Wake of Darkness (38 page)

You’re okay,
Sophie thought.

The vampires organized themselves
in a tight line with the one who must have been Jacques at the head. Sophie,
Alexander, Jim, and Zoey began trading thoughts back and forth in such a swirl
that Laney couldn’t keep up. She could almost feel their thoughts in the air
around her body.

There’s my mother,
Sophie
told them. Their eyes locked and the vampire grinned.

“This is
indeed
interesting,” Jacques said in a cold, ancient, French-accented voice, and
laughed. “We did not expect to see you here.”

He was either laughing at the
family or his good luck, or both. His physical appearance added to the horror
of the evening; he looked like a stereotypical Hollywood vampire, with a
widow’s peak and jet black hair, paper-thin skin, black, hollow eyes, and shining
white teeth.

The wind changed direction and Laney
finally caught the vampires’ scent; she’d been waiting for it, but was still
swept by a wave of nausea. It was the worst smell imaginable: something close
to blood, but sweeter somehow, with the tinge of decomposing rot. At her side,
Sophie shuddered, but the stars that spun steadily around her maintained their
course and pattern.

Alexander watched the eyes of the
vampires, unflinching. The clouds above thundered ominously over the assembly,
lightning lit up the sky on the horizon.

Both sides froze, keeping
absolutely still. They knew why they were there; there was no need for taunting,
posturing, or greetings that night.

Laney began to shake with nervous
tension at Sophie’s side.

Stay beside me, no matter what
happens,
Sophie instructed without looking in her direction.

Okay,
was all Laney could
think in response; she was virtually incapacitated by her fear.

The tension electrified the air
around them. Thunder crashed again and in that moment, like a bad dream, it
happened.

When the vampires charged the
family, their neat formation broke apart to take the vampires on. Sophie sent
the throwing stars into the group. Her energy swirled around her in the form of
the sharp metallic objects, and she was utterly terrifying. Even the vampires,
usually so sure of themselves, slowed their attack on her. Some even stopped
squarely in their tracks at the sight of such a foe.

Catherina ran to Dante’s side,
which placed him between her and the vampires, but removed Alexander from a
direct line of attack. Alexander for his part took one side step toward Sophie
and sunk down in a feral crouch, ready to spring on the charging vampires.

Laney watched in mute horror as Jim
charged full force at a set of two vampires. They hissed and kept low to the
ground, waiting to pounce on him when he got closer, probably hoping to take
his massive frame down at the knees.

Zoey was fast on his heels, taking
down two at once. She pulled a large bottle of water out of her bag. With one
hand, she tossed the bottle so the water shot into the air. She swept her other
hand in an arc and doused a handful of vampires with it. They fell to the
ground with a sizzle and screams, writhing with the slow pain only holy water
could bring.

Sophie forced a handful of her
stars into the crowd of vampires closest to herself, but only one reached its
target, and not in the way she’d hoped. The one that made contact severed the
arm of a female vampire and her glass-shattering scream sent chills up Laney’s
spine. She watched two others turn on her sister.

She swiftly tore her eyes from
Sophie as three vampires charged Alexander. He spun the stake in his palm and
shoved it through the chest of one while he grasped the vampire’s head,
twisting and tearing it viciously from the body. He tossed the head to the
ground and then leveled his revolver at the chest of another. He fired two
rounds through her chest, and the vampire screamed a blood-curdling scream.

He pulled the stake from the
other’s heart and plunged it into hers so hard that the force of his strike
broke the surrounding ribs and the stake within her body. His knife slashed
through her neck. Blood gushed from her body; she was finished.

Another charged the blood-stained Alexander.
Taking his opportunity in the blink of an eye, Alexander lunged for him, their
bodies colliding in a loud crash. The vampire gnashed at his neck. He grabbed
the vampire’s jaw and tore it from its face. He ripped a stake from his belt
and sank it deep into the chest and ripped the head from the vampire’s body with
his bare hands in a graceful and horrifying movement.

Laney looked around her, wide-eyed
and terrified, unsure of which family member was the most frightening, and
found that Jim had torn four of the vampires to pieces in the few minutes that she’d
been watching Alexander. Jim and Alexander turned at the same instant to look
at Sophie where she still fought in front of Laney, and the latter followed the
line of their shocked expressions.

Sophie had pushed Laney against the
wall while the younger girl watched the fight. Fear had paralyzed her from
doing anything other than just watching her family fight. She hadn’t even
realized she’d been pushed out of the way. She had just enough time to raise her
hands quickly to stop a running vampire from charging her sister, as Sophie
drove a stake into the chest of another one. Two more came from the right and Sophie
unloaded three bullets into each of them. Laney tried to keep two more off of
them. Her arms shook under the strain, and her head felt like it might explode.

“I need a clip,” Sophie growled
desperately to herself. One was suddenly in her hand and she was firing again
in a split second.

Sophie finally grabbed one of the
vampires by the head. Laney stopped trying to keep that one off of Sophie, and
she felt weightless for an instant. She focused on the others who were charging
them.

Sophie spun around him, throwing
her body in a spin, and twisted the head free from his shoulders, landing on
her feet behind him, the adrenaline giving her the extra strength needed to
accomplish such a feat. She tossed the head at the wall where it crashed to the
ground. Without pausing, she ran up the back of another vampire and plunged the
stake into his heart from behind. As he stumbled, she pulled her knife out of
her pocket, the blade was instantly exposed, and the head was gone in a bloody
mess.

It was all done in less than two
minutes. The alleyway was quiet.

Jacques, who had stood by and let
the slaughter happen, began clapping his hands slowly and laughing. Sophie
slowly turned around, leveling her eyes at him.

“Bravo!” he yelled in a thunderous
voice.

Sophie exchanged a look with
Alexander and shook her head grimly.

Jacques whistled quickly and the
rest of his coven poured out of two doorways into the alley.

Jim groaned under his breath as he
counted twenty more.

It figures,
Jim thought.
We’re
not that lucky.

Chapter 32

Sophie turned on a heel, placing herself
securely between Laney and the encroaching enemy. The blood of the vampires
she’d killed dripped from her hands as she sunk into a crouch in front of her
sister. Zoey mirrored her movements. Her red hair was plastered to her
shoulders from the rain that had begun to come down. Black blood ran in rivers
down the legs of her pants.

Jim whipped his crossbow around to
bring it in front of his chest. Sophie holstered her Glock; she’d need both
hands for what was coming. Catherina still stood behind Dante, but Sophie saw a
steadiness in Catherina’s eyes which—more than anything else in that alleyway—made
her nervous.

Sophie looked at Leslie, picking
her out of the crowd. Her mother snarled at her, with an evil look in her eyes.
Leslie was clearly almost beyond self-control, and Sophie waited for her to
charge.

“Time to get serious,” Sophie
muttered to herself, watching her mother crouch forward, ready to spring.

“Go for the women first,” Jacques
commanded in a hiss, “but Catherina is
mine
.”

Instincts taking over, Sophie felt
herself become something completely foreign. She crouched beside Alexander,
just like a vampire. She turned herself over to the monstrous part of her
nature, the part that continually tried to break free, boiling just under the
surface of her self-control. She could feel the eyes of her slightly more
composed family watching her, but Sophie’s eyes were locked on Jacques’s. A low
laughter came from deep in his chest as he met her gaze and sunk down into a
mirroring crouch; a direct challenge.

Sophie’s chest rumbled. It wasn’t
the human part of her that made the guttural sound. She had her father—her eyes
flashed quickly from Leslie back to Jacques—to thank for that. She surrendered
fully to that black part of herself; she felt the fury course through her
veins.

Beside her Alexander leaned
forward, ready to charge or catch, the enemy. He’d follow her into battle, even
if it meant death.

            Leslie suddenly tore out from the group like a
feral animal, her gangly arms unruly in her movements, and charged directly
towards Sophie like the deranged creature she was.

Sophie’s hands, gripping two stakes
each, jerked up. She threw the stakes at her mother, and they twirled through
the air, shooting through Leslie’s heart, and even through the chest of another
vampire who stood behind her, like bullets from a gun. The stakes shot through
both bodies and lodged in the mortar of the wall behind the coven.

Blinded by anger, Sophie felt the
energy of her rage collect around her as she spun Leslie’s head from her body,
tossing it viciously to Jacques’s feet in a challenge. His beef with Catherina
might be centuries old, but Sophie’s was personal too. Sophie nodded her head
in a challenge to him. His jaw dropped and his lips curled into a deadly snarl.

The other injured vampire lay
twisting on the ground, clawing at the stake wound in his own chest. Black blood
poured from his lips, further staining the air with the smell of death and
decay. Sophie let him suffer there. She stood between the groups, exposed, but
unwilling to advance too far away from her family.

Jacques was no longer looking at her
though, but was staring at Catherina. His goal was singular. He raised his hand
and snapped his fingers. The rest of his vampires charged the hybrid family. Alexander
and Jim rushed to Sophie’s side. Laney struggled to hold a large group back
from them despite her fear.

Suddenly the activity was
interrupted by a horrible screeching scream.

Catherina grabbed the female and
sank her teeth into the soft tissue of a vampire’s neck. The vampire’s scream
was ear-piercing. Dante stood over her, protecting Catherina from the horde.

Everything stopped. The vampires
stopped mid-stride; the family stopped in mid-strike.

NO!!!
Sophie’s thoughts
screamed in absolute horror. 

An immediate change began to take
shape in Catherina. The black blood dripped gluttonously down her chin. Everyone
was perfectly frozen in the alleyway, except for the vampire in Catherina’s
jaws, who clawed vainly against her attacker.

Catherina looked at Jacques as she
sucked at the vampire's neck. Her eyes meet his as they changed from their
natural green to the deepest, darkest black. Sophie’s heart stopped. She looked
at Alexander.

His horror mirrored hers.
This
is what Dante meant when he said Catherina would be fine.

This is what she's been hiding
from us all along.

This is what he wouldn’t tell
me.

This was the choice she’d made
weeks ago.

Catherina dropped the drained body
of the vampire and straightened herself into a standing position. She was
taller than Sophie had ever seen her before; stronger than she’d ever seen her;
her eyes never left Jacques’s.

“This ends now,” Catherina said in
a clear, strong voice. It was their voice, like glass shattering and bells
clanging; fingernails on a chalkboard. She stood taller than ever and was
teeming with strength.

She charged Jacques and the two
tumbled into combat like tigers attacking each other. Seeing their leader in
distress, Jacques’ coven sprang into motion.

The enemy began flying at them, but
Laney blocked each individually in mid-flight, finding new strength and
determination from somewhere in her soul. They had a chance, albeit a slim one,
and Laney chose to fight rather than give up.

Sophie and Zoey threw stakes into
the hearts of the vampires as Jim and Alexander ripped, tore and sliced heads
from the bodies. It seemed like an eternity, but they fought them off in a
matter of seconds, not taking time to think or direct the others, simply
working together as a unit, striking them down one by one as they attacked like
lemmings.