Forsaken by the Others (18 page)

Gunfire sounded from all sides. Jesus plowed ahead, so Sara and I continued to follow
him. The zombies came from around the trees and bushes in Clyde’s front yard, having
hidden until we got close enough for them to do the dead man’s version of a rush on
the nearest White Hats. More approached from behind us, too, somehow having snuck
around to cut us off from our escape route.

Cursing under my breath, I flicked the safety off the rifle, hefting it to my shoulder,
and took aim at one of the zombies moving our way. It was farther back than the ones
Sara and Jesus were concentrating on, with little between us other than a couple of
low, ornamental bushes.

The thing was withered and shrunken, yellowed teeth bared in rictus as it shuffled
in our direction, grasping hands held out before it. Blowing out a breath, I focused
down the sights, aiming carefully for one of the raisin-like eyeballs.

At first, I didn’t think I had hit the thing. It took another step forward. And another.
Then toppled forward, the back of its head laid open like some grisly flower. Man,
this gun packed a punch. I’d have to see about getting one from Jack for my very own
anti-zombie kit when I got home.

Wait. Jack wasn’t leading the White Hats anymore. Maybe Royce could hook me up. Either
way, I loved this rifle.

Taking careful aim, I popped off another few rounds. More zombies fell under my bullets,
and now that the initial surprise was wearing off, the White Hats were doing a good
job laying a suppressive fire, rapidly regaining the ground they had lost. A couple
of times, I heard curses and shouts of pain, but I didn’t see anyone getting dragged
down by cold, dead hands.

It was probably just a couple of minutes, but it felt like a lot longer before the
last one fell, jaws still moving as it tried to latch onto one of the nearest hunters
before the rest of the body caught on that its brain had just been turned to mush
by the .22 bullet that rattled around in its skull like a crazed bumblebee in search
of escape from its smoking hive.

Still, no vampires. And no Gideon.

Despite the adrenaline rush from the battle, I was getting more and more worried that
this was a setup. We had to get the hell out of here, and we had to do it soon. Something
bad was waiting for us in that house. I just knew it. Devon wasn’t anywhere in sight
for me to tell, and Jesus had separated from us during the battle. There were other
White Hats nearby, but I didn’t know any of them by name, and I wasn’t sure they would
listen to me if I tried to tell them this must be some kind of trap.

It was too late, anyway. Half a dozen White Hats were already sprinting for the front
door. One of them kicked it in even as a couple others were stage whispering at them
to wait. After all the gunfire, I wasn’t sure waiting mattered or that the few with
half a dozen brain cells between them were heard by the idiots rushing in. Any element
of surprise we might have had was long lost, and whatever was waiting for us inside
was going to force us to fight on its terms.

A garbled scream came from inside. More White Hats moved in. Devon and Jesus were
among them, and I thought I saw Tiny, too. Sara and I clutched at each other until
we grabbed hands, dashing forward to see what had gone wrong.

All the lights were burning inside the house, but there were so many hunters crowded
in the foyer that I wasn’t sure what had happened or what was going on. There was
blood on the floor and walls, but only a little of it was recent. Some had already
started drying to a tacky coat, evidence of a different battle that must have taken
place before we arrived.

Movement somewhere farther along in the ranks had me standing on tiptoe to see. Soon
there was shouting, but no one was firing—probably didn’t dare in such close quarters.
This was not the best thought-out firefight I had ever attended. Jack had kept better
rein over the New York White Hats than whoever was in charge of this branch. I was
starting to hope it wasn’t Devon, because that meant he was far less competent than
I had thought. Though it answered my questions about why he had temporarily defected
to New York a few months ago.

Then someone was thrust up until his spine and back of his head cracked against the
ceiling, and the shouting reached a decibel that made it impossible for me to tell
what the hell was going on.

People were being shoved this way and that. Sara’s fingers slipped out of mine, and
then it was far too chaotic to keep track of anything.

We were all shoving against one another, panicked, animals in a trap. A spatter of
warm, wet liquid against my cheek was all the warning I had as to what was going on,
and why everyone was so desperate to get out of there.

One of the vampires had found us. And he was tearing through the people like paper
dolls, a frenzy of deadly motion like nothing I had ever encountered before.

No Other I had ever seen had so blatantly disregarded human life before. Not this
way.

Yes, Max Carlyle had killed an entire club full of people once. That was calculated,
cold; he had been making a point. He had even killed one of Royce’s donors right in
front of me. Again, it hadn’t been because he had lost his senses. He had known exactly
what he was doing. Feeding because he needed it and establishing his dominance over
an already beaten people.

A pack of werewolves had once torn apart a vampire and a sorcerer, too. Feasted on
them like lions taking down a pair of gazelles. It was coordinated, predatory, and
brutal—but again, they had known who they were attacking and why. That had been an
act of revenge; payback for enslaving them.

This was different. There weren’t words for this kind of slaughter.

This was a vampire gone mad.

Warm blood fell like summer rain, sprinkling over the screaming, running hunters.
I fought my way through the crowd until I reached the nearest stairwell, needing higher
ground for what I had planned.

Once I was up a few steps, I turned around and hefted the rifle to my shoulder.

The vampire’s face was covered in a thick, red coat, even his hair color unrecognizable
under the mess. His face was twisted with demonic hunger, eyes matching the liquid
splashed all over his skin and clothing and fangs fully extended, but he didn’t bite
anyone. He was using his hands, moving like a whirling dervish as he cut a swath of
carnage across the room, following the thick of the crowd as they fought one another
to flee from the monster in their midst. Not an elder. His movements were visible,
if inhumanly fast.

One breath. Hunter in front of him. Two breaths. The hunter was ducking, screaming
as talons raked down his back. Three. The vampire was looking at me.

Four. The bullet entered the pinpoint of crimson gleaming in his right eye and exited
the back of his skull, leaving a spatter of brains and blackish blood on the wall
behind him.

From somewhere deeper in the house, a howl of anguish split the night. The windows
and even some of the framed pictures hanging on the walls rattled at the sound of
it. The White Hats stopped in their tracks, wild eyes searching for the source, hunting
for what was now undoubtedly hunting them.

Or, rather, hunting
us.

Things were truly fucked if I was the one with the level head around here.

The chilling sound petered out, leaving nothing but the pounding pulses and heaving
breaths of the people around me. As I shouldered the rifle again, it struck me that
I
could
hear their pulses. The hammering of their hearts against their ribcages, calling
out to me, stirring a strange hunger for something I was not about to put a name to.

Yeah. One crisis at a time.

Clamping down on the mixed desire to start licking the blood painting the walls and
to toss my cookies, I moved down the stairs, breathing through my nose. Not that it
helped much. It only made the sick feeling roiling my stomach worse with the mixed
stink of the blood, piss, and rotting flesh sticking in my throat and nostrils.

Sara, stepping around the puddles of blood on the marble floor, was making her way
back to my side. Pale and shaking, she handed me a hunting knife. I wasn’t about to
ask where she’d gotten it from, but I tucked it into my jeans at the small of my back.
Here’s hoping things wouldn’t get so up close and personal that I would need it.

I approached the vampire corpse slumped on the floor, toeing it onto its back. One
of the security guards. I vaguely recognized his features under the blood, twisted
as they were with the rabid hate and hunger that had driven him. It seemed unlikely
that he would have acted like that without severe provocation, but I had no idea what
could have set him over the edge.

“The hell was that about?”

Devon had come up close behind me, spattered with blood, his shirt plastered to him
with sweat. He smelled delicious. Like food, delicious. I could really sink my teeth
into—

Christ, there was something really wrong with me.

Closing my eyes and gritting my teeth, I took a moment to compose myself before answering.
“Something must have driven him to it.”

“No shit. Any idea what?”

I shook my head, not daring to open my mouth. Running my tongue over my teeth was
a bad idea. The taste of blood filled my mouth as one of my canines sliced through
my tongue. Fuck, fuck,
fuck.
What was happening to me? And why
now,
damn it?

Swallowing the few drops, willing the taste away, I followed Devon as he turned away
and led us deeper into the house. The desire to do something violent to him was getting
worse. Having his back to me was such a bad idea, but it was impossible for me to
tell him that right that moment without sounding like a crazy person. Even if that’s
exactly what I was.

The only thing keeping me from falling on him in a frenzy was knowing that there were
a necromancer, two elder vampires, a mess of zombies, and maybe a couple dozen more
vampires of indeterminate ages after our asses.

Had to keep it together. Had. To.

Devon had stopped. His mouth was moving. The sound wasn’t quite registering. I shook
my head. “Sorry?”

He was looking at me like I was a few beers short of a six pack. “Didn’t you hear
me? I said we need to figure out where Clyde is holed up. Do you know where he might
be?”

“Oh, sorry. I—no, I—”

“Yes. I think I know where they are.”

Everyone, including the other White Hats who hadn’t fled deeper into the house, turned
to Sara. She ran her arm across her forehead, her sleeve smearing the blood on her
brow instead of wiping it off.

“Downstairs. Remember, Shia? The first night we came here, there was a big party,
and everyone was on the first floor except for Clyde and Fabian. They were down in
some private place—maybe Clyde’s daytime hiding spot. Why don’t we look there first?”

“Yeah. Oh, yeah. That’s as good a place to start as any.

This place was a maze. Downstairs really was the best place to start as far as my
addled senses could tell. Though running into the vampires no longer seemed like such
a great plan. Even in the haze of hunger and with the need for violence crawling under
my skin like thousands of invisible ants, I knew attacking Clyde or Fabian fell under
the category of “epically bad idea.” Without the belt to augment my strength and speed,
even the rifle wasn’t going to do me much good. Not in close quarters like this.

I was starting to see the wisdom of picking off Others from afar with a scope like
someone had suggested at Devon’s house as a solution for our necromancer problem.

“Who has the grenades? I want you two in the lead in case we need to—yes, Jesus, Phil,
you guys scout ahead. If you see the necromancer or the vampires, bombs away. Got
it?”

The pair followed Sara as she led the way to the stairwell, the rest of us following
a few steps behind. Devon looked to me and then Sara when we reached the door, but
we were never given the security code. Jesus shouldered his way to the front and examined
the pad. He punched a few buttons and the lock gave an audible “click” as it disengaged,
the door swinging open.

He glanced at me over his shoulder, grinning in response to my look of surprise.

“That’s a vampire for you. Smart enough to lock away the goods, but too behind on
technology to know anything about password exploits. Glad his security admin didn’t
know enough to reset the default code.”

Devon gestured impatiently. “Enough showing off. Go check it out.”

Jesus and the other guy, Phil, gave him a sarcastic salute and disappeared into the
dark of the stairwell.

Devon put an arm out when someone tried to follow the two down the stairs, lifting
a finger to his lips for us all to be quiet and wait.

It didn’t take long for the two to come barreling back up the stairs, shouting, and
the rest of us to scatter.

Right into the waiting arms of several vampires who had crept up behind us. Their
eyes gleamed like bloody jewels and fangs glistened with saliva as they jerked the
nearest hunters into their arms. Gideon stood behind them with a sly smirk and his
arms folded.

“Well, look who decided to join us.”

Jesus pushed Sara and me to one side with a sweep of his arms, putting himself between
us and the open door leading to the basement level. It was just in time, because an
explosion blew a wave of stench and deadly shrapnel of wood and metal chips through
the opening. Some of the other hunters were cut down, screaming in pain and fear,
clutching at their wounds.

Gideon flinched, but otherwise didn’t move. Some of the vampires paused, their expressions
turning blank; others tightened their grips to the point at which the hunters they
were holding cried out in pain.

“That was uncalled for. Now, who’s in charge here?”

Nobody said a thing.

Frowning, Gideon unfolded his arms, placing one hand on his hip, the other making
a sharp gesture at the vampires. They moved as one, snapping the necks of the hunters
they were holding.

My mouth dropped open, and some of the others in the room started screaming, scrambling
back. The vampires dropped the lifeless bodies of the hunters they had just killed
and swept forward, grabbing a new round of hunters—Jesus and Devon among them. A couple
vamps leaned forward, their fangs stopping just short of sinking into the throats
of the people they’d grabbed, but a hissed command from Gideon kept them from closing
the distance.

“Let’s try that again, shall we? Who is in charge?”

Jesus was frantic, struggling against the unnaturally strong arms of his captor.
“¡Chingue a su madre! ¡Voy a matarte, hijo de la chingada!”

The necromancer was nothing more than amused. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”

“Right, that’s quite enough of that.”

With a snap of Gideon’s fingers, Jesus was out cold. Devon surged against the vampire
holding him, grunting with effort. “Stop! I’m in charge. Just stop ! ”

“Ah, progress!” Gideon beamed. “You, pretty boy, are going to tell the rest of your
hunters to vacate the premises. You, a-a-a-and . . . ah, yes. You two.” He pointed
at me and Sara. I barely registered the movement before two of the vampires dropped
the hunters they were holding in favor of grabbing onto us instead.

Perfect. My day just couldn’t get any better.

Sara squirmed, panting, but the vampire holding her gave her a shake until she stopped.
She looked like she might faint at any moment. Anger drove me to fight against the
cold fingers wrapped around my upper arms as well, a low growl vibrating in my chest.

Gideon moved forward to poke me in the shoulder with a manicured finger. “You just
don’t know when to leave something alone, do you? Well, you ladies are in luck. You
three are going to stay here with me and answer some questions. Doesn’t that sound
fun?”

“No! Let them go. I’ll stay,” Devon shouted.

The necromancer shook his head, waving his hand airily at the remaining hunters. “Go
on. The rest of you get out of here. And to make sure . . .”

With another curt gesture from Gideon, in unison, the vampires who weren’t holding
Sara, Devon, or me took a menacing step forward.

Cowards that they were, the remaining hunters didn’t need a second invitation. They
ran off, most of them rushing out as fast as they could. Only a few had the decency
to assist the ones who were too hurt to accept Gideon’s offer under their own power,
helping the injured get to their feet or dragging them when they couldn’t walk. Half
a dozen vampires followed them out, probably ensuring that they got the hell out of
Dodge instead of regrouping and coming back to save us.

I bit my lip so hard it bled, trying not to get us all in a world of trouble by saying
something that would dig us a deeper hole. I wondered where Fabian and Clyde were,
and if they knew what Gideon was doing down here with the younger vampires who were
so obviously under his power. I wondered, too, if he had some version of the
Dominari
Focus that the sorcerer, David Borowsky, had used to control the Others of New York,
or if being a necromancer was what gave Gideon his power over them.

The vampire holding me tightened his grip, his empty eyes shifting in the sockets,
focusing on my lip as I tilted my head to look up at him. He nearly vibrated with
hunger, lips peeling back from his fangs as he leaned in over me.

“Hey! Hey, hey, hey! Teasing them isn’t going to get them to let you go,” Gideon scolded,
flicking the vampire in the temple. The vampire went rigid, no longer acting like
he was on the verge of biting me. Instead he was frozen in place, fingers digging
into my upper arms so hard it hurt.

The pain was good. It would make it easier to focus, not give in to the urge to scream
or become a ravening animal.

Gideon waited until the last of the hunters were gone, then ran a hand down his face.
“By Crowley’s gods-forsaken ghost, I can’t believe you guys threw a grenade at my
minions. Do you know how long it took me to raise that many zombies? Fuck!”

He was more annoyed than genuinely upset, I thought, though the bodies of the hunters
littering the ground around us might have indicated otherwise. Hard to tell. The guy
was nearly as unhinged as I was.

Without another word, he stalked off in the direction of the stairwell I had earlier
used as high ground. The vampires dragged us along like errant children, taking us
up the stairs and ignoring our squirming.

The room he led us to was wide and open and gave an excellent view of the front yard
and the straggling White Hats still limping their way across the grass. No fucking
wonder the zombies had been able to flank us out there.

I supposed we were lucky the vampires hadn’t thought to snipe us from here.

Speaking of, Clyde was on the floor, flat on his back, his eyes closed and blood trickling
from the corner of his mouth. His bare chest didn’t rise and fall, but I didn’t think
he was actually dead. Stunned, maybe, or out cold, but not the permanent kind of dead.

Fabian was thoughtfully picking between one of his fangs with his thumbnail, leaning
against a desk by the windows, his gaze distant. He gave Devon a once-over—a rather
lascivious once-over at that—and then turned a disinterested glance in Sara’s and
then my direction. He then turned a pleased, cat-that-got-the-canary smile on Gideon.

“Very good. Yes, this is very good indeed.”

I didn’t like the sound of that.

“What’s with . . . ?” He jerked his chin in Devon’s direction.

Gideon arched his brows. Fabian’s sly smile grew, and Devon visibly paled. A sick
fear for Devon coiled in my stomach like a serpent, waiting for a moment of weakness
to strike.

“The stud’s a bit of insurance. Maybe a bonus, depending on whether we finish up here
before the rest of the hunters regroup.”

Fabian nodded, then folded one sleeve up past his elbow. He lifted that hand, clenching
and unclenching his fist a few times. He then raised his newly bared wrist to his
mouth where he quickly cut a gash. Fangs gleamed with the splash of crimson before
they were licked clean.

He pushed off the desk and knelt beside Clyde’s prone form, pressing his cut wrist
to the other vampire’s lips. Clyde didn’t move at first, but then I detected a feather
of movement at his throat. Swallowing, maybe involuntarily. Fabian stroked his hair
in a loving, possessive gesture that did a fantastic job of creeping me the hell out.

It was eerily reminiscent of the time Max bound Royce’s house guard Mouse to him by
forcing her to drink some of his blood. A shiver of foreboding crawled down my spine,
but there was nothing I could do to stop any of this. With Clyde under his power,
who knew what Fabian might do to this city, or how he might abuse his power over the
weaker vampire.

Gideon yawned and stretched, then leaned an indolent elbow against the shoulder of
the vampire holding Devon. The hunter shifted his weight, trying to pull away, but
his captor had such a tight hold of his arms that Devon could barely move.

“One down,” Fabian said, pulling away. He rose in a smooth, predatory motion, stalking
across the carpeted floor in bare feet. He stopped in front of Devon, smiling down
at him with just a hint of fang. “One to go. . . .”

“No!” Devon and I both cried out at the same time.

“Stay away from him!” Sara shouted.

Fabian didn’t bother looking at us, running a fingertip down Devon’s cheek. This was
like a surreal reenactment of Max’s takeover in New York, only . . . the vampires
were more interested in the dudes than the women.

I don’t think I have ever seen Devon look that frightened in my life. Fear for him
as much as my own remembered terror drove me to renew my struggling against the vampire’s
hold, knowing, but not caring, that it was futile.

And then Gideon was stumbling forward, blood bubbling from his lips.

I couldn’t see at first what was going on, but Fabian was whirling, aghast, anguish
twisting his handsome features into a caricature. Then Tiny stepped into view, the
machete he had used to stab Gideon in the back spraying thick red droplets in an arc
as he tugged it free and slashed at Fabian in one deft motion.

The elder sidestepped, stumbling back, clearly too startled and shaken by this turn
of events to immediately retaliate. Tiny didn’t give him the opportunity to regain
his footing. He had a Desert Eagle in the other hand.

Though I’d been listening to gunfire all night, the mini hand cannon was deafeningly
loud in the enclosed space. The shot must have missed, because Fabian was lunging
at Tiny, his eyes burning with the hellish red of agitation as he sought to grab the
hunter.

The fingers on my arms briefly tightened—then loosened, the vampire holding me shaking
his head and pulling back slightly. “Wha . . . ?”

The ones holding Sara and Devon were also coming to. Devon’s didn’t quite let him
go, still holding him with one hand, the other lifting to his temple. Sara’s did release
her, taking a step back to clutch his head with both hands.

She fell to her knees, creeping forward to check on Gideon. God, he was her only hope
of ever being free of those runes. If he was dead, I’d never forgive Tiny for that,
even if Tiny’s actions were the only thing that could have saved Devon from becoming
Fabian’s eternal, unwilling boy toy.

Devon jerked out of the arms of the vampire holding him, pulling a small knife out
of his boot. It would be about as effective as a toothpick against a vampire as old
and powerful as Fabian, but with two experienced hunters after Fabian’s ass, I wasn’t
sure if it mattered. Devon could probably find a way to make a weapon out of anything
in the room if he needed to.

The vampire holding me finally let go, all three of the younger vampires skittering
out, running for the exit with inhuman speed, clearly knowing better than to stay
anywhere near the necromancer in case he might recover and enslave them again. Without
Clyde awake and capable of protecting them, I couldn’t blame them for wanting to get
out of there as fast as they could.

As Devon and Tiny went on the offensive against Fabian, dangerous as it was, I tuned
them out, all of my focus on Gideon and helping Sara with the wound.

Those incredible green eyes were open wide, and he was gasping for air, every breath
wet and flecking his lips with beads of scarlet. Sara looked up to me, stricken.

“I don’t know how to deal with this. His lung must be punctured.”

Medical treatment for wounds like that wasn’t in my repertoire either. If he stayed
on his back, it seemed more likely he would either bleed out or drown in his own blood.
I yanked him up into a sitting position, his hands weakly clawing at my shoulders
and breath hot on my neck as he rested his cheek against my collarbone. Shock, maybe.
I didn’t think he was entirely conscious of what he was doing.

Sara tugged at his shirt, pushing it up to bare his back. The snarling and cursing
and gunshots didn’t get my attention, but the shattering glass as something was thrown
through a window did. Craning my neck to see, I gaped at Fabian, who was forcing Devon
to kneel at his feet with the fingers knotted in his hair and holding Tiny by the
throat out the window. The fall might not kill him, but I wasn’t about to risk it.

“Don’t! Don’t you do it!”

Fabian glanced in my direction, fangs bared, eyes burning crimson. As soon as he saw
that I had pulled the knife I’d been keeping at my back and that I was holding it
by the back of Gideon’s neck, panic quickly replaced the anger in his expression.
“Stop! Let him go!”

“You first. Don’t drop him—bring Tiny inside and put him down. Do it now!”

Slowly, carefully, Fabian drew Tiny back into the room. The big man was gasping for
breath, his hands clawing at the fingers closed vise-like around his throat. Tiny
easily had a hundred and fifty pounds on Fabian, but the vampire held him like he
weighed no more than a house cat.

Once Tiny’s feet were no longer dangling out the window, Fabian thrust Tiny away with
a harsh snap of his wrist that sent the hunter sprawling on the carpet. However, Fabian
didn’t let go of Devon, instead taking the opportunity to haul him to his feet by
the hair and then hold the hunter against him, nails biting into his neck and abdomen
where he rested his hands.

“Let’s make a deal. Give me Gideon, and I’ll give you the hunter. Yes?”

“Don’t do it, Shia! Kill the fu—”

Devon’s words were cut off as Fabian’s nails dug deep furrows in his throat. I narrowed
my eyes and dug the point of my blade into Gideon’s skin, drawing a drop or two of
blood and making the guy hiss audibly and jerk in my arms.

“Don’t fuck with me, Fabian. You let him go. Do it, and do it
now,
or so help me I will gut Gideon right here and now.”