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Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Andor moving slowly. Inch by inch. He was beside Neil, who held his sagging wife in his arms, refusing to allow her to put herself in danger trying to rush to the two remaining children, or after the puppet who’d carried off their oldest.
Lorraine saw Andor touch Neil’s arm, a brush of his fingertips, no more, but it got him the man’s complete attention.
“How could you work for him? Jannik, clearly, you’re so much more intelligent. Where is he? He sends his best to do his battles because he can’t fight them himself. Why have you aligned yourself with this worm?” She poured flattery and interest into her voice.
“He is indeed a worm. I am slowly recruiting others who understand that just because he carries the Malinov name, doesn’t mean he is one of them. They were leaders. He crawled on the ground for them, eating their table scraps. He inherited their mantle of leadership. Even now, he waits on his brother.”
She felt Andor stiffen. The reaction was in her mind and echoed by all the ancients, Dragomir in particular. She didn’t understand why, but she pursued it. “I don’t know what that means. What brother? You have to remember, I don’t know very much about why your master would want me. Is it his brother who does?”
“He is not my master. Vadim was. Vadim had a vision for all of us. We cannot find our lifemates, but we can have women to serve us. To give us children, an army of them. We will have human males serving and protecting us as well. It was to be our century. We were poised on the very brink of destroying the Carpathian people.”
“Vadim did that?”
Jannik nodded. “Not his brother, the miserable worm. Vadim must be a prisoner. No one sees him but Sergey. Now Sergey has demanded we get his slave back and along with her, you. He wants two women for himself.”
“I am very confused.” Andor was now close to the children and between them and the vampire. She wanted to jump up and down for joy. “I thought it was Vadim that wanted women for all of you.”
“It was his plan. His woman has been taken by one of the Carpathians. She is pregnant with his child, the first of its kind. I will free Vadim and retake his woman. That child is the beginning of our army and symbolizes that we are not rotting flesh and worms.”
“I don’t think anyone is called that but your master.”
She could see Andor weaving a protection circle around the two children. They sat quietly, looking up at him without fear. She knew he had taken control of them, distancing them from what was happening. That was the first step for the two of them. The second step, before they engaged the vampire, was to encircle the parents and make it clear to them that no matter what happened, they couldn’t leave until Andor or one of the others said it was safe.
Gary had to defeat the puppet and rescue the oldest boy and then place him in a protective circle. He needed to get to Isai, heal him and give him blood so he could make the journey home. The others each had specific tasks, but until Andor, Lorraine and Gary ensured the children and their parents were safe, no one could engage in battle. If they did, it would trigger Jannik into making his move, and they weren’t ready.
“I told you, he is not my master.” Jannik’s voice, all sweetly pitched before, turned nasally and whining. Spittle ran down his face and he forgot to wipe it clean. Fury twisted his features into a malevolent mask. He jerked at his hair with one hand and a huge tuft came off. He looked at it as if puzzled.
“That’s right, of course he’s not. How could he be? I’m so sorry, Jannik.” She kept her voice appeasing. “I didn’t mean to make that same mistake.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Andor weaving his safeguards around the couple. Neil had coaxed his wife to sit on the ground. He kept his arms around her and rocked her gently, but both of them had their gazes on the distant forest.
When Andor was finished he turned to face the couple. “Your children are safe. A friend is securing your oldest son and destroying the abomination that took him. Stay where you are no matter what is happening around you. If you move, you will die and so will your children.”
He strode over to Lorraine’s side. “Te kalma, te jama ńiŋ3kval, te apitäsz arwa-arvo—You are nothing but a walking maggot-infected corpse, without honor. I have come to free you.”
Lorraine stepped back to give Andor fighting room. More, she did as he’d suggested earlier and went back-to-back with him, facing outward toward the forest, knowing the others would come.
11
The children are secure. Andor’s voice moved in his mind and Gary Daratrazanoff breathed a sigh of relief.
He waited in the cool of the forest for his prey. The scent of blood was strong as the puppet dragged the screaming child toward him. The boy was tough because he was giving the creature a difficult time. Puppets as a rule were slow and lumbering, but they were unusually strong. Kicking and punching, raining blow after blow, the boy made it difficult for the puppet to drag him. It was good for the boy, but bad for Gary, as the puppet continued to struggle with him and finally came to a halt a good forty feet from Gary’s position.
The puppet ripped at the child, and the boy’s cries sent birds reeling into the air in alarm. Droplets of blood spewed into the air, further maddening the creature. Gary waved his hand toward the vampire’s handiwork while he emerged from the forest, bursting out with the frightened birds. The brains of the puppets were so far gone, most of the time magic and power didn’t work very well on them. Gary only wanted him slowed enough that the boy had the opportunity to run.
The puppet jerked its head around, as if on the strings of a master, facing him as he came in for the attack. His hands went slack, enabling the child to rip free and stumble a distance away. Gary shifted at the last moment, more to reassure the child than out of necessity. He sent soothing waves of comfort and support to the boy, and took the pain from the child at the same time.
He had been given the easiest job in order to free him to heal Isai. He slammed his fist into the puppet as he drove straight into the creature. Ignoring claws tearing at his body and teeth driving into his shoulder, he extracted the heart, tossed it aside and stepped back. Lightning forked in the night sky and then one whip hit the heart, incinerating it. The sizzling white-hot streak of energy leapt to the puppet, destroying it in a dazzling display of flames.
Gary went straight to the boy. The child stared up at him as he crouched beside him. “I’m Gary. What’s your name?”
He put a hand on the boy’s shoulder where the puppet had torn chunks of flesh from him. The wounds were painful, but superficial. The vile creature hadn’t had time to get started on the boy. Gary called up the healing light in him and brought it through his hands so that the child felt heat, but not so hot that it burned on top of the painful bites and tears.
“Tommy.” The boy sniffed. “What is that?”
“We call them puppets. I am going to construct a safety ring for you. If anyone tries to get you to come out of it, you ask them to say the safe word. If they don’t, you stay very still inside. They won’t be able to get to you.”
The boy nodded, his thin body trembling. “I think they got my brother and sister. Maybe my mom and dad.” A sob welled up but he choked it down.
Gary shook his head as he began to weave the safeguards necessary to keep the boy safe. “Friends of mine have them safe in the same type of circle I’m giving you. There are still several of the bad people around, and we have to make them leave. You have to do what I say, Tommy, or you won’t be safe.”
The boy nodded. Gary wanted to send him to sleep, but if he was killed in a battle, no one would be able to rescue the boy. He had no choice, he had to take the chance.
“The secret phrase is ‘Curious George likes his bike.’ Can you remember that?” It wouldn’t mean anything to a Carpathian or vampire, but it would to a human child. All of them had heard of Curious George. The books were very popular and beloved by children.
The boy nodded again, his eyes ligh
ting just a little bit. “Yes. I can remember it.” He repeated the phrase for Gary.
“No matter how scary things look, you just stay right there. I’ll come for you.” He turned away, but then turned back. “If someone comes looking like your parents, they still have to say that phrase. You can’t be fooled by these things.”
Tommy nodded his head again. “I won’t.”
Last child secure. The phrase to remove him from the safety circle is “Curious George likes his bike.”
It was the best Gary could do. He needed to get to Isai and see to his wounds. He turned from the boy and sprinted his way back to the forest. The moment he was in the clear and the child couldn’t see him, he took to the air, covering the distance between him and his patient fast.
Isai lay in a small depression he’d clearly opened for himself. Gary’s heart jerked when he saw the vampire bending over the Carpathian. The vampire drew back his hand to plunge it into Isai’s chest. Gary was there, catching the wrist, preventing the movement that would kill the already badly wounded ancient.
Gary spun the vampire around and drove his fist into the chest, fingernails like talons, digging through muscle, cutting through bone, until his fingers could surround the prize. The undead raked at him with both hands, tearing open his chest. The vampire leaned forward and tore at his neck with his teeth—or tried to. Gary whipped his body around to avoid the jagged, piercing teeth and as he did so, he withdrew his arm fast.
Tossing the heart, he called down the lightning. The vampire dove toward the heart, hand outstretched. It was impossible to outrun the bolt of white-hot energy as it struck. Vampire and blackened heart incinerated almost immediately. Gary bathed his arms and hands in the sizzling heat and then hurried to Isai.
The Carpathian was wounded in several places. Like Andor, he had attacked the undead right in their nest, knowing it was a trap, but trying to rescue the humans anyway. Gary constructed a circle of safety around the ancient warrior. There would be no one to guard him while he worked, and he couldn’t afford to have a vampire come upon the shell of his body while he was attempting to heal Isai’s wounds.
Once he had the circle of safety safeguarded, he shed his body and moved into Isai, looking to see what he was working with. The wounds were severe, and had Isai not shut down his heart and lungs, he would have died. Gary began the slow healing process.
The children are secure. That was Andor.
Still Sandu waited, feeling the cool heat that moved through his body in anticipation of a battle. Gary needed to hurry. They had only so much time before the vampires realized their trap hadn’t worked, and Andor was in control at the camp. Sandu and Dragomir had drifted with the night breeze, looking for the vampires and marking their hiding places. The lesser vampires were so much easier to locate than those who had been around a few years.
Last child secure. The phrase to remove him from the safety circle is “Curious George likes his bike.”
Sandu nodded to Dragomir and the two sprang into action. They both had targeted a lesser vampire, ones close to two of the much more dangerous undead. They wanted to kill the two lesser pawns as quickly as possible. Clearly, from what they saw and overheard, the one calling himself Jannik was one of the four more dangerous vampires. That left one they hadn’t found. Sandu dove through the trees in the form of a crow. Dragomir and he had sat there with the master’s spies and no one had noticed.
He shifted just before he struck the lesser vampire who was moving back and forth in anticipation of joining Jannik. He waited for a signal that hadn’t yet come. Sandu was on him fast, slamming his fist through the unwitting vampire’s chest and dragging out the heart before the creature knew what had happened. He had the organ burned and was turning when the one he’d not seen yet hit him hard, spinning him and driving him toward the ground.
Sandu dissolved and burst through the night air, streaming around the vampire and once more shifting back to his form. He sent the vampire a small salute. “Good of you to join me. It saved me hunting you.”
“I have not seen you before, yet you appear to have been in many battles.”
Sandu bowed slightly. “I am one of the brethren from the monastery. Are you so young you do not recall those locked behind the gate of the monastery to spare the world their power?” He held up his hand and allowed the magic accumulated from centuries to show on his skin. For a moment, it was a dazzling display, electrical pulses sizzling over his skin, and then he appeared normal. “You are?” he prompted.
The vampire looked uneasy once he heard Sandu’s claim of having been held within the boundaries of the monastery. Every Carpathian had heard of them. They were ancient warriors and stories of their battles had been sung around the campfires before modern times. Sandu was certain this vampire had been one of those singing.
“Karl.” The vampire circled to his left and glanced up toward the branches of the trees, as if looking for help.
Sandu casually sent a burst of flames toward the flock of birds staring down at them with beady eyes. The birds shrieked and took to the air. Sandu whirled his fingers in the air and, in spite of how large they were, the crows were sent tumbling, falling from the sky end over end. While the vampire was transfixed by the sight of the master’s spies dropping through the air, Sandu attacked.
He was a blur of motion, so fast the vampire didn’t see him before it was too late. He tried to dissolve, but Sandu’s fist was in his chest, holding his form. Talons scraped while acid blood poured over the Carpathian’s arm, burning it to the bone. The vampire retaliated, attempting to drive his fist into the hunter’s chest. It was far, far too late. Sandu had the heart and nothing would deter him. He yanked the prize from the chest of the undead and sent it flying a distance. One of the crows made an attempt to rescue it, but the lightning hit crow and heart. Sandu bathed his arms to get rid of the acid blood and then took to the air to get to the next vampire.
Dragomir sat in the very midst of Sergey’s spying crows. He studied each of them, looking for a leader, but none seemed to be a vampire in another form. He waited patiently for the signal. He wasn’t happy that Vadim was still alive. Vadim Malinov had led the vampire army in San Diego. They had established a stronghold beneath the city. He recruited human psychic males found through the Morrison Center for Psychics. They had them now around the world. A secret human society actually ran it—those dedicated to killing vampires. They believed in them when the rest of the world thought they were crazy.
The Malinov brothers were intelligent enough to hack the database for psychic men and women. The men they recruited would help them in various ways. They could be out in sunlight and do things vampires couldn’t. Vadim had seen the use for them and instead of using them exclusively for food, he promised them all sorts of things in exchange for their aid. He could look into each individual mind and offer their heart’s desire.
The psychic women he wanted to give to the vampires in his upper ranks, telling them they could have children to build their powerful army. To do such a thing that was deemed impossible would only give them more status, helping to recruit newer vampires. It wasn’t easy to get vampires to follow another. They were vain and narcissistic. Vadim had found the perfect way to entice them to his army.
Dragomir’s lifemate, Emeline, had suffered for weeks, acid blood eating her and her child from the inside out. The baby’s cries had affected her. It had been impossible to sleep because Vadim would command her. It had been an impossible situation. She’d been unable to take the chance and tell the Carpathians just in case they wanted to harm her child. She’d been uncertain what to do but knew she had to make a decision soon when Dragomir had come onto the scene and heard her speak. He’d known instantly, by the way his emotions and the brilliance of colors had returned to him. Emeline was his.
It had taken a while, but with the help of Gary, he had completely rid both mother and child of any part of Malinov’s blood. They thought Vadim had been killed, although a question mar
k had been raised. Now they knew: Sergey had kept him alive for some reason of his own. Dragomir didn’t like the idea of having to go home to his woman and let her know Vadim still lived. They wanted the child—his child now. The baby was a girl, and she was definitely Dragomir’s daughter—not Vadim’s.
Last child secure. The phrase to remove him from the safety circle is “Curious George likes his bike.”
Beside him, Sandu made his dive toward the lesser vampire he’d targeted. Dragomir did the same. The two lesser vampires were the pawns to help protect the ones working their way toward being considered master vampires. Neither hunter wanted the pawns at their back when they were battling a more skilled opponent.
He hit the vampire hard, rolling him to the ground, and was on him before the undead knew what happened. As he plunged his fist deep, he was hit from behind. His warning radar went off just before a vampire tried to punch through his back to get at his heart. He turned just enough to throw the vampire off. Still, the fist went deep enough for him to feel it.
In one motion, he extracted the heart and threw it a distance away, calling the lightning at the same time as he whirled to face his new opponent. This one wasn’t the more skilled vampire he expected to face, the one he’d watched for a time. This was a second pawn, which told him the vampire he’d targeted was probably closer to being a master than he’d counted on. They often surrounded themselves with sacrificial pawns that helped them win a battle and aided them in escaping.
The sizzling whip of white-hot energy incinerated both the heart and the lesser vampire, but then some unknown force wrestled with Dragomir for the power of the energy. He nearly smiled. Emeline had returned his emotions to him, and he could see the humor in the more skilled vampire thinking he had the advantage. Still, it was never a good thing to feel when one was fighting. He couldn’t think about Emeline or anything else.