Birth of Jaiden (36 page)

“
Danielle?”

The bolt the vampire had
thrown was lodged into Danielle’s stomach. She had her eyes closed
and stood silent as a statue.

Slowly, her hands crept
around her middle and grasped the bolt. When she pulled it out, her
eyes snapped open and Alex staggered backward. Her eyes were a
bright, blinding blue and a shaft of light escaped from the hole
where the bolt had been.

The other vampires
scattered backward too, away from the light.

Another look at her eyes and
Alex knew she was not hurt, she was
angry
.

Then, a loud crackling
sound spewed forth from her body and the light began to spread
across her entire body like connecting pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
The vampires continued to step back. They probably had never seen
anything like that before.

Glowing fiercely, so
bright even Alex didn’t know if he wanted to chance getting near
her, she finally let loose an ear piercing scream and began to
march forward toward the vamps. They ran. Humans and vampires they
knew they could kill but they had never witnessed an entity quite
like Danielle.

She continued forward and
a loud snap echoed throughout the throne room and from Danielle’s
body emerged the largest, most beautiful set of white feathery
wings he had ever seen.

Jackie, quite literally
unimpressed with Danielle’s show, had been waiting for her moment
the entire time. “Alex!” She kicked one of the large flashlights
toward him and carried two in her own hand. “Kill them before she
does.”

He snatched up the UV
light and understood. They couldn’t let the angel kill anyone, even
those guys. Jackie had her lights on and the vampires finally
realized what was happening. They had been so distracted by
Danielle that they hadn’t paid any attention to Jackie or Alex.
Jackie waved her flashlight across the entire group of vampires and
they all began moaning and screaming as their black tee shirts
burned away from their bubbling skin.

Alex flicked on the light
and waved it across them. They just kept waving the lights and
burning them. Then, one of them finally had enough and charged
forward. Alex was ready with his sword raised. He jumped high into
the air and, with little force, sliced the vamp’s head clean off.
The dark vampire blood stained the floor and ran under Alex’s feet.
He washed the light over the remains one last time to be
sure.

Across the room, Danielle
floated two feet in the air, held a guard by the throat in each
hand and squeezed their throats. Being vampires, that didn’t
actually deter them much physically. But when she squeezed a little
bit harder, their heads literally blew off their necks. Bloody
pieces of vampire pulp landed everywhere.

“
Gross!” Alex heard Jackie
mumble loudly.

Danielle threw the bodies
to the ground and lunged for the nearest vampire. Jackie flashed
her light over the decapitated bodies and they quickly turned to
smoldering ashes. In the meantime, Alex had sprung for the vampire
in closest proximity to him.

His target stretched out
his arm in mid-air and grabbed his leg, sending him tumbling to the
ground. He was up in an instant with his sword still in his hand. A
ray of UV slashed across the vampire’s fiery eyes and blinded him.
The screeching that came from within the depths of the undead body
rang uncomfortably into Alex’s ears.

Good going,
Jackie!

He turned, performed a
rough pirouette and swung his sword. It slid easily through the
vampire’s neck like through butter. The head tilted and fell to the
ground with a dull thud. He could hear Jackie call his name and
turned to find the other two vampires dead as well. The two
Danielle had killed were little more than piles of
limbs.

Jackie stood bent over,
panting heavily and staring at Danielle who still radiated the
bright light. Her wings stood out, extended, like she wanted to fly
away.

“
What. Was. That?” Alex
demanded of the glowing angel.

Slowly, little by little,
her light faded. She did not speak, nor did she make eye contact
with either of them.

While he waited for
Danielle to calm down and quit glowing, he bent down to pick up the
vampire head with the intention to throw it in the pile with the
pieces of Danielle’s kill. At the same time as he grasped the head
by its hair, a ray of UV light ran over his hand.

He sucked in his breath
and yanked his hand back. Quickly, he examined it but didn’t see
the expected burn.

“
I’m so sorry, Alex!” Jackie
hurried to him. “I didn’t see you reaching out…you’re so
fast
.”

He continued to hold his
hand up at eye level. Nothing, not one single mark to prove he had
just been touched by artificial sunlight.

“
Nothing,” he
whispered.

“
What?” Jackie grabbed his
hand and pulled it toward her. She examined it, and then looked up
at him with surprise and suspicion. “How is this
possible?”

“
I...” He remembered
Jeremiah’s warning of secrecy. “I don’t know,” he whispered, for
lack of a better explanation.

Jackie still had a hold of
his hand. With her other hand, she flipped on the flashlight again
and pointed it directly at the back of his white hand. Again,
nothing happened.

It’s happened. Jeremiah
did it!

Jackie dropped his hand.
“We’re running out of time.”

She turned to Danielle,
who had finally recovered to her previous self, without the wings
or light. Now, she stood motionless and stared at the mess before
her, a horrified expression on her face.

Alex understood her horror. It
was one thing for her to fight, to hurt, but to
kill
was another story. He wanted to know
what happened to her, why she had become so ruthless. Maybe, being
an angel didn’t always mean you were good.

He shrugged it off. There
was no time to think about that; he would have to ask her
later.

“
Let’s move,” Jackie
demanded.

“
Come on, Danielle.” He
grasped Danielle by the hand. “Snap out of it.”

She didn’t snap out of
it.

“
Ugh.” He pulled on her
hand. “Let’s go.”

She stayed frozen,
unmoving. Alex did not want to have to pick her up and carry her.
That was a sure way to die. He lifted his palm to give her a gentle
pat on the cheek, which would feel like a slap to her.

“
Alex, maybe you shouldn’t
do that,” Jackie said.

“
Do
you
want to do it?” he asked.

She shook her head. “You
go ahead.”

He closed his eyes and
mentally prepared himself to deal with the angel of death as soon
as his palm connected. But, before he could truly commit to the
act, he heard the sound of fast paced footsteps quickly approaching
and then, a door opened and Malcolm’s voice filled the
room.

“
Well, well, look what we have
here. Are you
looking
for someone, Alexander?”

37

Deanna moved quickly and
crouched low behind Chris, who followed the map in his head. It
wasn’t easy, though, because the directions dissipated rather
quickly. Their mission was to find Isabella and Stewart then get
them out of there but Victoria hadn’t seen where Malcolm was
keeping Isabella and Stewart. So, there was basically no plan on
how to find them, and the tunnels inside the mountain were very
confusing.

She knew Michael was
behind her tucking his little bombs into the dark crevices of the
cave walls as he followed.

Chris stopped. “Where the
hell should we go?”

The tunnels forked off
into two different directions.

“
Just pick one, Chris,”
Deanna hissed, “we’re running out of time.”

“
Fine.” Chris shrugged and
strode forward into the tunnel which veered to the left.

Like in the rest of the
caves, torches lined the walls and lit the way for them. Deanna
silently thanked God they weren’t completely in the dark. It was
fine for Chris to be in the dark but neither Deanna nor Michael
could fight without being able to see.

After about three minutes
of walking and seeing nothing, Chris halted in front of Deanna so
suddenly that she slammed into his hard back.

“
What?” she
whispered.

“
Shhh.”

She heard a few clicks
from behind her, most likely Michael engaging his
crossbow.

Chris turned and shoved
Deanna up against the shadows of the damp walls. Beside her,
Michael followed suit and crouched low into the
darkness.

“
He will smell you,” Chris
whispered, his stone lips pressed up against her ear.

She sucked in her breath
and tried to shake the tickle of longing for his lips on her. She
was in the middle of a vampire lair for crying out loud.

Just then, a woman with
curly blond hair emerged from within a dark corner of the tunnel.
She stopped, lifted her nose into the air and sniffed. Slowly, she
cocked her head one way, then the other, until she focused on the
three of them. The curly blond ran her eyes over Michael and back
to Deanna. It was like she tried to decide who would taste
better.

Finally, her gaze dropped
down onto Deanna’s throat. Deanna watched as her tongue slid out,
moistening her scarlet lips. She lifted her hands and fluffed her
curly hair.

Then, she
lunged.

It happened quicker than
Deanna could see. Chris was in front of her and shielded her. A
bolt from Michael’s crossbow pierced skin and lodged into Curly’s
heart just as her fangs sank into the right side of Chris’s
abdomen.

Chris moaned and then
fisted her blond locks in his hands like a man in the throes of
passion. With lightning fast movement, he yanked her head till the
snap echoed in the tunnels of the cave. He shoved her body down and
angrily kicked it hard.

Michael brushed his hand
over Deanna’s lower back before he stood over Curly’s body. “Turn
around,” he ordered Chris.

Chris, who was occupied
with examining his bite, did as he was told.

Michael flicked the switch
on his biggest UV light and aimed it at the dead vampire on the
cave floor. Instantly, she disintegrated into a pile of
dust.

Michael nodded
appreciatively at the ashes. “Let’s move.”

They moved at a faster
pace than before with Michael in the lead and Deanna sandwiched in
between him and Chris.

Time was really beginning
to be an issue. Deanna feared that if time ran too short, they
wouldn’t be able to rescue Isabella and Stewart.

“
Stop.” Chris grasped
Deanna by the wrist. “Do you hear that?”

Deanna shook her head and
looked questioningly at Michael. “You?”

He shook his
head.

She knew Chris could hear
far better than either of them so it didn’t surprise her that he
could hear something they couldn’t.

“
Keep going.” He waved
them on.

Nearly a minute later, the
tunnel curved into a wider hallway with two doors on their left
side and another doorway directly in front of them.

Deanna could hear what
Chris had been talking about. On the other side of the wall, she
heard a sort of weeping and praying all in one.

“
Please, God, please bring
your angels to help me! I believe, I swear I believe! Please,
God.”

When the male voice
stopped, the weeping grew louder.

Chris nodded to Michael
and Deanna. They raised their weapons, and then with an ear
splitting crack, he kicked in the door. Deanna flew into the room
with Michael at her side and they split one to the left and one to
the right. Chris appeared between them, covering the center with
sword drawn.

Deanna scanned the room
quickly. It appeared to be a makeshift hospital room. Green
curtains separated hospital beds, and lots of portable machines and
sliver trays were scattered all over the place.

Deanna saw no one. She
made eye contact with Michael. He shook his head so she kept her
stakes ready. Chris cautiously moved into the center of the room,
walking in front of the curtains and beds.

The only thing they could
hear was the man’s weeping. Chris glanced back and pinched his
nose, indicating he could smell a vamp.

“
Who’s there?” the weeping
man called. “I heard the door break. I know someone’s
here.”

Chris crossed in front of
the man’s bed and made a “shhhing noise.”

“
Ah. Thank you, Lord! An angel
has come. Thank you, thank you, and
thank you
.”

Chris shook his head
vigorously and tried to get the man to keep quiet.

Suddenly, Deanna felt the
hairs on the back of her neck raise. Slowly, she turned around to
check behind her.