Last Vamp Standing (30 page)

Chapter Thirty-One

“Winds of change surround us, throwing our strong-held beliefs into the fray. Holding steadfast to our beliefs is how we’ve kept our faith alive this long. Sadly, it may no longer be enough.”

W
ATCHER
A
RCHIVE, UPDATE

B
Y THE TIME
Dante got back to the fighting ground, there wasn’t much of a fight left. Elders had been slain—there were too many dead bodies to count. Vamps from the city were left defenseless, shooting with what little ammo they had left.

Savage’s army far outnumbered Black Moon’s. They were merciless creatures, evil incarnate, spawned from Savage’s sick motives. Elders were decapitated, covered in pools of blood, mud, and entrails.

They didn’t need to be massacred this way. It was too much. Truly evil.

It would’ve been perfect for Dante to come back with the Watchers in tow. Would’ve been glorious to watch the vamps’ mouths drop as he brought back another wave of warriors—ones who could fight with the powers given to them by their angel ancestors.

But Pike had turned away, deaf to Dante’s words, too scared of the unknown. Dante had returned to the fight hoping the Watchers weren’t needed anyway. Praying the elders were holding their own.

He’d been dead wrong.

As Dante came across a possessed vamp crouched over an elder with blood slathered across his chin, bursts of adrenaline flared in his middle.

Just the way it did when his voices resurfaced. Only they didn’t.

Craving the primal intimacy of hand-to-hand combat, Dante kept his guns holstered and unsheathed a dagger from his boot. As he passed by the vamp, still crouching, still bleeding, he stabbed the blade through his heart right up to the hilt. With a hiss, the vamp fell back and hit the ground. The death shade that had possessed him slid past his lips and evaporated into the dark.

Getting back to Ariana’s position proved to be more difficult than Dante thought. There was more enemy fire than friendly, and the elders’ mawares were weakening. He could feel their energy slipping and dark energy surging in early victory.

He brought down every enemy vamp that crossed him. Sliced the throats of a few. Buried his blade into the chests of others. By the time he reached the fallen log where Ariana had hidden, he was covered in blood from blade to boot.

“Ariana!” Pushing past an elder who used elaborate hand motions to topple trees over the enemy, Dante searched behind the log. In front of it. Into the forest where death shades reigned and elders retreated.

She wasn’t there.

“Where is she?” he asked the nearest elder, panic rising in his gut.

But the elder didn’t move. He kept eye contact with the fir tree in front of him, manipulating it, spinning it around on its base.

“Ariana was behind here.” Dante’s voice kicked up an octave. “Did you see where she went?”

He couldn’t bear to ask if she’d fallen or been dragged away.

The elder broke eye contact with the tree, which leaned perilously to the side. With a thunderous boom, it crashed onto a group of vamps who were fighting for them.

“Look what you’ve done!” the elder gasped, his hands trembling as they covered his mouth. Pressure, it seemed, had taken its toll. He looked like a shaking leaf, poised to fall. “Look what you made me do!”

Dante gripped the elder by his collar. “I need you to focus for a second.”

“We don’t have a second. Do you see the blood bath out there?”

He wouldn’t, couldn’t quit.

“Ariana was behind this log, right here.” Dante jerked him around the backside. “She was
right here.
Did you see where she went?”

“The only thing I’ve seen is death. Death and defeat.”

He shouldn’t have left. He should’ve taken her with him . . .

Dante released him as a swarm of vamps came out of nowhere, leaping over the log. They wielded long wooden staffs with ends that’d been whittled down to sharp-ass points. Jabbing their staffs in unison, they bore down upon Dante and the elder.

But Dante wasn’t about to go down hiding behind a log. He dropped to bended knee and rolled out of the way, his nails elongating to picks as he went. The elder fought, tossing dirt into their eyes, rolling the fallen log beneath their feet without physically touching them. The passive maware didn’t hold them off for long. The elder turned to run. The distraction didn’t last long enough. He got a staff through his torso and fell face first in the mud.

Dante’s voices should’ve taken over by now. He should’ve relished the violence. But his brain was quiet, his thoughts his own. He welcomed the change and the control he had over the pain he inflicted.

Growling so loud it spun all the vamps around, Dante let the anger inside him erupt as he jumped onto the nearest vamp and sliced his head clean off. He jumped to the next, stabbing his nails through his heart in mid-air. The vamp dropped to the earth as the other swung its staff, aimed at Dante’s throat.

Dante balled the adrenaline into his gut and pushed the energy outward. A vortex of wind swirled around the vamp, knocking him off balance, spinning him around. The staff shifted in his hand. Dante sliced the stick of wood in quarters, then made his next slice through the vamp’s heart.

The sound of a thousand battle cries filled the air, followed by the song of clashing steel. Dante peered through the rain and shadows.

Watchers
.

They came by the hundreds, wave after wave of warriors in white. They overtook the forest, slicing through the hearts of the enemy, fighting alongside the warriors of Black Moon.

With renewed vigor, the elders pushed forward, slowly driving Savage’s soldiers back. Fires smoldered everywhere. Not even the rain could put them out. They were born of something more than spark and flame. They were born of energy and spirit, courage and vengeance.

As a familiar warrior in white rushed by, Dante charged a hissing hoard of vamps.

“Glad you made it, Pike!” He slashed at one, took out another. “I was starting to think you were afraid.”

“Ha! Watchers show no fear. ” Pike swung his sword, slicing an advancing vamp in half, head to groin. Then he pulled back his collar, revealing the black mark that remained etched into his skin. “We are now following your lead.”

“We can’t let them advance another inch. They can’t reach Black Moon’s walls.”

Pike put two fingers to his pale lips and whistled. An army of Watchers assembled before Dante’s eyes.

“Go. Fight your battle,” he said, shoving Dante in the back. “We’ve got this.”

“Dante!” A voice screamed above the drumming of his heart. “Savage!”

He spun toward the voice. On the horizon, Slade, Ruan, and Eve were poised in the middle of a ring of vamps and death shades. They seemed to be holding them back, fighting with their fists and boots, guns and throwing knives. Eve blasted through death shades as they slithered over the dead, calling out to Ruan when a vamp ventured too close. Though Dante didn’t spot Savage, he took off at a dead sprint, slaying every vamp that blocked his path as he went.

Ariana was nowhere to be found, but Dante couldn’t help scanning the faces of the fallen as he raced by. His heart was in his throat, his stomach balled in knots. He wanted to find her, but not like this.

When he finally cleared a path and reached the circle closing in on Slade, Ruan, and Eve, they fought harder, seemingly glad to have reinforcement. He blasted his way to the center, shooting vamps in the back, bringing them down.

As Dante climbed over piles of bodies and reached the center, Ruan grabbed his arm. “Slade saw vamps retreating toward Darkly Meadow. Savage will be gone by the time we fight our way through this.”

“Work some magic, Watcher,” Slade growled, bringing down two vamps with one swipe of his blade.

“You got it.”

Pinching his eyes closed, Dante focused on the swarm of vamps clamoring their way over the dead. Their anger was almost tangible, threading through the air, settling on his skin in a cold sweat. He knelt, fist to earth, head hung low. Thought about nothing but knocking the vamps down like bowling pins. They groaned as his stomach clenched, as the hurricane force wind gathered in his gut. And when he cried out, blasting the energy from his middle into the air around him, their groans dropped off.

When he opened his eyes, he choked back a gasp. Every vamp within a twenty-foot radius had been leveled, as if they were blown back and TKO’d.

“Told you it was a wicked trick,” Ruan said to Slade as he grabbed Eve by the arm.

“There’s more coming.” Dante pointed to the mass lumbering up the next hill. “We don’t have much time. Let’s go.”

They took off at a dead sprint, heading east toward Darkly Meadow. The path seemed darker than Dante remembered it. Rockier and harder to traverse, too. He twisted his ankle and leapfrogged over fallen logs more times than he could count. Not to mention Savage’s vamps were everywhere. Slicing and dicing didn’t slow him down though, and the other three were right behind him, shadowing his every move.

As a long row of fir trees opened up to Darkly Meadow, Dante slowed his grueling pace and stopped before taking a single step onto the grass. Death shades swirled around the massive stone structure in the center, creating a tornado of evil he could barely see through.

But their shadowy curtain wasn’t thick enough to block the three vamps standing tall in the center near the stone ruins.

“Son of a bitch!” Slade said, radiating hatred from every pore. “Is that the Primus?”

“And . . .” Dante squinted, peering through the death shades, aching to tear out the Primus’s jugular. “Ariana.”

With a knife to her throat.

“Oh, hell no.” Dante stormed into the meadow and sent the death shades into a frenzy.

As if they were waiting for someone to breach their fir tree barrier, the death shades spun off their cyclone, one by one. Eve clutched the amulet against her chest and chanted something too low for Dante’s ears to make out. Instead of blowing right through them, the death shades swirled around Dante and the others, consuming them, drawing the group closer and closer into the center of the meadow.

They were being herded. Right to Savage.

The curtain sucked up with a hiss, closing around them completely, blocking any chance of escape. Hundreds of death shades swirled around them, so thick and evil, they blocked out every ounce of light the lightning gave, every roar of thunder.

They were trapped, and Dante didn’t dare move. They wouldn’t survive passing through the shades.

Eve held out the amulet and began chanting again. The death shades must’ve distracted her before she could finish the last incantation. This time Savage raised his arms as if he could call the heavens crashing down upon them. With a nasty smirk on his face, Savage paused, as if he was weighing Eve’s intention.

In the weeks since Dante had run into him in the alley behind Mirage, Savage had changed. His face had darkened from stress and strain, and the scar slashing across his cheek had become heavily grooved, right down to the bone.

“Wait,” Ruan said, holding Eve protectively behind him. “Not yet. Not until they attack.”

“Smart move.” Savage lowered his arms, matching Eve move for move. “Smart man.”

Eve spun in a slow circle, focusing on the swirling death shades. Slade growled and crouched at Dante’s side, but he held his ground. Dante couldn’t take his eyes off Ariana.

She looked calm. Cool and confident. As if this position—not a hairsbreadth away from both the Primus and Savage—was right where she wanted to be. Did she think she could take them down? Surely she wouldn’t be foolish enough to try something on her own.

“Let her go.” Dante took a step closer. Ruan and Slade followed, trailing a step behind him.

“I don’t think so.” Her Primus stepped behind her, using her body as a shield, and shifted the knife against her throat. “I think I like my position above yours.”

“What the hell do you want? What could you possibly gain from fighting with Savage?”

“He’s got everything to gain,” Savage answered for him. “He’s a businessman, and we have conducted a business transaction. While Black Moon will fall and every elder will perish, giving me control over their death shades, he will live, free to roam the world wherever he chooses. By following his trail of breadcrumbs, starting with the energy thrown off of this little beauty’s blue ribbon, I was able to build my army and know exactly what steps you were taking inside Black Moon’s walls.”

Guilt scorched through Dante’s stomach. Ariana’s ribbon had slipped from his wrist. He’d lost it. And that baby blue anchor had led Savage right to the haven’s back door.

“Traitor!” Dante hissed, stalking forward. “You could’ve had everything. Black Moon will hold strong!”

“Did you see the massacre out there?” Her Primus spat. “Savage is wiping us out, as I knew he would. In another few hours there’ll be no elders left . . . save for one.”

“You know what they say, Primus.” Dante held his hands behind his back and let his nails drop to blades. “Rats leave the ship.”

“At least the rats survive.”

“If you would’ve stayed and fought alongside your family, you would’ve seen the Watchers come out of hiding. They’re fighting for your precious haven. More than rats will survive in Black Moon, but you won’t be around to see it.”

“Family?” the Primus scoffed, bringing a knife to Ariana’s throat. “You know nothing of family. You’re nothing but a bastard son, born of a hybrid mating.”

“You should look beside you and say that again,” Slade said, creeping closer.

The Primus met Savage’s cold, hard gaze. He, too, was a hybrid born from a vampire mother, fathered by a therian leader.

“Family is easily replaced by passion and purpose,” her Primus said. “Look at Ariana here. She wouldn’t have accomplished half the things she has if I hadn’t killed her parents.”

Ariana blanched, straining against the blade. A trickle of blood dripped across the silver and trickled down the front of her dress.

“Oh, don’t act so surprised, doll. Deep down you had to know you were the key to keeping this place off the grid. And you had to know I couldn’t let you walk out on me.”