Deliverance (16 page)

Chapter 20

“I
’m not Death,” Samantha murmured as she woke. She gasped for much-needed air and was able to calm her racing heart after a few minutes. Her nightmares were getting worse. Doctor Peterson had visited two more times, and both of the visions she’d induced in Samantha had been similar to the first ones. What’s worse, since she wasn’t getting enough food and the drugs stayed in her system for longer and longer intervals, her dreams were being sorely affected.

During her regulated bathroom trips, she could see her reflection in the bathroom mirror and saw the circles under her eyes grow darker each day.

Goosebumps prickled along her arms and Samantha felt as if she could almost see her breath puffing out in front of her face. She knew what would come next. To her right, in her peripheral vision was a dark figure. She could feel the malice pouring off it and was almost certain the smell of decaying flesh filled her small room. With trembling lips, she turned her head toward it. Nothing. It wasn’t there anymore. She was never able to see them directly. Some days, it felt as if they were there to judge her. Other times, it seemed the corpses were there to simply keep her company.

Samantha found she looked forward to the visits from Doctor Peterson, just because she knew the people in the room with her at that time were real.

“I’m not Death,” she said again, this time louder. “I don’t kill!” Even as she said it, Samantha knew it was a lie. She had killed before, though only in self-defense. And she had also been party to Leisha and Liam’s hunting expeditions. That made her guilty of murder.

Maybe these visions are just about the guilt I’ve been pushing down about that.
It was the first rational thought Samantha had had in a while. She clung to this idea, hoping it meant she just needed to work through her guilt to feel sane again.

A scream echoed faintly. At first, Samantha figured it was only in her mind, but then she heard another cry. It was closer. Then another scream, this one sounding male, unlike the other ones.

Chewing her dry lips, she slowly rose and walked to the door. She processed more sounds when she pressed the side of her face against the cold metal. It was hard to decipher everything that was going on, but it sounded like fighting. There was flesh against flesh, guns firing loudly, and a variety of grunts and yells. The screaming she heard seemed to be a combination of sheer terror and angry battle cries. She even thought she could smell hot gunpowder and blood, but the door was too thick to be certain.

Samantha was about to pound on the door to get someone to release her, but hesitated. If the vampires were escaping, she wanted to get out, too. But they would either kill her or take her with them and then she’d be right back to getting questioned and tortured.

But if she stayed silent, they might forget about her and she would be stuck taking those horrid drugs that gave her crazy visions. She wasn’t sure which option was worse at this point.

Finally deciding that there was more hope escaping the vampires during this chaos than staying locked up in the little cell, she brought up her palms again and pounded against the unyielding metal.

“Hey!” she screamed. “I’m in here. Nik! Nik, can you hear me?”

Nothing changed. She could still hear the sounds of battle right outside her room, but there were no beeps to indicate her door opening. Samantha took a breath and continued her banging and yelling.

It lasted for what felt like an hour before she leaned her back against the door and slid to the floor. Her body shook from weakness and exertion. Even if she did get out, she wouldn’t have the energy to fight off soldiers or vampires, let alone run off on her own.

“I hope you got out, Nik,” she said to the empty room. “I hope they didn’t hurt you too much.”

Samantha wasn’t sure how long she’d been sitting there when her door suddenly pushed inward, scooting her with it. There hadn’t been any beeps to warn her.

With a yelp of surprise, she scrambled up and faced the intruder.

What stood before her was a vision of perfection, even though carnage encompassed him. She instantly recognized Nik’s hazel eyes. They were gazing at her with such intensity she couldn’t interpret it.

“Nik!” She slowly approached him, forcing down her impulse to hug him tightly.

There wasn’t a part of him that wasn’t covered in blood. The vampire was only in a pair of sweats with his torso bare, and everywhere she could see was covered in the sticky red fluid. Samantha could tell that not all of it was pulsing from his wounds. He must have slaughtered many people to escape and find his way to her. But there were gouges along his arms, face, and chest that were still pumping out blood.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

A rare smile appeared. His teeth gleamed white against the dark red. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

“What’s going on out there?” Samantha could still hear gunfire, louder now that her door was open.

“As far as I can figure, Annette and Ellery used their telepathy to coordinate an attack and let out the vampires. It took time for me to find your scent and locate you.” His intense gaze traveled over her body in thorough inspection. “You’re practically a skeleton,” he commented, his voice low. Shaking himself, he once again met her eyes. “But at least it doesn’t look like they tortured you.”

Shaking her head, she explained. “They were giving me drugs to see if they could use my visions for themselves.”

“Did it work?”

Samantha shuddered at the memories but didn’t answer. Instead, she looked past him. “How are we going to get past all that fighting out there?”

Allowing the change of subject, Nik glanced behind his shoulder. “I’ll take care of it. Just stay with me and we’ll be out of here shortly.”

“Do you know if it’s day or night outside?” Samantha could still remember how scorched the vampire had been a few years back when he’d been caught out in the sun trying to save Liam’s life.

“Night. Come on.” He grabbed her hand in a firm grip and pulled her along behind him.

The chaos was overwhelming. Samantha couldn’t process everything around her. There were too many people around. Vampires were moving at blurring speeds in the wide hallway. Her mind knew the smells, much stronger now that she was out of her room. Blood and sweaty fear were strongest, but the smoke and gunpowder also assaulted her nostrils. The screams and battle cries were almost deafening. When a gun discharged next to her, her eardrums pulsed and she felt as if she’d lose her hearing.

It was hard to keep hold of Nik’s hand since it was wet with blood and her own were beginning to sweat. She clung to Nik and forced her feet to move as quickly as his.

Nik maneuvered them through the fighting, sometimes stopping abruptly to avoid colliding with a speeding vampire. Blood showered them from all angles as they made their escape, and Samantha thought she might add vomit to the liquids that showered them and pooled along the floor. Fortunately, living with Leisha and Liam had taught her to keep a strong stomach.

Nik only had to stop and fight twice. The first time, a woman was firing something in their direction. Nik pulled Samantha to the floor with him, angling himself on bottom so he took the brunt of their landing. Then he pushed her to the side and practically flew at the guard with the gun. The woman gurgled on her own blood after Nik squeezed her neck until it cracked. Then Nik was at Samantha’s side before the woman had even slid to the floor.

The second happened just before they reached the door with the lighted exit sign above it. A vampire dropped out of nowhere and landed on Samantha, his mouth open and aiming for the spot where her shoulder met her neck. Samantha didn’t even have time to scream before Nik was pulling him off of her. He yanked her attacker back roughly until he was falling. Nik snapped the vampire’s back as he fell, so that the man’s torso bent at a gruesome angle.

Suddenly, Nik stiffened up and a strange metal cylinder punched out of his abdomen, sending a fresh cascade of blood gushing down his pelvis. As he looked down, the head of the cylinder erupted with ten tiny spikes that embedded into his skin.

Samantha gasped when Nik whirled with his leg coming up for an Eagle kick. It knocked a weapon out of the hand of the man who had snuck up behind him. Nik brought the same leg that had kicked out back, hooking the man at the neck with the pit of his knee. Then the vampire squeezed while he dropped his leg down. The move crunched bones together as the man fell to his death. Nik’s back had an open, gaping hole and Samantha could see his spine poking through the side of it.

There was no time to react, even if Samantha had had the presence of mind to do so. But in her drug-addled and hunger-weakened condition, she just stood and stared at Nik’s horrific wound until he seized her hand once again and steered her out the door. Once it clicked shut behind them, Samantha drew in a deep breath. They were in a stairwell with poor lighting, but it felt like clean, fresh air compared to the noisome atmosphere of the corridor behind them.

She started to take the steps that led down, but Nik shook his head. “More are coming from below. I heard them talking about hardware that will probably blow us all to bits.” He pointed with one bloodstained finger. “We go up.”

Nodding, Samantha followed. Nik was moving slow for her benefit, but it was still fast for her. She’d had so little exercise from being locked up, and now it felt as if her legs were going to burn off. They kept going higher and higher. She wasn’t sure if she’d be able to make it to the top, but didn’t want to ask Nik to carry her. He was badly injured and she felt uncomfortable asking him for any favors. They finally reached the top just as her legs were starting to go numb. It took Nik four hard kicks before the door burst open and they were on the roof.

Instead of the night air being refreshing, it choked Samantha with acrid smoke. Eyes watering and taking shallow breaths, she followed Nik to the edge, where the smoke was the strongest.

“Wonder if it was the vampires or the humans that lit the building on fire.” Nik murmured to himself.

“You said the humans had explosives, didn’t you?” Samantha’s voice rasped harshly. The lack of oxygen was making her feel lightheaded.

“There were some vibrations I felt while we were moving up here. It might have been a bomb or something.”

“Who cares?” Samantha gestured around them. “How are we going to get out of here?”

Nik narrowed his eyes, peeking through the smoke. “I can’t really see any other buildings to jump to and I don’t know exactly where the ground is.”

Samantha’s brows raised in puzzlement. “So what does that mean?”

Nik didn’t answer. Instead, he cocked his head to the side, then spun around.

Samantha turned as well, and her blood ran cold when she saw a group of vampires standing in front of the door. Ellery and Annette stood in front.

Annette smiled when she noted them. The vampire was just as covered in blood and viscera as Nik. Ellery was clean enough that Samantha could see a few patches of white on the cheap nightgown she wore.

“Well, well,” Annette said as she walked toward them. “What a day this is turning out to be. I got to have a great deal of fun slaughtering those bastards that dared to take me, and now I’m treated with you two. Again.”

Pointing at them, Annette turned to the group of vampires behind her. “We’ll take them with us. Victor will be pleased to know they aren’t lost to us again.”

“Victor didn’t get captured?” asked Nik.

Samantha turned to him with wide eyes. “They’re going to take us and torture us, and
that’s
the first thing that you ask?”

He shrugged. “I had assumed that all of the vampires had been taken.”

“No, darling.” Ellery approached and linked her arm in Annette’s. “Most of us, yes. But Victor and a small group with him had been traveling when our lair was attacked. We can contact him easily enough once we’re out of here.”

“Enough chit chat.” Annette waved her arm. “Get them and let’s get out of here!”

Nik pulled Samantha behind him as the group came closer. There were about thirty of them. Samantha knew that Nik was a skilled warrior, but didn’t think he could fight them all off—especially not with a gaping hole in his abdomen.

A cracking explosion rocked the building. The roof they were standing on bucked violently, throwing everyone to the ground. Nik hugged Samantha as they fell, so he took the brunt of impact.

Everything was still shaking when the other vampires got up. Three ran toward them and Nik jumped to his feet. He blocked their punches and kicked the first one in the stomach. It was hard enough that the man stumbled back and fell off the edge. The vampire howled when his body fell into the flames.

Nik twisted the neck of the second assailant. Before he could move onto the third one, the vampire jabbed his fingers into the wound on Nik’s back. Samantha grimaced as her friend pressed his lips together over a scream.

Nik spun with his hand up and punched the vampire in the jaw. He then grabbed the man’s hair and forced his head down as Nik’s knee met him in the face.