Chapter 6 #2
Harper nodded. “He did the night watch for about five years, and then one of my parents needed to stay home with me and have a more normal schedule. My dad chose to teach and be at home with me, and my mom remains on the night watch.”
The night watch. Was that…what the school was named after?
Luna seemed to pick up on my confusion. “The night watch is like being on the front lines in a war. You go to the mortal realm almost every night and slay vampires. Six p.m. to six a.m.”
Whoa. That was sobering.
I opened my mouth to ask another question when a bloodcurdling scream rent the air, sharp and sudden.
I stiffened, turning in the direction of the scream to see over two dozen vampires suddenly appear in the space, bodies materializing out of thin air.
Tall, impossibly pale, and menacing. One second, they weren’t there, and then they were.
The entire room was thrown into chaos. Some screamed, some ran, and some stood stiffly.
Luna and Harper were frozen beside me as I reached into my boot, grateful I still had the stake that Asher had given me. Harper patted her hip and cursed, panic flashing across her face. She wasn’t wearing any weapons.
I fisted the stake in one hand and moved in front of Harper and Luna, who still seemed shocked at what was happening, placing myself between them and the nearest threat.
These bloodsucking bastards were really starting to make me mad. They shouldn’t be here, according to Harper.
A tall, slender female vamp about six feet away spun in my direction and grinned, lips pulling back to show sharp teeth as she sniffed the air. Her eyes pulsed red, big, small, big, small.
“Run and get help!” Professor Walters bellowed from where he stood onstage, his voice carrying over the noise.
It was too late to run for me. The female vamp was headed right for me and the girls, her steps slow and deliberate. I braced my feet, standing with them shoulder-width apart as I raised my fist with the stake in it, my grip tight enough to hurt.
I prepared for contact, but when the vampire got within three feet of me, someone blurred between us, staking the vamp before I could get to her, the impact jarring the air.
I knew by the blond slicked-back hair, the broad shoulders.
It’s Asher Voss.
Harper screamed and I turned to follow her line of sight, my heart slamming against my ribs.
Her dad was fighting three vampires on the stage, bodies colliding with chairs and equipment.
He was completely unarmed, as was almost everyone else here.
It seemed they’d gotten too complacent on their campus, having not had an attack in decades.
I was now wondering if all those weapons on Harper’s wall were just for training classes.
Asher and I ran for the stage at the same time, dodging fleeing students and overturned furniture.
“Get out of here!” Asher growled at me, trying to physically push me away.
“Screw you!” I shot back as we both launched to the stage at the same time.
It was in that moment that I wondered what in the hell I actually thought I was doing.
I was no vampire hunter. Sure, I had fought some last night out of survival, but willingly running into danger like this?
Stupid.
And yet I knew if I didn’t intervene, Harper’s dad was about to have his throat ripped out.
Two men held him against the wall by the arms while another went for his neck, fangs flashing inches from skin. I walked right up to the dude hovering over his throat and slammed my stake into his back where I thought his heart might be, the impact jolting up my arm.
He spun, hissing at me with pulsing red eyes.
“You don’t know what you’re doing!” Asher yelled to me and pushed me aside.
With one swipe of his sword, he’d decapitated the two vamps holding Professor Walters down, and then the professor took care of the guy I’d failed to kill. Asher threw him a stake, and the professor caught it in midair, slamming it right into the guy’s heart.
About two inches higher than where I’d placed mine.
The vamp fell to his knees, keeling over as the professor burst into action, already turning toward the next threat. He snatched the stake out of the vampire and looked right at me, eyes sharp and assessing.
“Run to safety, Stella. Go find Harper,” he told me, and then he took off with Asher as they worked on cleaning up the rest of the room, defending the students who were being attacked.
Some of them were holding their own. They’d broken table legs off or had been packing a weapon tonight, possibly for looks, I was guessing by the number of unprepared people.
Even the professor seemed to be in shock that anything like this would happen on campus.
Yet when I watched him work, it was like watching a professional killer.
He walked up to a vampire mid-bite and staked him in the back, right in the heart, dropping him to his knees before moving to the next without a second thought.
I stumbled off the stage, going out the open double doors where Harper and the other students who’d been unarmed had run.
‘Run to safety, Stella.’
It was good advice.
A smart person would.
But when I passed the glass cabinet filled with some kind of trophy weapons, I couldn’t help what I did next.
I picked up a chair that sat next to the cabinet and slammed it into the glass, shattering it.
I grasped two ornate golden stakes that looked about two hundred years old and stashed them in my waistband. Next, I grabbed a harpoon gun thing with arrows and a badass-looking sword.
Students were going to die tonight; some already had by the looks of their unresponsive forms on the floor. I wasn’t going to have a clean conscience if I didn’t at least try to help.
I heard footsteps down the hall behind me and spun, stake in hand.
It was Harper and Luna, with…Jane.
“School’s closed for summer still, the vamps cut the landlines to the phones, and the cell towers are down. We found Jane though.” Harper sounded hopeful.
Crap. If the vamps cut the landlines and brought down the towers, it was because they wanted to inflict maximum damage without anyone coming to the rescue.
Sourdough Jane looked half terrified, half excited. “Harpoon gun please.” She held out her hand to me.
I gave it to her.
“Sword,” Luna said.
I handed her the long sword.
“Stake.” Harper took one of the two stakes from me.
“Let’s show these bastards what happens when they come on our property,” Jane growled.
Go Jane.
She led the charge, and without a word, they were suddenly bursting into the room, a small contingent of people who were not okay sitting around and doing nothing, feet pounding against the floor as they ran.
I was about to step into the room after them when I saw the fire alarm on the wall beside the doorway.
I pulled it, letting the shrill sirens ring out throughout the entire building and lights flash at the tops of all the doors, the noise instantly overwhelming.
Maybe someone would see from other surrounding buildings and come to help.
Harper and Luna didn’t even flinch when the alarm went off. They held their weapons lightly and stalked the room, eyes sharp, looking for their prey. Whatever shock they’d had earlier had worn off. They looked ready to kill as many of these bloodsuckers as possible.
When I scanned the room, my stomach sank.
There were dead bodies. Mostly vampire. But some were students.
And more vamps kept coming. They slid through the shadows like they were an open door, bodies peeling out of darkness in pairs and trios.
Dozens of them were on us in what felt like a never-ending wave.
Professor Walters snapped his head in our direction, and I saw both fear and relief there, his chest heaving.
“V formation!” he called out and rushed to the center of the room with Asher and half a dozen other students who had found weapons and stayed behind to fight.
Jane, Harper, and Luna ran to be with them as well, so I followed suit, weaving between overturned chairs and fallen bodies.
They fanned out with military precision in the shape of a V that was reminiscent of flying geese.
Professor Walters was at the very front, cutting down vampires left and right with Asher beside him, blades flashing in fast brutal arcs.
Haper, Luna, Jane, and I were at the back ends of the V, and we broke through the oncoming vampires like a bowling ball, bodies colliding and stumbling away from us.
“Nate?” the professor called, and a lanky boy with blood running down his neck in a slow stream answered him, eyes wide but focused. “I need wafers, son. I’ll bet you they somehow broke through the runes on the building. Can you get to my classroom? Top drawer?”
“Yes, sir!”
Nate slipped out of the formation, and we tightened instantly to fill the gap as he bolted for the door, shoulders ducked as he ran.
A vampire tried to go after him, but we moved as one, stepping the entire V to block the vamp’s way and take him down, weapons striking almost in unison.
It was like we were one moving body with many parts.
A female vampire appeared suddenly before me, startling me a little, her face inches from mine.
I kicked her in the stomach in an effort to push her back and get some space, but she grabbed my leg and yanked me out of the V formation, nails biting into my skin.
“Stella!” Harper screamed as the female vamp dragged me toward the back wall.
I hit the ground doing the splits, landing hard on my hip and rolling to the side as she held my leg in an iron grip, pain shooting up the length of it.
She pulled until we were alone in the back corner of the room, and I tried to stab at her hand, but my legs were long and she was grasping my ankle far away, just out of reach.
No luck.
I attempted to kick but she was strong.
She grinned at me, and I glanced up to see that her eyes were red in color.
Another drinker.
The vamp’s upper lip peeled back, and she grinned, showcasing two very sharp canines.