Your woman is fine, the telepathic immortal bit out. More vamps are coming from the trees.
“No!” Ami shouted as Marcus felt another sting in his neck. “I’m fine!” she insisted behind him. “Just give me my damned sword back!”
Holding off the vampire trudging over the pile of decaying comrades in front of him, Marcus reached up and touched his neck over his pulse. Something was sticking out of it.
Yanking the object out, he spared it a quick glance.
A dart. Like the tranquilizer darts he had seen the authorities use on wild animals.
The vampire in front of him lunged. Marcus dropped the dart and fought the vamp back, mortally wounding him then shoving him back into the vampires clambering up behind him.
The number of vamps attacking them had at last begun to dwindle. If no more arrived, they should be able to defeat the rest and might even manage to take a few captive to question later.
Across the clearing, a tall, lean vampire left the trees and marched forward. He seemed oblivious to the violence and carnage that flitted in and out of his path. His glowing blue gaze, alight with the advanced madness common in older vampires, lit on Marcus and stayed, never deviating as a feral smile distorted his long face.
This was the so-called vampire king. Marcus knew it without a doubt.
As he braced himself for a renewed attack by the vampires just a few feet away, the vampire king raised what looked like a handgun and fired. Marcus instinctively shifted to avoid being hit, then cursed when Richart grunted in pain.
Swinging around, Marcus saw a dart protruding from Richart’s neck and yanked it free as another pierced his own shoulder.
What the hell was the vamp doing? Was he so far gone that he had forgotten drugs didn’t affect them?
No sooner did the thought enter his head than his knees buckled with sudden weakness.
Marcus staggered, saw another dart lodge itself in Richart’s neck.
“Marcus!”
Ami leaped forward and, still clutching her weapons, threw her arms around him to keep him from falling.
Richart stumbled.
Another dart stung Marcus’s upper back. He tried to speak, but couldn’t. His thoughts scattered.
He heard Richart whisper his sister’s name, looked past him, and saw Lisette drop to her knees. Étienne, too.
Alarm ripped through Ami as Marcus leaned weakly against her.
The lingering vampires began to drop back.
What was happening?
Looking up, she saw a dart of some kind protruding from Marcus’s neck. Dropping a katana, she reached up and yanked it free. “Marcus?”
He didn’t seem to hear her.
Bringing the tip of the dart to her nose, she sniffed … and felt her blood run cold.
“Richart!” she shouted, panic rising. “Get them out of here! Now!”
Richart vanished. Ami looked around wildly.
Richart reappeared beside his sister. As soon as he touched her shoulder, they disappeared.
“Roland,” Ami called hoarsely and turned to Marcus’s friend for aid. Three darts jutted from his back. She strained forward enough to yank them out. Like Marcus, he wavered on his feet.
Richart appeared beside his brother, touched Étienne’s shoulder, and teleported him away.
“Roland!” Sarah cried and charged toward them, cutting down vampires left and right.
Ami nearly sobbed with relief. Sarah seemed to have escaped the darts.
Had Ami and the others blocked the shooter’s view?
Another dart struck Roland in the shoulder as he turned toward the sound of his wife’s voice.
Ami wrapped her arms around Marcus’s waist and shifted until she was between him and the shooter. “Sarah!”
“I’m here!”
Sarah grabbed Roland just as his knees buckled. Grabbing a throwing star from the bandolier looped across her chest, she hurled it over Ami’s shoulder. Then another. And another. “Roland?” She gave her husband a gentle shake. “Roland, sweetie?” Unlike Ami, she was able to support his full weight with only one arm.
“You have to get them out of here,” Ami begged in a trembling whisper.
Sarah nodded. “We can fight our way out.”
“No. They’ll only drug you like they have the men. Just take them and run.”
Sarah jerked her head to one side. A dart whizzed past her ear and landed in the throat of a vampire behind her.
Unlike the immortals, the vamp instantly collapsed.
Sarah’s conflicted gaze met Ami’s. “What about you? I can’t leave you here.”
“You have to. I lack your speed, and you can’t carry us all.”
“Yes, I can. Just—”
“I’ll slow you down too much. They’ll catch you. They’ll drug you. Please.” Ami’s eyes burned with tears. “Don’t let them take him, Sarah.”
“Ami—”
“Wouldn’t you do anything to keep Roland safe?” she demanded. Sarah needed to move. Quickly. Before the vamps stopped taunting them long enough to catch what they were saying.
Richart suddenly appeared beside Sarah, an M16 in one hand.
Tears spilled past Ami’s lashes and slipped down her cheeks. Marcus could no longer stand on his own and leaned his full weight against her. His eyes had lost their glow, as had Roland’s, returning to a deep brown dulled by the drug. She forced a smile. “You see? Richart is here. I’ll be fine.” Richart was far too weak to just teleport them all to safety. The immortal could barely remain upright.
Ami suspected the next dart Sarah had to dodge made her decision for her. “I’ll be back as soon as they’re safe,” she promised.
“No,” Marcus mumbled against Ami’s hair.
She hadn’t even realized he was still conscious.
“Go with Sarah,” she urged him as Sarah bent and draped her husband over one shoulder. “I’ll be fine. There are only a couple of vamps left.”
A couple dozen. Hopefully he wasn’t lucid enough to realize that.
Sarah moved closer and bent down.
Ami removed Marcus’s arms from around her. “I’ll be with you soon,” she promised and helped Sarah drape him over her other shoulder. Then, burying her lips in Marcus’s hair, she whispered, “I love you.”
Ami stepped back and took the weapon Richart thrust at her with clumsy hands.
As Sarah straightened, Richart mumbled something in French, staggered forward, and vanished again.
Sarah looked around with dismay, then met Ami’s gaze. “You can’t hold them off on your own!”
A sharp pain struck Ami’s shoulder. She reached back, yanked the dart out, and held it up for Sarah to see. “You have no choice. There’s nothing you can do now.”
Sarah swallowed hard, bright eyes filling with tears. “I’ll be back as soon as they’re safe,” she vowed again.
Both knew Ami would be dead by then. “Go. I’ll do my best to keep them from following you.”
Turning with a sob, Sarah sped away.
An enraged roar rolled like thunder on the night.
Ami raised the heavy automatic weapon. A familiar numbness trickled through her as she spun to face the vampire leader and braced herself for an attack.
His glowing eyes followed the departing immortals. “Get them!” he bellowed.
As soon as the vampire king began to blur, Ami squeezed the trigger.
Like a marionette dancing on a string, his body jerked with every impact.
The vampires around her shifted, unable to decide whether they should pursue the fleeing immortals or rescue their leader. Ultimately, they chose the latter, converging on Ami and yanking the weapon from her grasp. Ami fought with everything she had left, but proved little challenge to them, her movements growing slower and clumsier as the drug burned its way through her veins.
Vampires—she didn’t know how many—held her immobile, her arms shoved so far up behind her back she feared her shoulders would be dislocated.
The vampire king remained on his feet several yards away. Blood gushed from wounds in his torso. Saliva dribbled from his lips as he leaned over and planted his hands on his knees. Whatever he yelled next was so distorted by rage that Ami couldn’t understand it.
The vampire king stretched a hand down to the ground and curled his fingers around the grip of a machete the length of Ami’s arm. Straightening, he leapt forward and swung the thick blade at the nearest vampire. Over and over, he hacked at his howling victim, then turned on another, slashing wildly, attacking like a rabid dog.
The remaining vampires released Ami and ran like hell in every direction.
Ami searched frantically for the gun they had confiscated, but didn’t see it. Grabbing one of her katanas, she raced for the trees in the direction opposite Sarah’s departure.
Agonized screams and garbled cries of pain rode the breeze, nipping at her heels. Eyes watering, she fought the sluggishness that invaded her limbs, borne on the back of the drug. Her breath emerged in terror-filled gasps, fogging on the cold night air. The cries ceased. A sudden wind whipped her. A body appeared before her.
Ami slammed into it, unable to halt her momentum. Her forehead struck a chin with a resounding crack. Sparkling lights burst into being as she stumbled back and dropped the katana. The world spun dizzily, at its center: the vampire king.
He looked as though he had bathed in blood, every part of him red and glistening.
One of his hands shot forward and closed around her neck, lifting her off the ground.
His lips peeled back, baring fangs in a snarl of fury as he yanked her forward.
Then darkness claimed her.
Bastien stared at the clearing that had once been the location of his lair. The grass was soaked with crimson stains from forest’s edge to forest’s edge. Too many bodies to count littered the ground, all in various stages of decay. A large number were concentrated in a circular mound around the center of the clearing. Three smaller mounds were scattered nearby, defining where the immortals had stood and fought.
On his right, Yuri swore.
On Bastien’s left, Stanislav swallowed audibly. “Are any of those …” He shook his head. “Are any of those immortals?”