Blood Prophecy (41 page)

“This ambush was a perfectly good tactical move you just shot to hell,” he growled. He glared at Kieran. “I expected better from you.”

Kieran’s eyes flashed, his rare temper sparking. “That woman you’re working with killed my father. And her accomplice tried to kill Hunter. Of the two of us, you’re the one who should be ashamed.”

“What the bloody hell are you talking about?” Grandpa frowned. “Dawn didn’t kill your father.”

“Dawn is Hope,” Kieran told him. He made sure his voice carried. “The same Hope who murdered my father, the leader of the Helios-Ra, and made it look like vampires. Sound familiar?”

“And she’s working with the Host,” I added. “Just like she worked with Lady Natasha.”

“Not true.” Grandpa looked shocked. “You have pheromone poisoning. You’re just kids. It hits you harder.”

“Grandpa, I saw the hit list,” Hunter said, disgusted. “How could you?”

He went gray under the red flush of his temper. “Hard choices, kitten.”

“Kieran was on that list,” she snapped. “Did you even look at it?”

He shook his head. “I was just a messenger,” he said, sounding old.

A Huntsman strode out of his hiding place, furious. “I don’t give a damn about your politics. All I care about is taking out that nest of monsters over there.” He leaned into Hunter aggressively. “Now shut the hell up or I will do it for you.”

Hunter’s grandpa rounded on him, shoving him hard. “Don’t you threaten her.”

And then there was no more time for talking.

There was no warning.

The clearing went from a field of snow to a battlefield. Arrows and stakes cut the night into cold, dangerous pieces. Vampires rushed out of the camp and hunters swarmed forward.

And we were caught in the middle, because we didn’t want to kill either side.

This wasn’t going to end well.

The sound boiled the air. It made me nauseated, and light-headed as it vibrated in my eardrums. The silky, sinister speed of angry vampires was like a hundred snakes slithering around me. I was in the fight before my brain caught up, my reflexes recognizing what my body needed to do.

Hunter used a hammer fist strike to knock a Huntsman off her feet as she shot past me. We both spent a good five minutes tripping and shoving hunters as they tried to join the battle. I felt like I was back on the playground. I grabbed a long branch, using it like a staff and jamming it at a Host vampire’s knees to knock him off course as well. Nicholas was back at my side, silent and serious.

It was already taking all of our combined strength to stay together. The world was a confusing mass of weapons, hisses, limbs flailing. I couldn’t even see Quinn in the melee, but I knew he had
to be nearby since I could just make out the gleam of Hunter’s blond hair.

I whipped a stake at the vampire who darted at me, snarling. It wasn’t enough to dust her. She howled, plucking the wooden stake from her flesh. I’d hit the right target, but it hadn’t gone through her rib cage with enough force to pierce her heart. It snagged her shirt and she pulled it completely free before flinging it back at me. I ducked even as Nicholas slammed the stake out of its trajectory with the side of his hand. I still only narrowly avoided losing an eye.

The vampire hissed, bloodlust making her eyes red. She turned to the nearest human.

Hunter.

“Hunter, watch out!” I yelled, even as the vampire turned on her. Hunter kicked out, slamming her boot into the vampire’s stomach. It would have bought her a few seconds if Hunter hadn’t slipped on a patch of ice and crashed onto her tailbone. When the vampire laughed, Hunter staked her foot to the ground, pinning her there long enough for Jody, of all people, to stake her. I blinked at her, nonplussed. Had the whole school come down for extracurricular credit? She took off before we could thank her. Or wonder what side she was fighting for.

Quinn’s mad laugh cut off with a strangled growl. He was tossed off his feet, landing on his back and skidding in the snow beside Hunter. Judging by the bruises and bleeding cuts all over his chest and arms, he’d been trying to fight his way to her. Hunter rolled over, shooting the Host in the chest before he could lean down and snap Quinn’s neck. He crumbled to ash.

Quinn grinned at Hunter, his blue eyes burning. They kept their gazes locked as they both jumped up, weapons raised. Another vampire was on her, dagger in his hand. Quinn pushed her out of the way.

“Not her, Elijah,” Spencer added, knocking the dagger out of his hand at the same time. He caught it before it skewered her. “She’s on our side.” He helped Hunter up. “I thought I said don’t die.”

“This friendly fire’s a bitch,” Quinn added, flipping his hair off his face before jumping back into the fray.

“We need to get high up,” I said to Nicholas.

He nodded tersely. “Quinn, cover us.”

Hunter came with us, using a small crossbow she plucked out of a pile of ashes and medieval chainmail armor. A hunter fell across our path, gurgling blood. A red-tipped arrow stuck out of his stomach. I had no idea who was winning or if there would even be a winner. It was hard to think, hard to do anything but survive. If we didn’t get this sorted by sunrise, I couldn’t imagine the resulting massacre. There was already blood in the snow and fires burning up in the treetops. A tent on the other side of the tree line billowed thick gray smoke, choking us. I needed to get up onto a platform where I could use my bow.

A Huntsman dropped, eyes rolling back in her head. The vampire beside her also staggered, a dart in the side of her neck. I couldn’t see Kieran anymore, or even Solange. There was too much happening, too many grunts of pain, too many snapping bones and swords clashing. A vertical deadly rain of stakes threatened everyone, no matter who or what we were defending.

Three hunters lay defenseless in the snow. Tyson crawled forward, keeping his head out of the line of fire, and dragged them into a copse of cedars to protect them. Tranquilizers were a good idea in theory, but they had their own pitfalls. Chloe and Jason rushed out to help them. I saw Duncan and Marcus doing the same with fallen vampires, bringing them to the same shelter. Sebastian helped Jason with a particularly large hunter.

While Quinn and Nicholas took on three Host between us and the platforms, I turned just in time to see a Huntsman, flung by an angry vampire, crash right into Hunter behind me. She fell hard on her knee, gasping in pain. She grabbed for her crossbow, which had skittered just out of reach. I didn’t have the space to nock an arrow. I leaped forward, kicking the crossbow back to her.

When she tried to stand up, her leg buckled. She nearly pitched forward. I tried to get to her but there was a vampire and a Huntsman in my path, each trying to tear the other’s throat out. I tried to go around them and got knocked off my feet.

Hunter propped herself up by holding onto a low branch to steady herself. She lifted her reclaimed crossbow, resting it on the branch and taking aim, but there was no hope for a clear shot. I scuttled toward her, staying on my back where I had enough clearance to use my own crossbow. I took out two Host vampires with regular bolts, turning them to ashes.

“You again.” Ms. Dailey, who I recognized from the caves, picked her way over clumps of ashes and the bodies of her fellow hunters. She looked so furious that she’d tipped over into a creepy calm.

And she was pointing a gun at Hunter.

Hunter froze. I fumbled to load my crossbow with another arrow. A boot clomped down beside me, nearly snapping it out of my hand.

“This is your fault,” Ms. Dailey spat. “If you’d just died like you were supposed to, Hope and I could have taken care of this under the radar. You had me put away.”

“You slipped me vampire roofies,” Hunter returned, her voice shaking slightly.

“You really could have been someone.” She shook her head. Her gun aim was steady. “You chose the wrong side, Hunter.”

I tried to creep closer and get proper aim but there were too many fists and stakes between us. The clouds of ashes didn’t help either. Quinn swore, trying to fight his way to Hunter, but he and Nicholas were surrounded by more Host.

Ms. Dailey pulled the trigger.

Hunter fell backward before I realized the bullet hadn’t touched her. It hit her grandfather instead.

“Grandpa!” She crawled to where he’d landed, sprawled on his back. “You’re okay!” she said. “You’re okay.” She pressed a wadded-up bandanna to the wound in his chest. Blood soaked through it within seconds. “No,” she pleaded. “Grandpa, don’t go.”

He coughed. “Don’t fuss, kitten.”

And then he shot Ms. Dailey over Hunter’s shoulder before she could fire again. She slammed into a tree, and fell into a spindly hazel thicket.

“I’ll get help,” I babbled, even though I had no idea how I was
supposed to do that. There was no way I’d be able to find Uncle Geoffrey in this chaos. Hunter kept applying pressure to her grandpa’s chest. Her ponytail slipped over one shoulder, the tip dragging in his blood.

“No need for that.” He tried to smile, blood foaming at the corner of his mouth. “You’re a good girl, Hunter.”

And then he died, smiling and patting her hand.

Quinn slid to her side in the snow.

That’s when the first wave of
Hel-Blar
hit.

Chapter 37

Solange

I was floating over the battle, pale and transparent as mist.

For a long, sickening, horrifying moment, I thought I was back in Viola’s spirit castle.

“No,” I said, frantically. “Absolutely not.”

I had to get out of here. I couldn’t be trapped like this again, not now, while I could see my family below fighting for their lives. They glowed faintly blue. I shook my head, as if that would make everything normal again.

“I really can’t be crazy right now,” I moaned out loud.

“Merde,
Solange, what are you doing here?”

Isabeau’s voice startled me so thoroughly I hollered, and jerked back violently, spinning like cotton candy at a carnival booth. I came to a dizzying stop while Isabeau floated next to me, frowning delicately.

I flapped my hands at her. “Help me!”

Her eyes were fierce as wolf’s eyes. “Where is your body, Solange?”

“Kieran and I were on one of the platforms,” I said, trying to remember. I squinted at the strange, black-and-white, overexposed photograph of the camp below us. People and vampires glowed like superimposed colorful fireflies. “There!” I pointed, trying to see through the leaves. I could just make out the gold flare of Kieran’s aura outlining his body as he stood over me, where I was sprawled unconscious at his feet.

“I have got to stop doing that,” I muttered.

“Bien.”
Isabeau looked relieved. “But this is still most unusual. The energy I put into your spirit cord when you were trapped in the castle must still be linking us.” She looked briefly curious. “You and Logan are both naturals at dreamwalking.”

“That’s great,” I said evenly, trying not to panic. “What the hell is dreamwalking? And how do I stop?”

“Just recline into your body as if it were a bed.”

I couldn’t quite get the hang of it. I drifted up a few more feet before Isabeau told me to stare at my body and think of heavy things like ship anchors and mountains. Then she shoved me. The feel of her ghostly hand touching my ghostly shoulder was cold and unpleasant and strangely jelly-like.

I reached the top branches of the tree when she yanked me back up. I shivered, cold to my bones.

“Non,”
she said sharply, changing her mind. “I am sensing too much strange magic around us. Stay close.” She lifted one of the amulets around her neck. It was round and metallic, the kind people
keep perfume in. The same kind I’d kept Madame Veronique’s blood in on a chain around my neck before my birthday. She pulled a long thin thread of white glittering light out of it and looped it around our wrists, where she’d tied the ribbon while she exorcised me. “I cannot wait. The spell must be done now. You will have to come with me.”

“Are you calling up that mystical fog you used the night Mom killed Montmartre and Magda killed Greyhaven?”

She shook her head. “It would only put your humans at a disadvantage.”

Molten silver dripped from tree branches around us, gathering in puddles in the snow. “What is that?” I asked.

“Blood,” Isabeau replied.

Suddenly it was easy to feel the violence below seep into the air, making my spirit vision murky. I shuddered.

“Isabeau.”

I heard Logan’s voice clearly, even though he was whispering in Isabeau’s ear. “Hope is hiding in a pile of boulders southwest of the camp entrance.”

We drifted farther away from the safety of my body, searching through the auras. The boulders glowed with a yellowish-green light.

“Hope,” Isabeau said, sounding satisfied. There were six or seven guards around her position but they couldn’t see us.

Someone else did.

Something magical focused onto Isabeau. The feel of it bled off her onto me, like poisoned molasses, sticky and toxic.

“The Host,” she said darkly, clenching her jaw as she worked to
repel it. The magic she was fighting prickled uncomfortably through me, but it wasn’t having the same effect on me as it clearly had on her. She went particularly pale, as if she were made entirely of silver and shadows. She was in pain.