Soul Guard (Elemental Book 5) (7 page)

“How come you’re susceptible, since your parents
weren’t from Earth?”

“According to your vision,
my mother
wasn’t
from Earth. We have no idea who my father is. Besides, as far as we know, Skrev
shifters are affected, just like the pure vampires.”

“Except pure vampires burst into ash. What are the
odds that the beings of two different worlds would be poisoned by a common
Earth metal?”

“Probably not that bad considering Earth is a foreign
world with different elements and germs. Besides, everyone has a different
explanation for why silver hurts us. A lot of paranormals, including Darwin,
believe that wizards and fae somehow made us susceptible to it in order to
control our populations. Others think it was the humans. There are no clear
historical roots to it.”

As we chatted, we checked one of the three doors,
which opened to a room with small televisions set up. Above the surveillance
screens was a wall-to-wall window into an exam room, but with seriously nasty
looking medical tools. The two metal exam tables also had thick straps to
restrain whoever was being examined. I hit buttons at random until the videos
started playing.

Two of the videos showed a room of cages at different
angles. They were like large dog kennels, except it was people inside them. As
bad as that was, I ignored them and turned my attention to the third screen,
which showed the same vampire from the human’s vision. Having seen her death,
it was odd to see her strapped to one of the exam tables. I looked up, but
there was still no one in that room.

Three men in black uniforms surrounded her. She
started struggling, presumably coming off whatever drugs they had used on her.
Each of the men had what looked like portable spotlights, which they each took
a turn shining on a different part of her body. The first two did nothing, but
the third caused her to scream and thrash. They ignored her struggles for a few
minutes until her skin started to burn. One of the men picked up a notebook and
started writing down his observation while the other continued to burn the
woman’s abdomen. It looked like a bad sunburn, but she was screaming as if it
was burning her all the way through her skin.

Henry started hitting the switches until it turned
off. “No more buttons,” he said, disgust and anger deepening his voice.

I ignored him, though, because I saw something odd in
the exam room. There were some scalpels on the ground. Henry apparently noticed
it as well, because he opened a door on the right side of the room that I
hadn’t noticed. He sniffed around, holding out his hand to stop me from
entering the exam room.

“Someone extremely powerful was in here.”

“Wizard powerful?”

“Felicity powerful,” he said. “A demon was in here.”

Since the wizards of Dothra were so much more
powerful than human wizards, and usually pretty sinister, we referred to them
as demons. At that point, I pushed him aside and went over to peer behind one
of the exam tables, where a man in a black uniform was dead on the floor.

Getting right to work, I mentally noted his position,
the objects around him, and the lack of blood. After a few minutes, I pointed
to the tools, which were wet. “He was washing and polishing, so he didn’t have
anyone in here.” I put my hand on the tables to check the temperature. There
was a hot spot on one of them. “The demon attacked with that lightning thing.
He didn’t run or even move, yet he was facing the demon that entered.”

“So he knew the person,” Henry surmised.

“Or the demon possessed someone he knew. We were
warned that they can do that now that they’re here. But why would a demon
attack a random human? I can see them taking out entire cities at once, but not
like this.” I looked up at him when I realized what this meant. We had heard
two explosions.

We left the room and checked one of the other two
doors in the weapon’s room. It revealed a practice room, judging by the mats on
the floor, weapons on a rack by the door, lockers on the east wall, and
shooting range along the north wall.

There were also ten humans on the ground, most of
them with burn marks on their clothes. I took a step into the room to check the
bodies, but Henry grabbed my arm. “They’re dead. There’s not a heartbeat in the
room.” He pointed to the third room. “I hear something in there, though.”

I shut the door to the room full of dead bodies and
Henry opened the last door. Even with the lights out, I recognized the room
from the surveillance videos. Every inch of the walls were lined with cages. A
row also took up the middle of the room. In each cage was a vampire.

Movies depicted vampires in every light, from humans
with funky teeth to bat-creatures that wore flesh masks. The vampires in these
cages, however, were just victims. They looked so malnourished, mistreated, and
terrified. Some of them were very young, but most were adults. Of course, their
actual ages were indeterminable.

Without moving from the doorway, I scanned the room
with my penlight. I couldn’t make out the exact number, but it was bright
enough to make the vampires, at least the ones still conscious, shield their
eyes.

Henry turned to me and waited for me to give him a
nod before he reached for the lock of the nearest cage. “No!” the terrified
little boy shouted. Other vampires also warned him not to touch the cage.

“We’re not going to hurt you,” Henry said.

The boy swallowed. His eyes were sunken and his skin
had an oily, grayish quality. “The cages are electrified. If a certain number
of us touch the bars in a set period of hours, the lights come on and we die,”
he said, pointing to the ceiling. It looked like solar panels on the ceiling,
but when I aimed my light up, I saw there were wires in the glass panels.

“Ultraviolet?” I asked.

“Something,” another vampire said. “They discovered
something in our blood that is affected by a special light. It burns us faster
than sunlight, but the humans are fine.”

“Maybe I can shoot them out. Or… there should be a
power box down here.”

“I already got it,” a woman said with a thick Russian
accent, entering through the door behind me.

Henry immediately growled and pushed me back so he
could get between me and the stranger. My instincts warned me of her power, but
not that we were in danger. “She’s one of them,” Henry said.

I nodded, already having figured it out. She didn’t
look like a demon. She had short, strawberry blond hair and wore a steam-punk
corset with gold chains, a very short black leather skirt that was covered in
what looked like thin chainmail, and black leather boots. 

The woman just rolled her eyes. “I thought I was
going to have to do everything myself. The power is out, but we only have a few
minutes to get them out before the backup power starts up.” She reached for the
boy’s cage and ripped the door open before he could protest.

Realizing that she was right, several of the stronger
vampires broke out of their cages. Henry and I got to work helping those who
were too weak or unconscious. None of the cages were hard to break into, since
no one was willing to damn the lot of them by trying to break out. The young
boy who had stopped Henry from freeing him, who I learned was named Cesar,
followed me around and tried to help despite being so weak he could barely
stand.

A couple of the vampires found some blankets, but
what they all needed was blood. “Did they ever feed you?” I asked, trying to
rouse an older vampire.

Since converted vampires stopped aging after they
were turned, and those who were born vampires aged very slowly, I knew this
unconscious vampire had been a middle aged human when she was turned. Cesar
could have been a thousand years old or ten.

“Only when they were testing poisons and drugs,”
Cesar said. “She’s dead.”

“She has a pulse.”

He laid his head on her chest to hear her heart. “We
call that a dry beat. The heart doesn’t know she’s dead yet. Her life is gone.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“You’re a wizard, right? Aren’t you supposed to be
experts in souls and life forces?”

Actually, I was supposed to learn about that in my
fifth semester, but I decided not to tell him that. Fortunately, he wasn’t
expecting an answer.

“When we starve to death, they drain our blood and
use it in their experiments.”

“Are you all from Stephen’s coven?”

“No. Some of us are rogues. Four of the vampires had
human spouses, which the hunters used to track the vampires down.”

“Oh, shit,” Henry said suddenly.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, reaching for my gun.

Half the vampires ducked, probably out of reflex.
Henry, however, was checking his phone. “No service,” he said. “I need to check
on Scott.”

“Now? We’re kind of in the middle of something.”

“My cub comes first, always. You have your instincts
to warn you of danger, but my instincts are telling me Scott needs me.” He
walked out without another word and I sighed. I couldn’t really blame him,
though.

“Keep trying to get her to wake up,” I said,
standing.

Cesar frowned. “She’s gone.”

“Don’t give up on her. Never give up on people.”
Still frowning, he started trying to wake the woman, albeit a little less
gently than I had. Since everyone else was being taken care of, I found the
demon, who just rolled her eyes again when I approached. “Why are you helping
these people?” I asked.

She scoffed. “Well, if I had left it up to you, they
would have rotted in here while you and your kitty were outside hiding in the
trees. I guess this is your first time dealing with hunters, because you have
to move a lot faster than that or they will multiply like rats. I have been
culling this group for months just to keep them from taking out the whole
coven.”

“They’re not rats; they’re people. How many humans have
you killed?”

She sneered. “Less than the number of vampires they
have killed. Are you saying human life is greater than a vampire’s?” A couple
of vampires were listening in. “Your soul is not clean, either. How many
paranormals have you killed? Or were they human?”

Despite having powers that he stole by killing
paranormals with a magic amulet, Gale was human. John had killed numerous
humans and paranormals. What right did I have to tell her killing murderers was
wrong? In the human world, arresting someone was always the answer. When
paranormals were involved, everything was more complicated.

“So why does this matter to the shadow man?” I asked.
Since most of Krechea’s followers apparently didn’t know his name and those who
did refused to say it, I didn’t bother. Surprisingly, her eyes narrowed with
anger.

“I am not doing this under his orders. I have never
followed the Shadow Master. I serve the true master.”

That was unexpected. Langril was once the most
powerful wizard of Dothra with a whole collection of followers. Dothra was such
a desolate and violent place that not even the natives wanted to be there.
Thus, Langril taught his followers to “ghost” to Earth and convince human
wizards to make deals with them. Once a wizard made a deal with them, they
could live on Earth and were called soul guards. They were free once they
completed their end of the deal, but no matter what the deal was for, the
wizard’s soul would go to Dothra when they died.

Krechea tried to kill Langril’s daughter, Heather,
who was half human and had no idea of her darker roots. To protect her, Langril
gave up his followers and used his key to stay here with her. Krechea took over
Dothra and killed all of Langril’s followers who wouldn’t change their
allegiance. Since the Dothra wizards were able to appear anywhere through
shadows, just like the key allowed me to do, Krechea’s followers were called
shadow walkers.

“You’re a soul guard then?”

“Yes. I am Zinaida, and my human died long before the
Shadow Master plagued Dothra. He has no power over me. Or at least he didn’t.
Now that he is free, we are all dead.”

I opened my mouth to tell her it was Langril who let
him escape in the first place, when my instincts stopped me cold. Then a dull
hum started from somewhere in the compound.

“The power is kicking back on. We need to get them
upstairs now,” Zinaida said. The vampires who could stand helped those who
couldn’t and they all headed for the door.

“It’s daylight.”

“This place is designed to prevent vampires from
escaping. They are safer out there than down here.” She took the unconscious
vampire from Cesar and carried her out. Getting to the shack was slow, but
overall fairly easy. Getting everyone up the ladder was not.

We got all but three vampires into the shack when the
rows of lights flickered on. Instead of the standard white or yellow, these
were like blue halogen. Two of the remaining vampires were unconscious and one
couldn’t stand, so there was no way we could get them up before the light
spilled over us.

I let my instincts take over my magic and focused on
the symbol of my door, which was also branded into my hand. Although it was
invisible, I could feel the ache of it in my palm often. As the image blocked
out all other sensations, it began to sting my skin.

I grabbed the wrists of the two unconscious vampires
in one hand and the arm of the last with my other just as darkness closed
around me. The instant the final row of lights flashed on, the shadow engulfed
the vampires. The vampires didn’t scream and I didn’t feel heat.

Instead of focusing on anyone or the tower itself, I
pulled back. Acid-light or not, the shadow pass was filled with monsters, and
there was no way I could protect the three vampires when I couldn’t even see
the threat. Besides, I had a pretty good theory on what those horrible
creatures were, and death by cremation was a better fate.

Then I felt a cold, heavy force and heard glass
shattering. The shadows dispersed, but the lights were also out. Zinaida and I
got the remaining vampires upstairs, where everyone was huddled around,
avoiding the sunlit spots. When I turned to Zinaida to thank her for her help,
she was staring at me with shock.