Refuge (50 page)

My pace picked up. I had to get to Nate.

Shouts and screams reached us as soon as we
left the roaring river behind. Cold blossomed in my chest and I
sprinted around the nearest building and came up short at the sight
in front of me.

“Oh, God!”

The unimaginable had happened. Westhorne was
under attack, and everywhere we looked, warriors battled vampires.
The vampires were slow, new, but they made up for that in their
numbers. Most warriors fought three or four at one time, their
swords glinting in the moonlight as they cut down one vampire after
another with deadly precision. The warriors without swords fought
with knives or bows. I watched one punch a hole through a vampire’s
chest with his bare fist. It was a bloodbath.

Movement by a corner of the main building
drew my attention. I gasped when I saw Tristan decapitating one
vampire only to have two more take its place. Beside him, Celine
wielded a sword with deadly accuracy, despite her long red dress. I
harbored no love for Celine, but I had to admit the woman could
fight and I was glad Tristan had her at his back.

I scanned the grounds for Nikolas, but there
was no sign of him or Chris. Knowing them, they were out here
somewhere in the middle of all the bloodshed. More than anyone,
Nikolas could take care of himself in a fight, but that did not
prevent the knot of fear from settling in my stomach
. God, let him be
okay.

Two more warriors joined the fight, and my
heart leapt into my throat when I recognized Terrence and Josh.
Immediately, the two boys were attacked by three vampires. Terrence
swung his sword, and one of the vampires screamed when his arm fell
to the ground. Josh leapt to one side, his sword flashing, and one
of the vampires staggered back holding his gut. Two of the three
vampires howled in pain, but they didn’t retreat. Josh moved until
he and Terrence were back-to-back, and they waited for the next
attack.

“We have to do something,” I said. Our
friends were fighting for their lives; the people I cared most
about in the world were under attack. Nate was inside that
building. I just got him back; I could not lose him again.

Jordan opened her mouth to reply when a girl
screamed off to our right.

“That’s Olivia.” She took off in the
direction of the scream, away from the main battle. There was
nothing to do but follow her. Nate and the others were a big
question mark, but Olivia was here and she needed us now.

“Get away from her, you bastard!” Jordan
screeched, throwing herself at the vampire latched onto Olivia’s
throat. The male released Olivia who crumbled to the ground like a
rag doll. He swung his arm, and Jordan flew half a dozen feet to
land on her back in the snow.

The vampire ignored her and advanced on me.
“All this sweet young Mohiri blood . . . delicious,” he hissed. He
wavered slightly on his feet as if he was drunk and drops of blood
– Olivia’s blood – dripped from his chin onto the snow. Bile rose
in my throat, and my eyes darted to the girl who lay motionless a
few feet away.
Please be alive,
I pleaded silently as I backed away
from the vampire stalking me hungrily.

My heel struck something, and I flailed as I
almost went down. Righting myself, I looked behind me and choked
when I saw Mark’s sightless eyes and ravaged throat. He and I had
not been friends, but something inside me snapped at the sight of
his lifeless body. Instead of Mark, I saw my dad lying in the snow
covered in his own blood.

White-hot rage exploded in my brain, and my
Mori cried out happily as we came together. Its power roared
through me, saturating every muscle, every tendon, and bone. I
lifted my eyes to the vampire as the world sharpened into brilliant
focus around me.

I don’t know who was more surprised – the
vampire or me – by the fist that slammed into his nose with a
satisfying crunch. He howled and put a hand to his bleeding face. A
few seconds later, his mouth twisted into a snarl and he came at me
again. He was fast, but not fast enough.

The world slowed down around me, and I
watched his clawed hand swipe at my face before I tilted to one
side to evade it. I kicked out and my booted foot struck him
squarely between the legs.

He wheezed and sank to his knees, and I
grinned with malicious pleasure to see that Nikolas had been right
about the effectiveness of a well-placed kick. Before the vampire
could recover, I spun and my other foot connected with his
face.

The vampire flailed as he flew backward,
right onto the blade in Jordan’s hand as she came up behind him.
His eyes widened in shock, and he made a choking sound before he
fell face first into the snow.

“Liv!” Jordan dropped her knife and ran to
Olivia. The rage drained out of me as I went to kneel beside our
fallen friend. As soon as I touched Olivia’s face I knew her life
force was gone. My eyes met Jordan’s and I shook my head, unable to
speak.

“Can’t you help her?” Jordan begged
desperately.

“She’s gone. I’m sorry.”

Jordan’s eyes filled with tears for the first
time since I’d met her. “You idiot,” she whispered hoarsely,
brushing Olivia’s hair out of her face. “How many times did I tell
you to always carry your weapon?” Her breath hitched, and she
looked at me. “I always teased her, but she was my friend.”

“I know, and she knew it, too.” I stood and
grabbed Olivia’s arms.

“What are you doing?”

“She should be next to Mark.” The two of them
had finally admitted they were a couple last week, but everyone
knew they were crazy about each other long before that. They had
died together, and it was only right that they lie beside each
other in death.

Jordan got up and took Olivia’s legs, and
together we carried her over and laid her at Mark’s side. I closed
his eyes, and Jordan put their hands together. Then she wiped her
eyes on her sleeve and cleared her throat. “Come on. We can’t stay
here.”

I cringed at the screams coming from behind
us, near the main building. We were out of sight for the moment,
but we were stuck between the battle and the woods. An attack could
come from either direction, and we were looking a bit worse for
wear with only one weapon between us. Using my Mori’s strength had
left me tired, and our dunk in the river hadn’t helped. I wasn’t
sure either of us would survive another attack.

“Which way should we go?”

Jordan found her knife and wiped it on the
snow, leaving bloody streaks behind. “I don’t know, but we’re
sitting ducks out here.”

“Lead the way,” I said, waving in front of
me. Pain shot up my arm, and I grunted loudly.

“Ah shit, did he get you?” Jordan lifted my
arm to examine it, and I saw for the first time, the long tears in
my coat sleeve. There was blood on my sleeve, but it didn’t look
too serious. It just hurt like the devil.

“I’ve had worse than this. Let’s go.”

“Sara!”

I turned at the sound of my name, and my lips
parted in a trembling smile when I saw Chris sprinting toward us
from the main building.

“Chris,” I yelled hoarsely, running toward
him, relieved to see he was okay.

“Behind you!” Jordan shouted, and Chris and I
looked at the same time to see two vampires run at him from behind.
Neither of them looked older than sixteen, and their slower
movements marked them as newly made. Chris brought up his sword and
cut them down with little effort. I couldn’t help but feel a dull
pang of sorrow for the two teenage boys whose life had been cut so
short.

Chris waved us toward him. “Let’s go. We have
to get you two out of here.”

Jordan and I were twenty feet from Chris when
he suddenly stopped, his body going rigid like he’d been shot. I
screamed his name as his face twisted in agony and he sank to his
knees. A second later, my eyes were drawn to a slight figure
emerging from the woods to our right, walking with purposeful
strides toward Chris. It took me another few seconds to recognize
the white markings on the person’s dark face.

“No!” Power seared my throat and tongue as I
sprinted forward and threw my body on top of Chris’s to shield him
from the Hale witch. My hands found Chris’s face, and I opened
myself to rip the witch’s magic from him before it could burrow
inside his mind like a cold maggot. Revulsion filled me when I
touched it, but unlike the old magic that had festered inside
Desmund, this was new and much weaker. This witch was nowhere near
as powerful as the one who had attacked Desmund or the witch who
had come after me.

I ignored the cold nausea as I pulled the
dark magic into me. It seemed to take on a life of its own,
fighting to escape as if it knew its impending fate, but I was a
lot stronger than I’d been two months ago when I encountered my
first Hale witch. My power incinerated the magic. I heard a scream
nearby, but all I cared about was Chris.

“Chris? Chris?” I rolled off him and tapped
his cheek a few times before his green eyes opened and he gazed at
me in confusion. “Hey. You with me?” I asked him.

He groaned and rubbed his brow. “That is some
war cry you have, cousin. What the hell happened? I feel like I
have a killer hangover.”

“Hale witch.” I glanced over at the witch who
was lying on his side, facing away from us. “Come on, we have to
get up.”

“Up?” He blinked in confusion. “Why are you
so wet?”

I tugged on his arm. “Long story. Come on.
Get up.”

“Shit!”

I looked up in time to see Jordan dive away
from the attack of a snarling female vampire who had probably been
a college freshman a few weeks ago. Jordan rolled in a ball and
came to her feet with Chris’s sword in her hand.

“This is more like it,” she said fiercely as
she brandished the weapon with ease. The vampire skidded to a stop
and stared at the sword warily. Jordan leapt forward in a burst of
speed and sliced off one of the female’s arms at the elbow.

“That was for Mark,” she shouted over the
vampire’s screams. “And this is for Olivia!” The sword whistled and
the vampire’s head separated from its body.

Jordan stood over the corpse, shoulders
heaving and silent tears running down her face. Then she spun with
the dripping sword in her hand and stalked angrily toward the
fallen Hale witch.

“No.” I pushed to my feet and caught her arm.
She tried to pull out of my grasp, but I held firm. “Trust me; you
don’t want him in your head. I’ll handle this.”

The witch had his arms wrapped protectively
around his head. I nudged his back with my boot, and he moaned
loudly.

“If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out,” I
told him pitilessly. “Get up.”

He rolled onto his back and uncovered his
face. I sucked in a sharp breath when I saw that he was only a boy,
maybe sixteen, if that. How young did these guys start in this
business?

“Please,” he whispered brokenly. “Please
finish it. Kill me.”

“What?” I took a step back. “I’m not going to
kill you. I just wanted to stop you from hurting people. Did you
hurt more of my people out in the woods?”

The boy nodded, and I swore furiously at the
thought of the warriors lying out in the woods in pain. “You better
hope they’re alive,” I ground out. More screams pierced the air
around us. “If we survive this, you are going to show us where they
are and then you are going to fix whatever you did to them. You
understand me?”

“Please.” He sounded more like a young boy
than a powerful witch. “They took my mother and my sisters, and
they will kill them if I do not do as they ask.”

“I’m sorry about your family, but I’ll do
anything to protect my family, too. You can sacrifice yourself
later if you want to, but not until after you help the people you
hurt. Now get up.”

He stared at me for another minute before he
sat up. His strained expression told me that was as far as he could
go on his own.

I was loath to touch him, but I could not
leave him here and give him the opportunity to escape. Reaching
down, I grabbed his hand and pulled him to his feet. He wavered
unsteadily and I called Jordan over. “I don’t think he has enough
juice left in him to try anything, but if he does, you can kick his
ass.” I gave the boy a hard stare. “You hurt anyone else and you’ll
deal with me.” I had no idea if I could hurt him, but he didn’t
know that. He nodded submissively.

Jordan gave the boy a warning glare before
she took his arm. I hurried back to Chris, relieved to find him
sitting up. “Can you walk? We can’t stay here.”

Shouts reached us before he could answer, and
I turned to see Erik and three other members of his team racing
toward us. The warriors sped around us and intercepted a group of
six vampires advancing on us. My heart thudded when I realized how
close we had come to being taken by them. Surrounded by so many
vampires, I had a permanent lump of ice in my chest, which rendered
my vampire radar useless.

Erik quickly sized up our pathetic group. We
had one sword, an injured witch, and our seasoned warrior was down.
“Get out of here,” he shouted at us. “We’ve got this.”

I glanced around us frantically. In every
direction, I could see fighting, hear screams and shouts. Until
now, we’d kept away from the main battle, but it looked like it had
found us. There was nowhere to run.

“You’re going to have to help me up, cousin,”
Chris said, and I wished I had some of his fortitude. I took his
hands and helped him to his feet, putting one of his arms over my
shoulders so I could support him. He shook his head to clear it,
and despite my fear, I felt the urge to grin at him.

“See, Dimples, I knew I’d end up having to
save your ass someday.”

He tried to scowl but couldn’t quite pull it
off. “If I remember correctly, you said it would be from all the
women. You didn’t say anything about almost getting my brain turned
to mush.”