Last Vamp Standing (29 page)

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Under no circumstances will we intervene. This is not our war.”

W
ATCHER
A
RCHIVE, UPDATE

A
FTER EMPTYING THE
haven’s arsenal and stocking up on vamp-killing ammo, Glocks and silver daggers, crossbows and wood-chipped arrows, Dante and Ariana were the first to arrive at the edge of the forest. The others weren’t far behind.

As the first elder brushed past them, she smiled and took Ariana’s hand. Ariana smiled right back, wearing an expression of uncertainty. The second elder took her hand and kissed it. Ariana’s brows pinched in confusion, and she took her hand back. As the elders lined up, a mass of shadowed forms shielding their faces from the rain, Ariana grew still.

“I don’t know that they’re fighting for Black Moon as much as they’re fighting for you,” Dante whispered, leaning into her shoulder.

“Don’t be absurd.”

Another elder, another reverent gaze, another kissed hand.

“Look at their faces, Ariana. Look at them. They could’ve lived another hundred years on their own, hiding from a vamp who might want to steal their mawares from them. But they’re stepping into the light, risking their mawares tonight for a reason. That reason doesn’t have anything to do with four stone walls or a rose garden that blooms at the full moon.”

Her eyes sparkled like golden amber melting in the twilight.

“It’s you, Ariana. They’re here for you.”

Dante knew because he felt the same. He’d fight for her a thousand times over. Give up his maware if he had one. Stand up to Savage with possessed vampires, creatures from the Nether Realm . . . didn’t matter.

“And I’m here for them.” She traced the ridges of the crescent moon on her forearm. “I’ll never hide the mark again. Not when it represents the fighting spirit of so many.”

“The sword through the center,” Dante said, brushing his thumb over the hilt, “is the strength of your heart holding Black Moon together.”

“We’ll show that strength tonight. We’ll fight as one and be stronger than Savage has given us credit for.”

“Yes.” He kissed her wrist, pledging his loyalty, the same as the others. “We will.”

When the last of the elders had filed out of Black Moon and climbed the first ridge leading into the forest, Dante spotted Eve on a dirt mound to the far right, with Ruan standing in front of her. She clutched her amulet, her face lifted to the sky.

It had begun.

Dante heard the sound of vamps running through the dark before he saw them. Felt the pounding of their feet like drums in his heart. He smelled the metallic tang of their blood, dirtied with the malevolence of the spirit within them.

Never in his life had Dante wished for his voices to surface, but he wished for them now. His thirst for battle was so intense, so overpowering, his throat dried and cracked, making it difficult to take a solid breath. He stood beside Ariana and the rest of the warriors of Black Moon, lined up on the edge of the forest. Vamps without mawares threaded among them, standing tall and proud as if they could strike down Savage from this distance. Seekers arranged themselves in front of Black Moon, backed against the walls–the last line of defense.

Heavy breathing broke the stillness between zigzagged bolts of lightning and rolling thunder. If it wasn’t for Ariana standing beside him, Dante might’ve took off running straight into battle. Started this thing early, meeting Savage head on. But he couldn’t risk Ariana trailing behind him.

He had to wait with the rest. Fight with the khissmates of Black Moon. He’d never been more proud of a group of vamps in his life. They were laying down their lives, showing no fear, ready to kill or be killed. They were the closest thing to family and friends he’d ever had.

Anxiety wormed its way into his heart. He hoped they made it out of this for more reasons than keeping Black Moon safe. He hoped they made it out because he cared. For each and every one of them, up and down the line, vamp and elder alike.

“Hold the line!” Slade rushed in front of them on the back of a Seeker, a blur of black leather and heavy artillery. “Whatever happens, the haven cannot be compromised! We must hold!”

He was gone as quickly as he came and they were left to each other, their thoughts, and the silence of the forest.

“They’re close,” Dante said as his heart gave a slow thud. “They’ve reached your projection pits.”

“What do you feel?” Ariana cocked her Glock and crouched behind a wide-trunked tree for cover. “How do you know?”

“It’s like I can sense their energy. I can feel the dark pulling me. Sucking at my feet like the clay in these pits. They’re coming fast.”

“We’ve got hundreds out here fighting and more protecting the haven.”

“And he’ll have just the same. Hundreds of possessed vamps out here and death shades surrounding him, protecting him from the real battle. But someone’s gotta win.” Dante took her face in his hands. A rush of blood flashed through his veins, electrified with spikes of adrenaline. “Fight your heart out, Ariana. Fight for hope and light—”

“And love,” she said as her eyes fired with excitement.

“Yes.” He dragged her against him and kissed her wholly. Completely. For the first time he kissed her with every ounce of hope and love and respect he had in his soul. “Love above all.”

From his post, Ruan hollered commands to the vamps surrounding him. Slade pointed right and left, filling gaps in the line, shoving elders into place. And the rest . . . they waited with bated breath, scanning the dark for shadows.

“Elders ready!” Ariana screamed, taking aim into the night.

“Ready!” they answered as one.

In that instant, the energy of the forest jumpstarted to life, charged with new, fevered intensity. Though Dante didn’t see a single maware used, he could feel the power radiating across the muddy forest floor.

As a rod of lightning split the sky, Savage’s vamps swarmed through the trees ahead. There were too many of them. Far too many. They overtook the pits, falling and filling, coming from the shadows, the light, from all around them.

“Let’s do this,” Ariana said as the entire line of elders came to life.

Bolts of fire sizzled through the air. Orbs of light raced through the night sky, hitting trees, exploding into blinding fireballs. Bodies fell like fat raindrops, but they kept coming.

There were too many.

Holstering his guns, Dante burst through the line and forced the energy balling in his gut out his palms. He thrust his arms forward. And knocked the enemy back with hurricane force wind. They bounced off trees. Face-planted in the mud.

But they kept coming, crawling over their fallen comrades.

Screams and shouts echoed from all around. Dante couldn’t tell if the cries were from Black Moon’s crew or the enemy. Still, he fought.

He drew his guns and rapid fired. Dropped two to their knees and missed a third. Time to reload. But as the third zombie-eyed vamp raced over the final hill, time stood still. The vamp’s eyes went wide, as if he didn’t know what was happening to his body. Why it’d become prisoner to an unseen force. Though Dante wasn’t sure if the time-slowing maware was aimed to assist him or someone else, he took the opportunity and used it to his advantage. He pulled ammo from his pocket. Spun beneath his enemy’s slow-motion left cross. Loaded quickly. Dodged another punch aimed for his jaw. He cocked and fired, right into the vamp’s heart. The sucker fell as another mob of vamps took his place, charging over the nearest hill.

Things kicked back into fifth gear without warning.

Dante ducked as a shot of purple light streamed through the air. Like some sort of cosmic x-ray, the light bullet burst through the chest of one vamp, ripped through his back, and boomeranged into the heart of another.

Screams only got louder as elders unleashed the full power of their mawares. Fire and light meshed as one, exploding through the forest with deafening booms. Smoke slithered over the ground like fog. And rain hammered down as bullets fired in rapid succession. Never stopping. Never missing a beat.

Dante rocketed forward, down a projection pit and over the other side, shooting one vamp through the heart as another leaped onto his back and went for his throat. Dante grabbed the vamp’s arm. Crouched and tossed him over his shoulder, then shot him twice in the chest.

The ground was littered with bodies. Saturated with blood.

Still the enemy advanced. Possessed vamps seemed to drop from the sky. They emerged from the earth and slinked from behind trees. If one fell, three took his place. They were a war machine, a sickening hydra that replaced bodies with each kill. They clawed their way over the earth, hissing and spitting.

The elders might’ve had more power as they unleashed their mawares full force, but they were grossly outnumbered. They’d be overrun before the hour was drained.

“Now!” Slade’s voice carried over the elder’s faltering line.

On command, a second wave of elders fled the forest, shooting fire from their fingertips and warping the air around them. Blue and green sparks spewed from the hearts of elders’ palms, while others stood back, mumbling chants and screaming commands, their hands covering their ears.

Vamps fell, shrieking, holding their heads as if they could hear some sort of torturous wailing that the elders couldn’t.

As a high-pitched wail soared over the rest of the screams, Dante looked back. The two elders flanking Ariana had fallen. Silver-tipped arrows protruded from their chests.

“Get down!” Dante bounded and leaped, dragging Ariana to the ground as a third arrow aimed for her heart streamed high, missing her completely.

“We need to fall back,” she yelled. “They’re too powerful!”

“No.” He dragged her behind a fallen log for temporary cover. “There’s too many. We need help.”

“Everyone who can help is here.”

More blood-curling screams. More suffering and death and pain. Savage was separate from it all, watching from his high point at Darkly Meadow, safe from the guts and glory of battle.

“Then I’ll find a different kind of help.” Dante gave Ariana his guns. Kissed her. “Stay here, stay safe, and for the life of me, don’t do anything crazy.”

“You know me.”

“That’s what worries me.”

Chapter Thirty

D
ANTE DIDN’T HAVE
much time to reach the Watchers’ compound. He hightailed it down the line of elders, ducking as glimmering arrows zipped past him. He dodged enchanted bullets. Jumped over rivers of shadowy snakes. Stopped completely when a blast of fire unfurled from the palms of an elder and caught the nearest tree on fire.

He kept running. Churning his legs over faster than they’d ever gone before. Over projection pits, down and around dirt paths that led to more death shades and more vamps on death missions.

He ran until the smoke and fire of battle could barely be seen on the horizon. Until the screams of victory and shouts of despair could barely be heard. Then he zigzagged east, swerving his way around trees, watching for Savage’s soldier vamps who might’ve broken the line.

And finally, when he felt a pair of eyes boring into his back, Dante knew he’d made it as close to the compound as the Watchers would let him get. Seemed they were watching the show.

“Hello, Pike,” Dante said, spinning around.

“If you came to repay me for the pit-incident with your female, you might as well turn back now.” Pike slid from behind a fat tree trunk and faced Dante. Behind him, emerging through sheets of rain, were the four towers of the Watchers’ compound, a gunner in each one. “There are eyes everywhere in this forest. And those eyes are attached to Watchers who will gladly sacrifice their seat in the Ever After if their show of violence protects me.”

Dante lifted his arms, showing an empty gun belt. Rounds of ammo pop-pop-popped over the horizon. “I’ve come unarmed. I’m no threat to you, your Watchers, or your compound.”

“Then you’ve come to ask us to fight.”

Dante nodded and scanned the trees for Watchers, death shades, vamps with a death wish. “I’ve come to ask you to stand up against evil. To fight for what is right and good.”

“And you think you know what is right and good? Because you finally care for someone other than yourself?”

Pike paced around Dante like a cougar stalking its prey. He didn’t cower from the pouring rain. And his face didn’t illuminate when lightning breached the cloud cover. Everything in the forest had darkened and shadowed over.

The scales had tipped. Evil had taken over.

“Because of the oaths we’ve sworn against sex and violence, our entire compound will break the curse our ancestors have burdened upon us,” Pike said. “We’ve resisted the Jinn. We’ve grown so accustomed to the Nightshade, most of us don’t even need it anymore. We will pass to the Ever After with clean hands and a clean spirit.”

“I think you’ve got it twisted.” Dante swallowed hard before dropping the big-ass bomb in his arsenal. “Fighting will not banish you from the Ever After. Neither will making love to a woman.”

“Really? You think we’ve been wrong all this time?” Pike lifted his gaze to the trees. “Hear that, Watchers? He thinks because his mother was an angel and his father was a Primus that he’s above us. He thinks because he’s a First Generation he’s figured it all out.”

“What’d you just say?”

“Why don’t you enlighten us? Inform us what we’ve been missing all this time.” Pike’s sarcasm was rich, sounding a whole lot like fear.

“You knew my mother?” Dante stepped toe to toe with Pike, hyper aware of the red laser sights from half a dozen AR-15’s on his back.

Pike nodded, the hatred in his eyes burning bright. “Your mother was an angel . . . the one who built our compound after she fell in love with a vampire . . . your father, Andre Cornelison.”

“Holy shit.” Dante stroked his hand over his head and tried to soothe away the sudden pounding. Pike’s words pierced his skull:
The one we’ve been waiting for.

“Your mother was the one who showed us the path to redemption. She guided our desires and planted the first garden of Nightshade behind the elder cemetery. So you have to forgive my disbelief when you show up this night, the night of Black Moon’s demise, going on about how fighting and pleasuring women will grant us peace in the Ever After when your mother, your own flesh and blood, was the one who set up our rules to begin with.”

An explosion rocked the forest, quaking the ground like only a California earthquake could. Except the tremor didn’t quit. It intensified and the ground groaned, like beings from the Nether Realm ached to get their piece of the battle. Trees shook down to their roots. Firs swayed like palm trees, dropping pine cones and snipping Watchers alike. The earth seemed to open up, cracking east to west, crumbling everything into a trench in its wake.

Dante braced himself on a lightning-fried stump. “It’s not fighting that prohibits you from entering the Ever After!” he yelled over the constant roar. “It’s fighting for evil. Fighting for selfish reasons. Fighting for the sake of fighting. But fighting for what is right will save us!”

“You are in a perfect position to say such things, aren’t you?” Pike stumbled, falling into the pit. Echo swept behind him—it seemed from out of nowhere—and lifted him, braced him. “There’s no way to test your theory. If we fight for Black Moon and assist in defeating Savage, we could erase the progress we’ve made. One kill by our hands could damn us forever.”

“That’s where you’re wrong!” Dante jerked his collar aside, revealing his neck and the head of his shoulder. And a dark, swirling tribal tattoo that matched the one Pike had creeping up his neck.

“So what?” Pike hissed. “I’ve got one too, or did you think you were the only one who has shown restraint against the Jinn? Echo would have one too if he could resist screwing those wood nymphs long enough.”

“Pike!” Echo hollered as the incessant booming was replaced with the hush of falling rain. “He’s been fighting. He’s got blood on his hands. Look . . .”

Dante held up his hands. Turned them over and showed Pike rivers of blood stained into his skin. “Fight with us, Pike. Fight for us. Fight to defend what you know to be right, fight for good and truth and light and you’ll be granted access into the Ever After.”

“I—I don’t understand.” Pike backed away, his hands stretched in front of him, as if he could keep Dante away. “The mark should only be seen when you resist the Jinn, but the blood . . . this can’t be . . .”

Dante couldn’t blame Pike for being shocked. Everything he’d ever known was crumbling down. Thankfully that feeling was old news for Dante now.

“It’s not watching the trials of man and vamp from a distance that’ll break the curse, Pike. It’s watching and judging and then using your strengths for the right purpose.” Dante stepped forward, outstretching his hand. “What do you say? Will you help us?”