I felt, rather than saw, something in the darkness. Maria stirred next to me, just a little flutter of the rope that bound us to each other so we didn’t wind up getting separated.
“What’s the problem, Graves?” Maria’s voice was the barest breath of sound in my ear, a surprise since she’s under five foot one and I’m five foot ten in my bare feet. I guessed she was standing on her tiptoes. Luis likewise moved closer until we were a mass of bodies, like elephants circling the wounded and vulnerable members of the herd.
Maria Ruiz Ortega had started this adventure as my guide. She’d felt she owed me a favor after I saved her brother Lorenzo’s life (and missed my own flight out of what amounted to a war zone because of it). Luis was her other brother. They were astonishingly good looking, charming when they wanted to be, and absolutely deadly. Luis seemed like he was probably full human, but unless I missed my guess, with the full moon, Maria shifted. Werewolves are tough. Very tough. Between me, her, and a good flamethrower, if there was a way of getting out of this alive, we would.
I didn’t answer, just used my arm to hold her back. Someone was coming. They were moving very quietly, their footfalls nearly silent on the smooth concrete floor to our left. Sunset was close and my inner vampire was ready to come out to play. In the past year I’ve gotten much better at controlling my blood lust and other abilities. Stress makes it harder, but here and now, they were useful. I could smell the faint scent of Maria’s soap, her brother’s sweat, and the rubber inner tube we’d used to secure Serena’s broken leg to the boards.
More important, I could hear the pounding of their hearts and the tiny, frightened gasps from the wounded woman on the floor. And another heartbeat, one that was slow and steady. And close.
Maria helped me get Serena to her feet without even a whisper of noise. I pulled one of my knives from its wrist sheath and cut the rope that connected us. If we had to fight, or run, we needed to be able to move independently. Then we waited quietly.
There was a muffled crackle of radio static from less than a foot away and then a burst of Spanish that my mind translated efficiently. “Garcia, do you see them?” Before I came down here, my Spanish had been minimal, but I learn quick. I now understood every word coming over the man’s radio earpiece and every word he spoke.
“No. I’m only fifty yards from the exit and there’s no sign of them. Either they got away or they’re still back in the tunnels somewhere. It’s almost dark. What are our orders?”
A pause while we each held our breath. “Two more minutes, then we evacuate and seal the tunnels. If they’re in here, the bats will take care of them.”
“What about the boss’s whore?”
“If the Abomination hasn’t already eaten her, leave her. Paulo said he’s tired of her bitching anyway.” There was a muffled snort of laughter in front of me. Maria stiffened beside me, her lips peeling back from her teeth in a silent snarl.
So, this had been a trap from the beginning. Only the fact that I refused to cooperate, hadn’t allowed myself to be led where Maria had wanted to go, had kept us alive this long.
There was a soft gasp from Luis as he realized the truth. She had planned to lead him to slaughter. But his gasp wasn’t soft enough. I felt the air shift as the man in front of me turned.
The moment he was in range, I leapt, bringing my knife up at an angle. If he was tall, it would catch him in the guts; if average height, it would hit under the ribs. I put my all of my weight behind the attack, because if he was wearing a spelled vest, the knife might not get through at all.
He wasn’t tall, and the spells on his vest weren’t a match for my strength, along with the magic of a knife that qualifies as a magical artifact all by itself. The knife slid in and I felt his weight start to sag as wetness poured out over my hand. He tried to shove his gun into me but I slammed my hand onto it and his shots went down, ricocheting off of the floor and into the alcove.
Luis swore in pain and startled anger, and I smelled that he’d been hit by a stray bullet. I was just glad none of the ricochets had hit the tank strapped to his back.
The scent of blood was everywhere. My vision sharpened, my canines elongated. Saliva filled my mouth. I wanted blood. I wanted it like I’ve never wanted anything in my life. I heard the rattling sound of the bat in a nearby alcove taking his first breath of the evening and I hissed at him on pure instinct. The vampire part of me wanted to bite down on the neck of the man I’d gutted while the last flicker of life left his body, to taste the warm, salt-sweet flavor that was like nothing else in this world.
But no. I was human, damn it. I would not feed from a human. Never.
There was a flash of blinding light, a whooshing noise, and flame roared out of Luis’s homemade flamethrower, filling the alcove, setting the waking vampire ablaze as Maria and her brother stumbled past me.
The heat was horrendous, breath-stealing. I could only whisper a silent prayer of thanks that we were near enough to the main tunnel that we could still breathe after the blast. I gasped, the nauseating smell of burning hair and flesh filling my nose and lungs, making me cough till I gagged. As suddenly as the blood lust had come, it was now gone. My stomach lurched; I pulled my knife from the guard, flinging his body to the ground.
Distant screams echoed through the rocky tunnels. The vampires were rising and some of the human guards hadn’t made it out.
Oh, fuck a duck.
I picked Serena up by her waist and tossed her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She didn’t complain. We ran. By the light of flickering flames I could see the fork in the passage that led to the open desert outside. I could smell the sand. Twenty yards to the fork, so maybe thirty past that to the outside. We were nearly there. But closing fast from the other direction were vampires, newly risen and hungry for blood.
Maria stumbled and Luis went down with her. Luis struggled to his knees, trying to get off a blast from the flamethrower. Then a pair of vamps was on him. They rode him to the ground. Fast, they were so fast. Serena turned her head, saw him bleeding, and screamed. The bats looked up, eyes glowing. I didn’t doubt mine were as well because everything was in hyperfocus. I managed to pull my gun, but I was having to aim carefully so as not to hit the tank, and with Serena kicking in panic, it was hard. Luis’s scream of agony cut off abruptly as the larger male broke his neck with a single vicious twist.
Another pair of bats, two females, surged forward. Maria began firing wildly, not aiming—which was useless. Grabbing her arm, I flung her ahead of me.
“Run!” I screamed, as I fired blessed bullets into the vamps to slow them down. It wouldn’t stop them entirely, but I needed to buy us enough time to get to the cave entrance. Once there, I’d shoot the gas tank with a tracer round. The explosion would take out the vamps and, if we were lucky, block the tunnel entrance behind us.
Just a few more steps. I twisted, firing over my shoulder, struggling to stay balanced while carrying Serena. I pulled the trigger again and again until the gun clicked empty. I was almost to the exit. I could see the stars above and smell cactus and sage. So tantalizingly close now—but they were gaining on us.
A bat grabbed at my leg, causing me to stumble and nearly drop Serena. I kicked the bat in the face until she let go but that gave the others time to get closer. There wasn’t time to pull out the derringer in my ankle holster.