Darkest Hour (25 page)

Adam’s rifle clicked dry. Instead of reloading, he threw the weapon into the snow and grabbed Lockman by the shoulder. “Back through the portal.”

Lockman resisted. “I’m not leaving these men behind.”

“There’s no one left.”

One of the transports, tipped on its side, exploded. Orange light from the pluming flames illuminated the battlefield. Lockman could still see some of their people fighting the onslaught. They had slipped through the initial attack. But none of them stood any chance of slipping back through to the portal. Even as Lockman realized this, he saw most of them tackled and torn apart. Essentially, Adam was right. There was no one left who could be saved.

But the crop dusters sat upon their flatbeds, untouched. If the silver wasn’t working for some reason, the holy water was all they had left. They couldn’t leave those for the vamps to commandeer.

“The planes,” Lockman hollered over the last chatters of gunfire.

He no sooner shifted his weight to charge forward, when a vamp dropped in front of him, fangs bared and face bloody. This one looked like a fresh turn. It wore a set of coveralls with a name patch that read, “Hank.”

Lockman jammed the barrel of his rifle into the vamp’s mouth and opened up.

The back half of the vamp’s head blew apart enough that Lockman could see his rifle’s muzzle flash coming out the hole. The vamp dropped to the ground and made sideways snow angels as it squirmed, pretty much headless. Immune to silver or not, decapitation was difficult for a vamp to recover from.

Decapitating over a thousand vamps wasn’t going to happen, though. And as more closed in, Lockman knew getting to those planes wasn’t going to happen either. Against his every instinct, Lockman turned and ran with Adam back through the portal.

On the other side they almost collided with Dixon and the mermaid, Alexia, on her all-terrain wheelchair.

“Shut it down,” Lockman shouted. He charged at the crew of scientists still looking so proud of themselves, waving his arm over his head. “Shut it the fuck down.”

They gaped at him, frozen. Obstermeyer looked the dumbest among them, his fish face all puffed out and his curly hair swaying in the breeze.

Then a pair of vamps came through the portal. One of them hopped onto Alexia and tore her throat out. Another tackled Dixon before he could fire a single round. He struggled on the ground until the vamp punched a fist through his gut. Dixon’s limbs jittered for a second after that, then he lay still as the vamp chewed into his neck.

One of the scientists—not Obstermeyer—came to his senses and started throwing switches on the machine. An instant later, the pane of light in the archway flickered like an old fluorescent bulb then went out. The machine’s constant humming wound down and died with the sound of a sigh.

Adam stared at the vamp feeding on Dixon as if hypnotized. The ogre looked stunned. Lockman thought he had probably looked much the same when he first walked into the chaos on the other side of the portal.

“Adam.” Lockman sprinted a wide arc around the vamp on Alexia and slammed his shoulder into the ogre’s side, trying to nudge him along. “Snap out of it. We have to put these vamps down.”

The ogre shook his head and blinked. He tore open his parka and shrugged it off, revealing the sword strapped to his back. He drew the sword from the shield and charged at Dixon’s vamp. The vamp was so wrapped up in feeding, it didn’t sense Adam’s approach until the last second—just soon enough to look up and get its head lopped off. The head rolled one way and the body flopped the other, leaving a motionless Dixon in a wet mess from both the vamp’s blood and his own.

The vamp on Alexia snapped to attention. It knelt on her lap in the wheelchair. Blood dripped off its chin. Its eyes flared as it took in Adam and his sword. Then it launched into the air, screaming. It sailed toward Adam as if shot from a cannon. Another young vamp, too fond of its new found power to realize it needed to control it.

Adam grabbed the hilt of his sword in both hands and raised the point to meet the vamp. The vamp skewered itself on the sword, but its momentum drove the ogre backward. Adam tilted on his heels and hit the ground on his back with a breathy grunt.

On top of him, the sword sticking through its chest and out its back, the vamp nipped at Adam like a starved mutt. Adam had enough strength to hold the vamp back, but with all its thrashing, he wouldn’t be able to hold it for long.

Lockman knew Adam’s sword had to be at least coated with silver if not made from it entirely. Yet the element had none of the effects it normally would on the vamp. It continued to twist and snarl as if the sword stuck in it were nothing but an accessory.

Unlike many ogres, Lockman didn’t carry a sword. He had a KA-BAR knife tucked in his boot. Not much use for decapitations. He scanned his surroundings, looking for anything he could use as a suitable weapon. He still clung to his rifle, but he knew the magazine didn’t have enough rounds to obliterate the vamp’s head like he had that other one.

All he saw around him was grass with a hint of frost on it from the cold night. Not so much as a rock to try and bash the thing’s head in with.

Meanwhile, Adam’s grip slipped and the vamp nearly took off a piece of his face. The ogre managed to get an arm between them first and shoved the vamp back a little.

Hell with it. He had to work with what he had and hope for the best.

He dug his KA-BAR out and charged, knife in one hand, rifle up and ready in the other. He pressed the barrel of the gun against the vamp’s head and pulled the trigger. As he suspected, the gun quit after only a short burst. The force of the shot knocked the vamp off of Adam, though. Lockman wasted no time following through. He leaped forward and thrust the knife up under the vamp’s chin, clean through to the roof of its mouth. The knife temporarily pinned the vamp’s mouth shut. Only now Lockman was left without a weapon.

The vamp kicked out, catching Lockman in the gut and throwing him back a dozen yards before he hit the ground rolling. The creature hopped to its feet and wrenched the knife out. Blood soaked the front of its clothes and what spurted down from under its jaw hardly seemed to make a difference. It hissed at Lockman, spraying a mist of red from its mouth.

With its attention on Lockman, it didn’t see Obstermeyer come up behind it with a crucifix in hand. “Hey!”

The vamp spun to face the physicist. It’s eyes locked on the cross.

Obstermeyer shook it in the vamps face, a smug smile on his face like he’d had when his machine came to life. Lockman both admired the physicist’s surprising bravery and pitied his stupidity.

The vamp batted the cross out of Obstermeyer’s hand. It tumbled away into the dark. Obstermeyer’s eyes bulged like never before. His cheeks puffed. The vamp swung Lockman’s knife and cut halfway through Obstermeyer’s throat. The physicist dropped quickly, gurgling.

Lockman growled as he took to his feet. No matter his feelings toward Obstermeyer, he was still one of
theirs
. Another casualty out of too damn many.

The vamp turned back to Lockman. It made a noise that might have been a laugh.

Adam had since regained his feet, but he stood as helpless and impotent as Lockman. Neither of them had anything left to fight with.

One vamp. They couldn’t take out
one
fucking vamp.

Lockman realized leaving behind those planes didn’t matter a bit. If the silver didn’t work, and crosses didn’t work, holy water would only wash off the blood. These vamps had become nearly unstoppable.

“I’ve enjoyed fighting by your side, Craig Lockman,” Adam said. “It has been an honor.” Then he charged the vamp barehanded.

What the hell? Crazy ogre. “Adam, no.”

The vamp met Adam halfway, colliding into him with fangs bared, hands in claws and scratching at Adam’s face. This time, Adam didn’t push the vamp away. He let the vamp latch on and sink its teeth into his throat. It gave him the leverage he needed to wrench the sword free. He tossed the sword in Lockman’s direction, then hugged the vamp to him.

The vamp didn’t seem to realize the ogre had sacrificed himself to trap it. The beast continued to feed, wrapping its legs around Adam’s waist while Adam staggered about like a drunk. Lockman knew from experience that an ogre’s strength was immense. But he wouldn’t last long.

The sword lay at Lockman’s feet. He grabbed it and charged forward, crying out until his lungs ached and his throat rasped. When he reached Adam and the vamp, he hesitated. He couldn’t chance a swing that might hit the ogre.

Adam’s eyes glared over the vamp’s shoulder. “Do it.” He fell to his knees.

Lockman lifted the sword over his head and swung downward, catching the vamp on the side of the neck it had canted upward as it gnawed on Adam. But Lockman had hedged in his effort to keep from cutting Adam. The blow sliced only about a quarter of the way through the vamp’s throat.

Lockman got its attention, though.

The vamp detached from Adam and spun around to face Lockman. Fury burned in its mad eyes, yet its fanged mouth curled up in a smile. The thing looked about ready to say something.

Lockman swung the sword and lopped off its head.

The vamp’s expression turned shocked as its head bounced away. A straight fountain of blood shot from the stub of its neck still on its shoulders. The body stood on its feet a couple seconds, hands opening and closing into fists. Then it tried to take a step forward, stumbled, swayed, and collapsed to the ground.

Lockman dropped the sword and ran to Adam’s side. The ogre lay on his back, eyes wide and searching, as if the stars were telling him something. The wound in his neck was about the size of Lockman’s fist, exposing torn tendons and broken arteries pulsing with blood. Even with his big ogre heart and massive ogre strength, Adam wouldn’t survive the damage.

The ogre tried to speak.

Taking Adam’s hand, Lockman hushed him. “Don’t struggle any more than you have to.”

But Adam refused to stay silent. “What...happened...?”

Every nerve ending in Lockman’s body burned like an ember. He shook when he answered. “Gabriel got there first.”

The ogre’s lips parted as if to say more, then his eyes fluttered shut, one long last breath sighed out his mouth, and he went still.

Lockman couldn’t help but think of Marty at that moment. How many from his clan had now died while fighting alongside Lockman? He looked up and around him. Alexia hung limp in her wheelchair. Dixon lay in a pool of his own blood. Obstermeyer’s dead eyes stared into the night with no hint of his smugness left. The other scientists had run off somewhere, but they didn’t matter.

All the warriors were dead.

Only Lockman remained.

Alone in a fight he could never win.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Still think your father can save you?

Gabriel strolled through the exquisite death spread out across the open snow. Many of his new followers still suckled on the strewn bodies. He had never seen so many well-fed vampires at once. Some that had fed enough walked with Gabriel like acolytes on a pilgrimage. The worship in their eyes was so plain. And how could they not worship him? He had taught them how to shed the last of their weaknesses on the mortal plane. He had made them all but invincible.

I see dead vamps, so maybe not so invincible.

The girl made herself sound confident. If she did not reside within him, Gabriel might have wondered if she felt any fear at all. But he could sense it. Plenty of fear. Plenty of doubt. Finally, she had begun to understand Gabriel’s true power.

Don’t get cocky, asswipe. This ain’t over.

No. Not over at all. In fact, this conquest on the outskirts of Barrow marked the beginning. The millions of ancient voices had proved their worth. At Gabriel’s hands lay immortality, and the ability to pass it around like candy to sweet-toothed children.

The smell of cold blood surrounded him. Gabriel inhaled deeply. Barrow had worked out well beyond his most extreme fantasies. He had over two-thousand vampires at his beck and call. But he couldn’t wallow in his success. His plans stretched well beyond having a vampire army. Time to honor Otto’s memory and continue their quest to awaken the world to the darkness. Let them know of the power around them. Let those strong enough to wield it, rise up against those who wished to oppress it. And let the weak become fodder for that rising.

Beautiful. One day, he would have to write a book. A new Bible. The whole world would worship him for bringing about their dark salvation.

“Come,” he shouted, turning back toward the city. “We no longer need to hide in the night. Let us finish with this small place and move on to greater horizons.”

He led the way back to Barrow, surrounded by his two-thousand fanged worshipers.

My dad will still stop you.

Gabriel laughed.
Please. By now your father is probably dead.

The girl said no more, because she knew it was true. Craig Lockman had become but a footnote in the history of Gabriel’s reign.

Chapter Thirty-Five

Since when had airfare become so damn expensive?

Kate had to clean out her bank account in order to buy the ticket for her flight to Texas. Of course, she didn’t plan on returning to New York, so she saved some money by skipping on her apartment’s last month of rent. The flight itself seemed to take an age. Her seat felt like a coffin. She sat trapped between a snoring old lady and a chatty businessman that kept insisting every ten minutes that he normally
never flew coach
.

The air in the terminal smelled as fresh as a spring day in a pine forest compared to what she suffered through on the plane. When she actually stepped outside, she squinted like Gollum coming out of his cave for the first time.

At the rental counter, she used one of the credit cards Craig had given her seemingly forever ago. For some reason, while establishing herself in New York, she had refused to use the card, though it would have come in handy on several occasions. A kind of petulant rebellion, she guessed. She felt no qualms about using it now. The finish line was in sight.