World builder, p.12
World Builder, page 12
“What the hell was that?” Karma asked, her mouth agape after the question was out.
“That was Sammi,” Rachael replied, rubbing her sore arm from where Sammi had dug her fingertips in. “She’s mad.”
“You don’t say?” Georgia asked. “But why?”
“Oh, she thinks I’m fucking Graham.”
“What are you talking about?” Tony asked, dropping his fork into the middle of his pasta and not even seeming to care that red sauce splattered his white shirt.
“Yeah. He spent the night in my room because I had a bad dream, and now everyone thinks it’s their goddamn business.”
They were all quiet for a moment, exchanging glances but no one speaking until Jazz asked, “Well, are you?”
“No,” Rachael scoffed. Then, taking a bite of her pizza as if it was no big deal, she added, “Not yet, anyway.”
30
MAKE THEM STOP!
*Rachael*
Rachael was pissed. She was channeling all of her anger toward the rest of her team into her target practice. Ever since Graham had spent the night in her room, several members of the staff were treating her like she’d done something wrong--particularly the female members, including Marcy and Sammi, but not just them. Even Dr. Mellow wasn’t so nice these days, and it was starting to get old.
Crossing over to the wooden target, Rachael pulled the two axes she’d just thrown out of the red and white bullseye. She’d been close to hitting the center, but she’d been slightly off. She’d keep practicing until she got it right. Earlier, she’d emptied a couple of clips into a black form on the target range. She’d then taken it down, written Sammi’s name on it in blood red, and taken it home to hang on the wall in her room.
Now, she was pretending the target was her former friend and still trainer, Marcy, and she wasn’t about to let off aiming for her center.
She took aim, drew her arm back, and let the first axe fly. It spun head over tail through the air and landed in the center of the red circle with a resounding thunk.
“Damn. I wouldn’t want to be on the other end of that ax,” Graham said, crossing over to stand next to her as Rachael took aim with the second ax.
“Don’t worry. You’re not the one I’m pretending to aim at.” She studied the target again and then let the second ax fly. It stuck right next to the other one.
She walked over to pull them both out, and Graham waited for her, his thumbs in his belt loops. He looked as hot as ever, but she’d been avoiding him the last few weeks, since the situation with Sasha coming to her room. Jared had confirmed it was Rachael’s blood on the roof, but they had no idea how it had gotten there, and Graham still didn’t believe her that Sasha was actually in her room.
Walking back over to him, Rachael took careful aim again and let the ax fly. The sound of it sinking into its target was satisfying in a way she couldn’t put into words. “Is there something I can help you with?” she asked. They’d been talking on the phone for the most part, and he’d assured her time and again he was still as interested in her as ever, but he thought it best if they slow things down. She agreed but for different reasons. She knew he was worried about the rest of the team; she was worried about him. The last thing she needed was to convince herself they were going to be together only to discover he wasn’t ready to move on from Chell after all.
“Listen, Rach, I’m really sorry about some of our teammates. I know they’ve been treating you unfairly. I just had a little chat with several of them, and I think they’ll let up now.”
“Why is that?” She let the second ax fly, and it struck the bullseye near the other one.
“Because… I told them to. I mentioned restructuring the team if they don’t get their shit together and mind their own damn business.”
She raised an eyebrow at him for a second before she went to retrieve her axes again. “And Sammi gave two shits?”
“She did when I threatened to take her off the active team.”
“Why would you do that?” Rachael had her axes and was headed back.
“Because I’m putting you on.”
She stopped, staring at him, not sure what to say. “Me? Now?”
He nodded. “You’re ready.”
Knowing questioning his judgment might talk him out of it, she didn’t ask him if he was crazy, even though she was pretty sure he must be to have made that decision. “Dr. Overbranch approved it as well?”
“Dr. Overbranch is in charge of the school, Rach, not the team.”
Tilting her head to the side, she studied him. “What?”
“Yeah. I run the team.”
“Since when?”
“Since forever. That is… since my dad retired from doing it.”
Puzzled, Rachael swallowed hard. “But that’s not the way I wrote it.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. Dr. Overbranch approved everything that had to do with the team, too. I didn’t realize you were leading the team.”
“You hadn’t noticed?”
She shrugged. “I have noticed you run the meetings, but I figured people just looked to you because you’ve been on the team the longest.”
“But I haven’t. You mean we’ve actually found something different between the world you wrote and the world we live in?”
“I guess so.” She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, but she’d be interested to hear what Jared had to say about it. As soon as she finished throwing these axes a few more times.
“We’re going out in three hours. Be ready.”
She turned and looked at him as he walked away before she shouted, “I was born ready!”
He laughed and looked back at her, a twinkle in his eyes, and Rachael let her ax fly.
31
ANOTHER HUNT
*Rachael*
Rachael was riding shotgun. There was no way in hell she was going to ride in the back of the SUV with any of those people who had been rude to her the last several weeks. Even though Graham had told them she was part of the team now, some of them clearly didn’t want her there. So, since Jared was driving the other vehicle, she was sitting up front with Graham, and if they didn’t like it, they could suck it.
The hunt they were headed toward had nothing to do with Sasha, as far as they knew. Graham had filled them all in a few minutes before they loaded up the vehicles. Apparently, there’d been a few sightings of a pale, scraggly looking couple coming and going from an older home in one of the historic neighborhoods of Baltimore. The informants were fairly certain they had to be undead, but the team’s mission was to find out for sure, and if that was the case, to take them down.
On the way to the location, the team was practically silent, only a few whispers here and there. Rachael was about as uncomfortable as she’d been in her entire life, but there was nothing she could do about it. A reassuring look from Graham from time to time was enough to keep her from jumping out of the vehicle--or turning and screaming at everyone to just be nice.
He pulled to a stop a few blocks down from the location. It wasn’t that late as far as hunting times went, only a little past 11:00. Because the historic district was near downtown, there was a fair amount of traffic. They’d have to be quiet and try not to draw attention to themselves, which would be hard seeing as though there were a total of 10 of them, all wearing dark clothes and carrying weapons.
“We all know what we’re doing?” Graham asked the people behind him.
No one answered aloud but the four in the back--Sammi, Marcy, Ty, and Flint--all nodded or otherwise acknowledged they knew the plan. Since it was basically the same every time they moved in on a house or other residential dwelling, there wasn’t a whole lot to talk about. The only person who was basically clueless was Rachael. She wasn’t about to admit that in front of the rest of them, though.
As they quietly got out of the vehicle, Graham waited and then hung toward the back. Rachael stayed with him. “Since this is your first official hunt, just stay with me, and try not to get involved unless you have to. It shouldn’t be too much of a challenge, since there are only two of them.”
“‘Kay,” Rachael said with a shrug. He had an awful lot of faith in his informants if he really thought there were only two vampires in there. But she wasn’t about to argue.
She was carrying two handguns with silencers and had also strapped one of the axes she’d been practicing with onto her belt. She doubted she’d need any of that, but the ax looked cool, and she felt like a kickass vampire-slaying machine carrying two guns. She tried to keep her shoulders back and her head up, but all she really wanted to do was take Graham’s hand and follow him around like a puppy dog--just this first time, of course.
The house looked like something out of The ‘Burbs movie with Tom Hanks. It was all falling in and derelict. It certainly stood out amongst the other immaculate, mansion-like homes all around it.
“This is what nightmares are made of,” Graham muttered as he approached the home. Already, Rachael could see other team members on the roof. She hoped they didn’t fall through.
“Are we going in the front door?” she asked him.
Graham stood surveying the home for a few more seconds before he nodded and said, “Always do.”
It was difficult to be quiet on the porch. The old wood popped and bent under her weight, so she could only imagine the give it had under Graham’s heavier frame. He approached the door and pulled open the screen with a squeal, froze, and then placed his hand on the doorknob.
When he turned, it opened. She knew it had more to do with his magical touch than the fact that whoever lived here had forgotten to fasten the door. He pushed the barrier open and slid inside, Rachael following, trying not to let the screen door make any noise behind her. It shrieked again, but it didn't slam.
The inside was nicer than the outside, though it still could’ve used some help. The supplements Rachael had been taking had enhanced her night vision capabilities, but she hadn’t been on them long enough to have the same sort of skills the rest of the team had. So she concentrated on Graham’s frame and carefully picked her way along a wood floor that had seen better days.
“I’ve got a body in the back bedroom up here,” Sammi whispered into their earpieces.
Graham’s face fell. One of the things Rachael loved about him was his tender heart. “Not a vamp, though?”
“Negative. Elderly woman. Probably in her eighties when she died. Bite marks on the neck. Gone… at least a week.”
“Yuck,” Rachael murmured, imagining the smell.
“Thanks, Sammi,” Graham said. “We’ll take care of her as soon as we find whatever did it to her.”
“Attic’s clear,” Flint said. Rachael heard movement above her and wondered if that was the team on the second floor or the team in the attic.
“Back of the first floor is clear,” Jared said.
“Tripp? What about the basement?” Graham wanted to know.
Tripp didn’t answer right away, and since it seemed the only human resident of the home was dead, Graham picked up his pace, clearly looking for the interior entrance to the basement since Tripp and Miguel had gone in through a window.
Graham found the door that led downstairs under the stairs near the dining room table at the same time that Jared and Viv came into the dining room from the kitchen. The three of them exchanged glances that let them know exactly what was about to happen as Rachael stood there, trying to stay out of the way.
On a silent three-count, Graham pulled the door open, weapon in hand, pointing it into the blackness as Jared and Viv came in from opposite sides. The stairs were clear, but it was dark, only a few streams of moonlight illuminating an odd number of steps while dust and cobwebs settled from the disruption of having the door thrown open so furiously.
A silence settled over them that made the hair on Rachael’s arms stand on end. Where were Tripp and Miguel? Why hadn’t they reported? If they were in the middle of a shootout or a fight, that would be audible. So, what the hell was going on?
As quietly as possible, Graham started down the stairs, the boards creaking under his feet. Jared gestured for Rachael to follow Graham, which she did, then Viv, with Jared coming down last, leaving the door open behind him. Rachael didn’t pull her gun because, at this point, she was more afraid of shooting one of her teammates than actually hitting a vampire. Besides, her hands were just as good a weapon as any bullet. She double checked that she had a wooden stake or two in the interior pockets of her jacket and was glad she hadn’t forgotten the most important weapon of all.
The sound of Tripp’s voice in her earpiece was welcome, until she realized what he was saying. In the lightest whisper she’d ever heard, he asked, “Is that you on the stairs Graham?”
“Affirmative,” he whispered back.
“Be as quiet as possible,” Tripp breathed.
“Why?” Graham asked.
“You’ll see.”
The answer was unsettling for a number of reasons, but when Graham reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped abruptly, Rachael rested her hand on his shoulder and peered out into the moonlit space.
Tripp and Miguel were standing in the middle of a large, unfinished basement, guns drawn, backs to each other--surrounded by at least a hundred open coffins, each one containing a sleeping vampire.
“Holy shit,” Rachael mouthed.
“We’re gonna need backup,” Graham said.
Rachael didn’t think the rest of the team members already in the house were going to be enough, but they’d have to do, because the vampires closest to the two hunters in the center of the room were already stirring, and as soon as they opened their eyes, all hell would break loose.
32
VAMPIRE HELL
*Rachael*
“What do we do?” Tripp asked, his mouth moving, but hardly enough sound transferring out of it to be audible over the earpieces. Rachael could see well enough in the dim light to know what he was saying.
“Aim carefully,” Graham replied. “You two take the ones closest to you. Jared, clear the left. I’ll clear the right. Rachael, stay here.”
“Nope. I’ll get the ones right in front of us,” she said. Not that any of them would die without being stabbed with a stake, and they sure the hell didn’t bring enough to go around. At this point, all they could do was take out as many as they could and then get the hell out of Dodge.
“How is this possible? Where did they all come from?” Jared whispered behind her.
“Don’t know. No time to find out.” Graham had a gun in each hand, and when the vampires closest to Tripp and Miguel suddenly sat up, alarming the rest of their kind, it was time to start shooting.
The chaos in front of her made it almost impossible to keep up. Rachael took aim at the vampires closest to her, firing for their heads since that was one way to make sure they were slowed, but she had to be careful not to hit her teammates who were standing behind them. Shot after silent shot filled the space. The only way to tell how quickly the vampires were being struck was through their reactions--heads flying backward, bodies crumpling to the ground.
Rachael stayed on the stairs, trying to protect their exit but also because Graham had told her to stay back. As the rest of the team came flying down to help, she tried to stay out of the way. Most of the team stepped around her, but Sammi gave her a hard shove in the shoulder and shouted, “Out of the way, bitch. We have work to do.”
Hitting the stair rail hard, Rachael rubbed her shoulder where it smarted from the blow. She wanted to accidentally aim at the trainer instead of the vampires, but she resisted the temptation.
The few seconds it took her to recover from the collision allowed the enemy to get slightly closer to her. Rachael fired off a few more rounds, but they were still coming. She realized her gun was not the most deadly weapon she had on her and shoved it back into its holster. As a pair of vampires closed in on her, Rachael raised her hands and concentrated on getting them to stop.
She did more than stop them. As the pulse of power left her hands and made contact with the two scraggly vampires, it was more than they could handle. The first vampire, an older man with blood dripping down his chin, had a pained look overcome his face before his entire head exploded into a thousand pieces, spewing flesh, blood, and bone everywhere. Two seconds later, the woman behind him blew her top as well.
Rachael looked at her hands, shocked. How in the world had she done that? Had she done that?
The rest of the team looked around in surprise as well, a few of them asking what the hell had just happened. Rachael didn’t have too much time to think about it at the moment. Instead, she set her sights on the next two vampires nearest her and immediately made quick work of their heads, too.
“Holy shit!” Graham said, still fighting off the bloodsuckers while Rachael explored how much power she had and how long this new skill might last. As she continued to explode the heads off the vampires around her, the bodies of the fallen began to wiggle on the floor. They were doing their best to get up, despite the fact that they had no heads.
“Well, that’s… insane,” Jared said, kicking a vampire in the gut that had gotten too close to him.
“Someone start stabbing those fuckers while she blows their heads off,” Tripp suggested.
“You volunteering?” Sammi asked, ramming her stake into the heart of an older woman with a limp.
“I would if I could,” Tripp replied, taking down another vamp but turning to another one almost immediately.
Rachael was on her tenth or twelfth exploding head by now, but no one was free to kill the ones that were on the ground. One of the first she’d taken out was up, staggering around aimlessly with no head. “At least they can’t bite us,” she murmured. Nor could they figure out where the enemy was. With about forty more vampires coming at her teammates, Rachael closed her eyes and concentrated on the heads of the undead, praying this worked, and she didn’t accidentally take out the hunters, too.
“That was Sammi,” Rachael replied, rubbing her sore arm from where Sammi had dug her fingertips in. “She’s mad.”
“You don’t say?” Georgia asked. “But why?”
“Oh, she thinks I’m fucking Graham.”
“What are you talking about?” Tony asked, dropping his fork into the middle of his pasta and not even seeming to care that red sauce splattered his white shirt.
“Yeah. He spent the night in my room because I had a bad dream, and now everyone thinks it’s their goddamn business.”
They were all quiet for a moment, exchanging glances but no one speaking until Jazz asked, “Well, are you?”
“No,” Rachael scoffed. Then, taking a bite of her pizza as if it was no big deal, she added, “Not yet, anyway.”
30
MAKE THEM STOP!
*Rachael*
Rachael was pissed. She was channeling all of her anger toward the rest of her team into her target practice. Ever since Graham had spent the night in her room, several members of the staff were treating her like she’d done something wrong--particularly the female members, including Marcy and Sammi, but not just them. Even Dr. Mellow wasn’t so nice these days, and it was starting to get old.
Crossing over to the wooden target, Rachael pulled the two axes she’d just thrown out of the red and white bullseye. She’d been close to hitting the center, but she’d been slightly off. She’d keep practicing until she got it right. Earlier, she’d emptied a couple of clips into a black form on the target range. She’d then taken it down, written Sammi’s name on it in blood red, and taken it home to hang on the wall in her room.
Now, she was pretending the target was her former friend and still trainer, Marcy, and she wasn’t about to let off aiming for her center.
She took aim, drew her arm back, and let the first axe fly. It spun head over tail through the air and landed in the center of the red circle with a resounding thunk.
“Damn. I wouldn’t want to be on the other end of that ax,” Graham said, crossing over to stand next to her as Rachael took aim with the second ax.
“Don’t worry. You’re not the one I’m pretending to aim at.” She studied the target again and then let the second ax fly. It stuck right next to the other one.
She walked over to pull them both out, and Graham waited for her, his thumbs in his belt loops. He looked as hot as ever, but she’d been avoiding him the last few weeks, since the situation with Sasha coming to her room. Jared had confirmed it was Rachael’s blood on the roof, but they had no idea how it had gotten there, and Graham still didn’t believe her that Sasha was actually in her room.
Walking back over to him, Rachael took careful aim again and let the ax fly. The sound of it sinking into its target was satisfying in a way she couldn’t put into words. “Is there something I can help you with?” she asked. They’d been talking on the phone for the most part, and he’d assured her time and again he was still as interested in her as ever, but he thought it best if they slow things down. She agreed but for different reasons. She knew he was worried about the rest of the team; she was worried about him. The last thing she needed was to convince herself they were going to be together only to discover he wasn’t ready to move on from Chell after all.
“Listen, Rach, I’m really sorry about some of our teammates. I know they’ve been treating you unfairly. I just had a little chat with several of them, and I think they’ll let up now.”
“Why is that?” She let the second ax fly, and it struck the bullseye near the other one.
“Because… I told them to. I mentioned restructuring the team if they don’t get their shit together and mind their own damn business.”
She raised an eyebrow at him for a second before she went to retrieve her axes again. “And Sammi gave two shits?”
“She did when I threatened to take her off the active team.”
“Why would you do that?” Rachael had her axes and was headed back.
“Because I’m putting you on.”
She stopped, staring at him, not sure what to say. “Me? Now?”
He nodded. “You’re ready.”
Knowing questioning his judgment might talk him out of it, she didn’t ask him if he was crazy, even though she was pretty sure he must be to have made that decision. “Dr. Overbranch approved it as well?”
“Dr. Overbranch is in charge of the school, Rach, not the team.”
Tilting her head to the side, she studied him. “What?”
“Yeah. I run the team.”
“Since when?”
“Since forever. That is… since my dad retired from doing it.”
Puzzled, Rachael swallowed hard. “But that’s not the way I wrote it.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. Dr. Overbranch approved everything that had to do with the team, too. I didn’t realize you were leading the team.”
“You hadn’t noticed?”
She shrugged. “I have noticed you run the meetings, but I figured people just looked to you because you’ve been on the team the longest.”
“But I haven’t. You mean we’ve actually found something different between the world you wrote and the world we live in?”
“I guess so.” She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not, but she’d be interested to hear what Jared had to say about it. As soon as she finished throwing these axes a few more times.
“We’re going out in three hours. Be ready.”
She turned and looked at him as he walked away before she shouted, “I was born ready!”
He laughed and looked back at her, a twinkle in his eyes, and Rachael let her ax fly.
31
ANOTHER HUNT
*Rachael*
Rachael was riding shotgun. There was no way in hell she was going to ride in the back of the SUV with any of those people who had been rude to her the last several weeks. Even though Graham had told them she was part of the team now, some of them clearly didn’t want her there. So, since Jared was driving the other vehicle, she was sitting up front with Graham, and if they didn’t like it, they could suck it.
The hunt they were headed toward had nothing to do with Sasha, as far as they knew. Graham had filled them all in a few minutes before they loaded up the vehicles. Apparently, there’d been a few sightings of a pale, scraggly looking couple coming and going from an older home in one of the historic neighborhoods of Baltimore. The informants were fairly certain they had to be undead, but the team’s mission was to find out for sure, and if that was the case, to take them down.
On the way to the location, the team was practically silent, only a few whispers here and there. Rachael was about as uncomfortable as she’d been in her entire life, but there was nothing she could do about it. A reassuring look from Graham from time to time was enough to keep her from jumping out of the vehicle--or turning and screaming at everyone to just be nice.
He pulled to a stop a few blocks down from the location. It wasn’t that late as far as hunting times went, only a little past 11:00. Because the historic district was near downtown, there was a fair amount of traffic. They’d have to be quiet and try not to draw attention to themselves, which would be hard seeing as though there were a total of 10 of them, all wearing dark clothes and carrying weapons.
“We all know what we’re doing?” Graham asked the people behind him.
No one answered aloud but the four in the back--Sammi, Marcy, Ty, and Flint--all nodded or otherwise acknowledged they knew the plan. Since it was basically the same every time they moved in on a house or other residential dwelling, there wasn’t a whole lot to talk about. The only person who was basically clueless was Rachael. She wasn’t about to admit that in front of the rest of them, though.
As they quietly got out of the vehicle, Graham waited and then hung toward the back. Rachael stayed with him. “Since this is your first official hunt, just stay with me, and try not to get involved unless you have to. It shouldn’t be too much of a challenge, since there are only two of them.”
“‘Kay,” Rachael said with a shrug. He had an awful lot of faith in his informants if he really thought there were only two vampires in there. But she wasn’t about to argue.
She was carrying two handguns with silencers and had also strapped one of the axes she’d been practicing with onto her belt. She doubted she’d need any of that, but the ax looked cool, and she felt like a kickass vampire-slaying machine carrying two guns. She tried to keep her shoulders back and her head up, but all she really wanted to do was take Graham’s hand and follow him around like a puppy dog--just this first time, of course.
The house looked like something out of The ‘Burbs movie with Tom Hanks. It was all falling in and derelict. It certainly stood out amongst the other immaculate, mansion-like homes all around it.
“This is what nightmares are made of,” Graham muttered as he approached the home. Already, Rachael could see other team members on the roof. She hoped they didn’t fall through.
“Are we going in the front door?” she asked him.
Graham stood surveying the home for a few more seconds before he nodded and said, “Always do.”
It was difficult to be quiet on the porch. The old wood popped and bent under her weight, so she could only imagine the give it had under Graham’s heavier frame. He approached the door and pulled open the screen with a squeal, froze, and then placed his hand on the doorknob.
When he turned, it opened. She knew it had more to do with his magical touch than the fact that whoever lived here had forgotten to fasten the door. He pushed the barrier open and slid inside, Rachael following, trying not to let the screen door make any noise behind her. It shrieked again, but it didn't slam.
The inside was nicer than the outside, though it still could’ve used some help. The supplements Rachael had been taking had enhanced her night vision capabilities, but she hadn’t been on them long enough to have the same sort of skills the rest of the team had. So she concentrated on Graham’s frame and carefully picked her way along a wood floor that had seen better days.
“I’ve got a body in the back bedroom up here,” Sammi whispered into their earpieces.
Graham’s face fell. One of the things Rachael loved about him was his tender heart. “Not a vamp, though?”
“Negative. Elderly woman. Probably in her eighties when she died. Bite marks on the neck. Gone… at least a week.”
“Yuck,” Rachael murmured, imagining the smell.
“Thanks, Sammi,” Graham said. “We’ll take care of her as soon as we find whatever did it to her.”
“Attic’s clear,” Flint said. Rachael heard movement above her and wondered if that was the team on the second floor or the team in the attic.
“Back of the first floor is clear,” Jared said.
“Tripp? What about the basement?” Graham wanted to know.
Tripp didn’t answer right away, and since it seemed the only human resident of the home was dead, Graham picked up his pace, clearly looking for the interior entrance to the basement since Tripp and Miguel had gone in through a window.
Graham found the door that led downstairs under the stairs near the dining room table at the same time that Jared and Viv came into the dining room from the kitchen. The three of them exchanged glances that let them know exactly what was about to happen as Rachael stood there, trying to stay out of the way.
On a silent three-count, Graham pulled the door open, weapon in hand, pointing it into the blackness as Jared and Viv came in from opposite sides. The stairs were clear, but it was dark, only a few streams of moonlight illuminating an odd number of steps while dust and cobwebs settled from the disruption of having the door thrown open so furiously.
A silence settled over them that made the hair on Rachael’s arms stand on end. Where were Tripp and Miguel? Why hadn’t they reported? If they were in the middle of a shootout or a fight, that would be audible. So, what the hell was going on?
As quietly as possible, Graham started down the stairs, the boards creaking under his feet. Jared gestured for Rachael to follow Graham, which she did, then Viv, with Jared coming down last, leaving the door open behind him. Rachael didn’t pull her gun because, at this point, she was more afraid of shooting one of her teammates than actually hitting a vampire. Besides, her hands were just as good a weapon as any bullet. She double checked that she had a wooden stake or two in the interior pockets of her jacket and was glad she hadn’t forgotten the most important weapon of all.
The sound of Tripp’s voice in her earpiece was welcome, until she realized what he was saying. In the lightest whisper she’d ever heard, he asked, “Is that you on the stairs Graham?”
“Affirmative,” he whispered back.
“Be as quiet as possible,” Tripp breathed.
“Why?” Graham asked.
“You’ll see.”
The answer was unsettling for a number of reasons, but when Graham reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped abruptly, Rachael rested her hand on his shoulder and peered out into the moonlit space.
Tripp and Miguel were standing in the middle of a large, unfinished basement, guns drawn, backs to each other--surrounded by at least a hundred open coffins, each one containing a sleeping vampire.
“Holy shit,” Rachael mouthed.
“We’re gonna need backup,” Graham said.
Rachael didn’t think the rest of the team members already in the house were going to be enough, but they’d have to do, because the vampires closest to the two hunters in the center of the room were already stirring, and as soon as they opened their eyes, all hell would break loose.
32
VAMPIRE HELL
*Rachael*
“What do we do?” Tripp asked, his mouth moving, but hardly enough sound transferring out of it to be audible over the earpieces. Rachael could see well enough in the dim light to know what he was saying.
“Aim carefully,” Graham replied. “You two take the ones closest to you. Jared, clear the left. I’ll clear the right. Rachael, stay here.”
“Nope. I’ll get the ones right in front of us,” she said. Not that any of them would die without being stabbed with a stake, and they sure the hell didn’t bring enough to go around. At this point, all they could do was take out as many as they could and then get the hell out of Dodge.
“How is this possible? Where did they all come from?” Jared whispered behind her.
“Don’t know. No time to find out.” Graham had a gun in each hand, and when the vampires closest to Tripp and Miguel suddenly sat up, alarming the rest of their kind, it was time to start shooting.
The chaos in front of her made it almost impossible to keep up. Rachael took aim at the vampires closest to her, firing for their heads since that was one way to make sure they were slowed, but she had to be careful not to hit her teammates who were standing behind them. Shot after silent shot filled the space. The only way to tell how quickly the vampires were being struck was through their reactions--heads flying backward, bodies crumpling to the ground.
Rachael stayed on the stairs, trying to protect their exit but also because Graham had told her to stay back. As the rest of the team came flying down to help, she tried to stay out of the way. Most of the team stepped around her, but Sammi gave her a hard shove in the shoulder and shouted, “Out of the way, bitch. We have work to do.”
Hitting the stair rail hard, Rachael rubbed her shoulder where it smarted from the blow. She wanted to accidentally aim at the trainer instead of the vampires, but she resisted the temptation.
The few seconds it took her to recover from the collision allowed the enemy to get slightly closer to her. Rachael fired off a few more rounds, but they were still coming. She realized her gun was not the most deadly weapon she had on her and shoved it back into its holster. As a pair of vampires closed in on her, Rachael raised her hands and concentrated on getting them to stop.
She did more than stop them. As the pulse of power left her hands and made contact with the two scraggly vampires, it was more than they could handle. The first vampire, an older man with blood dripping down his chin, had a pained look overcome his face before his entire head exploded into a thousand pieces, spewing flesh, blood, and bone everywhere. Two seconds later, the woman behind him blew her top as well.
Rachael looked at her hands, shocked. How in the world had she done that? Had she done that?
The rest of the team looked around in surprise as well, a few of them asking what the hell had just happened. Rachael didn’t have too much time to think about it at the moment. Instead, she set her sights on the next two vampires nearest her and immediately made quick work of their heads, too.
“Holy shit!” Graham said, still fighting off the bloodsuckers while Rachael explored how much power she had and how long this new skill might last. As she continued to explode the heads off the vampires around her, the bodies of the fallen began to wiggle on the floor. They were doing their best to get up, despite the fact that they had no heads.
“Well, that’s… insane,” Jared said, kicking a vampire in the gut that had gotten too close to him.
“Someone start stabbing those fuckers while she blows their heads off,” Tripp suggested.
“You volunteering?” Sammi asked, ramming her stake into the heart of an older woman with a limp.
“I would if I could,” Tripp replied, taking down another vamp but turning to another one almost immediately.
Rachael was on her tenth or twelfth exploding head by now, but no one was free to kill the ones that were on the ground. One of the first she’d taken out was up, staggering around aimlessly with no head. “At least they can’t bite us,” she murmured. Nor could they figure out where the enemy was. With about forty more vampires coming at her teammates, Rachael closed her eyes and concentrated on the heads of the undead, praying this worked, and she didn’t accidentally take out the hunters, too.
