Chapter 16
Alek was in the room when the transmissions started.
The wire wasn't feeding to the council. They had other things to do.
Instead, it came through to command at Alek's level and no one thought to send him and his team away because the council hadn't bothered to find out who was working with the techies.
So Alek heard it all. He and his team, they were warned now. They knew what to expect, whether Pan had meant to do that or not.
When the feed from Mindy's wire activated, the techies, a mix of vampires and humans because it made more sense that way, instantly snapped to attention. They didn't care about the politics going on between factions of Vampyren.
They cared about staying alive. They cared about ferreting out the Lucian and destroying them.
No one paid attention to what soldiers were in the room. Even the other unit commanders didn't care. In the field they'd have to rely on each other and Alek's track record was proven. They had his back.
Mindy's voice came through loud and clear, along with the crack of the strike that finally silenced her.
"What are you doing with all that? Are you attacking? From the northwest? Oh, my god, is that a bomb?"
She'd started on something else when someone silenced her.
Alek was halfway across the room to where the equipment broadcast her voice loud and clear when the snap of sound made her break off with a yelp.
And then there was nothing more from her.
"No!"
That should have been enough to cause even the tech vamps and humans to take note, but several of his men said it at the same time even if they were just shouting against the lack of intel.
They needed that information feed. And they wanted to get back the girl who had given it to them.
Long minutes passed, then the confusion on the other end of the wire reduced enough they could hear individual voices again.
"Put her in a cell."
Alek breathed out hard. Even the Lucian wouldn't lock up a body. Would they? They sometimes ate their dead. Did they eat the dead of other races?
He told himself to shut up. He couldn't help her if all he did was panic. That wasn't his way. That wasn't the way of the Vampyren.
He turned away and started commanding his men to suit up and grab their weapons.
In the war storage lockers there was confusion. Two dozen Vampyren changing into battle armor, taking up weapons, laughing and talking and joking between themselves. Two units that fought together. Two units with warnings the leaders didn't know they had.
Pan found them there. He strode into the weapons storage gleaming with armor, carrying a ceremonial spear and wearing guns strapped over his chest and back.
Alek instantly un-holstered both side arms and strode across the distance between them. "Don't try to stop us."
They stood fuming at each other, huge males surrounded by humans who looked likely to run.
Then the orders erupted from the wire again, about preparing for the attack. About getting the weapons ready. Getting the men ready.
Being ready for dawn.
It was only nightfall.
They weren't coming until morning.
His attention was half on the feed from the wire, only half on his brother, when Pan reached out and grabbed Alek by the beard, forcing his head around.
This is it. This is where one of us dies.
This is where I lose my brother.
His hand twitched on his gun belt. His fingers closed around the butt of the gun.
Slowly, Pan drew him closer, a hand buried in the shirt Alek hadn't yet covered in armor.
Alek reached for his gun. Throughout the weapons storage, Vampyren squared off, face to face, the two sides forming. Everyone seemed to have lost someone in the unspoken hostilities that had already been running through the whole of their assembled numbers.
Pan said clearly, "We're going with you."
Alek stopped moving, certain he'd heard wrong. "You're – "
"This is the fight of all Vampyren. This is our battle, not just yours. The leaders are wrong to try and single you out. Your command is valid. You are Vampyren. You are my brother.
"We stand with you."
Human conveyances. Tanks and Hummers and pickup trucks whose ex-owners had never expected their American made tough trucks to transport aliens.
They chanted battle cries. They indulged in bloodlust. They waited for nightfall. They listened to the feed until it was cut out by the clang of a cell door and knew that Mindy had been moved and now left alone.
Before they shut down the feed, Alek heard her groan and knew she lived.
They took the trucks and tanks and Hummers. They took weapons. They took fangs. They took height and reach and viciousness.
Alek took two more battle teams with him: his brother's new allegiance.
And the hope that he'd arrive in time to rescue the woman he thought he loved.
Rather than avenge her.
Nightfall brought the change. Always on this planet.
They arrived at the city offices raging and ravenous. They arrived the vampires of Earth legend, deadly and unrestrained.
They took the Lucian by surprise. The moon was only halfway. Whatever effect it might have on the Lucian on this planet, it didn't tonight.
"Go!" Pan said when Alek hesitated on the edge of the battle. His men were pouring out of vehicles, swarming across the grounds to meet the Lucian.
One long look at his brother to judge if it was safe to leave his men.
And then he ran for the part of the building she must have broadcast from. Wherever they'd put her, that's where he'd start. Where he'd find her scent and follow her trail.
Behind him, he heard the Vampyren engage with the Lucian.
Inside it was cold and sterile. Alek ran soundlessly over marble floors but cameras tracked him.
They were waiting for him at the entrance to what had been holding cells for a substation of Las Vegas police.
He didn't slow. He slammed into the men who stood there and drew his guns even as he was falling to one side, aimed and fired and caught one of the Lucian in the arm, the blast spinning him around but not dropping him.
He scrambled to his feet and ran. Outside there was gunfire and voices, more than he'd thought would be there but his men were holding their own. He could hear their voices.
He ran at the holding cells. In the farthest, he could see Mindy, crumpled to the floor.
She stood when she heard him shout, stood and backed away from the door as he ordered and he fired, breaking the lock on the third shot, then ducked and slid under the outstretched weapons of a Lucian female who appeared from somewhere down the corridor lined with cells.
She went down to his guns, wielded as clubs.
Mindy came out of the cage, already running. He thought she'd run to him, like other human females rescued from anything, but instead she ran back the way he'd come.
Over her shoulder, she shouted, "It's a trap! They knew what I was! They have a bomb rigged to blow! That's why I was able to send info!"
She was crying, running for what she thought was the closest exit.
He knew it wasn't. He'd come that way. She was going the wrong way, following signs from the human's time, not from what the Lucian had done to the place.
He caught her easily, moving faster than she could ever dream to, spun her and grabbed her waist and sprinted in the correct direction.
A muffled rumble and thud of a bomb exploding outside the city hall brought Lucian running at them, one of them coming straight at Alek with guns drawn and a look of murderous anticipation. He was never meant to have reached this far inside but now he was here, they'd enjoy it.
He was going too fast on the slick floor to stop, barreling toward the armed man, running a zigzag that was out of control between desks in some municipal office.
It was Mindy who slid, letting momentum take her under his arm and out the other side. She only stopped when she collided with the wall there and the Lucian she'd passed started to look back at her, mocking, perhaps.
They never found out.
Because she picked up a reading light from someone's desk and brought it down hard on the Lucian coming at them.
Unlike Alek, this time Mindy's target went down.
He'd dropped the spear some time back. Its purpose had been to lead the men. It wasn't effective as a weapon on this planet.
Outside the units were fighting. The trap had been sprung but the Lucian were taken by surprise as well – the Vampyren knew what to expect.
She didn't run into his arms then, either. She dropped her weapon instead, looked at him over the fallen, bloodied Lucian, and said, "Took you long enough."
Alek felt his mouth curl in an unfamiliar smile. "Your directions were unclear."
Offended, she said, "I gave you everything but the address! Here, tie him up or something. He's going to wake up."
He moved fast to the Lucian, binding his arms behind him and his ankles to his wrists, then gagged him.
"They sent you here because of me." It wasn't apology but acknowledgement.
She took it that way. "I know. Can we go?"
He spun on his boot, starting back the way he'd come. "There is a fight. I cannot leave it."
He heard her fall in behind him. She wasn't a Vampyren female. He had no right to tell her to stay behind.
And probably no need.
Outside both units were locked in combat. Lucian sprang from any perch they could climb, all teeth and claws and pelts gleaming in the lights of the city at night. The Vampyren were battle mad, their eyes glowing red as they tore through the enemy. Night on Earth made them killing machines.
He felt the tug of it, the need to sink his fangs into the girl at his side, and forced the need down. She would never be safe with him. Not on Earth where he nightly turned savage, and never on his own planet where his people would tear her limb from limb simply for being human.
He looked back at her where she stood on the steps of the building, eyes wide, watching. She was cautious but not afraid.
That made her stupid. Nothing more, he told himself.
"Go!" His voice was hard and hoarse.
Her head swiveled fast. She stared at him.
"Go! You need to run. You need to get free. You can be out of the city before morning. Your friend is still in the harem. If you must go back for her, go through – "
He didn't get any farther. She leaned toward him, shouting. "I came here because of you! I sent messages back because of you! You shouldn't have any affect on my life and you do, so if you think I'm going to run – "
He was shouting before she finished, leaning up toward her where she stood on the stairs.
He heard himself shouting at her not to be stupid, to run while she had the chance, to take what he was offering, she and Candy could join the other humans in the rural areas, live safely, just not the resistance, if she could –
"Behind you!" she shouted and he ducked, already spinning around, heard the weapon discharge directly over his head and instantly feared the worst. That she would be gone.
That she would be dead.
He slid, feet first, into the Lucian who had come up behind him with the gun, knocking him to all fours and then dragging him down to the ground where he sank his teeth into the man's throat and ripped.
Lucian blood was hot and dirty and foul. He drank anyway. He'd need the energy for the fight.
When he turned back she was still there, dragging up a weapon from a fallen Lucian, running toward where the noise was coming from. Alek swore and chased her. If she kept to the stairs above the street, if she fired down and didn't engage hand to hand, she'd have the same strength as the Lucian.
If she didn't –
He wasn't going to lose her again.
The fight turned slowly. There were more Lucian than vampires and it was their held buildings, but the Vampyren were night mad, savage and battle crazed and they tore through their attackers, until the attack turned to a rout and the full moon set over the city and the streets rang with quiet.
In the early dawn, the city of two million could have been deserted. Around the City Hall there weren't even television news crews, just one lone helicopter flying overhead, dipping down close enough for photographs and video but nowhere near close enough to be touched.
Clean up was long and slow. Loading the prisoners. Killing those that resisted, which was the majority. Closing up the building.
At last as the sun rose and his savagery ebbed, Alek turned to Mindy. "Take one of the vehicles. You could get a long way before evening. There's not going to be much going on except talk of this for the day. You can get somewhere safe." He held out keys to a Humvee.
She looked at him, furious and hurt, took the keys but didn't walk toward the vehicle. "I'm going back to the harem." Her eyes met his. "Or were you lying about Candy?"
He heard the fear under the anger in her voice. "No. Not lying. She's there."
"How long have you known?" She was holding brittle anger up in front of hurt.
"Hours. I saw her before I left the hotel."
She nodded slowly. "I'm going back there."
"They won't let you leave again."
She made an impatient sound. "Candy's there. I can't leave without her. How will they even know I'm back?"
It was his turn to laugh. "For one thing – " Before she could move, he grabbed the mike and pulled it from her arm.
She screamed, clapped her hand over the blood, then visibly paled as he took her arm and held it up to his mouth, looked over it to gauge not her permission but her reaction, then put his mouth to the wound and drank.
It sealed up again in thirty seconds and he slowed his feeding and let her go.
"They'll know I'm coming." Her voice sounded defiant but small.
"I'll get you in. And I'll get you back out."
She nodded doubtfully. "Why?"
"Because you'll do it anyway and you'll get hurt without me. Because you need my help. Because I want to."