No Man's Land (29 page)

30

W
ind howled down the mountains, picking up speed and force as the cliffs channeled it down along the Potomac. Kelly paused a moment to catch her breath and admire the way the moonlight danced along the waters of the Shenandoah, lighting the rocky rapids with flecks of silver. It seemed like they’d been fighting forever, but a glance at the stars told her it was at least three hours until dawn.

“You okay?”

Jaq had remained close the entire night. Kelly wasn’t sure if it was to ensure the werewolves didn’t attack her by mistake again, or to act as back–up. Either way, the vampire was grateful. Jaq was a tireless fighter, snapping back and forth between wolf and human forms in a blink, and completely unfazed about fighting completely naked when she was on two legs. Kelly chuckled, wondering what the humans would think to see a tall, freckled naked woman racing through the woods.

The humans hadn’t been spared this night. She’d seen the bodies with the familiar puncture wounds — victims of injured vampires in need of blood. Some looked as though they’d been shared by several. There was a time when Kelly wouldn’t have concerned herself with the thought of their terror as vampires grabbed them from their houses and cars, but now she shuddered to think of it.

“I’m fine. Just a quick rest.”

Concern flashed across her friend’s gray eyes. The Kincaid force had collided with the other group just outside Harpers Ferry. The werewolves had managed to push the Kincaid vampires over the border toward Loudoun Heights, and a good bit of the Fournier forces had followed them to drive them further into their territory — but some had remained. And those who had were hammering the werewolves as if they had a visceral need to see every last one of them dead.

“You don’t look fine.”

No, she was positive she didn’t. It was the price a vampire paid when they were under two–hundred years old and had been on the edge of starvation for two weeks. The donated human blood she’d drunk earlier had gone to healing a multitude of injuries, and now Kelly found herself weak once again.

“Let me have a bit of your blood.” It was risky. Who knows what repeated exposure to the stuff would do to her, but the alternative was falling to the next vampire she faced. Jaq had enough to do without needing to bail her out repeatedly through the night.

The werewolf hesitated. “Let me drive you back home instead. You can get more blood from our neighbors, and heal up while I come back here.”

Kelly felt a wave of shame. “You don’t have time to drive me home — you’ve got a fight going on, or didn’t you notice? Besides, your pack will never accept me if I have to go home and rest in the middle of a battle.

Jaq tilted her head, a smile teasing the corner of her mouth. “Since when are you worried about my pack accepting you? And I’m worried what my blood will do to you. I’ve worked too hard to keep you alive only to have you stroke out right before my eyes.”

“I’ll be fine. I was fine before, and, as I recall, your blood had some pretty awesome side effects. And yes, I’m worried about your pack accepting me. It’s not like my family would ever take me back after tonight. Kincaids aren’t going to want me either. Might as well put my fate in the hands of a bunch of smelly, old werewolves.”

“I, for one, will welcome a skanky New Jersey vampire into my pack.”

Skanky? It’s not like she could be offended after claiming they smelled like old ham, though. “Then bite yourself for me, would you? I don’t have any fangs, and I doubt you’d appreciate me cutting you with a silver knife.”

“Unless you want to be drinking from a wolf, I’ve got a better idea.” Jaq pulled a small knife from her jeans pocket and flipped it open, expertly slicing her arm. Blood welled up in a line of red beads against the freckled skin. She extended her arm toward Kelly, as if she were offering a tray of hors d’oeuvres.

The few drops were like a sledgehammer to her head the moment they hit her tongue. This time it was worse. Her heart went supersonic, and her brain felt like someone had lit a torch to it. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, all she felt was pain. Inescapable pain.

“Kelly!”

Someone was whacking her chest and screaming her name. The blurred shape before her coalesced into a freckled face framed in blond hair, inches from her own.

“Oh my God! Oh my God. I am
not
doing this again. I don’t care how much you beg me, I am not doing this again
ever
. You were having convulsions. Your heart stopped, and I’m not really sure if that’s an okay thing for a vampire or not.”

Kelly traced the freckles with her eyes. They were like arcane symbols, their meaning just outside her grasp. If only she could decipher them, she’d know the answers to all the questions in the universe.

Jaq swore. “I’m taking you home. Right now. Taking you home and getting you some human blood. Hang in there.”

“I’m fine.” Kelly raised a hand and was momentarily distracted by the sight of it. Bones and veins, muscles that flexed and relaxed. “There are three vampires closing in about a hundred yards to the west. Fournier. They don’t recognize me. They’re waiting for you to finish me off before they attack, so they only have to deal with one opponent instead of two.”

“So are you psychic now too?” Jaq asked, rising to her feet. “Cause if you can read the future, please tell me that this ends well.”

Kelly stood up, too, weaving slightly on her feet. “I have no idea. My head is killing me. I’m just hoping I’m not worse off than I was before.”

There was no time for the werewolf to respond. Two vampires burst through the trees, one grabbing Jaq, before she could transform, and throwing her across the clearing. The other plowed into Kelly, knocking her against a tree as he tried to twist her head off. It all seemed to proceed in slow motion — the vampire’s face as he scowled down at her, the feel of his hands against her cheeks and neck, his weight pinning her to the tree. She could hear the nearby rush of the river as it churned over rocky ground. Rocks everywhere. Mountains so close they were like castle walls on the other side of a white–water moat.

“Kelly! Snap out of it!”

Ow, her neck hurt, like someone was trying to rip her head off. Reaching up, Kelly placed a hand against the face looming over her and pushed. Hands wrenched painfully from her neck and the vampire flew across the clearing, his head bouncing on a rock. Kelly looked about her at the rocks that littered the ground. Pretty. Limestone, quartz, and shale. Streaks of pink and green among black and white. She picked one up, as big as her head, and admired it.

“Kelly!”

The vampire was almost upon her. She raised the rock and extended her arm forward, pushing it into him as if his face were cookie dough. He fell to the ground, clawing at the huge stone, and Kelly stared down at him, a coldness creeping into her mind and snapping parts of it together like puzzle pieces. This was an enemy, and she needed to kill him. So she did, reaching down and yanking his head from his body, carefully removing the pretty rock from his smashed face and wiping the gore from it onto the brown grass.

A hand grabbed her arm, and once again Kelly looked up into Jaq’s freckled face. There was blood on it, and down her arms and chest. It wasn’t vampire blood. Kelly could smell the sharp icy scent of it, thick and sweet. Her stomach heaved, and she forced back the urge to vomit.

“You took on the other two?” Kelly panted.

Jaq rubbed Kelly’s back, the werewolf’s eyes full of concern. “Yeah, and now I’m taking you home. No arguments.”

“There are two more vampires half a mile out. They are wondering what’s taking their three friends so long, and they’re heading this way.”

Jaq threw her hands up in disbelief. “You’re scaring the hell out of me, Kelly. You stay here, and I’ll take care of them.”

“No, I’m fine. Really.” Kelly got to her feet and tilted her head, hearing her neck crack into joint. “I think it just takes a while for your blood to settle in. That first hit is a doozy.”

Hands grabbed her shoulders, and gray eyes searched her own. “Well, you’re pupils aren’t as big, and you seem semi–coherent at least. But if you pull one more stunt like you did with this last guy, I really am taking you home.”

Kelly nodded, not trusting her words, and followed Jaq into the tree line. They split up, Jaq motioning her to the south along the river as she headed north. Kelly felt the vampires shift, following the werewolf. With a smile, she edged around behind them. This close to the river, and with all the vampires that had passed through here, there was a good chance they’d never notice her. One of the good things in being young enough not to have an aura.

They were right ahead. A woman, she saw with surprise, and a broad–shouldered man in a black coat. Women vampires weren’t often allowed into the fighting ranks. They usually wound up running the business interests, and sometimes acted as informants, but it was the male vampire that made Kelly pause. He was old, over five hundred, with an aura that was disgustingly familiar. Rube.

Kelly circled around to the north, farther away from the river and closer to the railroad tracks that bordered the edge of town. It was slow going, her path littered with not only the natural rocks, but ballast from the railroad. The woman sprang ahead, attacking Jaq, while Rube edged closer to Kelly, awaiting an opportunity to jump in and grab the werewolf from behind.

“Nice evening we’re having, Sir.”

Rube whirled around in surprise as Kelly plunged her silver knife into his chest, missing his heart by a fraction of an inch.

“You!”

“Yes, me.”

She twisted the knife, but he’d reached up to grab her hands, slowly easing it out. Jaq’s blood gave her an edge, but she was still no match for the strength of a five–hundred–year–old vampire.

“Traitor. Who has offered you protection, starving waif? Kincaid? The werewolves? They’ll kill you the moment your usefulness has ended.”

His grip tightened on her wrists. Bones creaked in protest, and Kelly gritted her teeth, trying to force the knife back in.

“Like you? Like my own family? It’s one thing to cast me out, but to taunt me with promises of redemption that you had no intention of keeping? I can hardly be a traitor if I’m no longer part of the family.”

Rube snarled, and the knife slipped free of his chest. With a quick roll of his shoulders, he twisted Kelly’s arm to the side, and the knife dropped to the ground. Still holding her wrists, he pushed her backward, toward the railroad tracks.

What did he intend to do? He’d need to release one or both of her wrists if he wanted to take her head off, or go for her heart, and that would give her a split second to evade or strike. Kelly kept moving backwards, stumbling as her feet hit the rocky ballast of the train tracks. In a smooth motion, Rube crossed her arms in front of her chest, spinning her around so her back was to him. She was truly trapped now, pressed against his chest with her arms immobile in front, like a straitjacket.

Tar–covered railway ties with a neat pile of spikes sat alongside the tracks, awaiting future maintenance crews, but it was what was beside them that caught and held her eye. Her blood ran cold as she saw a stack of railway pieces before her, chest high. Kelly struggled as he edged her toward them.

“I’ll lose my bet, and the new Master will never get those reports on the Virginia businesses, but it will all be worth it to see you impaled on a railway iron.”

Kelly dug in her heels and focused on the metal spikes, willing them to move.
My hands, reaching out beyond my body to grab them.
They stirred, and rose in the air, turning in a line. Rube pushed her forward, all his attention on the long sections of track jutting out from the stack.

“Rot in hell, little bunny eater,” he laughed, kicking her feet from under her and edging her forward.

“You first.”

She flung the spikes at him, thankful that she was barely above five–feet tall and that Rube towered over her. He gave a grunt of surprise, and shoved her, his hands leaving her wrists. Kelly dove for the pile, snatching up a spike in each hand as she whirled about. Two of the four spikes she’d telekinetically thrown had hit — one in the vampire’s neck, the other in his shoulder. Not bad for a blind attack, although Kelly winced to think how close one had come to her head.

“Bitch.”

The word was almost a whistle as Rube pulled the spike from his throat and air rushed into his windpipe before it closed and healed. Kelly held back, realizing that the metal spikes in her hand would do no good against a vampire this old. She needed silver.

He dove at her, and she scampered aside, throwing her spikes as she clambered up the stack of railroad ties and hopped to the other side. Rube batted the projectiles away, as though they were flies, and smashed through the ties, grabbing a six–foot piece of track to swing at her head. Kelly ducked and rolled, coming up on the other side of him.

Something hard crashed against her hip. A glancing blow, but enough to spin her off balance and send her flying into the grass. She rolled, feeling the rush of air as the section of track dented a chunk of ground right where her head had been. Scrambling to regain her feet, her hand pressed against something hard. Something that burned like the fires of Hades. Her knife.

Curling her fist around the blade, Kelly ignored the searing pain and smell of burnt flesh. She turned, flipping it around, with a skill born of decades in the kitchen, to clasp the hilt in her palm. The long piece of metal arched in a return swing, and she dove, praying her aim this time would be true.

The knife slid in with a hiss. Rube gasped. The momentum of his swing crashed his arm against Kelly’s shoulder, slicing the silver blade in a diagonal line through his heart. Blood sprayed, and he fell forward, taking Kelly down with him. Using his weight to her advantage, she squirmed, shredding his heart with the silver blade. The acrid smell of burning flesh filled her nose, and for once, she gloried in the odor.

“You done with that guy?”

“Yep. Could use a hand getting him off me, though. Sucker weighs a ton.”