Blood and Sand (39 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

One minute, she was sitting quietly, watching him practice his martial arts forms itinigmbp:pagen that steady, meditative rhythm, the next, everything happened at once. Baojia spun around and picked her up in one swoop, carrying her to the tunnel so fast the world around her blurred. He was speaking to Tenzin in rapid Chinese as they raced toward Tulio’s cavern.

“Stop!” she finally yelled. “English, please! I don’t know what’s going on!”

“They’re on their way. The girls are in a large delivery truck and they’ll be here in a few minutes. We have to hide and hope they don’t sniff too closely. I didn’t think about the danger of us camping here. Our scents could be everywhere. If the driver is a vampire—”

Carwyn broke in. “Father Andrade mentioned a human driver to me. So did the girl. I think we’ll be fine, but we need to get everyone inside so we’re not seen. How long do we have after the women are dropped off?”

“Tulio said an hour, but I don’t know. His sense of time is not all that accurate.”

Natalie was dumped in the tunnel while the others raced around, tidying up their little camp and trying to erase any evidence of their existence.

“Too lax,” she heard Baojia mutter once when he dropped off a shirt Brigid had draped over a bush to air out. “I have been too lax.”

Everything around her turned into a blur.

Vampires were coming. Fast, inhumanly strong vampires, hopped up on some vampire drug that made them irrational and bloodthirsty. And those vampires were going to kill Natalie, Baojia, Ben, Tenzin, Carwyn, and Brigid unless they killed them first. Everyone around her was pulling out swords and guns, strapping them to arms and waists and thighs in strange holsters that curled around their bodies like deadly ribbon. Even the teenager, Ben, had more weapons than the average SWAT officer. And Natalie had… a stun gun.

What the
hell
had she been thinking?

She was desperately trying not to throw up when Baojia—the vampire who, two nights before, had basically proposed to her—pulled her hand and tugged her farther into a deserted alcove off the main cave. He straightened her shoulders and Natalie stared at his chest, still bare and exposed to the night air. There was a light sheen across it, almost as if he’d been sweating. She frowned. He didn’t sweat.

“You’re scared,” he said.

“Yep. Terrified.”

He nodded. “Good. Be scared. Use it. It’ll make you more aware. Don’t take chances. And make sure you stay with Ben.”

“Okay.”

“And when we get out of here, we’re getting serious about your self-defense lessons.”

“Okay.”

“And we’re going to get out of here.” He tipped her chin up so she was forced to look at his dark eyes. “Do you understand me?” He was all calm and cool collection in that moment. Confident. Sure. The only rock-solid thing in this pile of crazy she’d landed in weeks ago.

Only weeks? It seemed like a lifetime.

“I love you, George.” Her voice broke. “I’m really happy all this happened. No matter what.”

He shook his head. “Don’t act like that. We’re going to be fine. You’re going to be fine. Stay with Ben and trust me.”

She nodded, trying to smile. “Okay.”

“You have your guns?”

She nodded, patting the holster Brigid had brought for her. She wore two and had a small duffel with the rest that she’d take with her.

“Natalie?”

“Uh huh?”

He paused for a moment, looking nervous for the first time that evening. “We only have a few minutes before the girls get here. I can hear the truck. I need to know… You shouldn’t be hurt. I have every confidence you won’t be, but if you are… I need to know if… if you want—”

“Want what?” Her heart began to pound. “For you to make me a vampire?”

He shook his head. “Not me. If I did—”

“I don’t want you to!”

“I won’t.” He swallowed. “But someone else… someone else could.”

The heart that had pounded now felt like it would fly out of her chest. “I don’t know!”

“You have to know.”

She felt the tears prick the corners of her eyes. “But I don’t.” She blinked them away. “I don’t know, Baojia. How can I know that?”

He looked away, toward the flurry of action at the mouth of the cave. “I can’t lose you.”

“Then don’t let them get me.” Forcing a calm face, she took a deep breath and tried to stop the shivers that wanted to take over. “Don’t let them get me, Baojia. Give me that time.”

He gave her a quick nod, then leaned down, pressing his lips to hers in a toe-curling kiss before he pulled away and put his arm around her, guiding her back to the others.

The drivers were human. There were two drivers and twelve girls, leading Baojia to speculate that the SUVs carrying the hunters would hold twelve vampires. Good. Twelve was better than sixteen. The drivers forced the crying girls to the center of the crater at gunpoint. Some of them screamed. Some wailed. Others begged. But a few stood stoically, arms crossed as they glared at the humans who backed away and spun out, leaving the girls alone in the middle of the desert night.
 

The smell was overwhelming.

The sweet, heady scent of blood washed up the edge of the crater and down the tunnel, carried on the breeze that was growing ever more laden with moisture as the storm approached. He heard a high, whining sound and turned to see Brigid biting her arm. Carwyn stroked her short cap of hair back, soothing his mate as she forced herself to remain still. Carwyn’s eyes met Baojia’s in the darkness. He glanced at Natalie.

“They’re going to know.”

Baojia nodded. There was no question. When the hunt started, the vampires were going to know something was wrong. There was no mistaking the smell of the girls. If anything, they smelled even more appetizing than the ones at Bar El Ruso had.

“What the hell are they putting in that Elixir?” he muttered, trying not to breathe through his nose.

“We have to keep at least a few of them there. Taking away the majority of them will still decrease the distractions we have to deal with and probably some of the bloodlust, especially for Brigid, but we have to have some of them there or they’re going to know.”

Natalie, finally catching on to what they were talking about, butted in. “But those girls are innocent! We have to get them out of there. They’re not bait.”

Carwyn snorted. “That’s exactly what they are, Nat. And you’ve volunteered to take their place, but you don’t smell like them. We need at least a hint of their scent in order for the hunters not to immediately guess that something is wrong.”

Brigid forced her head up, blood staining her mouth. “Keep to the plan. Pick a few of tickt the more defiant girls and give them stun guns. Leave them there with Natalie and Ben. It will be enough to draw the vampires without distracting all of us. The rest need to get as far up this tunnel as possible, or they’re just going to throw us off.”

Baojia nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.” He glanced toward the dark crater. The truck was no more than a retreating rumble in the night. “Let’s start rounding them up. Brigid, pick the girls you want to have stay.”

She forced a nod and started out of the tunnel, Carwyn close on her heels. Baojia stood and Natalie followed him, dogging his steps.

“You can’t let them use these girls as bait, Baojia. It’s not fair. They’ve already been—”

“Abducted. Kidnapped. Poisoned. Probably abused in other ways, too.” He kept walking, watching the girls cry out and run as they saw the shapes in the darkness. But there were two who didn’t run, and he turned toward them. “I realize all that. I’m not even going to mention that you forced me to let you use
yourself
as bait.”

“It was my choice!”

“And it will be theirs, as well.” He approached one girl who looked vaguely familiar. She was staring at him with furious eyes, chin up and mouth screwed into a sneer. “You!” he called in Spanish. “Is your name Carmen?” She looked like the girl who had come to the church. Enough alike to be sisters.

At the mention of her name, the sneer fell. “Who are you?”

“We’re friends of Father Andrade’s. And we’re trying to save your life.”

She shook her head. “Nothing is going to save my life. I saw what happened to Constantina. I know what’s going to happen to me.”

“Want to give Ivan’s men a surprise?” Baojia grabbed at one of the stun guns on Natalie’s belt and held it out. “You stay, you get a chance to hurt them.”

Carmen grabbed the gun. “I’ll take it.”

“And help us round up the girls.”

She gave him a quick nod and started running toward a group of girls Carwyn was trying to calm. Just then, Tenzin landed on a rock nearby.

“They’re close. Get these girls in the tunnel.”

He cursed under his breath. “That wasn’t an hour.”

“Nope. Looks like someone’s impatient.” She flew off toward Carwyn. Between the two vampires and Carmen, most of the girls headed toward the tunnel, with three others standing with Brigid as she gave them a quick lesson on stun guns, which Ben translated. Baojia turned to Natalie, who had been silent the whole exchange.

“Time for you to get in position,” he said.

She nodded, then reached for him. He let her pull his face down, and she kissed him hard as she gripped the hair at his nape. He breathed her in, memorizing her scent and taste, wishing she was a thousand miles away. Finally, she broke the kiss and patted his chest, right over his heart.

“I love you,” she said. “I’ll see you later.”

He swallowed, unable to say anything for a second. “Get a… get another stun gun from Brigid. Make sure you have two.”

She gave him a thumbs-up as she walked away. “I’m on it, George.”

Fucking hell. If the last time she ever spoke to him was to call him George, he was going to be pissed.

She and Ben were crouched in the center of the crater, backs to a large sandstone boulder that was ldehelp sheltered by some scrubby trees. The stars had slowly begun to disappear as unexpected clouds rolled in.