Bloodfire (Empire of Fangs) (7 page)

9.

“Who do you suppose this is?”
 
James
Sollero
asked.
 
He was peeking through the blinds and frowning.

“Someone’s out there?” Jennifer asked nervously.
 
She jumped up from the couch.
 
A man on the television was talking in detail about how aliens built Las Vegas.
 
He was making his case that Bugsy
Siegal
actually was an
insectoid
from deep space, and that Vegas was the perfect front to cover their underground hive.
 
Jennifer jabbed at the remote and muted the man .

“Yeah.
 
Yellow
stang
.
 
Down on the road.
 
Just sitting there.”
 
James had begun to sprout a goatee and found it hard to not stroke the new stubble whenever he was lost in thought, which meant he pretty much always had his hand to his chin.
 
Mark Lane still hadn’t called him back, and that had put his stomach in a knot.
   

They had been very cautious though when coming to this hideout.
 
The little house belonged to Jennifer’s brother Lee, who used it as a sort of retreat when he took a bad whipping in the casinos.
 
Roulette was his usual poison, but sometimes craps got in a few jabs.
 
Lee had disappeared some months ago, and not a soul had heard from him.
 

Jennifer had been preparing for the day James would be released from Whispering Pines for many years now.
 
They covered their tracks well when they left Denver, leaving all sorts of clues that pointed to Canada in case anyone was looking.
 
They also had only made calls through Jennifer’s laptop, using a top-of-the-line scrambler that put them in Dubai if anyone was tracing them.
 
They even had cut and dyed each other’s hair to be safe.
 
For all these reasons, James didn’t think much of the car.
 
A bright yellow mustang was not exactly an inconspicuous car for an assassin.
 

 
“Could be bookies.
 
Looking for Lee,” Jennifer offered after joining James at the window.
 
“Who knows what he got into.”
 

James nodded thoughtfully and closed the blinds.
 
“Let’s hope so.”
 
He walked quickly across the hardwood floors and lifted up a small section of the floor that was on hinges, revealing a dark compartment below.
 
He lowered himself down the wooden stairs and fished around in the darkness until he found the string to the light and gave it tug.
 

The small area was cluttered with equipment.
 
They had “borrowed” quite a bit of equipment from his and Jennifer’s old lab.
  
He found what he was looking for: a small silvery gun with a canister filled with a glowing substance attached to it.
 
The gun itself was supposed to be used to administer small bursts of gasses.
 
It was a relic from a military contract Jennifer had once been assigned to, but had fizzled out and was shut down.
 
Due to the usual entangled military bureaucracy, the weapon had never been reclaimed.
 
With the little time James and Jennifer had, they had managed to convert a batch of the liquid sunlight into gaseous form.
 
The creatures could protect their skin, but they still had to breathe.
 
Or so went the theory.
 

James climbed up the stairs back to the living room where Jennifer was clutching a beastly Desert Eagle pistol.
 
James frowned at her.
 
“That thing will break your arm if you shoot it.”
 

Jennifer put her other hand firmly on the gun and held it tight.
 
“Better a broken arm than eternal damnation.”
 
She had found the massive pistol under the pillow in the bedroom, along with a box of hollow points in the dresser drawer.
 
Clearly Jennifer wasn’t the only one in her family who was prepared for the worst.

They both peered through the window.
 
A girl was approaching up the hill.
 

James laughed and relaxed a bit.
 
“I think it might be one of Lee’s girlfriends.”
 
Jennifer hadn’t said much about Lee’s romantic exploits, but from her tone when she talked about him, James figured they were every bit as excessive and dangerous as his gambling habits.

Jennifer narrowed her eyes and watched the dainty blonde ascend the hill.
 
Was she wearing a wedding dress?

10.

Drake moved quickly to flank the house, darting from shadow to shadow.
 
In his hand was his true beloved: his sword,
Klaue
, which had been at his side since it was first thrust into his hands as a boy.
   

He used the tall statuesque cactus and the rocks as cover.
 
Abby didn’t seem to notice him—
her senses were weak
, Drake though.
Undisciplined
.
 
If she survived this encounter, he would have to teach her to better mind her surroundings; to be aware of the shadows and that which crept in them.
 

Drake reached the side of the house and ducked under a window.
 
Inside he could hear people arguing.
 
It was James
Sollero
and the woman, Jennifer Lee.
 

He waited and listened.
 
Abby had reached the door and was knocking.
 
The arguing stopped and someone answered the door.
 
Abby went into her prepared spiel, as Drake had instructed her.
 
She told them her silly new husband had forgotten to fill the tank before leaving Vegas.
 
How they had been a bit tipsy.
 
She was embarrassed, and apologized for the inconvenience and asked if she could possibly use the phone.
 

Drake was impressed by her acting abilities.
 
It had to be a supreme challenge for the girl to be pleasant even for a moment.

There was a long pause and then the man said he could bring down some gas, enough to get them to the next station some miles down the road.
 
She thanked them both profusely in her convincingly chipper voice and began walking back down the hill towards the car.
 
The door shut and Drake could hear whispering inside of the house.
 

As Abby stumbled down the hill, she turned her head a bit and grinned at Drake.
 

Drake was slightly impressed.
 
Perhaps she wasn’t as daft as he thought.
 
Maybe there was hope yet for the strumpet.
 

He watched her go down the hill, her dress and blonde hair all lit up in the moonlight.
 
She held her dress up off the dirt and sand.
 
He couldn’t help but be a little stirred by the image.
 

A moment later the door opened and James came out, holding a red canister in his hand.
 
Drake peered around the corner of the house at him.
 
The man coughed and stretched, before he began to follow Abby down the hill.
 
Drake noticed the unmistakable bulk and glint of a gun tucked into the back of the man’s pants.

Drake waited, and as expected the woman came out, also hiding a gun in her pants, and trotted after James.
 

Drake did not like guns.
 
They were the cowardly evolution of the bow and arrow, which he also was not very fond of.
 
He had pulled at least a hundred of the blasted things from his body.
 
The bullets were equally annoying.
 
He preferred a more honorable style of combat, but he would take any action he could get.
 

He crouched and followed, and the shadows seemed to cling to him as he moved.
 
It was a power that took years to master, and Drake was no master yet, but his bride stole enough attention that he needn’t be.
 
He had hoped Abby would be able to get in the house.
 
It couldn’t be done without an invitation.
 
Drake never quite understood why, but to trespass into someone’s home was unheard of and a repellent notion to any of his kind.
 
It was an aversion a vampire must accept just like the sunlight must be accepted as death itself.
 

The trio had reached the car, and Drake took position behind a stout rock a few dozen paces away.
 

He could hear them.
 
They were asking where her husband was.
 
They were nervous now, and Abby tried to lie about him being impatient and foolish.
 
Perhaps he went down the road on foot, towards the station.

But they weren’t buying it.
 
Calm voices suddenly became shouts.
 
Drake was ready to move in when his phone in his pocket vibrated.
 
He cursed the vile technology, but only Damon had the number, and he knew his mission would not be interrupted without a good reason.
 
He opened the phone and read the message:

We need the Girl.
 

Drake cursed under his breath and shoved the phone into his pocket.
 
He hated taking hostages.
 

Before he could recover from the distraction, Abby had let out a piercing scream.
 
The man cursed loudly and the woman said look out, and then a gunshot rung out and boomed through the canyons and hills.
 
Drake stood, and lunged into the chaos.
 

11.

It all happened so quickly.
 
The girl dove at him and Jennifer fired.
 
The bullet ripped into the girl’s shoulder and sent her flying back onto the road.
  
She rolled there, hissing and her face transformed into something horrible.

James looked back at Jennifer; she too was rolling on the ground in pain.
 
She held her wrist.
 
The kick of the gun must have broken it.
 
When James looked back at where the newlywed had been, but she had vanished.
 
He pulled the sunlight gun out from the waistband of his pants just as Jennifer shouted “Look out!” to him.

He whirled and fired into what looked like a cloud of black smoke moving at him.
 
The gun erupted and a cloud of glimmering light filled the air in front of him.
 
The murky shield of shadows peeled off the creature.
 
It roared in pain and fell backwards—its face boiling.
 
The cloud of light hung there, and the anguished creature crawled desperately away from it, abandoning its sword. James wasted no time.
 
The gun was only good for one shot.
 
He tossed it aside and instead grabbed hold of the sword this creature had been wielding.
 
It was an ugly, jagged thing.
   

He stood over the creature as it crawled in agony.
 
He touched the blade to the creature’s neck once to steady his aim, and then lifted the sword high over his head.
 

“You came to the wrong place bloodsucker!” he shouted.
 

Before he could swing down and end the wretched creature’s life, he heard the whimper of Jennifer behind him.

“I wouldn’t,” the girl in the wedding dress said.
 
She had Jennifer by the hair and held the big gun in her other hand.
 
James looked at Jennifer, her sharp eyes were defiant.
 

“They’re
gonna
kill us anyway.
 
Just do it,” Jennifer said flatly.
 
Abby put the gun to Jennifer’s head.
 

James tightened his grip on the sword, but he couldn’t bring himself to swing.

“Please, don’t hurt her,” James said finally.
 
He dropped the sword and held up his arms.
 

“Stupid,” Drake said.
 
He was standing now, and had quickly snatched up the sword from the dirt.
 
The cloud of light was gone, but it had left half of the creature’s face burnt and scarred.
 
James gasped.
 
He felt a sharp pain in his stomach.
 
He looked down to see the sword buried into his stomach.
 
Drake jammed the sword deeper before jerking it out.
  
James fell to his knees with a look of shock on his face.
 

Jennifer wailed and Abby smacked her with the butt of her gun, knocking her unconscious.
 

Drake stood there for a moment, watching James hold his stomach and moan.
 
He was surprised at the man’s resilience.
 

“Go ahead,” James said weakly.
 
“Have a sip.”
 

Drake laughed.
 
“No thanks. Italian blood is too thick for me.
 
Bad for the heart.”
 
He looked over at his wife.
 
“You did well babe.
 
Put her in the trunk.
 
Damon wants her alive.”

Abby opened her lips to complain, but then closed them.
 
“I’m still hungry.”
 
She said flatly.

“There’s a damn station up the road,” Drake snapped.
 
“We’ll get you a nice plump trucker.
  
Something easy.
 
This one is important,” he pointed the tip of the sword at the unconscious woman.
 
Abby sighed and dragged Jennifer by her hair to the car and lifted her into the trunk.
 

Drake looked down at James.
 
“You know, you put up a good fight.
 
For that I’m going to give you an honorable death.”
 
He couldn’t help but admire the tenacity of the
Solleros
.
  
He gripped both hands on
Klaue
and took the wide stance of an executioner.
 

His cut was clean.
 

Drake wiped the blood on his sword on the headless body’s shirt.
 
He returned
Klaue
to the case and placed it carefully in the backseat.
 
A pair of headlights was cresting over the horizon.

“Get in the car,” Drake commanded.

Abby ran around the side and hopped in the passenger side.
 
Drake hopped in behind the wheel.
 
He punched it and the Mustang roared away.
 

“That was fun,” Abby said, touching the burnt side of Drake’s face.
 
He winced.