Melanie followed and paused just inside the door, shards of glass crackling under her boots. Bastien halted beside her.
There were three hallways. Seth raced down the one on the right. David took the left. Shouts erupted. Then howls of pain as the elder immortals’ weapons delivered death to their enemies. Gunshots ensued. Crashes. More of the same arose outside.
“Which way?” she asked.
Based on Seth’s drawing, it could be either the middle or the left.
“Cliff! Joe!” Bastien shouted.
Melanie heard nothing but the panicked bursts of speech spewing from the mercenaries’ mouths.
“Let’s try the middle,” he said, face grim, and took off.
She knew what he was thinking, because she thought the same thing: If the vampires hadn’t been sedated, the lack of response meant they were dead.
Humans in camouflage poured into the hallway, weapons raised. Bastien ducked this way and that as bullets and darts flew at them. Melanie tried to do the same as she drew her weapons, but was not yet as experienced. Two bullets hit her in the chest and were stopped by the vest. A dart hit the vest, too. Then another hit her in the arm.
Holstering one of her Sigs, she shoved her hand into her thigh pocket and withdrew one of the green-capped auto-injectors. Lethargy began to seep through her as she flipped open the cap. Raising her other Sig, she fired at the soldiers and shoved the auto-injector into her thigh.
Bodies fell. So many she lost count. Had the men not been doing their damnedest to kill her, she didn’t know if she would’ve been able to hurt them. She was a doctor. A healer. She repaired wounds. She didn’t inflict them.
At least not until now.
Energy flowed into her, extinguishing the sluggishness. Fortified, she dropped the other Sig in its holster and drew out the auto-injectors she had filled with the weaker human dose of the sedative.
With a burst of speed, she dashed from human to human, hitting them with the tranquilizer instead of killing them. She told herself it was so Seth could read their minds and unearth information, but she really just needed more time to grow accustomed to taking another person’s life. Some of these men could be innocent dupes. Some may relish the violence Emrys ordered them to perpetrate, the pain he told them to inflict. She couldn’t tell one from the other and didn’t like the idea of executing the first just to ensure they got the second.
Each man she sedated struggled. Melanie was shocked at how easily she disarmed and restrained them.
She could feel Bastien’s gaze and knew he was keeping an eye on her. “I’m fine,” she called, then remembered she didn’t have to raise her voice. Even over the gunfire and the explosion that just shattered the rest of the front windows, they both could hear normal speech.
“I’m fine,” she repeated. Ducking bullets, she dropped another unconscious soldier and chased down the next.
Bastien had never been so afraid in his life. He wanted to tell Melanie to stop tranqing the fuckers and just kill them. It was a hell of a lot faster and half as risky.
But he knew her. And he knew, though she had said nothing of it, that killing was difficult for her.
Hell, it had been difficult for him, too, in the beginning. It had been difficult when he had been a mortal and fought Napoleon’s—
He swore as two bullets struck him in the arm and shoulder. Knocking the gun that had fired them out of its owner’s hand, he struck out twice with his daggers and moved on as the shooter’s body thudded to the floor behind him.
No, killing wasn’t something that came easily. Hell, he’d heard that Sarah still shook like a leaf after she took out vampires, even though she did so with astounding expediency. And Sarah had been hunting for a couple of years now.
He saw Melanie jerk as blood spurted from her thigh.
Pain was something else she would have to grow accustomed to. He hated that. He never wanted her to have so much as a paper cut for the rest of her long—and it had better be damned long—existence.
Curses spilled from her lips.
Bastien smiled.
He rarely heard her curse and laughed as she now turned the air blue.
She glanced over at the sound, caught his expression, and smiled. “This shit hurts!”
“I’ll kiss it and make it better later,” he promised.
Her lovely lips stretched in a wide grin as she tranqed another mercenary.
Dropping the empty auto-injector, she drew her Sigs.
That must have been her last.
More men poured into the hallway.
What, was the fucking cafeteria down this way or something?
He and Melanie formed a united front. He sliced and diced with his daggers. She cut men down with her 9mms.
A second explosion rent the night outside. Then a third. And a fourth.
Bastien and Melanie stepped over bodies, forcing their way forward until they finally reached the first door.
Bastien looked inside. Unbelievable. It was a cafeteria.
They made their way to a door on the other side.
Melanie peeked inside. “Training room,” she announced.
Great.
Were there even any men left out in the barracks for Lisette and Étienne to worry about?
Melanie jerked again. Two holes appeared in her clothes, one in her hip and one above it at her waist, just beneath the lower edge of the damned vest. Blood quickly began to moisten her cargo pants.
Bastien swore.
“That’s my line,” she gritted and, eyes blazing amber with pain and fury, shot her assailant in the head.
Bastien eased closer to her.
“I’m fine,” she growled.
No, she wasn’t. Multiple wounds always slowed the healing. She was limping badly.
The mercenaries, like sharks drawn by chum in the water, all turned on her, sensing weakness.
“Richart!” Bastien called and dove in front of her as the men fired.
Half a dozen bullets hit him as he dropped his daggers, then drew and swung his katanas in sweeping arcs, severing heads, limbs, and arteries.
Richart appeared in the midst of the mercenaries, blades flashing. As soon as those he didn’t kill noticed him, he vanished and reappeared farther down.
Again and again he teleported, instilling fear and delivering death while Melanie’s guns and Bastien’s swords continued to claim lives.
The last man fell.
All three immortals swung around to face the entrance of the hallway.
No mercenaries rushed forward to save their comrades. All seemed to be occupied in battles in the other hallways.
Bastien let his shoulders slump. His torso riddled with bullet wounds, he turned to Melanie.
Breath ragged, she leaned against the wall. She nodded to him that she was okay. “It’s just going to take some getting used to,” she said through clenched teeth. “The pain. I’m not used to it.”
Richart shook some of the blood off his blades. “It took me a century to get used to it. You should feed.”
Melanie shook her head. Since her transformation, she had only sunk her new fangs into bagged blood, allowing them to draw it directly into her veins. She had not yet fed from a person. And, even though she wouldn’t actually be drinking it, she couldn’t help but feel a bit nauseated at the thought of it.
Or was the nausea simply a result of her wounds?
Either way . . . “We need to find Cliff and Joe. I’ll feed after that.” On bagged blood, back at David’s place.
Richart looked to Bastien.