Neck Deep In Vampires (A BBW Urban Fantasy) (14 page)

Unfortunately, Andreas
could read my mind.  He glanced at his men. “Throw some silver on the bitch, before she regains her strength,” he said.

Before they could make a move, there was a loud explosion in the hallway.
It sounded as if a small bomb had gone off; the walls actually shook, and alarms started ringing. At the same time, the lights in the room went out. 

Three of his vampire wardens r
an to check what was happening, along with the human Thralls. The Thralls couldn’t see in the dark, and they stumbled and bumped into each other.  A minute later, from the hallway, we heard the rat a tat of automatic weapons fire, and thuds. Then silence.

If the vampires had been taken out too, that meant the people in the hall had silver bullets.

Four of Andreas’ wardens quickly closed in on him and hustled him away, rushing him towards one of the doors in the back.

“Hold on to her!” Andreas screamed at the men who had
me pinned, and then the door slammed behind him.

Coward, I thought, my lip curling scornfully; Simon would have
been leading the charge towards danger. 

At the same time, the bellhop from downstairs
ran through another doorway, in the back of the room, along with a maid.  They’d come in through a service entrance, I realized.  They both had machine guns, and they were firing at the vampires who were rushing towards them.

The vampires who held me l
et go and ran towards them, right into the hail of bullets. They were cut down and howled in pain and fell to the ground in their death throes, heels drumming on the floor. Silver bullets, for sure. I could smell the silver in the air.

Reading the bellhop’s mind, I realized who it was: Therese
, the sister of Blaylock. The woman who Andreas had planned to kill in France. She was in one hell of a disguise, wearing a wig, contacts, skin darkened with makeup.

A few of the surviving vampires dived behind furniture to avoid the hail of bullets.  All the Thralls now lay dead on the floor.

I crawled over to Nicholas, who struggled to a sitting position. “Run,” he husked, as bullets whizzed over our heads. 

“Screw you. I’d rather die than leave you,” I said.

“You’re stupid, and I don’t love you. I never loved you. Run!” He was a lousy liar. His voice was frantic, he was desperate for me to save myself.

“Nice try. I’d do the same thing,” I said.  I
quickly fished in the cuff of his pants, pulled out his hidden lock pick, and began picking the locks. I heard a shot, and then screams, and then the woman in the maid uniform dropped to the floor. Over by the doorway, I saw the bodies of two more humans. 

The room stank of blood and gunpowder and the rank odor of perforated intestine.

There was more gunfire.  I got Nicholas’ hands free, but his ankles were still bound and the collar was on his neck.  As long as the silver was on him, he couldn’t Compel anyone.

Before I could free him,
I heard Therese shriek in pain.  I looked up; she’d been shot, and was clutching her bleeding shoulder. Her machine gun lay on the ground.

There
were two surviving vampire Wardens left and they were both pointing guns at us. The vampires could easily have killed Therese, but I suspected he knew that Andreas would want to deal with her personally.

“Get over next to them,” one of the vampires barked, gesturing with his gun. She stumbled over and sank down to the ground next to me, pressing her hand on her bleeding shoulder. Her face was white with pain.

“I’ve heard of you.  You’re the one with the power,” Therese said to me, her French accent strong. “You must kill Andreas! Why haven’t you killed him yet?”

I looked up at the two guards.  “Stop! Put down your guns” I shouted, but I knew it wouldn’t work.  They started to, but I could feel them fighting me, and they raised their guns again, arms wavering.

“Come back! It’s safe!” one of them yelled. “They’re contained!”

“What the hell is wrong?” she hissed at me. “Make them kill themselves!
  You can do it!”

“
I’m sorry, I can’t. Andreas drained my powers,” I said to her, and I saw shock and despair in her gaze.

“You were my last hope,” she said quietly. “My friends…we came here to kill him.
We thought that once you knew Andreas planned your death, you would help us.  They died for nothing.”

Oh, God. Way to make me feel even worse than I already did.

Andreas and his men came back in the room.

“Well, well,” Andreas said to Therese. “There you are.  You always were a clever little thing.
“ He turned to me with a grin. “Such a tender heart, this one.  I had my eye on a sweet little twelve year old, just some stupid little human, but Therese smuggled her out of my castle.  Why would she do that? The girl wasn’t even from her family.”

He shook his head in wonder at the thought of anyone showing human compassion.  “Of course, Therese needed to take her place.
Now that I’ve got Therese back, I’ll find the little girl too.”

Therese bit her lip, and struggled not to cry, but I could see the tears shimmering in her eyes.

Wow. There was literally no depth to which he wouldn’t sink. I desperately struggled to stop his heart, straining with all my might, but I was too weak.

“So what do you think, Frankie?
Should I Turn Therese? Then I could make her death last months instead of days.”  He smiled coaxingly.  “Come on, Frankie, share your thoughts. I value your opinion.”

I glared at him. Nicholas sat n
ext to me, legs still in cuffs, fully conscious now.

“Simon will not let you get away with this. He’ll compel you to speak the truth,” he rasped.

“He won’t live long enough,” Andreas laughed, his eyes glowing with a satanic glee.

“No, you won’t live long enough.” Mirabelle’s voice cracked through the air.

I looked up in shock. While we’d all been distracted, Mira
belle had swept through the double doors, with several dozen warlocks behind her.  All of a sudden, the air crackled with magic.

“Kill her!” Andreas screamed.  His guards didn’t move an inch.
Their eyes bulged, but that was it.  They stood there like statues, guns gripped in their hands, but apparently they couldn’t fire them.

It was if they were frozen, and so, I realized, was Andreas.
He struggled to move, but couldn’t budge. I could hear the warlocks and witches chanting together.

Quickly, I h
anded the lock pick to Nicholas, and he freed himself from the collar and cuffs. Nicholas and I helped Therese stand up.

“Who are they?” Her eyes were huge.

“Friends of mine. Witches,” I said.

             
Andreas couldn’t move, but he could speak. He let out a stream of curses, ordering us to let him go and threatening us with horrible torture and murder.  Watching him rage, helpless, felt like Christmas morning.

             
Mirabelle rushed over to us and threw her arms around me.

             
“Are you all right? We were afraid we wouldn’t make it in time,” she cried.

“Oh, my God.” Tears of relief ran down my face.  “Thank you. How did you know where we were?”

“Barney told Landon, and Landon called us,” she said. “Barney is psychically linked to you now.”

“How long will that magic hold Andreas?”  I asked her.

“Only another hour or so.”

             
Nicholas grabbed the cuffs that had been on him, and the collar, and moved quickly to secure Andreas.  Andreas screeched with rage at the indignity, and continued to howl out dire threats.

             
“Where is Matteo?” I asked Mirabelle.

             
She made an unhappy face. “Last night he confessed to me why my sister left town. She did indeed have a secret; that’s why she was afraid of your abilities. She had been having an affair with him.”

             
“Oh, Mirabelle, I’m sorry.”

             
She shrugged, lines creasing her forehead. “He moved out of Bay Breeze this morning.  It’s fine. My coven is safe, my familiars are home, that’s all I care about.”

             
Sirens wailed in the distance.  The penthouse is generally pretty soundproof, but apparently not soundproof enough to muffle machine gun fire and a bomb.

“I can show you how to get out the servant’s entrance,” Therese said.
“There’s a way to go from here straight to the parking garage. We need to go now, though.”

Nicholas grabbed Therese’s gun off the floor and killed each of the surviving vampire Wardens
where they stood – but left Andreas alive.

“I’ll leave your fate to Simon,” he said, and dragged Andreas’ stiff, frozen body behind him as we left the room.
 

Mirabelle and her crew followed us into the service elevator.

Simon would punish Andreas  in agonizing and terrible ways, I knew.  Andreas knew it too.

Andreas began begging and pleading. He promised Nicholas anything that he wanted.
A hundred million dollars. Okay, half his money. All right, three quarters. Finally,  as Therese guided us to the car she’d driven there in, and we tossed Andreas onto the floor on the back seat, he screamed out that he’d give Nicholas everything he owned, if only we’d let him go.

“You
can’t give me to Simon! Please! I am one of the Old Ones! I just need help! I can get better! I am a sick man, I know it, help me, please!” he blubbered and wailed as I maneuvered the car out of the parking garage and Nicholas maintained pressure on Therese’s wound.

I heard a thud, and a strangled cry from Andreas. It sounded like either Therese or Nicholas had kicked Andreas, hard.

“I will ask that Simon let me watch the punishment,” Therese said.

“How did you escape Andreas? I was reading your brother’s mind when he took you down the hall for Andreas to kill,” I said.
“The last thing I saw was Andreas shooting your brother.”

“You saw that?” Therese’s voice was shaky. “There are many old tunnels in the castle. 
He shot my brother, and began torturing him, and while he was distracted, I slipped into a secret tunnel and fled.  I had friends whose families he had murdered, other Thralls, and we had been planning our escape.”

“How did you end up here in
America?”Nicholas asked her.

“I had overheard his plans to come here and kill Frankie, but Andreas didn’t know that
I knew.  I knew he was going to come to this hotel and lure her here. I figured I would come here and wait until she showed up, and tell her what he planned to do to her, and then she could use her powers on him. Of course, my friends and I bought weapons in case that failed.” Her voice went low and sad. “My friends.”

“Therese, they did not die in vain. They bought enough
time for the witches to show up and take Andreas prisoner,” I said. “Because of your friends, Andreas will never hurt another innocent person.”

“Amen to that,” Therese said, and I heard another thud and
then a high pitched scream from Andreas. Apparently, Therese could kick quite hard.

Barney loves his new digs in New York. He has an entire room dedicated just to himself, with carpeted cat towers that are absolutely obscene in size. Nicholas adopted half a dozen strays from the pound – all female – so Barney has his own little harem, and they all seem happy. Barney is so well fed that frankly, I think he’s getting a little chunky, but then , who am I to talk. 

Nicholas delivered Andreas to Simon, and Simon Compelled Nicholas to tell him the truth about everything that had happened.  Then Simon called in someone from the house of Andreas, to read Nicholas’ mind and confirm it.

Once it was confirmed that Andreas had planned to kill Simon, Nicholas and myself, Simon no longer had to abide by his vow.  By planning to kill his own brother, Andreas had committed the ultimate treason.   It was agreed that Andreas would be put to death, and he was, by means which I chose not to learn any more about.

Therese chose to stay in New York, under Simon’s protection. After what she’d seen in France, she never wanted to go back.
  A new vampire was chosen to run the house of Andreas.

Nicholas and I are planning our wedding this year, and it will be a truly lavish affair.
  Camille will be one of my bridesmaids.

THE END

I hope you enjoyed Neck Deep
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