45. Ambuscade
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
AMBUSCADE
Saya Claymore
A clattering sound causes my ears to prick up. I rise from my resting place on Serun’s chest and stare at the door Olivia barricaded. Fingers curling around the fabric of Serun’s shirt, I lean further towards the door and turn my head to focus my hearing in one ear.
Another clatter, as if something was knocking around cans. A rat, maybe?
Exhaling my held breath, I rest my head back on Serun’s chest when a snort comes from the other side of the door. I sit upright.
“Find anything, Scout?”
Fuck! I touch Serun’s face, my thumbs swiping underneath his eyes. “Nightwalker, you need to wake up.”
Nothing.
I shake his shoulders, my focus snapping to the door, then back to Serun’s corpse. “Serun, please wake up!”
Still nothing. He is out like a light. The sun must be up, and whatever spell it has on nightwalkers isn’t going to fucking do anything. I don’t know where Penumbra is, or if they only appear when Serun is awake.
I’ll need to do this myself.
With a click of my tongue, I slide away from Serun, grab his arm, and drag him towards the bathroom. I grunt at how heavy he is. It is literally like dragging a damn corpse.
Fucking nightwalkers.
I give one last pull until he is in the bathroom before I scan the dark again. Olivia is on the other side of the storage room, sleeping in a tipped-over crate, curled up like a ball.
“Is something in there, girl?” a gruff voice says.
My hand goes to my pendant, gripping it tight, remembering the people I’ve lost. Determination burns in my mind, and I run to Olivia.
My ears bend back at the shake of the doorknob, but I don’t stop.
I grab Olivia’s arm, drag her out of the crate, and pull her up on my back like I used to do with Cole.
She’s heavier than he was, but she isn’t Serun.
I run across the storage room when a loud bang shudders the door.
By the time I reach the bathroom with Olivia, the door splinters and metal clinks on the ground.
I slump her down beside Serun before closing the door, then crouching over him protectively.
I reach up, grip the handle of my sword, and slowly slide it from its sheath.
My heart pounds but resolve blankets my mind.
“What do you smell? A human? A nightwalker?”
I look down at an unconscious Olivia and Serun, realising that I can’t stay in here if I want to protect them. If they open this door, we are sitting fucking ducks.
“Someone is here,” another voice says, and I flinch at the thumping sound. “There’s a bag filled with food—the good kind too.”
“Hey, human,” the first voice shouts. “If you’re in here, come on out. We won’t harm you. We are slayers.”
Well, there go my chances of survival.
There is a tap on the bathroom door. “You in there, human?”
Biting my lower lip, my fang sinks into flesh, and I look at Serun. With a muttered curse, I lean down and press my lips against his, then whisper, “If you don’t wake soon, I will gut you in your sleep. But first I will save your life, nightwalker.”
I rise, blade poised, the tip resting against the wood.
The handle turns, and as the door starts to open outwards, I thrust the blade forward, piercing the wood like butter.
A guttural cry pierces my ears as the blade sinks into flesh on the other side, and I step out of the bathroom, following the blade.
I yank the sword clear out of the wood, and blood splatters across Olivia and Serun’s unmoving bodies.
The slayer hits the door as he collapses, closing it.
I aim my blade towards the entrance and crouch low behind some boxes.
Another person steps into the storage room, a medium-sized dog following, his flashlight finding the body against the bathroom door.
A pool of blood has already formed, oozing away from the corpse I don’t particularly care for—especially compared to the ones I need to protect.
“What the fuck…” The man steps forward, and as he passes me, I suck in a breath and drive my sword into his back, the blade bursting from his chest. “Fuck!” he cries out.
The dog has fled the room by the time I pull the blade out, but then a spark of pain shudders through my scalp.
Someone is dragging me backwards by the hair.
Wild, feverish eyes lock onto mine, and when I try to reposition the blade, my hands slide through blood, and it slips from my grip.
A guttural cry tears from my lungs as he drags me towards the exit.
Another man stops by the door while I’m dragged out kicking and screaming. “A fucking nightwalker. Take it into the sunlight. Smoke it!”
Two more humans? Slayers? It’s hard to tell, but they stand at the open door, sunlight bleeding towards me.
I reach out, grabbing hold of his wrists and puncturing his skin with my nails as I hiss at him. The one walking behind me barks a laugh. “Fucking bloodsucker. Feral little thing you are.”
“Almost there,” the one holding me grunts, and in one swift motion, I slide into the sunlight and wince at the intensity of the light.
It has been over a week since I’ve seen the sun.
The man lets me go and stumbles back, sharp blue eyes widening.
He turns to the others. “She isn’t fucking burning, mate! ”
“I cut, tant,” I spit, shying from the rays.
The man who dragged me by the hair draws his gun. “What the fuck did you just say, nightwalker? Speak our language, not your vampire tongue.”
Rage burns inside me, blistering with light that glistens against every freckle. “I said, ‘No shit, monster’. And it was not Daryun.” I raise my hand and say, “Caet, motherfucker!”
Blinding white light bursts out of my palm, buffeting him until skin peels away from muscle and muscle from bone, and bone shatters into sparkling dust. While the others are blinded, I sit up and reach for my sword when the cool barrel of a gun presses against my forehead.
The one behind me wearing a mask cocks his head to the side.
“Vegodian,” he growls. “To think we—” I flinch, my eyes widening at canine teeth crunching down on the flesh of his wrist. The gun goes off, ringing in my ears.
The dog keeps ripping the man’s flesh. Ravenous growls tear through its lungs as the dog attacks.
“Scout, what the fuck are you doing?” he wails, grabbing the dog’s snout and prying open the dog’s maw.
A slayer by the door grabs my face and forces cotton in my mouth, saying, “The Council will want her.”
“You’re right. Keep her gagged and bound so she can’t use those vegodian powers. When we get to Padbury, we will talk to Dr Hill. Search for the tattoo as well. She might be something else entirely.”
My screams are muffled as cotton is stuffed in my mouth and secured with tape, and tears prick in my eyes as my shirt is torn and discarded to reveal my back, stripping me of my dignity.
I reach up to claw at the man when there is a spark of pain in my wrist. He cuts at me with a dagger, my blood spilling to the ground. My cries are stifled by the gag as I wrap my arm over my bare chest.
“Oh, fuck, there it is. A moonflower tattoo,” he says, tapping the point of the blade against the ink on my back.
From behind me, the dog whimpers and the man curses, a frustrated roar rising from him as the dog runs back into the storage room. “She fucking turned on me! The fucking dog I raised since she was a pup!”
“It don’t matter. Grab this freak and help us toss her in—”
Suddenly, darkness washes down the walls, and the sunlight shrinks until black paints my vision. No amount of blinking will help me see in this.
A gargled cry cuts through the stunned silence as the hold on me slackens, and I fall to the floor. I shuffle backwards on my hands and feet, slipping in my own sticky wet blood until my arms buckle when I crash into something hard behind me.
Through the darkness, familiar piercing red eyes stare at me, and I suck in a breath. Then, shapes start to come into focus.
To the right, a man chokes on his own blood. Olivia has his head pulled to the side, biting into his neck, while his blank eyes stare at me. The other two are in pieces, black smoke draining them until they’re leather-wrapped bone.
“Serun,” I gasp. Reaching up, I take his offered hand, and he lifts me to my feet. There’s a hollow look in his eyes, as if he’s not all there. My hand goes to his cheek where blood smears across his jaw and drips down his chin.
Olivia chokes out, “Can’t…stay…awake.” Then she collapses beside the body.
To Serun, I say, “The sun is still up. You both need to go back into the darkness, okay?”
Shadows wrap around Olivia’s arm, and Penumbra drags her to the back of the building. Serun, though, is unwavering. He stares into my eyes, but there’s no warmth. No smile. Nothing sweet about him.
I’m looking into the eyes of the Nightwalker Lord. Emotionless. Cold.
A killer.
“Come,” I say, taking hold of his clawed hand. “Now, Serun.”
He doesn’t talk. I’m not sure he can, but he follows me into the room where Penumbra took Olivia.
I take him to the darkest corner and away from the two bodies, then go back to push some boxes against the exit to keep it from swinging open on its broken hinges.
This will have to do until nightfall, when Serun is more alert.
Once I am finished fortifying the entrance, I go to check on Serun and suddenly find myself in his lap. Shadows pull me to him, and he takes my arm, pressing his lips tenderly against each cut.
“Serun,” I murmur.
“I’m breaking the treaty,” he breathes, his voice barely above a whisper. “I will slaughter every slayer in Naylen.”
Exhaustion rolls through my body, and I struggle to keep my eyes open. “Not for me, Serun. We will find Cole, and your brother and his wife, and we will never go topside again. We will stay in the Undercity.”
“I’m going to kill them all,” he says, his voice sending an icy chill down my spine. He doesn’t elaborate, and falls asleep while there is still daylight left.
Except I can’t, and as I anxiously watch the door, my mind whirls with waking nightmares of being experimented on by this Dr Hill.