The Vampire Hunter's Daughter The Complete Collection (11 page)

“What is that?” I yelled.

Drew had already jumped to his feet and Luke
was on his feet and running. Yeah, he was running.

“We’re being attacked!” Drew hollered at me
over the sirens.

“What? Attacked?”

“Go get your bow and your gun!” Drew pointed
at the stairs. When I didn’t move, he pushed me. “Run!”

I took off up the stairs. I saw Luke yanking
open a set of double doors, a closet. Inside the closet, there was
an arsenal of weapons. Drew and Luke began loading themselves up
while I ran up the stairs.

I ran as fast as I could, grabbed my bow and
the quiver. I took my gun out of its case and dropped the empty
clip and slammed a full one into it. After grabbing the extra
clips, I bolted down the stairs.

“Drew! Give me some of those UV bullets for
my gun!” I yelled at him.

Without even looking hard, he plucked three
full clips off the shelf and handed them to me. He must have had
them ready for me, because I was the only one in the house who had
a forty-five, and they fit my gun.

The three of us went out to the porch. The
sirens were still wailing and the smell of smoke was wafting
through the air. I couldn’t see any flames, but that tingly feeling
started to come back. My gun was stowed in the back of my jeans,
and I had an arrow nocked and ready to fire. These bastards were
not going to take away the only safe place I knew.

“I wonder how they got past the wall?” I
thought out loud. The community was gated, surrounded by a gigantic
stone wall, and had security checkpoints around the perimeter. It
looked like a jail from the outside. Inside, it just looked like
any other town.

“Shhh.” Drew put his finger to his mouth.

Luke stood at the ready. I don’t think I ever
admired him as much as I did at that moment. He stood on the
stairs, a gun in each hand and a full bandolier tossed over his
shoulders. The moonlight reflected off of his grey hair, causing a
beautiful silver glow around him.

Suddenly, the sirens stopped. Drew turned one
direction and listened, then the other direction. “They got to the
alarm.”

I was freaking out. But, thank god I still
had my senses. Thinking,
Sostrate, I need you to help me with
this
. I chose the bow and arrow above the gun because of what
Drew had told me about guns not working as well on the older
vampires, and also because the bow and arrows were given to me by a
demi-goddess; maybe they had their own superpower.

If vampires had made it to the alarms, that
meant they had gotten to the hunters manning the security building.
That was definitely not a good sign for us.

A prickle on the back of my neck made my
spine straighten. I glanced at Drew and Luke. They felt it, too; I
could tell. Both of them stood back to back on the stairs so they
could fully cover the circumference around them.

I took a moment during this scary and
traumatic time to feel stupid. I didn’t know what to do, so I
remained by the front door, with my bow and arrow at the ready.

We sat there waiting, in silence, for what
seemed an eternity. It was unbearable, knowing we were going to be
attacked but not knowing how or when. Plus, I was scared
crapless.

In the distance, we heard the smallest
crackle, probably a fallen twig in the woods being stepped on. I
spun toward the noise. Suddenly, there was a flash and a vampire
appeared. He grabbed Luke. Luke didn’t utter a word but did drop
his gun when his hand flexed open in surprise. The vampire towered
over Luke, his burnt auburn hair and pale skin completely visible
in the dark. He held Luke in a headlock, like he was going to snap
his neck.

“Stop!” I shouted, surprising everyone,
including myself. I aimed my arrow at the vampire. Luke’s head was
covering the vampire's heart, but I knew I could hit his shoulder.
I never missed.

“Let him go, or you die,” I said, my voice as
cold as I could make it.

I felt my blood rush through my veins, the
power, flowing through me.

The vampire laughed, and my anger boiled. No
more of my family were going to die. Sostrate had told me to think
of how much I loved my mother when I fired, but all I felt was a
hot hatred when I released my arrow.

“Burn in hell!” I screamed as the arrow
flew.

With the same ripping noise as the tree, the
tip of the arrow caught fire and plunged into the vampire’s
shoulder. He released Luke and screamed a high-pitched noise that
could only be associated with death. I nocked another arrow and
thought of how much safer the world would be with one less vampire.
The arrow sailed into his heart, and he fell to his knees. When he
crumpled, he began to burn away until all that was left was a mess
of blackness on the snow.

I had killed my first vampire and I felt
triumphant. But, there were more, I was sure.

Luke looked at me like I had just farted in
church.

“Chloe?” he whispered. I shrugged and put my
finger to my lips. More were coming.

We heard them approaching. They weren’t even
trying to be quiet now. I shook off the nerves that threatened to
come back.

You are a vampire hunter, Chloe. Don't let
them win.

I turned in the direction of the noise. Drew
and Luke fired before the vampires emerged from the woods. They
missed a lot, but between all of us, we managed to take them all
down. Still more came.

I’d bent down to catch my breath when three
really ugly chick vampires and one really hot-looking guy jumped
smoothly down off the roof, barely making a sound when they landed
right in front of us. Quickly, I moved in closer to Drew and
Luke.

“Don’t turn your back on them,” Drew
whispered to me.

The vampires circled around us in the
darkness, stalking us, even though we knew they were there. The
three of us moved to where our backs were touching. I still had my
bow raised and trained on one of the ugly girl vampires.

It all happened so fast. I don’t remember
much, but they rushed us with their vampire speed. None of us had
time to react. With flashes and blurs they were upon us.

Once again, I was locked in the embrace of a
vampire. Flashes of my mother’s murder and James’s iron grip on my
arms came back to me full force. I heard myself scream. I heard
Drew call my name, but I couldn’t do anything. I felt frozen in
time, watching my mother die again.

“Chloe!” Drew’s voice called me. “Chloe!”

Where is he?

Everything was mashed together. Time had
merged the past and the present together.

“Snap out of it!” Someone hissed into my ear.
It wasn’t Drew, and it wasn’t Luke. Whoever it was, it did snap me
out of it. My eyes focused, and I saw that Drew and Luke were being
held in the arms of the vampire guy and one of the girls.

“Easy with her!” the guy called out to the
one holding me. “Trevor wants her alive.”

She cackled in my ear. “He said alive, but he
didn’t say unharmed. This little hunter has caused us a lot of
grief.” She gave me a hard shake.

“I didn’t do anything to you!” I screamed at
her.

“Yeah, except that your
Daddy
is
constantly sending us on suicide missions to find you.”

I didn’t dignify that with a response. My bow
had dropped when I’d been grabbed, but I still had my gun. Doing
anything with that would have been a little hard, considering my
backside was pressed up against her. Drew and Luke couldn’t move.
One thing I had learned from training was not to get close enough
to let a vampire get a hold, because they could snap a human neck
in less than a second. I was scared for Drew and Luke.

I struggled in the grip of the ugly vampire
chick. “Let me go, please. Let me go!”

“Oh, how cute. She's begging.”

“Leave her alone!” Luke hollered.

“Shut up, old man,” the one who held him
menaced. For emphasis, he twisted Luke's arm, and I heard his bones
cracking. Luke screamed like I had never heard a man scream.

“Let’s just get rid of these two and get out
of here,” the chick who held Drew told the one who had me. Drew
fought against her, screaming obscenities and twisting in her grip
while he tried to release his arms.

The ugly vamp’s eyes suddenly flickered and
lit up bright red as her blood lust took over.

“No!” I screamed and suddenly felt a hot fire
awaken throughout my entire body. “Don’t touch him!”

I yanked away from the vamp with every ounce
of strength I could muster and felt my right forearm snap. I
screamed long and hard. The pain was excruciating, and when I
screamed my whole body erupted. Literally, I became engulfed in
flames. I lunged forward and threw myself at the vampire who held
Drew. My screams were joined by those of the burning vampire who
had held me. I didn’t dare look. The fire wasn’t hurting me at all.
I veered around Drew and into the vamp who held him. Because she
held Drew, she didn’t have time to do anything to defend herself
when I slammed into her and locked her in a fiery embrace, my
broken arm sort of hanging limply around her.

She let go of Drew. I think he had been
waiting for it because he immediately grabbed his gun, then spun
and shot. Two precise shots lodged into the skull of the vampire
who was squeezing Luke tightly around his chest. Luke fell to the
ground, his foot twisting at an odd angle when he went down.

I ran at the one who’d been shot, screaming
like one of those bloody warriors from Braveheart. I hit him with
such force it toppled him to the ground. Even though he was already
eroding from the UV bullets, I wanted to make sure. I stood and
kicked the body over and over again until Drew grabbed me away.

“Chloe, stop!”

“Where’s the other one?” I hissed. “Where is
she?”

The flames still flickered and licked around
my whole body.

“She ran.” Drew panted, then glanced over at
Luke, who appeared to be unconscious, lying on the cold snow, and
ran to him.

“No!” I concentrated as hard as I could,
trying to get the flames to go away. I waved my good arm around and
stomped my feet. Nothing happened. I squeezed my eyes shut and
thought of only nice, cool, calming… the ocean. The waves rolled in
and crashed on the shore. I felt the water dousing my feet as the
surf rolled up the sand.

I opened my eyes. It had worked. The fire was
gone. Not that it had been that long, but for the first time, I
really, really appreciated having the gift of fire.

My arm still hurt like hell. I cradled it
gently and tried to set aside the pain and thoughts of fire for the
time being and ran to Luke.

He lay on the ground, with Drew on his knees
hovering above him. I fell to my knees beside Drew.

“Is he okay?” I asked while silently begging
god, the goddesses of our family, the angels, and anyone who would
listen to help him.

“I don’t know,” Drew replied, and then lifted
him off the ground and into his arms. Gently, he carried him into
the house while I followed behind. While I watched Drew place Luke
on the couch, I realized that if my arm hurt like hell now, it was
going to get a whole lot worse when the adrenaline wore off.

“Drew, he needs to go to the hospital.” I
looked down at Luke. “I think I need to go, too.”

Drew yanked a cell phone from his pocket and
hit a speed dial number. “Damn it!” he said after a minute. “No
answer.”

“Who are you trying to call?” I winced as
pain shot up my arm. I could feel tears welling up and threatening
to spill over. I really didn’t want to start bawling in front of
Drew.

“I’m trying to call the medics. We have our
own little version of a hospital, like an urgent care center, I
suppose. They are either really busy with other injuries or the
vamps got them.”

“Let’s just go to the real hospital then.” I
really
wanted to go. I knew my arm was messed up.

He sighed. “We’re going to have to.” He
glanced at my face and then down at my arm. “Go out to the garage
and start Luke’s car.”

I did as he said, but first I collected my
bow and some of my arrows. I placed the arrows into the quiver and
then hurried out to the garage, just in time, too, because the
tears finally broke their dam and began their suicide mission down
my cheeks.

After starting the car, I waited for Drew to
come out with Luke. When I saw them, I opened the back door so he
could gently slide Luke onto the seat. Luke cried out and coughed
roughly a few times during the move. I ran around to the passenger
side and hopped in. I was ready to go. I’d never had a broken bone
before, but I knew that the longer I waited, the worse it was going
to feel. I still felt kind of pumped up and was entirely sure that
when that completely wore off, I was going to be in even more pain.
I guess I could be grateful there were no bones or anything
sticking out through the skin.

Drew slid into the driver’s seat and pushed
the button that lifted the garage doors, backed out slowly and then
hit the gas. We flew down the deserted road and into town. The
street lights cast an eerie glow onto the empty streets. As I
stared out the windows, I thought about where everyone was. I guess
I had an image of people running all over in the streets, bloody
and screaming, like in some zombie horror movie.

When we arrived at the gates, Drew slowed and
came to a stop at the guard shack.

“Oh, great,” he murmured.

“What?”

“There isn’t anyone in there. When the sirens
go off, the controls for the gate in the guard shack shut down. I’m
going to have to go up to the control room and turn them back
on.”

“Really?” I moaned.

Without a word, Drew slammed the car into
reverse and turned a wide circle until we were headed back the way
we had just come. It seemed like forever to go the short distance
to the control room. When we finally arrived, Drew parked the car
and asked if I had my gun.