Driven (11 page)

A
starving man takes what he can get, so I did reach out for that
golden conduit, skimming off something that was less than a tithe of
a tithe of those terrible energies. Even that little bit of power
kindled a fire that went raging through my insides.

My
hybrid nerves didn't dull this pain, but I forced it below the level
of consciousness and threw all of my efforts to supporting my beast.
She clawed and bit, but I was more than just a savage animal, I had
reason at my beck and call. Man had been building in one form or
another since we'd first stacked two branches on top of each other to
form a windbreak. I called upon those skills and began building a
fortress inside of my mind.

Brick
by immaterial brick, I built up a translucent wall and with each
course of bricks I felt the pressure inside of my mind lessen. The
mentalist tried to undo my work, tried to break down my wall, but my
beast was there shredding his attacks, chasing him off while I
continued to encircle us in a tower that was impervious to anything
he might try to do to us.

It
seemed as though my work lasted for hours, and even the energy I'd
siphoned away from my beast was gone, consumed in the effort, by the
time I finished, but when I was done we were alone inside of my mind.

I
opened my eyes and pulled myself to my feet, heading for the heavy
metal door only a few steps above me. My beast paced back and forth
on the inside of my mental wall. She didn't like being caged, even
when the cage was for our protection, but now she had the measure of
our enemy and she knew we couldn't defeat him on the terrain of our
own mind. She would leave the wall be for now. She wanted him dead at
least as much as I did.

I
paused just outside the gray door to the second floor, sniffing to
confirm that the vampires were all on this level. Nobody had gone up
to the third story, which meant that I'd probably contained them to
this one floor unless they'd already started fleeing down the fire
escape.

A
series of deep breaths oxygenated my blood and then I threw open the
door and dashed into the corridor beyond it. It was past the point
where I could hope to sneak up on the vampires, instead it was time
for boldness and speed.

Two
vampires were waiting for me a dozen feet down the left-hand
corridor. They looked like twins. Two men, both golden-haired, tall
and slender. The weapons in their hands were likewise matched
weapons, huge swords that were meant to be wielded with two hands. I
closed with them and hoped that neither was old enough to have
developed any kind of power, telekinetic or otherwise.

Their
weapons were fierce, heavy things that would easily take off even one
of my massive limbs, but they weren't the ideal choice for fighting
in such close quarters. I jumped back out of range of the first slash
and made as if to follow along behind the sword so that I could bowl
the lead vampire over, but the second vampire launched an attack only
a heartbeat behind his fellow.

Instead
of advancing forward I found myself forced further and further back.
They were used to fighting together, displaying a skill and speed
that would have been beautiful to watch if it hadn't been directed
towards the job of ending my life.

The
wound in my chest continued to ooze a slow flow of blood.
Strategically positioned muscles inside of my body had already
contracted in an effort to direct most of the blood in my body out
and around the damaged section, but even for a hybrid that wasn't
enough to completely stop the bleeding.

The
weakness that I'd felt before had all been mental, though it hadn't
been any less real because of that. It hadn't vanished, but it was
quickly being joined by a physical exhaustion that threatened to make
me clumsy and slow, easy prey for the vampires who were still
pressing me.

The
blades came at me again, slicing through the air with inhuman speed
as I ducked and retreated, occasionally knocking them to one side
with my claws in a spray of sparks. We were approaching a decision
point.

I
was tired and getting slower, but it was more than that. The corridor
was too narrow for both of them to get at me like they would have
liked. Instead of coming at me from multiple angles they were forced
to trade off on who led, one aggressively attacking me while the
other waited to strike if I tried to close and kill the lead vampire.
They had driven me far enough back now that it would only take
another step or two and I would be in the broad junction of corridors
next to the elevator. If they surrounded me I was as good as dead.

There
was a chance that I could slip under the reach of one of them and
kill him while the other was still too far away to help, but it was
an infinitesimally small chance. It was much more likely that they'd
just bleed me out, safe behind the added reach that their weapons
granted them.

I
stepped backwards as a blade licked out in an effort to cut me across
the neck. I knocked the strike from the second vampire away with my
claws and then had to step backwards again to avoid the backstroke
from the first vampire which otherwise would have taken off my arm.

The
second step was the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. I
was far enough back into the junction now that the first vampire
started forward at an angle, anxious to flank me by getting into the
other hall so that they could pin me against the elevator.

The
smart
thing to do, the thing they expected me to do, was to rush the first
vampire while they were spaced slightly further apart than they had
been. Failing that, I probably should have retreated more quickly,
angling backwards myself so that I ended up in the other corridor and
kept the fight from changing drastically one way or another by
denying them the room they'd been hoping for.

I
did neither. Instead I retreated, but rather than heading towards the
other corridor I backed right up against the corner they'd hoped to
trap me in. It was suicide except for the fact that during one of our
last couple of exchanges I'd caught a glimpse of a heavy wooden chair
next to the elevator.

It
was one of those chairs that you sit
in
rather than
on
,
a huge monstrosity that weighed close to a hundred pounds. I hooked
it with the claws of my right hand and then hurled it at the first
vampire with all my might.

The
vampires hadn't exactly become complacent, but they'd thought that
the parameters of the fight had been well established. They were
fast, skilled, and with their swords they had a reach that exceeded
even what I was capable of. They'd forgotten about the fact that I
was many, many times stronger than either of them.

The
chair shot across the empty space between me and my target, a target
who had been so eager to box me in that he'd already made it to the
other corridor, a corridor that helped limit his options for evasion.
He tried to dodge the projectile, but I'd thrown it at waist level,
too high to jump, too low to duck. His sword couldn't deflect this
blow and his best efforts still ended with the chair clipping him in
the shoulder, splintering in a spray of wood and fabric as it knocked
him to the ground.

The
second vampire pressed the attack in an effort to buy his companion
time to get back up and help him, but he was too used to me
retreating. A hybrid is capable of moving backwards with incredible
speed, but that's not what we are really built for.

I
was done retreating. I shot forward with the kind of vision-blurring
speed that I'd always loved as a wolf. I checked his arm with my
right hand, stopping his sword as he tried to swing it, but it was
merely a safety precaution. I was already inside the arc of his
weapon and my jaws closed on his neck before he even realized just
how badly he'd misjudged me.

I
let the body drop away and turned back to the vampire I'd hit with
the chair. He was back on his feet, sword at the ready, but it was
obvious that the chair or the fall had hurt his shoulder. He stepped
forward and slashed at me, but the attack had only a shadow of his
previous speed and grace. I stepped back out of range of the attack
and then darted forward before he could recover.

He
was still trying to bring his sword back around at me again when I
grabbed his wrist and threw him into the wall behind me with enough
force to break even a vampire's neck. I made sure of him with a
couple well-placed slashes and then started down the dimly-lit hall.

I
knew that there was at least one more vampire. I couldn't smell him,
but none of the vampires I'd killed yet had been the mentalist who
had come so close to incapacitating me just a few minutes earlier. I
continued down the hall on the left, the hall where the twin vampires
had been standing, and found the mentalist in one of the rooms in the
middle of the hall.

I'd
expected the leader of the group to be a man. I'd had the feeling
that the mental intrusions I'd been dealing with had been too
heavy-handed to be the work of a woman, especially not a delicate,
thin woman with long blonde hair and large, innocent eyes.

The
illusion of innocence lasted only an instant and then I took in the
devastation she'd left in the room. The occupants were dead, gone to
feed the vampires and fill half a dozen blood bags that currently sat
in an open cooler at her feet.

"What
are you? Can you even talk?"

My
lips pulled back, revealing enough fang to make most normal people
shake in fear, but the vampire just stood there expectantly.

"You
know what I am, you pillaged enough of my memories and thoughts to
have at least a basic idea."

Another
layer of the illusion was stripped away as her eyes took on a
self-satisfied, sadistic look. "You're right, I know what you
are. I'm astonished that you've managed to keep your existence a
secret for so long. I never would have expected that level of
sophistication out of mere beasts."

"Better
a beast than a soulless monster who murders innocents."

There
was another flicker of emotion on her face. I'd just told her
something that she'd needed to know, but I didn't see how she'd taken
any kind of advantage out of what I'd said.

"I
thought you'd deny being a beast."

"I
would have, but I don't actually care what you think. I'm just here
to end you."

She
looked down at the sword in her hand, another long rapier, and then
shrugged. "You might find that more difficult than you expect it
to be, but that's not what I want to talk about. I expected you to
deny the fact that you're an animal; I was prepared to prove
otherwise. Your mind was too alien to be human. I suspect that's why
you were able to shake off the sleep construct in the first place.
Even when I invaded your mind I still had a hard time understanding
most of what I saw there."

She
was stalling, but I didn't know why. I needed to end this so that I
could go back down and get Ben. We needed to disappear before anyone
woke up and called the cops. I moved forward, testing her defenses,
but she stepped back, smoothly keeping herself out of range.

"I
can save him, you know, but if you kill me you're going to have a
very difficult time keeping him alive."

A
chill ran up my back and lodged in the base of my skull. "Who?"

"Ben.
That's his name, isn't it? He's going to just continue getting
weaker. It won't matter what you do. Put him on antibiotics and his
liver will fail, or his kidneys. Put him on dialysis and his heart
will stop beating. You're fighting his own body now, it doesn't want
to continue living."

It
was the only thing she could have possibly said to stop me from
pouncing. I opened my mouth and this time I was the one who was
stalling for time. "How do you know that?"

"I
was in your mind. I've seen everything about you. You've loved Ben
for years. He was taken by vampires and when you saved him he dropped
into a coma."

"You're
lying, there's no way that you could have pulled all of that out of
my mind that quickly."

She
shook her head. "You're nothing more than a child, you haven't
even seen two decades come and go, and you'll be dead in another
sixty years. I've lived for thousands of years. You're fortunate
really, there are only a handful of vampires who can save him and
you've stumbled into me, someone who can help you."

I
let my hands drop slightly and did my best to look confused. It was
only partially an act. Most of my attention was directed inwards,
searching, scouring my mind for something I couldn't feel, but which
I suddenly knew had to be there.

It
took less than a second to find them, a network of clear threads
inside of my psyche. They'd grown through the seams in my wall where
the blocks butted up against each other. They were so tiny and
blended in with their surroundings so well that my beast hadn't been
able to distinguish them as being alien, as being something that
needed to be destroyed.

Her
probes had buried themselves in nearly every part of my brain, but
they hadn't penetrated the section where my beast was anxiously
pacing back and forth. I looked out at her and knew just how
precarious my situation was.

For
all I knew she could read my thoughts as I had them, maybe not all of
them, but certainly she'd know if I started to attack. She'd know
which attacks were feints and which were real. She'd know where I was
going to be as soon as I decided on a course. Fighting her would be
like trying to fight my own shadow, a shadow that could kill me at
any instant.

I
let my mind dwell on her words, and it was only partly a ploy. I knew
that she expected me to be considering her offer. She knew how much
Ben meant to me, she'd trolled out the best possible bait imaginable.