . . .”

I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen Hunter that flustered. Of course, what else can you say to the headmistress of your school while standing in the middle of the forest at night during a covert op, surrounded by hostile hunters and vampires?

She slanted us a look. “You didn’t really think you could do this alone and undetected, did you?” Her stern gaze shifted, raking the faces now peering out of the bushes and trees. I’d be willing to bet over half the hunters around us had studied at the academy under Bellwood.

“And Ms. Dailey is in on it too,” Kieran called out. “I saw her at the caves. She tried to poison Hunter, one of our own. How is that honorable?”

Bellwood nodded her approval. “I’ve taught you better than this.”

“School’s been out for a long time, lady,” a Huntsman sneered. “Now move!”

He wasn’t the only one yelling at us.

“Hunter Wild, you go back to school right now.”

Hunter spun around. “Grandpa?”

He barreled out of a thicket, wearing leather straps across his chest, studded with stakes, Hypnos, nose plugs, and wild fear in his blue eyes. “Get out of here,” he said. “That is an order, young lady.”

“Nothing like being scolded by your grandfather to really make you look like a force to be reckoned with,” Hunter muttered. “You know I can’t do that,” she added louder, even though the vein in his temple was pulsing alarmingly. “Grandpa, this is wrong. And it’s going to be a massacre.”