Intrusion (4 page)

The leader had spun towards Dom as she leapt,
but I darted towards him, causing him to whirl back towards me.
There was a moment of decision. I could feel the vampire weigh his
options. The girl was too far away to make it back in time, even
assuming he was willing to call her back. He could try to save the
shorter man, but Dom was definitely on top and the struggles were
already starting to abate slightly.

Even assuming he could drive Dom
off, there would be a period of time before the other man was back
on his feet and fighting, and during that brief window, the taller
man would have to face both Dom and me at once.

Between one heartbeat and the next, the vampire
moved towards me, sword flickering out. I slipped to one side,
narrowly dodging the strike. He was faster than I expected, and he
was pressing forward without hesitation now that he was
committed.

We circled, but it was readily apparent that I
was outclassed, and his sword was getting closer and closer to
slicing into me.

The sounds of fighting were closer
now, but I didn't have much time. Out of the corner of one eye I
saw Dom release her prey and head my direction. The shorter vampire
wasn't dead. He was still moving, but not very quickly, so Dom and
I had at least a few seconds to double-team my opponent.

One of my dodges wasn't quite fast
enough and a blaze of fire kindled across my left side as the dark,
lifeless steel sliced into me. Dom picked that moment to spring at
the vampire, but he was faster than she expected, and she missed
his neck.

I darted in, trying to get my teeth on
something, but while he was retreating now, he was doing a
masterful job of using the terrain to his advantage. The sword
seemed almost everywhere at once, perfectly complementing the
dumpsters, walls, and other bits of industrial waste he was using
to help keep us at bay.

The shorter vampire barreled into Dom from
nowhere. She'd apparently kept a better eye on our surroundings
than I had, mostly twisting out of the way, but one of the axes
still managed to connect with a glancing blow to her
shoulder.

The taller vampire took a quick step towards
Dom, intent on finishing off the greater threat, and I saw my
opportunity. His head was protected by a mostly-collapsed roofing
strut, but that wasn't my target.

I latched onto the meaty part of his sword arm
and whipped him around, slamming him into a metal post before he
could respond, but I didn't manage to keep him off balance. No
human frame should have had the strength to jerk me around the way
he was, but he was apparently old enough that the normal limits
didn't apply.

I whipped my neck back and forth, trying to
break his arm before letting go, but it refused to break, and I
felt a mounting sense of desperation. I was fully committed, but he
still had a hand free, and only the violence of my movements was
keeping him from bringing it into play.

The fighting was even closer now. I
caught glimpses of the action as the tall vampire and I circled.
Jasmin clinching with a skeletally thin woman, James and Alec
circling with a cloaked figure who impossibly seemed to be holding
them at bay, Isaac squared off against two more
vampires.

We were all within a couple dozen yards of each
other now, but all too wrapped up with our own opponents to help
each other out. I whipped my head back to the left again, and it
happened. My right foreleg slipped and I failed to pull the vampire
off balance.

Jasmin or Dom would have let go right then and
there and sprung away, but I hesitated and the vampire pulled a
knife from somewhere. I tried to correct my error, tried to get
away, but he was too quick.

The feel of the knife sliding into my side
brought a new meaning to the concept of terror. I thrashed around,
trying to escape, but the roles had now been reversed. The vampire
had me by the throat with an iron grip while his right hand dug the
knife around.

I kept expecting it to pierce my
heart, but ultimately it didn't matter one way or the other. I was
already getting weaker. Shape shifters didn't bleed out quickly,
but it was only a matter of time.

The vampire pulled the knife out,
bringing his arm back so he could stab it down with more force, and
then suddenly Isaac was there. The vampire tried to whirl around,
but Isaac was too fast for him, sinking razor-sharp claws into the
vampire's chest at the same time that he immobilized the hand
holding the knife.

The realization that I was going to
live occurred at roughly the same time that I finally took in the
damage to Isaac's huge hybrid body. He was covered with slashes,
but the most fearsome wound was created by a sword that was still
sunk into his body all of the way to the hilt. On a human it would
have gone through the kidneys before exiting his back, but I didn't
have any idea if that was true for a hybrid as well.

Isaac looked down at me for the
shortest of seconds before turning back towards the melee. By the
time I pulled myself back to my feet, it was all but over. Jasmin
had been finishing off her opponent at the same time that Isaac had
been saving me.

Isaac's second opponent had jumped into the
fray with Alec and James, pressing them quite sorely for several
seconds, but Isaac had killed Dom's opponent just seconds after
killing mine. Once the odds were four on two, it was only a matter
of time until the vampires would be pulled down.

I watched numbly as Alec darted in
and broke the master vampire's neck. I wasn't quite sure when I'd
resumed human form. I absently registered the bloody state of my
feet, but was in too much shock to care much.

I made it over to the rest of the
pack a few steps behind Dom. Alec shrank down to his human form and
shook his head as he walked over to Isaac.

"You're lucky it wasn't a couple of inches
higher or you'd have bled out before you even made it to
her."

Isaac's voice came out low and rough from his
hybrid throat. "It was a calculated risk. On several
levels."

"Calculated risk nothing. It was the kind of
crazy, thoughtless thing I usually expect out of James, not
you."

Isaac opened his mouth to respond, but Alec
took advantage of the distraction to pull the sword free. The rush
of blood nearly made me physically ill, but it was Isaac's scream
that pulled most brutally at me. For a second I thought Isaac would
go berserk, but instead he collapsed down onto all fours and then
melted back into human form.

Alec ripped two chunks of cloth from one of the
dead vampires' attire and then pulled me over to Isaac's
unconscious, barely-breathing form.

"Hold this and this here and here.
If we can staunch the bleeding slightly he'll be okay. Shifting
forms will have repaired any really major vascular
damage."

Once Alec was satisfied that I was going to
keep pressure on the wounds he sent the rest of the pack forward to
get Rachel and the vehicles. When James protested the order for
Dom, who was obviously limping, to accompany the rest of them, Alec
backhanded him into a building without even bothering to change
forms.

"This is not a democracy. Dom will be fine.
Just go."

Alec waited a couple of minutes after everyone
else had left and then turned back to Isaac and me.

"I know you're having a hard time, Jess. It's
hard on Isaac too; he just doesn't show it as much. Once upon a
time you understood that. I get that things have changed, that
we're all just strangers to you. Believe it or not, Isaac gets it
as well."

I opened my mouth, not sure what I was going to
say, but Alec shook his head and kept talking.

"There are things however that
haven't changed. The most important one where you're concerned is
that Isaac is still willing to run crazy risks to try and protect
you. It's easy for people to say all kinds of things, but that's
not Isaac. If you watch what he does, that speaks volumes and has
since the two of you were little."

--The Story continues
in
Trapped
--

Author's Note:

I hope you've enjoyed Intrusion,
hopefully you read Broken, Torn and Splintered before you got here.
Please don't forget to check out Scent of Tears (Reflections, short
story),Handoff (Dark Reflections, short story) and Frozen Prospects
(The Guadel Chronicles) if you haven't already. I've included an
excerpt of Handoff below for your enjoyment.

Acknowledgments:

As always, thanks needs to go out to
everyone that continues to provide support in dozens of different
ways. When an author chooses to go the indie route, it means they
absolutely rely on their fans to get the word out, and I'm very
appreciative everyone that blogs, reviews, or otherwise helps put
these stories and novels on the map.

Additional thanks need expressed to
Obsidian Dawn, www.obsidiandawn.com, for brushes used in the
creation of the cover for Intrusion.

As always, none of this would be
possible without my wife Katie, who puts up with long hours from me
while she does heroic work on the editing and covers.

About the Author:

Dean started reading seriously in
the second grade due to a competition, and has spent most of the
subsequent three decades lost in other people's worlds. After
reading several local libraries more or less dry of sci-fi and
fantasy, he started spending more time wandering around worlds of
his own creation to avoid the boredom of the 'real'
world.

Things worsened, or improved
depending on your point of view, when he first started
experimenting with writing while finishing up his accounting
degree. These days Dean has a wonderful wife and daughter to keep
him rather more grounded, but the idea of bringing others along
with him as he meets interesting new people in universes nobody
else has ever seen tends to drag him back to his computer on a
fairly regular basis.

Keep up to speed on Dean's latest
projects at deanwrites.blogspot.com or follow him on Twitter
@Writer_Dean

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recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or
it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to
Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting
the hard work of this author.

Handoff Excerpt

"If this goes on much longer, I'm going to have
to kill someone just so we can see some real action."

Pitch looked like he wanted to cuff
Mouth, but even Pitch had to think twice before getting physical
with Mouth. It wasn't Mouth's appearance. Compared to some of the
mercs that routinely worked for the Lieutenant, Mouth was
practically a choir boy. Blond hair, blue eyes and a square jaw
that had been known to lure in girls who really should have known
better.

It wasn't ever the surface that tipped people
off about Mouth, it was all the stuff just under the skin. Adam was
pretty sure Mouth was ex-military, but if so he'd never made it
through his tour to be honorably discharged. Anyone who'd spent
time at the front knew you could get away with a lot when it was
just you and your unit stuck in the middle of some forsaken bit of
swamp, but Adam had never been in any unit that would have let
Mouth pursue his more exotic vices, and Mouth wasn't known for his
self-restraint.

Pitch, an ex-sergeant from the Marines,
apparently decided he couldn't let the comment pass without a least
making motions to rein Mouth in.

"Quiet. You're supposed to be pretending to be
a hole in the night."

"Whatever, Pitchy. This is just another milk
run. I signed on to get stuck in, not babysit abandoned train
yards."

"I don't care what you signed on for, you
signed on. That means until the Lieutenant says otherwise, you'll
babysit whatever I tell you to babysit, or you'll be out on your
ass again looking for work."

For a second it looked like Mouth was going to
respond, but he settled for flipping Pitch off and rolling back
over onto his stomach. It'd probably been that last bit that had
pulled him up short. Even a sniper as good as Mouth couldn't count
on a steady stream of jobs if he was stupid enough to piss of the
few merc's with the kind of contacts to put real work
together.

Mouth likely had warrants out in every state on
the west coast. When you had money little things like the police
being after you weren't necessarily show stoppers, but Mouth spent
it faster than even he could bring it in. If he pissed off Pitch
enough for the wiry, black ex-Seal to convince the Lieutenant to
drop him, he'd have to turn to wetwork to pay the bills, and he
wasn't smart enough to get away with that for long.

Satisfied that he wasn't going to have to worry
about putting a round into Mouth's back, Adam rested his cheek back
against the stock of his L115A3. The night sight currently letting
him pierce the darkness, had cost the better part of five grand,
and still was a fraction of the cost of the rifle it was mounted
on.