03 - Evolution (14 page)

One down, three to go,
she
thought. Her Berettas remained holstered to her thighs. Despite their
attack on Michael, she wasn’t about to employ lethal force against human
police officers.

She didn’t need to.

Fifty feet away, the second cop heard his partner hit
the ground. “Sandor?” Puzzled, he turned his flashlight toward the
sound. The bright white beam fell upon the limp body of the other cop,
sprawled facedown in the snow. The look on the other cop’s face was
almost comical in its stunned bewilderment.

“The fuck?”

Selene touched down right in the flashlight’s beam, a
vision of black leather and pale white skin. Landing only inches away
from the startled policeman, she dealt with him up close and personal,
inflicting a punishing combination of jabs before spinning him to the
ground with a noisy crunch. He was out cold before his head even hit the
snow.

Two down.

By now, the remaining cops were aware that something was
amiss, but Selene barely gave the men a second to react before attacking
them as well. She moved with preternatural speed and efficiency,
striking in the night like the veteran Death Dealer she was. The odds
against her were not even cause for concern. Selene had been fighting
for her life against werewolves since before these mortals’
great-great-grandparents had been conceived.

The cops didn’t stand a chance.

A third officer took aim with his rifle, yet Selene
passed before his sights like a blur. Three deafening blasts from the
gun shredded the bark of an innocent chestnut tree, but that was it. He
swung the muzzle of the gun around, trying to get another shot at the
woman taking him and the other cops apart. “Who—?”

Suddenly, Selene was right beside him. She punched him
so hard that his feet left the ground and he went hurtling into the
trunk of a massive oak. His unconscious body slid down the side of the
tree onto the snowy forest floor, then toppled over onto its side. It
was lights out for him, too.

Three down, one to go.

The fourth and final cop spun around with his shotgun,
but Selene was no longer where she had been standing only seconds
before. In a heartbeat, she was closer than he expected, less than a
foot away from him. She grabbed on to the barrel of the gun with
surprising strength, and the cop squeezed the trigger in a panic. The
shotgun went off, blasting Selene in the ribs.

Damn!
she thought, wincing
at the sudden explosion of pain in her midsection. The bullets hurt like
hell, just as they always did. She closed her eyes and let the pain pass
through her. The heated gun barrel burned her palm, but she didn’t let
go of the rifle.
Stupid!
she thought
angrily, castigating herself for her carelessness.
I was overconfident… sloppy.

The policeman stood frozen at the other end of the
rifle, paralyzed perhaps by the enormity of what he thought he had done.
He gasped as Selene’s eyes snapped open. No longer chestnut brown, they
now burned with an eerie blue fire. Ivory fangs gleamed between her
lips.

Next time, try ultraviolet rounds,
the pissed-off vampire thought. She was through messing around. With her
right fist still wrapped around the barrel of the gun, she hammered the
cop with a vicious left hook that damn near took his head off. He
collapsed onto the snow, joining his fellow officers in unconsciousness.
Selene didn’t waste a second feeling sorry for him.
You’re just lucky that I don’t kill humans.

An agonized groan from Michael reminded her of what was
truly at stake. Hurling the rifle into the snow, she launched herself
into the air, before landing as gently as a snowflake next to the
injured young American. Packed snow crunched beneath her as she dropped
down onto her knees beside him. “I’m here, Michael.”

She saw at once that he was in a bad way. He had rolled
onto his back and the front of his shirt had been reduced to tatters,
exposing a bullet-ridden torso. Blood was smeared over everything, but
she counted at least ten bullet wounds, maybe more. Sonja’s pendant
dangled from a chain around his neck, the crest-shaped emblem
symbolizing untold centuries of heartbreak and sacrifice. Michael’s eyes
were glazed and unfocused. She couldn’t even tell for sure that he knew
she was there. His breathing came in ragged gasps. Placing a hand
against his throat, she could barely feel his pulse. His eyelids drooped
alarmingly. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, evidence of
internal bleeding.

He’s dying,
she realized.
For a second, she flashed back to that stormy night six hundred years
ago, when she had knelt in the wet straw beside her father’s body. She
had been helpless then to preserve the lives of those she cared about.
Now she felt as if she were reliving that nightmare all over again.

Except… she was no longer the trembling, defenseless
maiden she had been back then. She was a very different Selene now, with
options her younger self could never have dreamed of.
I’m no doctor,
she thought with grim
determination,
but I know what Michael needs.
The last time he had been at death’s door, after Kraven had shot him
full of silver nitrate, Selene’s bite had been enough to save him.
This time the reverse is required.

Raising her arm to her mouth, she bit her wrist. Blood
flowed from the severed veins and she thrust the wound against Michael’s
lips. At the barest taste of her blood, his eyes opened, growing clear
and more focused than before. But as awareness dawned of what he was
doing, he turned his face away, denying the salvation she was offering.
Selene felt a curious pang of rejection. Was he repelled by her blood,
or just unwilling to take of her own strength? Crimson droplets fell
upon his cheek, but he twisted his head to keep them away from his
mouth.

She urged him to accept her sacrifice.

“Michael, take it.”

“No…” he insisted, turning his head to the side.

“Michael, you’ll die.”

He heard her voice as from a great distance.
Selene?
As usual, there was no trace of
emotion in her voice, but somehow he sensed just how much this meant to
her. She had returned for him, hadn’t she? That was the important thing.
She wouldn’t be offering him her blood if she didn’t want to….

I can’t let her down.

His mouth found her wrist again and he began to drink.
Her blood was as cool as a mountain stream and just as invigorating. He
lapped gently at the wound at first, but an all-consuming thirst swiftly
overpowered him. He sucked furiously, gulping down her precious blood as
quickly as he could swallow it. For the first time in hours, he felt the
gnawing emptiness inside him abate.
This
was
what he had been craving all this time, even if he hadn’t realized it.
His tongue probed hungrily at the open wound. He couldn’t get enough of
her.

She flinched against his draw and let out a tiny gasp of
pain. The bleeding clearly stung, but she did not pull back her arm. She
cradled his head against her lap as the blood flowed between them. He
felt her heartbeat pulse within his head, but unlike the pounding he had
experienced before, this rhythmic drumming was oddly soothing,
especially as their separate heartbeats began to converge. The more
blood he took in, the more synchronized the disparate pulses
became… until at last they merged in a perfect union.

A feeling of ineffable peace washed over him, carrying
away all his pains, fears, and doubts. He stared upward at her beautiful
face, drinking in every lovely plane and angle of her alabaster
features. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, her unearthly azure eyes took on
their customary brown tint. White teeth bit down gently on her lower
lip, perhaps to keep her from gasping out loud again.

Selene.

He realized that he needed to control his thirst, before
he took too much from her. Allowing himself just one last sip, he
released her wrist and let his head sag back against her lap. A
contented sigh escaped his lips, and for the first time he wondered why
exactly she had returned, and how she had happened to arrive in time to
rescue him.
What does it matter?
he thought.
She came back… for me.

He smiled woozily up at her, the taste of her still upon
his lips.

“I didn’t feel like watching you die today,” she said
coolly, as though what had just transpired between them was no big deal.

Yeah, right,
Michael
thought. He wasn’t fooled by her hard-boiled soldier routine, but he let
it slide. If that was how she wanted to play it, he was okay with it for
now.
Let her have her shell. I’ve heard her
heartbeat. I know how much she cares.

She helped him up into a sitting position. He glanced
down at his tattered shirt and was shocked by the sight of nearly a
dozen bullet wounds in his flesh. He tentatively fingered the scars. Not
even the best emergency room in the world could have saved him the way
Selene had. By all rights, he should have been dead.

“Shit.”

If he needed any more proof that he was no longer
remotely human, this cinched it. Still, maybe there were compensations.

He licked the last few drops of blood from his lips.

Michael’s adoring gaze made Selene
uncomfortable. Nothing in her experience had prepared her for a moment
like this. She had no idea how to respond.

He’s alive,
she reminded
herself.
That’s what matters.
Her detached
expression failed to convey the overwhelming relief she experienced deep
inside. For a few moments there, as Michael was slipping away from her,
she had felt utterly bereft and alone.
Just like
when I found my father’s corpse.

Away from the natural anticoagulant in Michael’s saliva,
her sliced wrist was already starting to heal. She glanced up at the
lightening sky; the rosy glow to the east was creeping steadily higher.
Was Michael strong enough to travel? They had to get a move on. She
didn’t relish the idea of spending the entire day trapped inside that
ramshackle shed up ahead, not with the dazed policemen due to wake up at
some point. She could just imagine the irate officers dragging her out
into the sunlight—with fatal results.

A distant rustle, like the flapping of enormous wings,
drove that scenario out of her mind. Her muscles tensed in anticipation
of danger. In her desperate effort to save Michael from the policemen’s
bullets, she had almost forgotten the mysterious apparition she had
sighted before.

Until now.

Her eyes searched the sky as a score of frightened crows
suddenly took wing, erupting out of the trees in a flurry of agitated
black feathers. The birds fled the scene en masse.

That can’t possibly be a good sign,
she thought.

“Can you walk?” she asked Michael. Her eyes continued to
search the surrounding treetops. “We need to go.”

Before he could answer her, the frantic fluttering of
the departing crows was drowned out by a more foreboding rustle.
It’s here,
she realized. She reached down
and plucked a Beretta from beneath her trench coat. She grabbed on to
Michael’s wrist and yanked him to his feet. There was no time to be
gentle about it. Ready or not, they had to get away from here.

I’ll explain later,
she
thought,
if we get out of this alive.

Their odds of surviving declined dramatically as a
winged demon came swooping out of the night at them. Taloned claws
slammed Selene into the wall of the mining shed, knocking the Beretta
from her grasp. A single swipe from a colossal pinion sent Michael
flying into a nearby snowbank. Her hand, which had been holding tightly
to his arm, abruptly found itself empty.

The creature soared over her head, then landed several
yards in front of her. It turned around and began advancing toward her,
its great wings poised above its mottled shoulders. Despite its
incongruous wings and batlike features, Selene recognized the distorted
monstrosity stalking toward her. The inhuman visage still bore a warped
resemblance to a face well known to her. His intricate golden belt and
satin trousers were nearly identical to the garments Viktor had worn
when he’d first Awoke.

Marcus?

Once again, an ominous sequence of events emerged from
her memory:
Viktor striking Singe dead, the lycan
scientist dropping onto the floor of the crypt, his blood flowing across
the ancient tiles toward the Elder’s tomb….

“I know what you have done, Selene,” Marcus Corvinus
declared.

Done?
She wasn’t sure what
Marcus meant. She feared, however, that he already knew what had become
of his fellow Elders. Had Kraven placed the blame on her? Out of the
corner of her eye, she spotted the Beretta lying on the snow, a good
fifteen feet away. Michael also appeared to be down for the count,
leaving her to face the transformed Elder alone.
Very well,
she thought.
I shall not
apologize for my actions.

“Viktor deserved his fate.” Her chin held high, she
looked Marcus squarely in the eye. Her fingers crept quietly toward the
other Beretta concealed beneath her coat, just to be on the safe side.
“And Kraven was no better.”

“Kraven has already reaped the rewards of his own
misdeeds.” Marcus eyed her thoughtfully, his hideous face inscrutable.
He closed his wings, which folded neatly into his back. His voice took
on a softer tone. “And, yes, Viktor deserved his fate, many times over.
A terrible business, the slaying of your mortal family.”

Selene was so stunned by Marcus’ reaction that her
fingers came away from her gun. Kraven already dead, and Viktor’s death
dismissed so easily? Hope flared within her heart that the situation
might not be nearly so dire as she had supposed. Apparently, the other
Elders had been unaware of Viktor’s secret propensity for slaughtering
humans, and of Kraven’s role in covering up such atrocities. Perhaps
there was still such a thing as true justice within the vampire
community.
I’d like to think so,
she
thought,
after defending the coven for six hundred
years.