The unholy fire burning in her eyes was answer enough, and it wasn’t really until that moment that Masters understood just how much what was to come would hurt.
“You filthy…insignificant…,” the vampire raged, stalking toward him, clearly in no control of her emotions. “You have no idea what you’ve done.…I will kill you for that!”
“You were, what, planning on buying me a drink up until now?” Masters blurted, incredulous.
That might not have been the right thing to say…, he thought blankly when she roared in totally incomprehensible rage and blurred in his general direction.
Masters threw himself to the left, hitting the ground in a roll as the vampire flashed past him and struck the flaming coffin hard enough to cause the wood to explode into splinters. Fighting back the urge to vomit from the motion, he got back to his feet and spun in time to see her kick away the flaming shards of wood.
“Oh, hell no!” he complained. “Damn you, Alex, you said fire would kill it!”
Alexander Norton laughed painfully from where he was lying on the floor. “She’d have to stand still long enough to burn.”
“Great,” Masters grumbled, the urge to vomit fading as the adrenaline surge of his second wind began to fill him. “That’s just frigging great.”
Any further conversation was pretty much put to rest when the vampire, still roaring in incandescent rage, began stalking in his direction again.
“No fast death for you, filth,” she mumbled, pretty clearly talking to herself. “We’ll see how you enjoy losing an arm. Then perhaps I’ll burn your comrades in front of your eyes before I take your blood.”
“Hoo boy, she’s lost the track,” Masters mumbled, wide eyed as he began backing up. “You guys take care of yourselves.”
With that last comment, Masters spun and bolted for the door, blowing through the open portal at a dead sprint as though all the demons of hell were on his heels. Which, honestly, they might as well have been since the vampire tore after him, raging nearly incoherently as she ran.
Outside the air was noticeably cooler, though Masters expected that was more from the sweat sticking to his flesh than any actual change in the ambient temperature. He ran through the smoke-and-fog-filled night, knowing that he had no chance in hell of outrunning what was on his heels.
They’d tried everything they could, and none of it had worked, so he wasn’t even thinking about killing her anymore. Getting her away from his comrades would come in at a distant second place. He hated it when he had to take the consolation prize and be happy to have it.
Masters just prayed that his team had the sense to clear the hell out and get away from the area while they could. With her coffin and home soil burning, their best option was to leave her to die slowly. Hopefully. Norton’s information hadn’t exactly been five for five up until now, but all things considered, it was the best hope he had.
Too bad I won’t live to see it.
Masters spun, hefting the big curved kukri blade as he cocked his arm back and then let it fly with a snap that sent it spinning through the night air. The Clan blade flipped end for end, humming as it sliced the cold air, and stopped with a meaty smack as it embedded itself in his pursuer’s forehead.
The thick blade punctured bone with ease, sinking into her skull almost to the hilt, its tip exploding from the back of her skull. She just stopped in her tracks, glaring at him as she reached up and grasped the hilt, slowly drawing the blade out.
“Oh screw you!” Masters cursed. “A knife that big in the head always trumps!”
She hefted the blade for a moment, eyes never leaving him; then her hand snapped out like lightning. Masters didn’t even have a chance to flinch as a whooshing sound tore past him, followed by a deep chunk from behind him. He turned slowly, eyes falling to where the blade had bit deeply into the door of an oil-company Jeep parked behind him.
The vampire’s misshapen and ravaged face twisted into a sneer as he looked back at her. “No easy death for you, little pest. I will see you broken first.”
“Lady, you are starting to remind me of my exes.”
The two glared at one another for several long seconds; then Masters twisted and bolted for the Jeep.
Norton helped Eddie to his feet. “Are you all right?”
“Broken leg.” The master chief grimaced. “Forget me; go after Hawk.”
“And do what exactly?” Norton demanded. “We hit her with everything we had. Damn it, man, it took blessed weapons and a Masterwork to even cut that bitch. We gave it our all, man. Masters may have killed her with that grenade in the coffin, but she’ll outlive us if we don’t get the fuck out of here.”
Eddie growled. “He’s team, Black. You don’t know what that means.”
“It means that he just stepped between us and death, Eddie,” Alex snarled back. “You planning on making that count for nothing?”
Eddie shoved him away, almost collapsing in pain as his weight fell on the broken leg. “Ah. Fuck!”
“You can’t do anything.”
“He’s right.”
The two men turned to see Hannah approaching them, flanked by the two soldiers from the Asatru lodge.
“What do you know about it?” Eddie snapped. “Hawk kept me from drowning in the South China Sea that damned night. When those assholes in the chopper flew away so they could check on the damn cruiser, he was the one who kept me and our package from slipping off the debris we were clinging to and vanishing into the depths like everyone else that night. I’m not letting him be taken out by some walking nightmare from a bad horror movie!”
Hannah looked to the two men at her sides, and she let out a deep sigh when they nodded.
“Fine,” she said. “We’ll do what we can.”
The petite woman nodded to the door, and the two large soldiers followed as she led them out. Behind them, the remains of the navy SEAL team took stock of their situation and found that it wasn’t good.
Mack was kneeling over his friend, hands slick with blood. He looked up. “He’s not going to make it. He’s lost too much blood.”
Derek’s eyes were fading, and there wasn’t a lot of strength in his grip as he clasped his friend’s hand. The big man couldn’t speak through the damage to his throat, but he nodded slowly in agreement.
“Bitch tore his throat apart with one swipe,” Mack hissed, angry but unbelievably tired. “How does that even happen?”
Alex sighed, dropping to one knee by the stricken man.
“Can you do anything?” Eddie asked.
“Maybe,” Alex said, his eyes filling with an inky blackness. “Healing is difficult, no matter what power you use.”
He reached down, shadow dripping from his fingers as he passed them over the wound. The bleeding slowed beneath his hands, and the big man closed his eyes. Derek’s breathing evened out, but it slowed too, and Mack thought it was all over.
He slumped, his head falling to his chest as he closed his eyes.
“We’ve got time now,” Alex said, straightening up, “but we’re going to need that chopper. I hope the Coast Guard ship has decent medical facilities.”
“I’ll call them in,” Judith said, eyes flicking down to the body. “He’s still…”
“Alive? Yes.”
Mack looked up, barely believing what he was hearing.
“How?”
“I’m gifted,” Norton said simply, getting to his feet. “Call the chopper.”
Masters grabbed the blade and wrenched it out of the door before he twisted and jumped, hitting the hood of the Jeep in a slide and skidding across the metal. He planted his feet hard on the other side as he leaned into the move, then grabbed the driver-side door and wrenched it open before diving in.