A Little Rhine Must Fall (28 page)

I noticed Cassidy watching me with a worried look so I hurriedly wiped the tears away with the back of my hand and gave her a smile. Cecily had come back into the room and was talking with the alien in the corner of the room. Neither one looked happy.

I tried to wander over in an aimless manner.

“How long?” Cecily was asking.

“I do not know,” alien/Karen replied. “Soon? We are down to our last box of cake mix. We will need to go to the grocery store again.”

“I don’t care about your stupid cake fix!” Cecily hissed. “I want to know when your people are coming.”

Alien/Karen yawned. “I have already told you. I do not know precisely when. The attack-ships travel much faster than my scout ship, and there may have been technical advances since my ship’s departure from Endrung. It is impossible to calculate without all the relevant data, but I imagine they will arrive sometime within the next year.”

Next
year
? The room swirled around me with tiny flashes of black and sparkly lights.

“Piper? Piper? Are you okay?”

I was staring up at the ceiling. Cecily, my mother, and Mark were all leaning over me.

“What happened,” I placed a hand over the swell of my belly. I was far enough along in the pregnancy to feel the first fluttering kicks. My little boy was kicking up a storm. He must not like me lying on my back.

I rolled over and fought back a wave of nausea.

“You passed out,” Cecily said.

Oh. Right. I put my head between my knees and tried to think calming thoughts. All this stress was upsetting the baby.

“She needs to see a doctor,” my mother said to Mark.

The look on his face broke my heart. He was worried about me and completely helpless to do anything about it. “You know we can’t do that, Marion,” he said softly.

One of the lone wolves stuck his head in the door. “We’ve got movement on three sides,” he yelled. “Places!”

Cecily had made us drill this over and over again, until I thought I could do it in my sleep, but there is something very different about knowing that it was not a drill. It was real. Someone had found us and the only people out there
looking
for us were the enemy.

Within seconds everyone (who met Cecily’s requirements for being able to defend themselves) was loaded for bear and out of the room. The rest of us, Mom, Sarah, Carolyn, the kids, the alien, and me, were left to sit in the dark and worry. Bastet was here too; most days she spent curled up next to Otis on my sleeping bag, which was what she was currently doing.

I poked her with my toe and got a hiss. “Someone’s coming,” I told her.

She covered her nose with a furry paw.
:Go away. We’re sleeping:

I took a little frustration out on her. “You’re always sleeping!” I poked her again.

She kept the paw over her eyes but managed to jab me back with the claws on the other paw.
:We’re a cat. We sleep:

Otis raised his big head and gave me a death glare. He didn’t appreciate being woken either.

“Aren’t you going to go out there and help?”

:No:

“No?” I threatened.

:No:

I was distracted from strangling her by alien/Karen. “I would really like a piece of cake,” she said forlornly.

I whirled on her. “You stupid alien!” I raged. “There will be no more cake! Don’t you get it? There will
never
be any more cake! The cake is gone! People are dying out there and all you care about is stupid cake!”

“Piper! Quit making so much noise!” Sarah whispered.

We were supposed to be armed with our weapon of choice, hidden out of line of fire from the door, and, most importantly, quiet. I checked my nine mil. again to confirm that it had not mysteriously unloaded itself since the last time I checked and went to crouch in front of the others.

The little boy in my tummy kicked and squirmed. “Shh,” I told him, rubbing where I thought his head might be.

For a few minutes all I could hear was the pounding of my own heart and the frightened breathing of everyone else. Then the loud crack of a rifle made all of us jump and Sarah let out a little scream. Megan and Cassidy started to cry. They didn’t know what was going on, but they were picking up on our terror loud and clear.

Mom was cradling Cassidy in her lap with an arm around Harry and Carolyn had Megan. Both women had refused to learn to shoot a gun and their eyes were as big as dinner plates. I knew that a gun was no protection against a vampire, but the heavy, cold metal in my hand served to anchor me to sanity and gave me a false sense of control. Even a false sense is better than mind numbing paralysis.

There were more shots, yells, and one long drawn out scream that ended in a gurgle. Sarah was crying now as well and if Mom didn’t take deeper breaths she was going to hyperventilate.

Another volley of gunfire sounded, this time closer. Whoever was attacking was getting past our defenses. Then, even worse than the noise, came silence. Now I could hear several hearts beating, and Sarah, Megan, and Cassidy whimpering. Still nothing from outside.

Minutes passed and all was still quiet. My blood was rushing past my ears so loudly I thought I was going to have an aneurism and die. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t sit like a rat in a cage waiting for whatever was out there to come in and slaughter us all. I was not going to cower in a corner while something was threatening my children.

I stood up and gave Megan and Cassidy a quick hug and kiss. “Be good girls for your grandmothers,” I told them.

“Where are you going?” my mom whispered frantically.

“I’m going to see what’s happening,” I answered.

“I will come with you,” alien/Karen said, standing up calmly. “I would like a weapon.”

I studied her for a minute. She was the reason we were all here and the world was in the mess it was. But nothing she had ever said or done had led me to believe that she held any personal animosity toward me and my family.

“Fine,” I said. In one corner of the room was the large duffle bag that Mark had brought with the spare guns. There was one shotgun left. Not a long range weapon, it had been discarded in favor of the rifles. No one wanted to be so close to a vampire that a shotgun would be effective.

I chambered a few shells, gave her a quick tutorial, and finished with, “Don’t point it at anything you don’t want to shoot.” I pushed the barrel away from me as she unconsciously swung it around while looking at me. “That includes me.”

“Understood.”

:We will come with you:
Bastet said, stretching and giving Otis a quick lick on the ear. I smiled. Any help was better than no help.

I looked back over my shoulder at my children. They both had their heads buried in their grandmothers’ arms. I wanted to go back and hold them and squeeze them and never, ever let them go. I wanted to kiss their little faces and wipe away their tears and never let anything hurt them. What I wanted didn’t matter.

I tried to say something memorable, something inspiring that would stay with my daughters for the rest of their lives. They could look back on this day and remember that their mother said … drat. I was too scared to say anything but, “I love you.”

Crouching down below head level, I slowly opened the door and tried to inch my way out. My belly wasn’t huge yet, but it was big enough to make me have to open the door wide to get through. I bet John McClane never had that problem.

The alien followed me, which made my shoulder blades contract in fear of accidental friendly fire. “Why don’t you go first?” I told her. That way she would have nothing between her and the enemy to hit.

She went on ahead and I followed a few steps behind. I kept my finger out of the trigger guard and alongside the barrel, just as Mark had taught me. I was still scared but
doing
something was much better than hiding. I just hoped I was doing the right thing.

We made it through the long empty hallways and came to the outside door without conflict. It was a double door with crash bars and it made a loud click when the alien pushed it open. I slunk through after her and felt Bastet, warm and furry, brush by my ankles. Her markings blended into the shadows and she became invisible in the dark.

I had been inside so long that my internal clock was all messed up. It didn’t seem like it should be night time, but I doubted that the vampires would attack in the daylight when their powers would be weakest.

I didn’t have time to enjoy the fresh air very long before I took one step and tripped on something. It was a boot. With a foot inside. A foot that was no longer attached to a body. I recognized one of the wolves’ combat boots. How sad that this was
not
the goriest thing I had ever seen in my life?

A burst of gunfire to my left shook me out of my horrified stare, and when I heard Mark’s voice yelling, “On the roof! On the roof! Behind you!” I took off at a dead run.

I was too late. Not that my presence would have really changed anything, but you never know, it might have. In the large paved quad between the buildings I found my husband.

He was kneeling in the center, hands behind his head. One of the werewolves was in the same position beside him. Annabeth was kneeling on the ground beside Floyd, stark naked, and pressing both hands into his leg, trying to stop the arterial flow of bright red blood. She had obviously shifted back from skunk ape form in an attempt to save his life. Cecily was held firmly by two vampires who were still having a hard time stilling her into submission. And my father was nowhere to be seen.

Circling the small group was a team of three more vampires and two, most likely, WAND members. In clear leadership was my old enemy Matthew. He was triumphant, and fingering the Sword of Justice that had just been wrenched from Cecily’s hands. He raised it with loving slowness and held the point against her heart.

“Surrender now, Cecily. Return to your brood and all will be forgiven.”

She spat in his face.

He backhanded her so quickly that I heard the sound of the smack before I realized what had happened. “Play nice, dear,” he crooned and slid the point of the sword up her neck. “You’ve had your fun with the humans. Now it is time to return.”

“You’ve been watching too many vampire flicks,” Cecily sneered. “You sound like a B movie villain. All you need is a Transylvanian accent.”

He backhanded her again and this time I saw her head snap to one side with the force of the blow. It was time to intervene.

I ran forward, drawing in the breath and the will power to command everyone in hearing distance. So focused on my target that I didn’t see the witch until he thrust the butt end of his staff into my diaphragm. I was down on the ground, retching, and unable to pull air into my lungs.

“Ah, Mrs. Cavanaugh,” Matthew greeted me, as the witch dragged my twitching body into the center of the circle. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“Piper!” Mark yelled and made as if to move to my side. A vampire kicked him in the side and his body flew several feet before landing with a thud.

I still couldn’t talk but I poured all my hatred into my eyes. Matthew laughed and bent down to meet me face to face. “Charming,” he laughed. “You have no idea how long I have waited for this moment. And to have it sanctioned by the Synod makes it all that much sweeter.”

He grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the ground. I was choking and little black spots started to float in my vision. “You never should have staked me,” he snarled. “If it weren’t for the WAND I would still be a helpless,
pain-ridden
, wreck!”

Cecily broke free of one of her captors and with a mighty lurch, dragged the other one a step closer to Matthew. He turned with vampire speed and plunged the Sword of Justice into her chest. She sagged, pink foam bubbling up out of her mouth.

Tears filled my eyes and blurred what little was left of my vision. I felt my mind slipping away as it shut down from lack of oxygen.

“No, No,” Matthew tisked. “Not yet.” He opened his hand enough to let me suck in a small gulp of air, barely enough to keep me conscious, and not enough to speak with. “I still have something for you to see.”

He dragged me over and forced me to my knees in front of my husband. Mark was just starting to pick himself up, one arm held tightly over his ribcage. “Let go of my wife, monster,” he croaked.

Matthew laughed, a cheerless, cold sound. “Humans are so sure of themselves.” He gave my throat a shake that rattled my bones. “And so helpless.” With that he thrust the sword into Mark’s heart.

In movies, when someone important dies, they take a long time to do it. They gasp, they flounder, they say their heartfelt goodbyes. Their loved one clutches them in a hug and they share a last tender moment together before the end.

This was not a movie. This was real life, and he was gone before I could even try to scream.

Chapter Twenty-Eight:

Hope

Soundless screams were shaking my body. I still couldn’t get enough air to make noise, but my brain was hysterical. Mark’s body lay slumped across my feet. A small trickle of blood oozed out of the hole in his shirt. His eyes were open, a look of anger still on his features.

My eyes were pouring tears and my nose was so blocked that I started to black out again from lack of air. I was full of regret. Regret that I hadn’t had the chance to tell my husband how much I loved and respected him. Regret that I hadn’t been able to rescue him. Regret that I had ever signed up with the USB and brought us to this moment in time. Regret even that I had married him, when he could have married a normal human woman who would never have brought vampires into his life.

Matthew released me and I finally was able to cradle Mark’s body in my arms. I gently closed his eyes and pressed my forehead to his. “I’m so very, very sorry,” I whispered, still unable to make noise with my abused throat.

I was so lost in my sobbing heartbreak that I hardly paid attention to the action going on around me. Cecily was overpowered and forced to kneel next to Annabeth and the remaining werewolf. She pressed one hand to her chest and the air was wheezing in and out of her lungs. The vampires and witches were conferring when we were all startled by the howl that erupted from Annabeth’s throat. It was sorrow and rage and pain, and so loud that I cowered in fear, my own tears momentarily forgotten. Floyd had just died.