Chapter 7 #2
The music began to pick up speed, each beat getting faster and louder. It built up until it felt like the frantic pace of my heart was only just keeping up with it. The party was about to truly start.
The first scream echoed in the corner, and I hesitantly turned my head, knowing that I was about to see something that I could never unsee. Out of the side of my eye, I saw that Isabella was watching me intently.
I’d seen death before. I’d caused it more times than I could count, but this was very different from all of that.
In this room tonight, humans were nothing more than prey, a dish meant to be feasted on and tossed aside. This would be the first time I’d truly see a monster.
“His name is Ivan. He belongs to the Ravnos clan. He hasn’t amounted to much, but he’s a trusty soldier from what I’ve heard. He’s got a pretty vicious mean streak though,” Isabella whispered beside me.
The man’s face transformed as he approached a pretty human girl of Swedish descent.
The veins around his eyes bulged deep purple and his irises turned a vivid red color that stood out stark in the dimming of the lights.
Ivan’s mouth opened wide, and his canines lengthened to sharpened points as he grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her in close.
She screamed again and he took her wrist and forcibly lifted it to his mouth.
He bit her and she screamed in agony.
I tried to remain brave even in the face of such monstrosity. Isabella giggled quietly beside me while Nathaniel hung back. She pulled me in close so that her arms surrounded me and placed her chin easily on top of my head.
“Some vampires like to enjoy a meal a bit more barbarically like Ivan over there, but Nathaniel and I prefer to take a bit more pleasure in the process,” she murmured.
She traced her fingers along my throat and a soft electric tingle passed across my skin.
“The Lasombre have special abilities that the Ravnos and the Asamire can only dream of. Many of them we’ve kept secret for centuries. ”
She petted her fingers along my scalp, remaining quite thoroughly invested in the spectacle of Ivan subduing his virgin while he fed on her. She hadn’t stopped screaming and the music had changed in a way where her shrieks almost seemed to fit in with the beat. It was unsettling to say the least.
All around the room, vampires began to move in on the virgin women and I knew that I’d run out of time. I had to make a move and fast.
Isabella’s hold on me was relaxed and when she sighed softly, simply appreciating the show of violence throughout the room, I jerked away from her as hard as I could. She hadn’t expected me to fight her, and she shrieked in surprised glee.
“Oh, my pretty little bird. You should know that you can’t escape the likes of us now. You’re already caught in a den of monsters,” she purred.
I whirled away and slipped my hands beneath my skirts, sliding my fingers over the grips of the guns my father had procured for me. To be honest, the guns weren’t anything special, but the bullets inside them were.
I leveled one of them in Nathaniel’s direction. With the other, I put Ivan in my sights, and I squeezed both triggers, sending a bullet toward both of them. The music covered up the sound of the gunshots themselves, but it was the moment of impact that captured the attention of the entire room.
My aim was true, and each bullet struck the two vampires right between the eyes. It passed through their skulls in almost slow motion before the triggered reaction that occurred inside the bullets flared to life.
In a brilliant showcase of light, the bullets imploded inside the men’s heads. It was as bright as the sun and specially created to destroy a vampire with a single shot.
Since discovering that vampires were real, I’d found out everything that I could about them.
Regular knives and bullets were useless against them.
From what I understood, their skin was impenetrable to either.
Wooden bullets would splinter and pierce their flesh, but it would take a great number of them to force a vampire to his knees and even then, it wouldn’t kill him.
A stake through the heart was one of the few sure ways to kill them, at least until recently.
Vampires were weak to sunlight. They couldn’t walk the streets in the light of day without burning alive and my father’s contacts had figured out a way to take advantage of that.
They’d harnessed the power of the sun into a single bullet. A solid magnesium ribbon at the center of the core combined with the oxygen created from impact caused a combustible reaction that exploded with light.
In action, it was staggeringly vicious. The two bullets burst open at the exact same time, and both vampires’ heads exploded in a display of light that captured the attention of the entire room.
Brain matter splattered onto my cheek and all over the floor, showering the creamy paleness of my gown with a dark spray of blood in the process.
The headless torsos swayed back and forth for a moment before they collapsed to the floor. The rest of them continued to burn slowly, singed and blackening as if they were still aflame. The entire room stilled at the grisly show of violence, and I used every second of it to my advantage.
In a quick move, I jerked my hand so that I had Isabella in my sights next. She glared back at the barrel of the gun in an open rage before she turned to scowl furiously in Banu’s direction.
Her distrust of the Asamire was far stronger than that of me and I could see that playing out all over her face. She’d probably never met a human like me in her entire life.
“Was this your plan all along? Using a human to murder us in front of all the other clans so you can seize our power for yourself?” she roared.
He snarled in her direction, his gaze flicking back and forth from me to her.
He finally settled fully on her, deciding that she was the bigger challenge to take care of first.
With the two of them distracted, I popped off several more bullets, rescuing a number of girls from their fates moments before they were bitten.
The room exploded in a flurry of light and chaos.
Some tried to take cover and others began to move around the Asamire vampires with growing distrust. A few circled each other as though they were about to break into a fight at any second.
Those that had already fed from a few unlucky women were staggering back and forth, their eyes glazed and thoroughly inebriated.
Isabella glanced to see the drunken vampires and there was a flash of realization in her eyes.
“You invited us here to gorge on virgins, but that wasn’t all you had planned, was it?” she asked Banu, every single word dripping with vitriol.
He smiled in a way that confirmed everything she said. I expected the Asamire clan leader to deny it or at least try to cover his own ass, but his open arrogance reared its ugly head. He remained silent, as if he was challenging Isabella to make a stand against him.
I gripped my gun a bit tighter. The tip of my finger just grazed the trigger before Isabella hummed with impatience.
I wanted to end him, but Isabella jerked her gaze to me, and it was enough to make me pause.
“You will leave him for me, little bird. Don’t make me rip that head from your pretty shoulders,” she warned, and I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She didn’t appear to be bluffing, so I lowered my gun just as little as she crept forward.
If she wanted Banu, she could have him.
She roared and it was so chillingly haunting that every inch of my flesh rose with goosebumps. Of all the vampires in the room, she was one I should avoid going up against at all costs. I wasn’t stupid. I couldn’t fight against savagery like that.
I watched as she launched herself at him, landing on his shoulders while he wrapped his arms around her thighs.
Both of their faces had transformed in a blink of an eye, and I took a step back, feeling a need to put some distance between myself and the intensity of their fight.
She ripped at his face in an attempt to gauge his eyes right out and he tossed her aside like she was nothing more than a paperweight.
I expected her to stumble, but she just landed on her feet like a cat.
She slunk forward in a fury, bursting toward him once more with murderous intent.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away as a black shadow wound around her.
It was moving unnaturally slowly to curl around Banu’s legs and when I looked close enough, I could see that her fingers were curling in a way that suggested that she was directing it.
The shadow moved gradually and quietly enough that he didn’t even notice its presence.
I chewed the inside of my cheek, watching the tentacle-shaped shadow slink up his calves and above his knees.
When she rushed at him, he shoved her away and she threw her hands outward. The shadow reacted in kind, jerking his legs forward so hard that he fell flat on his back in a surprised huff. When the shadow began to squeeze around him like a snake, he started to scream.
A man dashed toward me, his red eyes angry and hungry for a taste of my blood. I quickly fired off another round, catching him between the eyes with a round of my precious sun bullets. In the explosion, I caught sight of something else in the dark corner of the room.
What the fuck?
It looked like a flash of fur.