Blood Warrior (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles #4) (6 page)

It did not make me feel good at all
that they were able to trap us this way. One look at Drew and his
furrowed brow told me that he thought the same thing. This should
not have been able to happen. We screwed up somewhere.

The same woman who had told us to put
down our weapons stepped forward, closer to us than the rest of the
people who circled us. She raised her rifle and trained it on
Anthony. “None of you have the dragon tattoo, yet you travel with
this monster?”

Anthony slowly moved his hands upward
to show he wasn’t a threat. “I mean you no harm.”

“
Right,” she scoffed.
“That’s what the Vampire Council says too. But, then they allow
their followers to kill or turn anyone they want.”

The woman was very tall and muscular.
She wore black cargo pants with a black men’s tank that accentuated
the muscles in her back and arms. Her dark brown hair was pulled
into a pony tail at the back of her head, but unlike the brown eyes
that most people with dark hair had, hers were a bright
blue.

Luke, also with his hands slightly
raised, spoke for the group. “We are here to help you. It was
actually Anthony,” he nodded in our vampire’s direction, “who told
us of your whereabouts. If you let us explain, you will not be
sorry. We are Vampire Hunters, born and bred for killing the demons
who are taking over the world.”

She did not make any move to lower her
weapon, but I could tell her curiosity was peaked. “Everyone is a
Vampire Hunter now, it’s the freaking Vampire Apocalypse, or didn’t
you notice.”

“
You misunderstand,” Luke
continued. “We have been trained all our lives for this, as our
ancestors were before us.”

I could tell that she wanted to know
more about us now, but she still would not take her aim off of
Anthony. I stepped forward just a tad. “This vampire is with us. It
is our life mission … and our instinct to kill the vampires. Trust
me, if he wasn’t worth having around, he wouldn’t be here with us.
We have vital information about how to bring down an entire
bloodline of vampires, but we can’t do it alone, we need your
help.”

“
Sarah,” one of the guys
circling us, whispered. “We have to get out of the street before
the patrols come along.”

An expression of sheer annoyance came
over her and she lifted the rifle, resting it on her shoulder.
“Fine. Come with us, but any of you make a wrong move and I
guarantee that you will take a bullet to the head.”

Luke rested his hands at his side.
“You have nothing to worry about. We are only here to
help.”

She jerked her head toward the house.
“We’ll see about that. Come on.”

***

Inside the house was just creepy. I
don’t know if it was because Anthony told us all that crap about
the history of the house and I was just being paranoid, or if it
was actually haunted and I could feel the spirits around
me.

Sarah and her buddies, still holding
us at gunpoint, led us to some rooms in the house that couldn’t be
seen through the windows, which were heavily curtained by the
way.

We ended up in a parlor room that
housed a large rectangular table. The heavy dark wood of the table
top was covered with maps and other papers that appeared to be
lists of some sort. “Have a seat.” She indicated the matching
chairs. She pulled out the seat at the head of the table and sat
down, her rifle still resting on her shoulder.

Once we were all seated, she crossed
her legs and propped them up on the surface of the table. “Now,
tell me about yourselves, Vampire Hunters.” She directed her
question at Luke.

“
My name is Lucas
Kallistrate, most people call me Luke. This, is my granddaughter,
Chloe and the blond one beside her is Drew.” He introduced everyone
by name and then leaned forward so he could look her in the eye.
“This story may have once been hard to believe, but remember, if
there are vampires than surely other beings exist as
well.”

She nodded. “Uh huh.
Gotcha.”

Luke ignored her sass, which I would
be put in my place for immediately if it had been me speaking to
him that way. “Many, many generations ago, when the vampires were
ravaging the earth. A Warrior Angel was sent down to eradicate the
demons which were called vampires. This Warrior Angel met a woman,
a beautiful but ruthless woman who was also a warrior. She was more
than a fighter though. She was the descendant of a goddess, making
her a demi-god. Like the Warrior Angel, her mission was also to
dispense the world of the chaos the vampires were creating. These
two warriors fell in love and fought the vampires
together.

From their union, the blood of angels
and gods, a new breed of warrior was born … the Vampire
Hunter.”

Sarah was examining her fingernails
with an incredulous expression on her face. “You really expect me
to believe this?”

Luke shrugged. “How hard can it be,
you obviously believe in vampires. Before all this happened,
vampires were just a mythological creature, now weren’t
they?”

“
So, you are descendants
of angels and gods?”

“
That is correct.” Luke
nodded.

“
You’re also crazy.” She
told him, setting her feet on the floor.

I knew Luke didn’t want to say
anything to her about me, but she simply did not want to believe
what was right before her eyes and we were going to have to show
her.

He continued to explain about the
Hunters. “A large majority of the Hunters born into our race are
gifted with the ability to access the elements.”

Again her eyebrow lifted,
“elements?”

“
Show her,
Chloe?”

I knew this was coming before he asked
so I had already decided what I was going to do. I locked eyes with
her when she focused on me and turned my hand so that my palm was
up. The fire flowed through me, the heat swirling and building,
then suddenly a flick of flame appeared, sitting on my palm as if
it were the wick of a candle.

She actually didn’t appear to be
phased at all. “I am from New Orleans, I know lots of people who
can do tricks like that.

I glanced at Gavin and closed my fist,
squeezing the flame until it extinguished. He nodded, knowing
instantly what I wanted to do.

My gaze went back to her. This time I
pointed my palm at the papers in front of her and threw a tiny fire
ball at them. The papers immediately went up in flames.

“
Holy crap, my maps!” she
shouted and shot to her feet, looking to find something to put out
the fire.

“
I’ve got it,” Gavin told
her in an even voice. His hand went up in the same manner mine had.
He focused his eyes on the glass in the center of the table that
was about three quarters full of water.

The liquid rose from the glass and
sailed over the top of the table until it hovered over the small
fire. The beads and droplets merged together and dropped down onto
the flames, efficiently putting it out and leaving her map in a
charred heap of wet ashes.

“
Oh. My. God.” She flopped
back into her chair and held her hand to her forehead.

“
Believe us now?” I asked
her and then cast a smile over to Gavin as a thank you for helping
out with the demonstration.

She didn’t answer right away, but
after a few seconds she looked up at Luke. “All right, let’s say I
do believe you. None of it explains why you are with that.” She
pointed at Anthony, who sat near Luke and had wisely kept his mouth
shut so far. “As a matter of fact, you being with him tells me
completely the opposite of what you are trying to convince me
of.”

Drew finally decided to give Luke a
break from explaining. “Anthony, is very old and he knows of a way
to take out an entire vampire bloodline.” Drew leaned toward Sarah
and smiled. Boy, he was laying on the charm pretty thick. “Do you
remember those old tales about how if you kill the vampire then all
those he created will die too? Well, those are true. And it was
Anthony who found the sire of one of the three remaining lines. She
is here in New Orleans as we speak.”

Sarah shook her head. “What? Three …
where are the, um … sires, of the other bloodlines?”

His eyes didn’t waver from hers as the
lie rolled over his lips. “We don’t know where the other two are,
only the one. But, taking out even one bloodline can destroy a
large quantity of the vampires out there.”

He wasn’t trying to protect Anthony,
he was trying to protect me. Since apparently, Trevor was of
Anthony’s line, that would make me a decedent of Anthony’s and
therefore at risk if Anthony were to die.

If he were to tell the resistance
about Anthony being one of the Sires, Sarah would shoot him on site
and we couldn’t have that. Nope, not a good idea.

Sarah chewed on her lower lip as she
thought about all we had told her. “All right. I don’t see any
problem with us helping each other out with a common goal. I
suppose, since you told us all about your little organization that
we should fill you in on what we are about.”

I could practically feel the tension
in the room dissolve as Sarah announced her decision about
us.

“
But first, I’m putting
this right out on the table. I don’t like it at all that he is
here.” She pointed at Anthony. Well, at least she didn’t call him
it, like she did before. “If he screws up at all, he’s dead, got
that?”

Anthony nodded, “I understand. You
have nothing to worry about, I am truly here to help.”

“
Yeah, we’ll see about
that,” Sarah mumbled. She shifted a few papers around on the table
before beginning her story. “Our group is much larger than who you
see here.” She spread her hands to indicate the others who stood
around the room. “Our goal is to become large enough and strong
enough to fight the vampires and take our city back. Once we are
able to do that, we will move on, taking our people to other cities
and helping them to fight.”

I nodded. These were the kind of
people I admired. The kind who fought for their lives. This group
didn’t just cower in a corner, they didn’t pledge themselves to the
vampire council ... they wanted to live and live free. “Well, we’re
going to help you. Our first mission is to find Korina.”

Sarah’s eyes flicked between me and
Drew and Luke, “I’m sorry, who is Korina?”

“
She is the head of the
vampire line, the one we are searching for.” I had forgotten that
we hadn’t mentioned any names when Drew was explaining
before.

“
Oh, yes of course.” Sarah
nodded. “Anyhow. You are a welcome addition, we are growing, but it
is taking time to get the numbers up. A lot of people from the city
have already pledged themselves or they are just too afraid to
fight. The bastards would rather just hole up and hide from the
bloodsuckers.”

She stood. “Come with me, I’ll show
you what we have going on here.”

Sarah’s associates with the guns had
finally relaxed when she gave her okay about us. Most of them had
lowered their weapons, resting them at their sides or putting them
away. But, there were a few who held still held their guns at the
ready, just in case one of us did something wrong. I was fairly
sure that it was Anthony they were most worried about. I didn’t
blame them either.

We followed her into the hallway. Two
of her guys stayed with us, bringing up the rear of the crowded
hall. “Don’t worry about those guys back there. The tall one is
Tommy and the other guy is Elliot. They were a couple of the first
to be recruited. Found them at their place outside of town. They
weren’t even trying to hide from the vampire council, when I drove
up they stood right in front of their house aiming their shotguns
at the windshield of my truck.” She smiled at the memory. “I knew
right from that moment that they would be a good addition for what
I wanted to do. I needed people who wanted to fight, not run scared
into the swamplands.”

“
Hey,” Christina piped
up.

Sarah turned only long enough to see
who was speaking to her. “Yeah?”

“
The topic of conversation
has been about why you guys would choose this place as your
hideout.”

Sarah stopped and turned toward us.
“You know the history of the house?”

Christina nodded. “And I think your
bat shit crazy for picking it too. Of all the like … casinos or
plantation homes you could have chosen … I don’t get
it.”

“
This house has withstood
so much of New Orleans history, I am determined for it to be a part
of the history that is being written right now.”

Dang, Sarah and Anthony should compare
notes for their history writing. “But, aren’t you worried about the
dangers of being in a haunted house?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, I grew up in
one, like I said before, this is New Orleans.”

I left it at that. They were already
here anyway, it’s not like they were going to move locations
now.

She swung a door open. “This room is
where we have been putting all the weapons we acquire.” The room
had rows and rows of neatly hung rifles. Table tops with hand guns,
and even another table that held some devices that looked like hand
grenades or possibly smoke bombs.