Blood Hunt (58 page)

“I did,” Ashayt said.

Aros spoke again, his voice rising, becoming a shout. “I have spent seven hundred years waiting to escape the curse of my blood. Abraham promised it. He swore that he would give me that which I needed to be reborn. He promised it to
me
, and you have given it to this
worthless corpse!”

“It was never his to give—” Ashayt began, and Aros again cut her off.

“Witch!” he screamed. “You foul … you evil, black, rotten
thing!
You’ve taken what is rightfully mine and thrown it away!”

“It wouldn’t have worked, Aros,” Jakob said. “I tried to tell you that. Two’s blood would have done nothing for you, nor would the blood that Ashayt gave to Theroen. Abraham lied to you, like he lied to everyone. You made him an army, and now in return you have exactly what he would have given: nothing.”

Aros had put his hands over his face, and now his shoulders slumped. For a moment, Two thought that it had ended, that the Burilgi lord would simply give up and come quietly with them to face his trial. She felt almost bad for him. She knew what it was like to want something with every fiber of one’s being, only to have it denied.

Then Aros straightened, removed his hands from his face, and looked out at them with eyes ablaze with hatred, and rage, and madness.

“I will have what is mine!” he roared. “Kill them! Kill them all, and bring me each of their hearts!”

“Children … wait!” Ashayt cried as the crowd of Burilgi soldiers surged forward. She held her hands up, and Two felt her aura surge outward, washing over them in all of its power. The soldiers closest to her faltered, coming to a halt, staring at the elder vampire in surprise and fear. Those behind them came to a stop as well. Somewhere in the background, Aros was still howling, ranting at his men to ignore the witch and murder Two and her companions.

“It does not have to be this way,” Ashayt said, and her voice now came to Two as it had before in Silifke, both as a sound her ears could perceive and as something more, something that seemed to originate within her mind. The force of it nearly brought Two to her knees as Ashayt continued to speak.

“I know that your lives have been hard,” the elder vampire said to the crowd. “I know that for too long the American council has ignored your wants and needs, your trials, your rights. Know this: the American council is no longer the tool of Abraham, bent at every turn to his evil ways. The change has already begun, and at last you will have your time.

“Children, each and every one of you is free. Aros does not own you. He does not control you. You can choose to put down your weapons. You can choose to leave this place, to work
with
the vampire world instead of against it. You must accept responsibility for your own actions, consider the consequences, and make your choice. If you blindly follow Aros, you can bring only war, and war can lead only to destruction.

“I have lived without taking a life, human or vampire, for four thousand years. I will not now do violence against my own people, even if it means my death, but I beg you, please, my brothers and sisters … do not do this. Put down your weapons, turn away from this place, and renounce the violence that Aros would have you do at his command.”

“She lies to you!” Aros roared at them. “They will never accept you. They will never give you all of that which you deserve. Kill them now or die eventually at their hands. This is how it has always been: they hold one hand out in peace, while the other holds the sword behind their back.”

Ashayt glared at him. “I speak no lies. The dictatorship of Abraham is ended, and instead of celebrating that fact, you would simply replace him. You desire equality no more than he did. It is not enough for you to be a member of vampire society, is it, Aros Kreskas? You wish to
rule
these people and to eliminate any that would stand in the way.”

“I will bring them absolution. I will bring them redemption!” Aros cried.

“You will make them slaves.”

Aros seemed to have no reply to this, and so they stood for a moment in quiet, each side waiting to see what the other might do. Two felt Ashayt’s aura slide away, vanishing as quickly as it had come. The Burilgi soldiers began to murmur among themselves.

“Aros would command you,” Ashayt told them. “I will not. I give you choice. That is the difference between us. You can leave now, and the American council will accept you without judgment. Or you can do as you’re told and murder your brothers and sisters at the command of a would-be dictator.”

The muttering among the Burilgi increased. Some of the soldiers stood their ground, but many more began to withdraw. Two heard the clattering noise of weapons being dropped to the ground. Someone said, “Forget this.”

“Fools!” Aros hissed. “Idiots! You’re signing your own death warrants. Don’t think I won’t remember this. I know each of you. I will remember!”

The Burilgi ranks were thinning as many of them made for the exits, abandoning Aros and their fellow soldiers. It took only a few minutes before what had been a group of more than three hundred became one of less than fifty. Aros looked around at the men and women who still obeyed him and gave Ashayt a thin smile.

“Very well,” he said. “You’ve cowed the lesser of my people into abandoning me, but there are those here who remain true, my best and strongest who have been with me for so long. Will you plead with them some more,
Mother Ashayt?
”

“I have offered my choice,” Ashayt said. “There is no more that I can say. But you, child, can still make your own decision. You can choose to turn back from this path.”

“Aros,” Jakob said. “The lady is right. There is no need for further violence this night.”

Aros turned and looked at Jakob with an expression of disgust and hatred. The two stared at each other for a moment, unspeaking, and then Aros grinned, and the strange, mad light returned to his eyes.

“I want each of their heads laid at my feet,” he said. “Save the witch for last. I want to see if she’ll really die without a fight.”

With this, Aros turned his back on the group and walked to his couch. His soldiers, needing no further exhortation, roared as one, and charged.

A few of the Burilgi had guns, but none were firing, perhaps afraid that they might hit their companions on the opposing side of the circle. Some had blades, and others seemed prepared to attack simply with claws and teeth. They were moving quickly, leaving Two and her companions little time to plan. Two’s group had not come unprepared to fight, however, and they braced now for the impact of this oncoming force. Each had a long, machete-like blade, even Ashayt, though hers remained hanging at her side.

“Oh, damn it,” Naomi swore, holding her own blade aloft. She looked determined but also terrified, and Two didn’t blame her. There were only three experienced fighters among them. The rest of them would have to rely on luck and natural ability.

Stephen, who was holding not one but two blades, looked back over his shoulder. “Stay loose, remember what you’ve been taught,” he shouted at Naomi and Two, and then there was no further time. The first of the Burilgi soldiers, a shrieking harpy of a woman with what looked like open sores all over her face and arms, was upon him. Stephen spun in a pretty movement that looked almost like dancing and severed her head with a single swing of one blade.

Naomi, Theroen, and Two were quickly separated from the rest of the group. Ashayt, faster than any vampire among them, was using her talents to avoid conflict, expertly dodging away from attackers, always moving, leading them around and around the large garage. Stephen, Sasha, and Jakob had disappeared into the crowd, tearing apart the less-experienced Burilgi soldiers and, like Ashayt, moving constantly to avoid being overwhelmed or targeted and shot.

“This is not how I wanted to spend the night,” Two snarled, swinging her blade at a vampire, who easily avoided her blow by jumping backwards. This brought him close to Naomi, and she took the opportunity to stab him in the side. He screamed and lurched away into the crowd, blood jetting from his wound.

“I shouldn’t have come,” Naomi said with distaste. “I hate this.”

Two wanted to speak some words of encouragement, but before she could, they were separated by another wave of Burilgi soldiers. She found herself next to Theroen. He was faring well, his strikes finding their mark again and again, the Burilgi falling at his feet, dead or howling in pain.

“Get away from me!” Two heard Naomi scream, and looked to see her friend surrounded by four soldiers, each holding a blade. Naomi spun in circles trying to parry their probing blows. Two reached behind her back and drew from her waistband an old friend, the GLOCK that she had taken from Darren two years ago. She pointed it at one of Naomi’s attackers, who turned to face her.

“I don’t want to shoot you,” she told the Burilgi, a deformed, barely human-looking thing with long arms and legs like a spider’s.

“So don’t,” the creature chortled, and it advanced on her, waving what looked like a hatchet. Two leveled the gun at him and pulled the trigger, firing the first shot of the battle. The bullet punched in the right half of the Burilgi’s face and he pitched forward, falling to the ground in a heap.

Two spun and targeted another of the vampires that had surrounded Naomi. Without further warning, she fired again, hitting this one in the shoulder. He fled into the crowd, snarling and cursing. Theroen came up behind another of Naomi’s attackers, a tall woman with flaming red hair, and split the back of her skull with his blade. Jets of her blood sprayed out on either side of the weapon, and her entire body went rigid before dropping to the ground. Theroen, with an expression of slight sadness on his face, stepped on her neck for leverage as he removed the machete from her skull.

Naomi had a large cut on her arm, where one of the Burilgi’s blades had nicked her, but was otherwise unharmed. The last of the four who had surrounded Naomi charged her, shrieking and swinging his claws. Naomi ducked neatly below them and stabbed him in the belly, pulling away as the soldier fell to the ground. Two and Theroen moved to stand by her side.

“Thank you,” Naomi said. “I can handle one or two at a time, but four was asking a bit much.”

“Glad to help,” said Theroen.

Two nodded. She glanced around, surveying the scene. The Burilgi numbers were thinning, but those who were left seemed almost as talented with their weapons as the three Ay’Araf vampires. Stephen was fighting two at once, one with each hand, and Jakob was still managing to hold his own despite the wound in his side.

Two heard a scream of pain and turned her head to see Sasha staggering away from a muscular black woman who was carrying something that looked like a medieval broadsword. Sasha had a large gash in her belly, and Two thought that she had probably been lucky to escape disembowelment. The Burilgi woman roared in triumph, leaping forward, and Sasha instinctively held her left arm up to ward off the blow. In another instant most of the arm was gone, and a ragged stump, severed above the elbow, was jetting blood onto the concrete floor. Sasha fell to her knees.

“Leave her alone!” Two shouted, running toward the Burilgi and firing her gun wildly. None of her shots hit home, but they were enough to make the woman back off, snarling and turning her face away. Two reached Sasha and grabbed the Ay’Araf girl’s good arm, tugging her to her feet.

“We have to get that wrapped up or you’re going to bleed to death,” she said to Sasha, who made a groggy noise of acknowledgment.

Two heard Theroen shout her name and turned in time to see a blade descending toward her head. The soldier who had cut off Sasha’s arm had caught up with Two, and if Theroen’s call had been any later, she would have ended up dead on the concrete. Instead, she pulled herself backward, falling over and landing on top of Sasha, who cried out in pain.

The blow missed her by less than six inches. Two watched as Theroen, enraged, buried one hand in the woman’s curly black hair and jerked, exposing her neck and running the length of his blade along it. The soldier’s throat opened like a floodgate and crimson blood poured forth, splashing all over Two and Sasha. Theroen hurled the woman’s corpse aside.

In a moment more Theroen was kneeling down, asking if she was all right, and it was Two’s chance to scream out a warning, one that she knew even as she began would come too late. Behind Theroen’s kneeling form, Aros had suddenly appeared, his right arm raised above his head, hand holding a large dagger, eyes filled with glee and malice and rage. He was going to stab Theroen to death right in front of her and there was nothing she could do about it.

Aros swung the blade downward, but at the last second, another hand caught his wrist and held him, stopping the blow that had been aimed at the back of Theroen’s neck.

“No yeh
don’t!”
Stephen screamed, twisting his hand, and Two heard the bones in Aros’s wrist crack and break. Aros shrieked in pain and the dagger fell from his hand, bouncing off Theroen’s shoulder and clattering to the floor. Stephen grabbed Aros’s collar with his left hand and dragged the vampire up, pulling his face in close.

“Shoulda done this a long time ago,” he growled, letting go of Aros’s broken wrist and reaching for one of the blades that hung at his side.

“Keep waiting,” Aros hissed, and brought his left hand up. In it was another dagger, and he drove it into Stephen’s breastplate, just to the left of center. There was another cracking noise as the blade passed through bone, and Stephen’s eyes went wide. He made a strangled noise and released Aros, falling backward to the floor.

Naomi shrieked and ran toward the pair. She fell to her knees as she reached Stephen, skidding and tearing the fabric of her jeans on the rough floor. Aros backpedaled, grinning wildly and cackling his insane laughter. Not looking over his shoulder, he ran directly into Jakob, who grabbed Aros’s good arm and whipped the vampire around, slamming him against the sheet-metal wall.

“Aros Kreskas,” Jakob said, “this council finds you guilty.”

He brought the gun he had stolen from Aros’s guard earlier that evening up underneath Aros’s jaw, pressing into the soft skin there. He pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession, and Two watched from her position on the floor as the top of Aros’s head blew out, jetting its contents upward in a chunky red spray. Aros’s eyes went wide and glassy then rolled upward, and his body went slack. Jakob watched for a moment longer, as if to confirm that Aros was really dead, and then threw the body to the floor.