Chapter Thirty-One
The door slammed shut; Stavros threw all his weight on the old wood and wrought iron. On the other side, the thuds of many starving vampires hitting the door could be heard. Stavros was throwing all his supernatural strength into holding the door. He couldn’t hold it for long. Not against starving ones. Chase dropped me; thankfully, I landed on my feet. He went to hold the door with Stavros.
“What do you suggest we do now?” Chase asked in his gravelly voice, looking back at me.
I shook my head, unable to speak. I was still reeling over what I’d seen in the tunnel. Starving vampires were frightening, there was no doubt about that. And they were extremely hard to kill. Out of the fifty or so that chased us, I’d killed maybe ten. The only reason we had even been able to outrun them was because starving vampires didn’t think straight. Like zombies, all they cared about was the craving. Their narrow-mindedness had helped us so far, but our luck would run out eventually.
“The throne room isn’t far from here,” Chase told me. “We can probably make it there in a minute or so.”
“Do we have a minute?” I asked, watching them struggle to hold the door. Those starving vampires were desperate to get to us. That was another scary thing about starving vampires–it didn’t matter what type of blood they drank. Vampire, therianthrope, human. It was all the same to them. They’d try to rip apart a vampire as soon as they would a human.
It was silent for a few moments. The only sounds were the clawing, moans, and hisses from the vampires on the other side of the door. Finally, Stavros looked to Chase and started to speak. He was speaking so low that I couldn’t hear him. That was a bad sign. Chase looked livid. He shook his head adamantly and said something back. Stavros only shook his head sadly. As I watched the exchange, a curious feeling of dread settled in my stomach.
Chase gave Stavros one look. Then he left the door and walked towards me. Without stopping he picked me up and threw me over his shoulder. The realization of what was happening hit me so fast it made my head spin. Or maybe that was from being carried upside down.
“No!” I cried, beating on Chase’s back with my fists. Not like it made much of a difference. “We can’t leave him here!” I kicked, wriggled, did everything I could possibly do short of shooting Chase. I didn’t phase him at all. “Stavros!” I cried as Chase started to run. At that moment, I heard the door start to creak where the weight of all the starving vampires’ strength was winning out over Stavros’s. I felt physically ill. I heard the door cracking as the combined weight of all the starving vampires’ power and sheer physically energy won out against Stavros’s. I could see in my mind’s eye the vampires swarming into the room, covering Stavros, feeding off of him as he gave us the chance we needed to escape.
I don’t know how long Chase ran, but eventually we came to another break in the tunnel. Chase practically threw me down on my feet. I would have gotten mad, but I couldn’t really blame him. He was hurting more than I was right now.
Even so, I couldn’t believe what had just happened. My head was still reeling. Stavros had just sacrificed himself to give Chase and I a chance to escape. All those starving vampires... I felt sick. I knew I’d vomit if I didn’t calm down. I sat down on the ground and leaned forward, putting my head between my knees. I took in huge gulps of the dank, decaying air. Chase was just standing there, watching me as I suffered through my weakly human emotional process. After a few moments, he asked, “Can you stand?”
I looked up at him. Despite him being in his wolf-man form, his face still had some of the features that it did when he was human. And I could see all his emotions etched across that wolf-like face. Hurt. Regret. Anger. Hatred. His face gave up his soul. Oh, yes. He was definitely feeling much worse than I was right now. I suddenly felt very, very guilty about my oh-so-human reaction to the situation.
“Don’t ask stupid questions,” I told him. I stood in a fluid motion. Not nearly as fluid as a wereanimal or a vampire could have done it, but we vampire slayers do have some tricks up our sleeves. Once I was on my feet I wiped my hands–covered in damp earth–on my jeans and looked around. “Where are we?” I asked.
“This left tunnel here,” said Chase, gesturing to the break in the wall, “will take us straight to the throne room in the master’s lair.”
I stared into the dark opening. My flashlight had been lost while trying to outrun the starving vampires. The only light came from a grate in the ceiling, which allowed some moonlight to filter through. I closed my eyes and used that special “sixth sense” that vampire slayers have. “There are vampires down there,” I said.
“Yes,” answered Chase, who could smell them as surely as I could sense them.
“What are we waiting for?” I asked. He took my hand and started to pull me forward, helping to steady me as we made our way through the darkness. He walked quickly–which caused me to struggle even more with my unsure footing–but I didn’t complain. After all, the starving vampires weren’t too far behind. One could only guess how long it would be until they came looking for us.
As Chase pulled me along, I allowed my mind to wander for a minute. Not the smartest thing to do in this kind of situation, but I couldn’t help it. I was running through everyone we’d brought with us tonight. Everyone we’d so far failed. I thought of Shadow lying on that cold concrete floor, dead. I thought of the scream we’d heard in the tunnels. It could have been Morgana or Cassandra. I thought of Stavros. Our master, who had sacrificed himself to the starving vampires. So many could have been dead; we’d been separated a long time. And if that was the case–if more people that I cared about were dead, then so many more would die tonight. I made that promise to myself right there as I stumbled along beside Chase in the darkness.
I don’t know how long we’d been walking, but we eventually came to a place I recognized. The tunnel opened up into another one; a ladder was right in front of the opening. As we stepped around the ladder I realized it was a ladder I’d seen once before. It led down from the trap door in the old warehouse. Now that I knew where we were, I was feeling much better about things. Familiar places always made me more comfortable. Especially familiar places I’d managed to kill things in before.
This tunnel was still cold, damp, and dark, just like I remembered them. The continuous sound of dripping water was still there. There were no rats this time. I was pretty sure the starving vampires had taken care of any rodent infestations. But the tunnel still become cleaner as we moved forward, and before too long the light of the torches appeared. We ascended the concrete steps into the dry, clean tunnel with the torches. We stopped in front of the large wooden door.
Neither of us made a move. I didn’t know about Chase, but I was scared as hell of opening that door. Death was on the other side of that door. Not just for me, but for any of those monsters that I could take down with me. I could only pray someone would find their way out.
“Kayla?” came Chase’s voice. I knew that if I could hear it, then so could whatever was on the other side of the door, but neither of us cared at the moment.
I had to swallow before I could answer. “Yeah?” I choked out.
I looked up at him, and his now-human self caught me by surprise. He crushed his lips against mine. He poured all emotions into that one kiss. His fear, his self-loathing, his bitter anger and sadness, and most of all, his love. That was the worst part, because now I knew that he loved me, and, more importantly, that I loved him right back. Now we both knew, and we probably wouldn’t live long enough for it to really matter.
He broke away from me and leaned his forehead against mine.
Sometimes silence is so much better than words.
With our foreheads still touching I drew both guns. He reached out and pushed the door open, shifting back to wolf-man form as the inside of the room was revealed to us.
The throne room was chaos. I saw Claudiana, Cassie, and Antonio, the little traitorous bastard, watching in amusement as Morgana, Broderick, Nick, and Cassandra battled more bears and starving vampires. All four of them were covered in blood; I wondered how much of it was their own. Chase and I rushed into the room, guns firing. Nearest to me, a bear was ready to swipe Nick across the mid-section. He brought his sword down and sliced the bear’s shoulder. I fired into the back of its head and down it went, its paw inches from Nick. He looked up in relief. “About time you got here,” he said as I ran past him. I almost didn’t hear him over the rushing in my ears. All my attention had become focused on the three vampires at the far side of the throne room. Claudiana was, of course, sitting on the throne, watching like the queen she thought she was. It wouldn’t be long now before Cassie would be sitting on that throne, Claudiana’s power absorbed and her heart devoured.
I vowed that before I died, I’d make sure Cassie’s new found destiny never came into play.
The three of them watched as I wove my way through bears and starving vamps, killing, or at least injuring, everything that got in my way. Only Antonio seemed vaguely worried. He knew that I was planning on killing him, too, especially now that Stavros... But I couldn’t think it. I wouldn’t think it. Cassie and Claudiana, on the other hand, watched me in anticipation. I think they were both looking forward to this.
So was I.
“You may have her,” Claudiana said. Cassie smiled, and glided with vampire swiftness towards me. Really looking at her, I could see that there was nothing of my former protégé in this vampire. She was just another monster. It was Cassie’s face, but the mind was gone. Gone, and replaced by something much more evil. It made the thought of killing her so much easier to handle. I still remembered the look she had given me, right before Mikhail had ripped her throat out. She had begged me to kill her, and I wouldn’t, couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t be making the same mistake again.
She smiled at me. An innocent, fifteen-year-old smile. A smile that almost looked like the teenager I’d practically adopted. Almost. I fired a silver bullet at her, hitting her in the shoulder. The wound burned. It was meant to do nothing more than warn her that she was just a monster to me, and she couldn’t use what she looked like to hurt me. She actually looked shocked, like she hadn’t actually believed I’d be able to do anything against her.
I love surprising people.
She lunged forward; another silver bullet hit her, this time in the hip. The worst thing about fighting vampires is that, as a general rule, they move faster than humans. It makes trying to shoot them extremely difficult and dangerous. That’s why the earliest vampire slayers killed the vampires when they were asleep. Because trying to fight a moving vampire is a little like trying to catch air in a jar. She moved too quickly for me; I felt it as her long nails raked across my back, splitting the skin deeply. I almost bowed under the pain, but I really hated to give her that satisfaction.
From behind me I heard a cry of, “Broderick! No!” I instinctively turned. I couldn’t see Broderick, but I could see a swarming pile of those zombie-like vampires, and, just beyond that, Morgana staring with wide eyes.
It’s hard to say if anyone could have stopped her. Before I could even react, she was wading through the feeding frenzy, pulling away the starving ones with every once of that werewolf strength. Chase went after her, trying to pull her out of harm’s way. Being the older sibling, she was stronger than he was, and she managed to push him so far away that he slammed against the far wall. Morgana was only fixated on one thing, and that was getting to Broderick amid the pile of hungry creatures. I knew already from the way that they were starting to cling to her that they had finished Broderick off.
I knew I should have shot her when she started to scream. I should have moved to put her out of her misery. But I hesitated, and when I did, the gun was wrenched from my hands, folded up like it was nothing more than clay, and thrown aside. Cassie’s other hand shot out and grabbed my throat. Oh, God, I thought. This is it. I waited for it, waited for her to strangle me or bite me or something, but it never happened. I heard the gunshot. Cassie dropped me and cradled her arm to her chest. A silver bullet had ripped through her wrist.
As a vampire who was only five years dead, Cassie still had the mentality of a newborn vampire. Which meant that, luckily for me, she could become easily distracted, especially when being attacked. Newborns usually go for whomever attacks them as opposed to whomever poses the bigger threat. She turned towards the direction the bullet had come from. Cassandra was coming towards us, her clothes covered in blood, limping slightly. Her gun was steady, though, and ready to fire another bullet in Cassie if she tried anything. Cassie looked at Cassandra, then me, and then she let her gaze flit around the room. She was planning something, although what it was, there was no way of telling.
I pulled the UV gun as Cassie started moving. She flitted across the room; she was heading for Nick. Cassandra and I started firing, but she was too close to Nick, and there was no way we’d get a clear shot. I started running for him just as Cassie reached him. He turned, preparing to behead her, but she wrenched the sword from his grasp. With her free hand she pulled him to her and sank her fangs into his neck. I raised my gun but I couldn’t shoot. She had moved so that his body was a shield over hers. She dropped Nick with blood still oozing from the wound in his neck. I couldn’t tell if he was dead or not.
Something in Cassandra snapped, I think, when she saw Nick lying there. She took off past me, guns blazing. The little bitch of a vampire dodged each shot easily. I knew Cassandra wasn’t thinking clearly–there was no way otherwise that all those shots would miss Cassie. I knew all too well what Cassandra was feeling, though. I wasn’t thinking clearly either. Usually I could predict, or at least anticipate, a vampire’s next move. It’s a slayer thing. But I had no idea where Cassie would move to next, so any shots I got off were an exercise in futility.
It happened too fast.
One minute Cassandra was there right next to the former slayer-in-training. Then, I saw the flash of light on the blade as the sword came from nowhere. I bit out one scream as Cassandra’s head rolled across the floor.
Cassie dropped the sword. She looked so fucking smug. Dropping my gun back into its holster, I grabbed my bow and pulled out one of my arrows. The action was fast–adrenaline had given me some of my old speed back–and within seconds I had shot the arrow. I missed her heart by mere centimeters. Instead of hurting her, I only pissed her off. She rushed towards me. I fished out another arrow, took another shot, made another miss. This time the arrow lodged in her stomach. She would be hurting from the silver tips, but it still wasn’t enough to kill her. As she closed in on me she snapped the arrows in half, throwing the discarded ends on the ground.
From her throne, Claudiana started to laugh.
It was a high, cold, and slightly maniacal sound.
Then other laughter joined it.
It echoed off the walls and seemed to magnify, the echoes growing louder and louder until all other noise was drowned out, and the only thing I could hear was that laughter. I put my hands to my ears and screamed, as loud as I could, for as long as I could. When my throat became too sore for me to scream any longer, I collapsed to my knees, falling into the pool of blood that had spread from the body at my side. Still, there was laughter.
I took a shuddering breath and looked once more at the body beside me. Where had I failed? Where had I gone wrong? People were dead, and it was all my fault. And now, I was going to die, too. I just hoped someone was still alive in this God-forsaken place, and that somehow, they’d manage to escape.
As the source of the laughter came closer, the laughter growing louder, I cursed myself. I should have known better. I had thought that little bitch was going to help me, but she had betrayed me. No, not betrayed–what had Chase said? She didn’t like to be directly involved, she just liked to play games. Now, because of her fondness for games, people I knew and loved were dead. Now, because of her, I was dead.
Some game.
Cassie was behind me; she held me by the throat now. Slowly she pulled me to my feet. “Finally, we meet again,” she said, the words a caress at my ear. Not for the first time that night, I felt sick. “What’s the matter?” she asked. “Don’t I get a ‘hello?’” If I opened my mouth, I knew I was going to vomit. I did not want the last thing I ever tasted to be vomit. She laughed again, sliding her nails across the soft skin of my throat. “I could rip your throat out right now,” she said, “but why waste all that precious blood? It would be so much more productive to drain you and eat your heart. That way, I’ll have all your power.”
“What would you want my measly power for?” I finally spoke. “I’m just a human.”
She laughed again. Apparently I was amusing even in the face of death. “Oh, you’re no human, Kayla,” she said. “Far from it, actually.” She ran her fingers across my throat again, this time pressing hard enough to draw the tiniest amount of blood. Turning me so that I was facing her, she leaned forward and licked up my blood with one long, sure stroke of her tongue, like some terrifying, undead cat. “Tell me,” she said. “How does it feel to know you’re going to die?”
It took me a moment to answer. I was weighing which response would equal a less painful death. “You won’t kill me,” I finally told her. “Cassie.”
“How dare you use my human name,” she hissed. She picked me up, her small hands gripping my upper arms so hard I was sure she just might crack bone, and threw me. I sailed through the air and crashed into the stone wall of the throne room. My head hit the rough stone and the room erupted into white light. I fell to the floor, landing amongst the remains of the damage that had been done the last time I had been here.
I knew I should move, but I was still seeing stars, and there was a searing pain in the back of my head. Slowly I reached up and felt the spot where my head had hit the wall. When I brought my hand back, it was covered in blood.
All right, I thought, as I watched her advance through my barely-open eyes. Maybe she would kill me.
As I struggled to my feet, two alpha bears–one I recognized from before, and a new one–brought Chase up to the throne and forced him to his knees in front of Claudiana. “What should we do with this one?” the new one, a female, asked.
Claudiana cocked her head to one side, seemingly putting great thought into her decision. With an angelic smile that sent a shiver down my spine, she stood and descended from the throne. She stopped in front of Chase–he had shifted back into his human form and he seemed to be in pain. On his knees in human form, she was now the same height as him. She put her hands on either side of his face and leaned forward, kissing him on the forehead. “I think we shall keep this one,” she said. “Necressius will need a plaything when she takes over, and this one is so entertaining.”
Claudiana held his head still; even though she looked like a child, it wasn’t hard to see that she could crush his skull between her hands. “What do you think,” she asked quietly, but still loud enough that she knew I could hear, “about watching the woman you love die?” She looked at me. Her face was rapturous. She was enjoying every moment of this. She lived for the death and the destruction.
“I think that would be a suitable punishment, my wolf. Don’t you agree?”
