Vampire Apocalypse (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles #3) (11 page)

“
Knock it off,
Chloe.”

I looked over and Zander had an
annoyed expression on his face. “The house will be fine. We are
only going to be there one more night anyway. Aren’t we leaving for
New Orleans in the morning?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I know.” My reasoning
didn’t make sense. The damn vampires would probably break into the
place while we were in New Orleans, but my hopes about finding the
head of the bloodlines remained. If we could kill them, there
wouldn’t be any vampires left when we returned to the
house.

“
Here they come!” Zander
pointed.

My head snapped up. Through the
windshield I saw Luke’s car speeding up the road leading to the
gate.

“
Thank God,” I muttered as
Zander started the engine.

~~***~~

The first thing we did back at the
house was clear the place to make sure it was, indeed, free of the
enemy. Then, I hurried upstairs to change out of my wet clothes.
Oscar loaned Gavin some things to wear since he was also soaked
from the hydrant water.

After that, it was our own sort of
chaos that ensued. There was a rather heated argument about
Anthony. Drew and I had to go tell him that we were leaving, but no
one in the group wanted to travel with him. So, long story short,
he was going to have to meet us there.

Zander seemed to think that we
shouldn’t even tell him we were leaving. “The dude is ancient, he
should be smart enough to figure out that if he hasn’t seen you for
a few days, you probably left without him.”

“
I agree with Zander.”
Christina propped her feet up on the coffee table to adjust one of
her boot buckles.

“
Of course
you
agree with him,” I
shot back at her.

Luke sat at the table with his gun
taken apart and spread out in front of him for cleaning. He looked
up with a glint of remorse in his eyes. “As much as I’d like to
disagree, he does have a point. Why should we send you into a
dangerous situation if we don’t have to?”

Drew shook his head. “No, we have to
go tell him. We want to be able to trust him … well trust him as
much as we can. But for us to do that we have to prove that we are
trustworthy. Why should he do anything for us if we are going to go
behind his back as soon as he gives us information we could
use.”

Luke didn’t look convinced.

“
Look,” I sat down in a
chair across from him and looked him in the eye, “I don’t really
want to go out into the city tonight, either. I don’t want to tell
Anthony that we are leaving, but we have to. This is a risk we are
going to have to take. We know nothing about the other original
vampires and he is the only one who can help us find
them.”

He still didn’t seem very happy about
it, but he conceded. “Fine. You guys can go tell him that we are
going there,” he pointed his finger at us, “but do not tell him
when we are leaving. We can meet him there in a few days. That
gives us lead time.”

“
Deal.” I jumped up from my
seat and went around to give Luke a hug. Surprised, he returned the
embrace.

“
Why are you so excited
about this guy?” Christina asked from across the room where she was
reapplying a coat of pink nail polish. I guess she had her
priorities when it came to getting ready to head out for a
battle.

“
I’m not. I just have a
feeling about this. I don’t trust the guy at all, but I can feel it
in my bones that this is the answer.”

She nodded, still concentrating on her
nails. “We have never done this before … joined forces with a
vampire, I mean. It doesn’t feel right to me.”

“
I get that,” I agreed. “I
don’t think we are joining forces, exactly,”

She capped her nail polish and blew on
her fingertips. “Oh, we are. We have to have a certain amount of
trust to work with—”

Oscar interrupted, “No, we
have to
tolerate
him. You are all trained to kill the likes of him. One vampire
doesn’t stand a chance against us, even if he is thousands of years
old.”

Everyone agreed with that, at
least.

Luke began putting his gun back
together. “So, we leave at first light. Drew, Chloe, you guys go
ahead and drive into the city, but come right back to get your
things packed and rest up.”

Drew, who had been quiet the whole
time, nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Anxious to get it over with and
actually be on our way to New Orleans, I grabbed my holster and
strapped it on. “We’re leaving right now.” I put all of my weapons
on as fast as I could, grabbed my bow, and headed for the door.
“Come on, Drew.”

He was doing the same thing I had
done; getting all of his weapons placed where they felt best and
were the easiest for him to get to. “I’m coming, calm
down.”

I really wasn’t trying to be a pain,
but we had to hurry and get back to pack our things if we were
going to leave at first light. Gavin, who had been quiet most of
the day, wandered over to entryway where I waited for Drew. “Be
careful,” he told me.

I grinned, trying to look normal.
“This is nothing. Just like any other night, so no need to be
worried.”

He didn’t return the smile; his face
remained serious. “I haven’t met this guy, but I don’t like him.
Don’t forget that he’s a vampire.”

“
I don’t know why you all
act like he’s my new BFF or something. I’m doing a job and I’m
taking a lead to help end this crap. I’m just doing what needs to
be done.”

He leaned against the wall. Stray
locks of dark brown hair fell down into his eyes. I fought the urge
to reach out and brush them away. He smirked like he knew what I
was thinking. “We know what you’re doing, but lately you have been
doing things without really thinking them through and that’s
dangerous.” He paused. “Plus, with what just happened today, you
might be distracted.”

“
I’m fine.”

“
I hope so.” He pushed off
the wall.

Drew appeared beside me. “You
ready?”

I nodded, moving my gaze between Gavin
and Drew. “Just waiting for you.”

Gavin gave Drew that head nod that
silently said ‘Good luck, but I’m still not speaking to you’ and
strode back into the living room.

~~***~~

We took the Escalade instead of Drew’s
loud ass truck. It was already dark, which made our entrance into
the city far more dangerous than coming in before nightfall when we
could hide out and wait.

“
So,” he broke the silence
about halfway into the city, “are you going to talk about what
happened today?”

I shook my head even though he
couldn’t see me. “No.”

“
Are you all
right?”

“
I’m fine.” Boy, I was
saying that a lot today. Unfortunately, I really wasn’t fine. I
just hoped I would be.

“
Well,” he took his eyes
off the road to glance at me, “I’m here for you. I’m not going to
make you talk about it, but I’m always here for you to confide in
or whatever it is that you need.”

Damn the tears. I felt the trickle on
my cheek and wiped it away, then reached out and set my hand on his
leg. “I know you are.” After that he didn’t say anything and we
rode the rest of the way in silence.

We went directly to bakery and parked
out front. I hopped out as soon as the truck came to a stop. Both
of my guns were drawn and my fingers were twitching to shoot
something. Drew was out of the truck almost immediately after me,
taking the other side of the truck.

“
I’m gonna jump,” I
whispered to Drew and looked up at the balcony to let him know what
I was thinking.

He glanced at the balcony and then
back at me, his eyes wide with fear. A quick shake of his head told
me he didn’t want me to do it.

“
It’s faster that way, and
safer,” I insisted. “We don’t have to clear the bakery, the
stairwell, and the apartment.”

“
No.” His voice was firm
and took on that ‘I’m the leader here’ tone.

“
Drew—”

“
I said no.”

Suddenly, another voice joined our
whispering. “Would it be helpful if I came to you?”

Both Drew and I swung around and aimed
at the source of the voice near the back of the truck. Anthony
Christos stood there, dressed in blue jeans this time instead of
black ones. He had on a maroon button up shirt that looked really
nice against his skin and his lips were turned up in a
smirk.

“
Anthony!” I hissed. “You
are seriously trying to get yourself shot.”

“
I was not concerned about
that,” he responded.

Drew rolled his eyes at Anthony’s
blatant dismissal of his safety. “Obviously.”

Anthony stepped forward a few feet in
our direction. “So, are we traveling to New Orleans?”

I nodded. “That’s what we came to tell
you. We are going, but you can’t come with us. You will have to
meet us there. We need time to prepare so we are leaving in a
couple of days.”

“
Mmmm,” He flicked his gaze
from me to Drew suspiciously. I was pretty sure he could sense the
lie. “I see. Your friends don’t want to travel with a vampire, am I
correct?”

I glanced at Drew before I answered
and found he had taken his eyes off of Anthony to check the rest of
our surroundings. We were, after all, out in the middle of the city
at night. Vampires could be anywhere. “Yes,” I finally admitted.
“But you can’t blame them for how they feel. We both feel the same
way.” I motioned to Drew and myself. “You’re a vampire and we don’t
trust vampires … we kill them.”

Anthony tilted his head slightly.
“Speaking of which, when are you going to stop pointing your guns
at me. There is no need for that.”

“
I’ll be the judge of
that.” My guns didn’t waver.

“
Relax, little Hunter.
There is no need for such acts of violence. I know that you do not
trust me, nor do I trust your friends not to simply kill me off
before I am ready. I will meet you in New Orleans in three days’
time. Does that meet your approval?”

I don’t know what I expected, but I
certainly didn’t expect it to be so easy. Lately, nothing was easy.
Again I looked to Drew before I answered. He had returned his
attention to Anthony and me. He gave me a slight nod of approval
and I quickly answered Anthony’s question, “Um, yeah. That sounds
fine.”

Anthony chuckled. “When you get to New
Orleans, find this address.” He held out a slip of paper with an
address scrawled on it. “It’s in the Garden District.”

I knew of the Garden District, but I’d
never been to New Orleans so it didn’t really help me any. I
holstered only one of my guns, but let the other one come to rest
at my side. “This is where you will be?”

He nodded. “Yes. I have owned the
house for years. Rented it out for a short time. Homes in the
Garden District go for a pretty penny.”

Well, at least we would know where he
was and wouldn’t have to go on a wild goose chase looking for him
when we got there. “Thanks.” I waved the paper at him and then
tucked it in to my pocket.

Drew moved to open the driver door of
the Escalade. “We’d better go now.”

“
Yeah, things to do,” I
agreed, wanting to get back home just as much as he did. “We’ll see
you in New Orleans in three days then. Well … nights, three nights
from now,” I confirmed with Anthony. He nodded and gave a slight
gentlemanly bow.

“
You have my word.” And
then he was gone.

I went around and got into the
passenger seat.

“
Like his word means
anything,” Drew scoffed.

I shook my head, not really wanting to
talk about it. “Let’s just go home.”

Without a word Drew turned the key and
started the engine. We rode home in silence, listening to the sound
of the tires on the pavement and our low breathing. Both of us had
things on our minds, but I still didn’t really feel like talking
about my feelings at the moment. The mission was at hand and first
priority for me. If we could take out a vampire line, then that
came first before anything.

~~***~~

The next morning I literally had to
drag myself out of bed. None of us had gotten much sleep, but we
needed to get on the road. We were mostly going to be traveling
during the day and hunkering down at night. It was just safer that
way.

We had packed the two vehicles the
night before so that we didn’t have to do it in the morning. We
were taking Zander’s truck and the Escalade; that way everyone
would fit comfortably since we had a lot of luggage as well.
Christina had far more than any of us. Plus, we had to bring food
since we weren’t sure where we would be able to get any, and we
didn’t want to spend half our travel time looting for
provisions.

We set out at dawn, leaving behind our
little fortress and Arcadia Falls as well.

We avoided the main freeways to the
cities by going around them on the back roads. Most of the cities
were guarded, some were not. It just took us a lot longer by going
around the major cities instead of through them. I was actually
quite surprised at how little action we got and took the
opportunity to sleep a lot in the car.