I focus now, and everything changes. The massive Scotch pines crack, split at their bases, and all begin thundering to the ground. There’s nowhere to run as the ancient trees splinter and crash, and I stand rigid, clutching the scatha tightly. I know it’s not real, but it goddamn looks and sounds real. I can even smell fresh exposed pine flesh lingering in the air, as if just chopped for firewood. The scent is so heavy it nearly chokes me. I force my eyes to stay open. They sting and begin to water.
All at once, the last tree falls. The mist hovers and swirls over the downed forest, obscuring the browns and greens with a white blanket. In the next second, it begins to recede, and in its wake, darkness. It’s almost as if my vision is blurred, and I can’t make out figures, forms, or shapes. I even scrub my eyes with my free fist.
Then I blink, and my vision sharpens. I’m standing at the end of a street. Dark, shadowy, desolate. No cars. No trash cans. No storefronts. Just a street. At the far end, a derelict church. Ruined stone buildings flank me, along with cracked and torn-up sidewalks. Windows are glassless, and rotted two-by-fours crisscross the gaps. The air around me is dead still, yet some of the windows have tattered drapes that flap in a breeze that doesn’t exist. My eyes search every angle, every sharp edge, every shadow. I glance down, and at my feet, see a dead raven. Half of it’s smashed into the broken pavement, its wings unnaturally bent backward. The eyes have been burned out. Nothing but a singed hole looks up at me.
I step over the dead raven, and it begins to flap its broken wings. Billy Squier’s “The Stroke” starts booming from one of the broken windows above me. My eyes scan the gaping holes, and I see nothing. I take a long breath and move forward. I can’t let this world get to me. Besides, I love Billy Squier. What the hell?
No sooner do I move five feet than my heart seizes. I feel it thump, heavy, like a chunk of lead, and my first and immediate thought is Eli. My eyes latch onto the church at the end of the street. He’s in there. I know it. I feel it.
My legs react before my brain does, and I start to run. Only then do the cracks in the sidewalk break wider, and distorted, shadowy shrouds writhe out of them and move toward me. Their screams pierce my ears, and I feel like my eardrums will explode. The figures emerge from the cracks and take new forms and charge me. One has a shrunken cat’s head on a long, willowy body and long, jagged fangs. It hurls itself at me, and I point my scatha directly at its head and fire off one cartridge. The body drops in midair. The head is obliterated. Another one from the left lunges, and I fire. It drops, too. I’m closer to the church. Closer to Eli. I feel him there. Waiting for me.
I’m hit from behind and taken to the ground. Something sharp, cold, jabs into my back and straight through to the pavement beneath me. The pain is white-hot, almost blinding me. I gather all of my strength and explode upward, the thing still attached to my back. I flip, my back facing the ground, and we crash down. Quickly I roll, jump, and fire the scatha. Obliterated. I don’t bother looking around me. I take off. The church is ahead, maybe fifty feet. One of the double doors is caved in. The stone is charred, as though it’s been burned. The screams of the shadow creatures surround me, calling my name in such deafening tones I think I’ll lose my fucking mind. I push it all aside and speed up. With the dark shrouds all around me, with their little shrunken cat heads and distorted bodies grabbing for me, I leap the last fifteen feet in midair and crash through the double doors. One roll and I land in a crouch. The cat heads stop screaming my name. Even Billy Squier quiets. All is silent for a few seconds, and I search the inside of the decaying remains of the kirk. It smells like rotting flesh, death, and moldy wood. A creaking sound above me makes me look up. My heart crams into my throat. My body is paralyzed. My mouth moves, but no sound comes out. Eli! Vic! I say in my mind. No answer.
My vampire fiancé, Eligius Dupré, and vampire friend and WUP team member Victorian Arcos are hanging from the rotted rafters above. Tied at the wrists, they’re both completely naked. Their pale bodies are so covered by scorched whip marks that the stark slashes make it nearly impossible to tell their limbs apart. Some of the slashes are gaping. Made by blades. Holy hell . . .
The moment I decide to move, the sound of beating wings makes me pause. From a rafter close to Eli, a giant black gargoyle sweeps toward me. Its screaming talons and fangs are aimed for my head. I drop to my knee and fire the scatha, and the moment the cartridge hits, its body flies backward and crashes against the derelict stone wall. Black ashes fall to the floor.
Another one comes at me, from Victorian’s side, and it’s close, moving fast, and I have to free-run over broken pews and crumbling stone to get a good shot at it. I leap, half twist, and aim the scatha at the screaming thing. The cartridge knocks it back, too, and turns the creature to ashes. I’ve got eight cartridges left, and I’ll need every one of them to get us all out of here. I waste no time free-running, leaping off whatever solid thing my feet can find hold of, to reach the rafters above. I reach Eli first.
Hanging by one hand, I have no choice but to holster my scatha. I do so quickly, and gently grasp Eli’s jaw with my now-free hand. “Eli?” I say, and my vision is blurred by the tears that are filling my eyes. I can’t believe I’m looking at his face. His live face. I didn’t think I’d ever see him again. “Eli! Can you hear me?”
A low groan emits from his throat, and that’s all I need. All in one motion, I wrap my legs around his waist, grab a blade from the back of my jeans, and cut the rope binding his wrists to the rafter. We start to fall, and I notice his body is colder than usual. We drop twenty feet to the floor, and I swing under him just before we hit, landing on my feet. He’s heavy as hell, but I’ve got him. I crouch with him and lay his head gently down, his dark hair falling over his still-closed eyes. But he’s alive. My love is alive!
“I’ll be right back and we’ll get the hell out of here,” I whisper to him, and graze his lips with a kiss. They’re cold, too, and I shake the chill off and gather my strength. Finding a foothold on an overturned pew, I free-run up the wall and leap over to Victorian. Mimicking my movements from before, I wrap my legs around Vic’s naked body.
“Arcos? Can you hear me?” I say close to his ear.
A faint grunt comes from deep within him. Again, that’s all I need for now.
Letting go of the rafter with one hand, I hold Vic tightly, and with one swipe, I cut through his binds with my blade. We fall, and I land, laying him beside Eli. God Almighty, they’re both covered in cuts and slashes. No blood, just dark, sooty marks on every limb, their faces, their chests, almost as if burned with some fiery weapon. Although their flesh is bloodless, it’s filleted open in places. What the hell happened to them?
The sound of beating wings begins, inaudible whispers colliding, but I know what they’re saying. Riley . . .
Time to get out. Now.
I’ve got no alternative but to drag Eli and Vic out by their bound wrists.
A loud beating of wings erupts from outside, and I know when I, dragging two six-foot-plus, hundred-and-eighty-pound naked vampires, explode through what once was the doorway of the church, I will have to have one free hand to fire the scatha. Quickly, I check the bindings on Eli’s and Vic’s wrists, and I cringe at what the paved cracked street will do to their flesh. But I can’t help it. I have to have a free firing arm.
With the screams filling the church, I load the scatha’s ammo chamber with four more cartridges, making it completely full. I then take the long piece of rope hanging from Eli’s bound wrists, and the one from Vic’s, and grasp them in my left hand, then wrap it around several times until they’re snug together. With the scatha gripped in my palm, forefinger on the trigger, I take a deep breath and, using all of my strength, run full force at the doorway. The guys are heavy as mother hell, but we’re moving fast. The moment we clear the kirk, there are tiny-headed, fanged cat creatures all over the street. They’re still as death, just staring at me with vertical pupils, and three lunge at once. I rapid-fire three rounds off, and three headless creatures fall to the ground. I take off, ignoring the groans I hear coming from both Eli and Vic. I have no idea what kind of condition they’re in. I don’t care. They’re alive and that’s all the info I need for now. I just need to get us the fuck out of here.
The street seems to have grown longer, and I don’t know what to do except keep running toward the end of it, away from the kirk. There are more shrouded creatures writhing up from the sidewalk cracks—too many for the number of cartridges I have left. I keep running, only firing at the ones who get too close. My arm feels like it’s being torn off, and I glance back to make sure both Eli and Vic are still there. A cat creature has landed on Eli’s back and is gnawing on his ribs. I stop, drop to one knee, and fire the scatha, blowing it off Eli. Quickly, I load the remaining cartridges. I have three more left.
Shit.
Frustration clouds my judgment. What the hell do I do? I run toward the end of the street, but it stretches out long before me, like it’s never going to end, and distorted shadows grab at me, folding the darkness in on me. It’s now pitch-black, and I can only see the glowing eyes of the creatures hiding, preying, stalking us. I keep running, Eli’s and Vic’s bodies bounding limply behind me. They are heavy as shit, too. Like a ton of bricks. I fire another shot at something that flies at me from the shadows. Sparks flutter. I haul ass. One more cartridge left.
Then darkness settles at the end of the street. A pitch cloud, clustering together. First one pine tree, then another emerges. The woods! The goddamn woods! I draw every ounce of speed and strength I have and make my way there. One more creature leaps out at me, and I fire just before it knocks into me. I’m out of ammo. Almost there . . .
The moment my feet hit the spongy forest floor, that sonic boom wave flashes through the pines and knocks me backward. The rope entwining my wrist to Eli’s and Vic’s breaks, we all separate, and I fly hard through the air until a tree trunk stops my body. My shoulder pops, and I fall to the ground. Shaking my head, I try to stand, fall back down, stand again. Everything looks blurry, and my knees feel like rubber, and the pain in my shoulder screams as I lift my free hand to my eyes and scrub them. My other hand still grips tightly the scatha. I shake my head again.
