A Tithe of Blood and Ashes (The Drake Chronicles Book 7) (3 page)

“Bad idea,” Jenna said, shooting another bolt. A Hel-Blar girl staggered back, crumbling into brittle ashes. Her tattered clothes fell in a heap.

“Got a better one?” I texted Nicholas:
Buffalo Rock. Bring back up. Hel-Blar.

“No.”

“Well, there you go.” I kicked down at mottled blue fingers when they reached for me. There was an unpleasant crack of brittle bones. There were too many hands though, and one of them managed to clasp my ankle. They couldn’t scratch me through my thick boot but I still felt a jagged stab of panic. I kicked, shouting. The Hel-Blar tugged viciously and I slipped. I landed hard on my tailbone, pain shooting up my spine and stealing my breath.

Hunter slammed a stake down, pinning the same Hel-Blar to the tractor bucket. She twisted the stake until he fell apart into dust.

“There’s too many of them!” She danced back out of reach.

“I know!” I scrambled back up and stomped on more fingers. My tailbone was bruised and hot. “I need a car!” If I took the van I’d be leaving everyone else defenseless since it had all the weapons. But no one was likely to hand over the keys to their vehicle, especially not if I might get Hel-Blar bits all over it. I couldn’t exactly blame them. Well, I might actually, if one of those Hel-Blar ate my spleen.

A car pelted me with snow from its tires as it slid near the tractor. Samuel leaned out of the window. “Get in!”

I blinked, momentarily nonplussed. “Are you serious?”

“Now, hippie. Before one of them bites you.”

“Jenna,” Hunter shouted. “Cover Lucy!”

Jenna spun on one foot and loosed a volley of bolts. Two of the three Hel-Blar blocking me in fell apart. I kicked the third in the face and then leapt over her body. I ran as fast as I could, the backs of my legs prickling with fear. Hot fetid breath was too close, too close.

Hunter got there first and yanked open the back door. I slid in dragging her behind me. I knew she’d try and guard my back to her own detriment. Samuel pressed on the accelerator just as something landed on the roof. He cursed. “It’s Jenna,” I told him. “Drive!”

The car fishtailed in the slippery field, finally gaining a little bit more traction on the road. Samuel rolled down the passenger window and Jenna slid inside onto the seat. I twisted to wipe condensation off the back window. Shadows trailed us, like beetles scuttling from under a rock.

“They’re following.”

Hunter frowned at me. “But
why
are they following?”

“It’s some kind of magic,” Samuel replied, glancing at me in the rear-view mirror. “I can see it coming off her like glitter.” The car listed across the meridian.

“Eyes on the road!” I told him. “And, that’s just great. First Isabeau tells me my aura is candy-pink and now I’m all over glitter. Next, I’ll be sneezing rainbows.”

“Ew,” Jenna said. “Don’t get any on me.”

I poked Samuel in the shoulder. “Turn left up past that big line of cedars.”

“It’s just field,” he said.

“Trust me,” I insisted. “Take the turn. Now!”

Jenna yanked on the steering wheel when she decided Samuel wasn’t obeying fast enough. The car made some kind of strange sound. Samuel knocked her hands away. Tall grass slapped at the sides of the car.

“I called for backup,” I told them. “And we keep this path clear all year round, just in case.”

Samuel and Jenna exchanged a tight, tense glance. “Who’d you call for backup?” she asked.

“Who do you think?” I tossed back, still watching the wave of Hel-Blar pushing through the snow and grass. Jenna wasn’t too keen on vampires and Samuel clearly felt the same way since he’d helped Jody push me around before the battle. “They’re closest and they’re our best bet,” I said. “So suck it up.”

“Aren’t you the one trying to start a Vampire-Hunter relations club at school?” Jenna said drily. “Nice bedside manner.”

Nicholas, Logan, Quinn, and Bruno, the human head of security for the Drake family, were waiting for us by the big rock shaped like a buffalo. The brothers wore the palm-sized shields over their hearts, and bloodthirsty smiles. Nicholas’ eyes were serious and fierce, searching for me.

I slid out of the car. “I bring gross undead creatures of the night,” I said, by way of explanation. “A lot of them.”

“What the hell?” Quinn asked, even as he winked a hello at Hunter. I was pretty sure that Quinn could be dismembered and still manage to flirt. And for Hunter, he’d find a way to flirt even if he was full on dead and not just plain old undead.

“With Solange out of town, I’m the new undead Pied Piper,” I replied, limping closer. Her vampire pheromones had been so strong back when she was possessed that humans had trailed after her, begging to be bitten. So much more hygienic than Hel-Blar. I missed her desperately, even now, facing down danger. Especially now. Facing down danger was something we did together.

“Why are you limping?” Nicholas demanded.

“I broke my ass,” I replied. “Now focus.” I pointed at Quinn sternly, knowing very well he was about to make some remark about my ass. “Shut it.”

“What?” He asked innocently.

The rustle of the dead grass was horror-movie creepy as the Hel-Blar continued their advance. We could smell them, but we couldn’t see them yet. They fanned out around us. All the hairs on my arms prickled painfully. Bruno lifted his gun, which I knew was loaded with handmade pointed wooden bullets.

The first Hel-Blar leapt out of the shadows, snarling. The others followed, descending like hyenas on a zebra carcass. I’d discovered long ago that fear and hunger had a very distinct smell: copper and vinegar. It did not compliment the regular Hel-Blar stench.

The fight was a blur. It played out to a soundtrack of clacking needle teeth, Quinn’s crazy battle laugh, and the crunch of snow underfoot. I’d never seen so many Hel-Blar at once before and it made me colder than the winter winds. They were quick and vicious, fueled by feral appetites. Bruno took point, even though Hunter tried. He was older and accustomed to dealing with the Drakes. Hunter might be deadly, but she was polite and reasonable too, which probably made a nice change for Bruno. Samuel and Jenna were silent and steady. Samuel always put me in mind of a storybook assassin with this stoic, fierce, face. Now it was his abilities that brought to mind silent warriors, he as nearly as fast and efficient as Quinn and Nicholas, which was saying something.

I had stakes and the crossbow I’d brought with me. There were only a few bolts left, though, and I had to wait for the Hel-Blar to get dangerously close before shooting. Ash floated in the air. Nicholas stayed close to me, moving so fast he was a whirl of pale skin and bright eyes. I shot a Hel-Blar woman in the foot, pinioning her so I could stake her. There was no consciousness in her eyes, just mad hunger.

When it was finally over, the human half of us were panting. My fingers cramped around my last stake so tightly splinters dug into my thumb. Jenna bent over to catch her breath, her red hair like a war banner. I had several interesting bruises starting on my legs and there was one purpling on Hunter’s jaw from where a Hel-Blar elbow had cracked into her.

“Anyone hurt?” Bruno barked. We all shook our heads. “Check for scrapes, or cuts.” There were contamination procedures, both from the Drakes and the Helios-Ra. Neither were pleasant. Fortunately, neither were required.

Quinn slung his arm over Hunter’s shoulders, grinning. He kicked ashes off his boots. “You sure know how to romance a guy.” His fingertips were gentle on her jaw though, as he investigated her wound.

“I’m fine,” she whispered.

“That was a lot of Hel-Blar,” Bruno muttered. “Even for us.”

“I’m the belle of the undead ball,” I agreed, smacking my fist on my chest as if it would stop my lungs from imploding. Adrenaline made me feel weak and fluttery. “By the way? Go us!” Nicholas’ arm slipped around my waist and we leaned slightly into each other. His eyes were very pale, like silver coins. “Oh, by the way, Nic, Quinn, Bruno, this is Jenna and Samuel,” I introduced them.

“Samuel?” Nicholas’s fangs elongated with a snap like a butterfly knife. “The same Samuel who let them manhandle you at school?”

I moved in front of him, using my shoulder to block him. He advanced another step, pushing me before him like the small, irreverent figurehead of a vampire ship. “Easy, Fangy” I said. “We have bigger problems.”

Nicholas paused. “Do you know how often you say that to me?”

“Never a dull moment,” I agreed.

Jenna stood back stiffly. Samuel was so fiercely expressionless beside her that I knew he must be feeling everything all at once. I’d seen Solange wear that face too many times. I imagined a mass of snakes all tangled in knots. Still, those two I could handle.

It was the rest of them that might make things really, really messy.

Jason pulled up in the school van, the transmission wheezing as it clogged with various bits of winter. “We have a problem,” he announced, leaping out of the van. The frigid wind yanked at his hair and scarf.

“More Hel-Blar?” Hunter asked.

“Worse.”

“No, thank you,” I said.

“Students decided to follow,” Jason explained. “I cut them off but they’re right behind me. And a blind kitten could follow the trail.” We could already hear the cars on the road and the stomp of adrenaline-fueled hunter boots.

Hunter stepped up to stop them, shoulders squared. I joined her, still clutching my stake. Jenna and Samuel didn’t move. There were seven of them, armed to the teeth and wearing school cargos.

Hunter tried a brisk smile. “Threat is over. We took them out.”

“All of them?” I didn’t know the girl who asked the question but she was clearly disappointed. She was practically pouting. Helios-Ra students really liked to kill vampires.

“Wait, who are they---oh.”

“The Drakes,” someone whispered loudly. “Vampires.”

Quinn smiled his revoltingly charming smile. I couldn’t even see him behind me, but I could
feel
it. Hunter sighed, feeling it too. It wouldn’t help us. The others would see it as vampire pheromones, as a weapon. And Quinn was definitely a weapon, but he’d been the same gorgeous charismatic weapon before his sixteenth birthday, when he was still human. Nicholas was darker now, the midnight sky to Quinn’s showy comet.

The students exchanged agitated glances, some curious, some suspicious. Violence hummed between us. The Hel-Blar were reduced to clumps of grey ashes in the snow but the threat hovered. Vampire hunter students and the Drake brothers faced each other, barely held back by an invisible wall. It would take one small crack to bring it down.

“Vampire-lover!”

And, of course, it had to be Jody.

“Why haven’t I punched her yet?” I muttered. I pushed against their cautious advance, my arms spread out to make myself bigger. It was the tactic we were told to use to scare off a black bear. Be bigger, scarier, louder, and more annoying. Louder and more annoying I figured I could handle. “Hold!” I snapped, using the same commands our profs used in drills. Training had them pausing.

“We took the Hel-Blar out. They were a threat, and dangerous. But the Drakes have a treaty with the Helios-Ra. And I know you all know that, because it was on all of our exams.”

“We lost families to the vampires,” Jody snapped. “To their war.”

“They lost family too,” Hunter pointed out, her voice as stern and calm as Headmistress Bellwood. “And it wasn’t their war. One of our own went traitor.”

“And tortured my boyfriend,” I added. “And I’m still part of your freaking secret society.
And
I haven’t stabbed any of you in the cafeteria. So I’m sure you guys can also get a grip.”

“It’s our duty,” someone else barked, lifting a miniature crossbow.

“Easy, son,” Bruno said in in deceptively mild voice. He was all tattoos and leather and weapons, but he was human too. “You’ll hit me with that thing,” he blocked Quinn and Nicholas who hissed in disgust. I shot them a warning glare. Better bruised pride than staked hearts. “And they call that murder, even in Violet Hill.”

“Don’t,” Hunter added, pointing to Jody, who was trying to sneak around the edges of the group. “I will take you down.”

Jody sneered, but she stopped moving.

I jerked my stake towards the brothers and Bruno. “They helped us take the Hel-Blar down. They saved our lives. So if you want to stake them just for having fangs, then next thing you’ll want is to wipe out anyone with blond hair or green eyes or dimples. Because that’s all it is in the end: biology.” Okay, that was clearly over-simplified, but my point remained. “Fight the monsters,” I added. “Because they need fighting. But fight the
real
monsters. Otherwise, you’re just one of them.”

I turned sharply towards the far field. “Or you know, you could kill the Hel-Blar, since that’s your
duty
. There! North-east!”

“I don’t smell any Hel-Blar,” Nicholas whispered in my ear as the students stampeded off.

“I know,” I grinned. “Misdirection. Seemed easier than standing here all night giving speeches and freezing my butt off.”

“Let’s get out of here,” Jason suggested. “Before they come back even more pissed.”