Flight from Hell (8 page)

As before, Alex helped Camille over the fence, but this time I guided her down, trying to keep her from stumbling into the berry bushes. We went through the same game with Ralph, and then Delilah. Lastly, Alex swung himself over, easily landing on his feet.

“How the hell are we supposed to get through here without tearing ourselves to ribbons?” Camille glanced over the wild tangle. “Did every blackberry runner in the county decide this was
the
place to hang out?”

“Sure looks that way.” Delilah frowned.

“Make way, let me take the lead.” Alex nodded for us to shuffle around and give him the front. “I have been on enough safaris and jungle trips over the years that I should be able to find the path, if there is one. And if there isn't, my trusty Juanita here will do the trick.” He held up his blade. “She can blaze the way. Juanita is razor sharp and I've skinned . . . well, I've skinned more than enough tough-hided critters with her before.”

I moved back and let Alex go ahead of me. He poked around for a few minutes, then jerked his head to the left, motioning for us to follow. As we made our way through a path so narrow I doubt if I would have noticed it, he hacked away at the tendrils crossing the trail. The going was slow, so slow that I began to wonder if we maybe should just head to the sidewalk out front, but one look in that direction put a stop to that thought. We'd have to retrace our steps in order to do so, because the path to the sidewalk and road was blocked from here.

As we worked our way into the depths of the brambles, the storm had intensified to where we were grateful for the brambles' protection. The lot was actually two lots in one, so they covered a vast area, and now I remembered that the land ended at the street corner. Once we reached the end, we'd cross the street and be at the edge of the park. From there, we'd have to find an entrance, or crawl over the fence, but we'd be in and able to search for clues as to where Julian was stowing Shimmer.

Alex suddenly stopped. He turned, his face pale in the flashes of lightning that had begun to flare across the sky. “Problem straight ahead. Come up here.”

I slid past a couple suckers that snagged at my jacket, brushing them to the side the best I could. The brambles opened out into a clearing in the center of the land they covered. And there, in the middle of the clearing, lay two women, covered in blood.

“Fuck, fuck, and more fuck.” I pushed ahead, glancing around. There were no signs of anybody else here, but I could smell the blood. It was new, relatively fresh. As I listened, trying to home in on any sounds coming from the prone women, the wind rattled the branches, making it impossible to hear anything.

I hurried to their side, motioning for the others to stay at the edge of the clearing. If there was anybody here we didn't want to meet, better only one of us be vulnerable. But no one emerged from the thickets—nothing disturbed the murk and gloom that surrounded the area.

Kneeling down, I felt for a pulse but one look told me I wouldn't find any. Puncture wounds ripped their throats—someone had fed on them, and fed savagely. And . . . oh hell. Blood stained their lips. They had drunk before they died. Which meant . . .

“We've got two newly minted vamps here,” I called over to Alex and the others. “Get over here now.”

When a vamp was newly minted, as we called new sirelings in the Vampire Nation, the body would take anywhere between thirty minutes to two days to rise. The time it took depended on the age of the sire, their strength, and the bloodline through which
they
were sired. So if these women had truly been forced to drink before they died, then anywhere between now and a couple days should see them rise.

Alex joined me. “Should we stake them? Help them rise and become productive members of society?”

His sarcasm wasn't lost on me, but I ignored it. “I don't think they're going to be all too friendly if they're sired by the same batch that Roman's guards had to put—Watch out!”

Even as I spoke, one of the women launched herself into a sitting position. Instead of looking confused and dazed, like most new vamps, her eyes were blood red and she looked hungry. She was into a crouching position before I could step back, as her friend woke up, too.

“We've got trouble, get back!” I called to the others.

“Fuck a duck,” Alex muttered under his breath, then quickly added, “'Scuse the language, ladies.” He pulled out his knife. “Juanita here is going to have to stand in for a stake.”

“I don't have any such luxury.” I launched myself at the crouching vamp and she met me chest-on. As I grappled the woman, she tried to bite me and I could feel the hunger roiling off her in a wave of anger and fury. She was fully in the grasp of her predator and there would be no reasoning with her. The same with her friend. As we went down, with me on top of her, she scrabbled at me, her nails already sharp and hard.

Vamps' nails changed when they died—one of the few things that did—and grew long and hard. My own never broke or took damage, and like the rest of me, if something smashed my hand bad enough to actually hurt the nail, it would eventually grow back along with my hand healing up. Our hair would not regrow. Our talons—definitely.

I growled, grabbing her by the hair. She screeched, like a Bean Sidhe, her howl muffled by the brambles and the wind, her face a mask of feral hunger. My own predator kicked in and I tightened my grasp on her long locks. She had been a beautiful woman when alive—that I could tell, but now she was a fury of teeth and nails, her fangs extending as her cravings grew stronger. I knew what she was feeling because I remembered my own awakening—Dredge had set me to race home and destroy my family.

And I had, until Camille tricked me into the safe room and locked me in until help could arrive. I'd broken her arm. Luckily, that's all the damage she took from me. But I could still remember the insatiable hunger, the thirst that burned my throat till I had to have blood.

Now, I could see the same thirst, the same frantic need, in this woman's eyes. For a moment, I felt sorry for her. My guess? She hadn't asked for this. She was a toy in someone's demented game. But there was no going back, and now she might as well be a rabid dog. I didn't have time to gain control over her, and even if I could, there was a chance she'd never snap out of it. And so, even as she came at me again, I yanked her neck, hard, breaking it. As she floundered, Alex dove in with his knife, skewering her in the heart.

She stiffened, her eyes wide with surprise, and the next moment, vanished into a puff of dust—ashes caught up in the wind. She was gone, forever this time.

A shout made me turn. Ralph had moved in on the other vampire, and he and Delilah were holding her down, though it was taking all their efforts from what I could tell. Camille had broken a briar branch off and now she stabbed it hard, bringing it down on the woman's chest. The lignified vine hit, and Camille pushed hard as the vine penetrated the woman's heart. With a shout, my sister fell on the vine, throwing all her weight on it, and it pierced through. Seconds later, the vampire vanished into dust, too, joining her companion.

Alex offered me his hand and I took it, happy to have the help. I didn't need it, but after everything we'd already been through this evening, the offer was comforting.

“Well, that was unexpected. And unwelcome. It seems Julian and his friends are having a field day siring vamps. We have to put a stop to him. Now, let's get through this bramble patch and over to the park.” I motioned for Alex to take the lead again.

“Look,” he said, holding out the small handheld beacon. The light was glowing steadily. “She's not that far away. Let's get a move on.”

This time, he was able to find a small trail that led into the other side of the brambles. Most likely the local teens had forged a path into the clearing from the street. And now, they were using it as a make-out spot. Whatever the case, it stood us in good stead and we were able to make better time. Another ten minutes and we were out the other side.

Severance Park was across the street, and a row of dim streetlamps cast shadows on the trees whipping in the wind. I turned back to glance at Camille, Delilah, and Ralph, all of whom looked miserable, wet, and cold. Alex and I could handle the downpour without a problem, but they looked like drenched kittens.

“You guys still good?”

Camille answered for the group. “We've been through worse. Remember, I played mermaid in the ocean of a god's mind.” She forced a smile through the drenching rain. Delilah and Ralph nodded their agreement.

“Let's go.” Ralph didn't even bother trying to clear his glasses, just squinted behind them.

And so, we crossed the street. There was no traffic, but the less time we were in plain view, the better.

The park was surrounded by a tall steel fence, but we lucked out—there were entrances on all four sides. Or at least, two of them that we knew of. We wouldn't have to scale the barrier after all. And being a city park, it was open all night rather than closing at dusk like the state parks.

We slipped through the entrance, to find ourselves on an overgrown path. City maintenance was underfunded, but this was ridiculous. Maybe they had trouble getting their crews to work here, for all I knew. Whatever the case, the park had been let go and was a tangle of vegetation.

The trees—what deciduous ones there were—stood barren, their limbs stripped of leaves by the wind and the rain. They had that ooo-spooky autumn look, and their branches thrust into the night sky, like silhouettes of giant spider legs. The ground was slick with detritus and debris. Mostly, moss that was overtaking the sidewalks and cast-off leaves and fir needles that had dropped.

Unsure where to start, I glanced back at Alex for his thoughts.

He frowned. “They were going to contact me with directions tomorrow night. If you were a rogue vampire sorcerer, holing up in a park, where would you hide?” He cast his glance from side to side.

Ralph, who was tapping away on his iPhone, pushed forward. “I know where we should start looking.”

Startled, I turned to him. “Where?”

“Julian mentioned a shelter in his e-mail to her. Well, there's a mausoleum in the park, near the center. It's empty now, and overgrown, but this used to be a private estate before the Severance family willed it to the city. There were seven members of their family interred there at one time.”

“Oh, this just keeps getting better and better. A mausoleum? What else do you know about this park? Anything you can tell us in the next few minutes?” Ralph was rivaling Carter for information right now. At least info that we needed at the moment.

Ralph tapped away, his fingers flying over the tiny keyboard. “The family donated the land to the city when one of their members—Clyde—went fucknut crazy and let loose at a family gathering with a semi-automatic weapon. Good old Clyde killed seven members of the family, including two children, before a family friend—Teddy—pulled out yet another gun, this one a revolver, and shot him dead. This was back in the forties. The family decided they couldn't handle the memories.”

“So they donated the land instead of selling it?” Delilah frowned. “Rich?”

“Rich, much. They could afford a freaking mausoleum, and the park itself is fifteen acres. So yeah, they donated it. Bunny, the matriarch of the family, is quoted as saying she thought God would have wanted it that way. They moved away from the city after that, to one of the suburb communities.” He slipped his phone back into his pocket. “Mausoleum is ahead and to the right.”

Alex glanced at Ralph's phone for a moment, at the map of the park, then took the lead, with me at his side. We wound through the sidewalks, trying to listen for anything that might be approaching, but over the storm, it was impossible. By now, we were all thoroughly soaked and Delilah was muttering under her breath. She hated being wet, only taking showers out of necessity. She was always clean and well groomed, but you'd never find her taking a bubble bath for pleasure.

As we rounded a dark bend in the road, Alex motioned for us to slow. “Mausoleum coming up on the left, about fifty yards ahead. We might want to slow down and take a gander around the edges of the clearing before heading in.”

“I can do that.” I stepped away from them and, willing myself to transform, morphed into my bat self. Ever since Roman had re-sired me, my ability to shift into bat form had taken on a new and successful tone. Before that, I'd been hopeless, more comical than anything else.

The others slipped back into the shadows and waited. I paused for a moment, getting my bearings, then swooped off to the left. As I circled, fighting the wind, I saw the building up ahead. It was a tangle, overgrown with ivy and some sort of flowering vine, and the ferns clustered thick around its base. The mausoleum had once been white, but now looked aged and decrepit, and the columns were covered with graffiti—even with my poor eyesight in bat form, I could see that.

As I swooped around the structure, a movement caught my eye—something was prowling around in back of it. I tilted, gliding to the right in order to catch a better glimpse of what it was. There, skulking around the perimeter, were two figures. Both looked ragged and dirty—with matted hair and torn clothing. And when they paused, looking up in my direction, I could see the red glow of their eyes.
Vampires.
Had they seen me?

They sniffed, I could see them testing the air, then one looked at the other and said something, shaking his head. They went back to what they were doing, then vanished behind a large huckleberry bush. When they didn't come out again, I flew a little lower, trying to see what was going on.

I couldn't sense them there. Logically, they should have come out the other side, but so far, no sign of them. Another minute, and I cautiously touched down behind a nearby cedar tree. I shifted back into my usual form and crept out from behind the trunk, carefully listening for any sign of anybody around. But all I could hear was the downpour that pelted the ground with fat drops of rain.