Blood Warrior (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles #4) (5 page)

“
New Orleans has a deep
history, full of ghost stories and tales of witchcraft.” Anthony
stared out the window at the tombs in one of the cemeteries as we
passed. “At this moment we are making another chapter in the
history books. I intend to record the events for the world to know
of later on. In the future, when children go back to school they
will learn of the battle for the city … for the world, and they
will hear how the Hunters joined with the survivors to fight the
vampires. It will be a magnificent story, of that I am
positive.”

No one said anything after that,
probably because nothing seemed appropriate. What did seem
appropriate was leaving the conversation on that note … the one
where we succeed.

We parked the cars in a parking garage
on the outskirts of the French Quarter, deciding it would be safer
and not as noticeable if we went the rest of the way on foot.
Nobody spoke as we followed Anthony over the broken sidewalks into
the heart of the city.

As we passed the shops, bars and
restaurants, I wished that I had been able to see New Orleans
before the Vampire Apocalypse. I would have loved to sit at one of
the tables outside the Café Du Monde and have their famous beignets
and coffee. I wanted to take the tours of the plantations, with
their trees draped in Spanish moss and picture perfect beauty. I
wanted to eat authentic Cajun food and listen to live music. I
wanted peace, I wanted normal, and I wanted a vacation from hunting
vampires.

Anthony didn’t always stick to the
streets, he took us through several alleyways in order to be more
discreet. He led the way, but I brought up the rear, since he and I
both had super hearing it just made sense that way.

Just as we were exiting one of the
alleys, Anthony stopped short. I heard it at the same time as he
did … voices. Anthony held up his hand in a fist, signaling to
stop. The group halted between us. I filtered my concentration onto
the voices, gradually I heard footsteps and then
breathing.

The voices were coming from vampires,
not human soldiers. Three of them as far as I could tell. They were
headed in our direction and not far away at all. Feminine laughter
rung out above the others and then a few male chuckles of lower
volume.

My hand went to my holster
automatically. I knew what was going to happen, we had a crap ton
of human blood pumping through this alley, there was no way that
those vamps weren’t going to catch the scent of us.

Closer now, “Wait, do you smell
that?”

Crap. Well, there were more of us than
them. Should be no problem.

“
Yeah,” the feminine voice
whispered, “I do.” She inhaled deeply. “There are more than one
too.”

“
Come on,” one of the
other vamps demanded in a low voice.

I nudged Alice, who was in front of me
and signaled that they were coming. She reached up and as silently
as possible, drew her swords from their sheaths. Her face serious,
and a bit scared, she gripped one in each hand, ready for whatever
she had to face.

Christina already had a huge knife in
her left hand, but the rest of us opted for guns, even
Anthony.

“
This way,” one of the
male voices directed the others.

I was at the rear from where they were
coming from, so Anthony was going to have to initiate the kills. I
just hoped he wasn’t going to screw us over and would actually do
it.

The vampires were silent
as they approached the alley, trying to be a quiet as possible so
that we wouldn’t hear them coming. Most vampires didn’t assume that
two dhampirs and a full blooded vampire would be hanging out with a
bunch of humans, and they
never
expected any of them to be a Hunter.

Anthony pointed his pistol at the
opening of the alley, waiting for the enemy to find us.

One of the males was the first to
show. He rounded the corner cautiously, but without a weapon that
we could see. His blond hair fell down into his face, covering one
of his bright blue eyes. The moment those eyes fell onto the humans
among us, the one we could still see flickered and turned red. The
sign of blood lust.

“
Do not move another
inch,” Anthony ordered. The barrel of his gun was only about a foot
away from the vampire’s heart.

The blond vampire flashed his gaze
over the entire group, taking in the details. With the weapons and
the mix of humans and vampire, he put it together pretty quickly.
He stepped back, slowly raising his hands into the air just as the
others entered the alley. “Whoa, hold up, we aren’t going to hurt
anyone.”

“
I find that hard to
believe,” Anthony told him. “You two,” he waved the gun toward the
other vampires who had halted abruptly when they saw that their
plan had not gone smoothly, “hands up.”

Drew marched forward, a gun gripped in
each hand. “I’ll take care of them.”

“
Wait,” I hissed, moving
around the others until I was next to him. “You can’t. We should
try to do this quietly if we can.” I was already fitting the
silencer onto my gun.

Too late. The idiot vampires took the
moment of distraction and used it to their benefit. Everything
happened quickly. The first vampire reached out and grabbed the
barrel of Drew’s left gun, pulling him forward and then punching
him in the face.

“
Son of a bi…” Drew’s
curse was cut off by scream of the vampire when Anthony pulled the
trigger and shot him in the heart. The vampire released Drew’s
weapon, letting it fall to the cement with a dull
clatter.

The female vampire screeched and bared
her pearly white fangs at us. She was promptly rewarded for this
with one of Christina’s knives in her chest. Her screech was cut
short when the large blade buried to the hilt in her heart. Only a
gurgling sound released as she choked on her own blood. A few
crimson drops slid out of her mouth and over her lips. She fell to
her knees, her red eyes wide, clutching the handle of the knife
with her right hand. Her left hand tried to move up and join the
right one, but she didn’t have the strength left.

The other male turned to run, knowing
that he was out numbered. His back was a big, easy target. I took
the shot at him. He crumpled to his knees and then fell forward
onto the filthy pavement of the alleyway. The UV light began to eat
at his undead flesh, the glow filtering slowly through his
body.

I held my guns at the ready and stood
stock still, breathing hard. My adrenaline was pumping so hard at
the moment that I couldn’t force myself to put my weapons
down.

Drew was at my side, “It’s over,” he
whispered.

I released a long breath, trying to
calm myself. “For now it is,” I answered. We were in the heart of
New Orleans in the middle of the Vampire Apocalypse, this was far
from over by any standard.

“
Let’s go,” Anthony waved
us on.

I moved back to my previous position
at the back of the pack where I could hear anything coming at us
from behind while Anthony continued to lead us through the French
Quarter.

“
Over here.” Anthony
beckoned us all toward him where we crowded around to hear him
whisper. He crouched down and pointed at a building across the
street. “That is it, right there.”

The building wasn’t what I’d expected.
It a lot plainer than I would have imagined a haunted mansion to
be. The gray, three story mansion was set on a corner lot. The
gallery, situated on the middle floor, wrapped around the length of
the building. Windows … there were a lot of windows. I don’t know
how the survivors of the resistance would be able to keep anything
a secret in that house with all the stinking windows. This didn’t
seem like a very good place for a hideout.

We all crouched down in the shadows
and watched the place for a little while. Looking for any signs of
life and for the first time I wondered how we were going to
approach these people, especially with a vampire in tow.

We sat there in the darkness for over
an hour before Zander finally nudged me. “The roof,” he
whispered.

Our eyesight was better
than the eyesight of a full blooded human, so Zander, Anthony and I
could see better in the dark than everyone else. I focused to the
roof and saw what he was talking about. A slight movement where the
house rounded the corner caught my attention. Yup, there was a
sniper up there. Once I was able to really focus on the movement I
could see the shadow of a person up there, although I couldn’t tell
if they were male or female. What I
could
see was the length of a rifle
held out in front of them and aimed right at us.

It was a wonder they hadn’t shot at us
already.

“
They know we’re out
here,” I whispered loud enough for everyone to hear.

Drew cocked his head to the side. “We
should probably let them know we have spotted them, a surrender, so
to speak.”

“
Yes,” Luke nodded, “that
would be best.”

“
Well, who’s going to do
it?” Zander asked. The risk of the situation was crystal clear in
his voice.

“
I will,” Gavin
volunteered, already holstering his gun.

“
No,” I told him. “One of
us would be better off since we can see what’s going on up there.”
Really, I just didn’t want to see him get shot. “I’ll do
it.”

“
No,” Drew shook his head,
“not you.”

I rolled my eyes. Here we go. I sighed
and then explained. “I heal fast. If I get shot I can withstand it
better than any of you.” Meaning, I probably wouldn’t
die.

“
Chloe…” Drew and Gavin
both muttered in unison

“
Guys, I can do
it.”

Anthony adjusted his position. “I
would volunteer, however, I imagine I would be most likely to be
shot.”

I nodded. “We know that, Anthony. I’m
going.”

“
Chloe,” Gavin set his
hand on my shoulder. “You are a better shot than any of us, plus
your eye sight is better. That is why you can’t do it, you need to
keep your eyes on the guy up there so that if he is going to shoot
me, maybe you can get him first.”

I didn’t like this. “I don’t
know.”

Finally Christina opened her mouth.
“For crying out loud, this is so dumb. I hate it when everyone gets
all ‘Ohhhh, we can’t put Chloe at risk’ on us. Someone get your ass
out there or I’ll do it. I’m not scared of those idiots. I mean,
they are hiding out in plain sight in a freaking haunted mansion.
Who does that?” She raised her eyebrows at her own
question.

Gavin stood and stripped off his
holster, then took off his white tee shirt. I bit my lip when the
shirt went over his head. I’d forgotten just how sexy those abs
were.

Focus, Chloe,
focus!

He shoved his guns into the back of
his jeans and twisted the tee shirt around his fist. Then, without
a second look back at the rest of us, he strode out into the
street.

Immediately, I focused on the rooftop.
The shadow trained his weapon onto Gavin the instant he stepped off
the sidewalk. I didn’t think my pistol would have the range that
the sniper’s rifle would have, so I removed my bow from my
shoulders and slid an arrow from the quiver on my back. Still
keeping my eyes on the guy, I fit the arrow in place and took
aim.

Gavin had made it to the middle center
of the street, where he stopped and then spread his arms wide, the
signal of ‘look I’m unarmed.’ He gripped the tee shirt in his right
hand and waved it around, hoping that whoever was watching would
get the idea of what we were doing.

The guy on the roof followed Gavin’s
every move and I kept my arrow trained on him.

“
Shit,” Zander muttered
under his breath from beside me.

“
What?” Drew whispered,
annoyance thick in his voice.

“
There is more than one
guy up there.”

I didn’t want to take my aim off the
one who had Gavin in his sights. “How many?”

“
I can see two more, but I
can’t say for sure.”

Anthony rose from his crouched
position that we had all assumed. “We are not alone.”

Dammit. We just needed them to know
that we were not a threat. I resigned and then also stood. “Let
them come. It’s what we wanted.”

“
That would be a good
decision,” a female voice, with a thick southern accent, called
from the darkness. “We have you surrounded, so put your weapons
away or on the ground.”

Luke shot a worried glance at Anthony.
“Do as she says,” he ordered the rest of us.

I slid the arrow back into my quiver
and the bow went back over my shoulder. Didn’t bother me any, I had
my fire power. My gaze went to Alice and she nodded, understanding
what she needed to do. The shimmer of the protective bubble slid
down around us. The only one not within the circumference of the
bubble was Gavin, who was now pretty much stuck in the street. He
still had his hands spread wide. I guess he thought it safer not to
put them down.

From all sides of us, people emerged,
creating a circle that got smaller and smaller as they advanced.
They all had on dark clothing and carried either rifles or
handguns.