Quinn glanced at me. “Gonna make it?”
“Yeah, yeah,” I answered. “Though what’s the point? Mom’s going to kill us anyway.”
“True.”
“If that thing doesn’t kill us first,” I added when the stench of rot and mushrooms hit us. Cracking twigs and clacking jaws followed. Hel-Blar weren’t exactly subtle. They didn’t so much hunt as attack, but what they lacked in finesse they made up for in numbers and sheer savagery.
And the three streaming between the pine trees and down the hill toward us weren’t tired like we were. They hadn’t been fighting all night. They were drawn out of their nests by the smell of blood and battle. I didn’t know if they’d followed us from the ghost town, but it seemed unlikely. They probably caught wind of the fire and fight, and bad luck had them stumbling on us.
“Shit,” I muttered. “You guys better run.”
Quinn snorted. “We’re not leaving you alone, you idiot.”
“Christa’s barely able to stand,” I argued. “And she doesn’t have any battle training, so get out of here already.”
Christabel propped herself up on Connor’s shoulder. “I’m fine,” she said thickly, too sleepy to enunciate. “Give me a stake.”
“You’re lisping,” I pointed out.
“So maybe I have a lisp,” she insisted. “It’s rude of you to make fun of me.”
I exchanged a glance with Connor. “Definitely related to Lucy,” we said in unison.
I reached for a stake as the Hel-Blar descended. “Just go, damn it.”
“I’ll stay,” Quinn said, his hands full of stakes. “Connor, you take Christa and go.”
“Too late,” Connor snapped. He hauled Christabel over his shoulder and scaled the nearest tree, depositing her in the crook of a huge willow branch. He handed her a stake. “Don’t fall on this.”
“What?” she asked, befuddled. It was like that for the newborn vampires. Dawn made them stupid.
“I’ll come to thee by moonlight,” Connor said, quoting her favorite poem. “Though hell should bar the way.” He kissed her quickly. “And don’t fall out,” he added.
“Don’t die,” she replied sleepily.
“Dude,” Quinn grinned. “Did you just recite poetry?”
“Shut it,” Connor shot back amiably. He dropped down to the ground just as the Hel-Blar reached us. We automatically circled the tree, protecting Christabel. She lay in the cup of branches in her military jacket and combat boots, her long reddish hair trailing between the silvery willow branches.
The weight of the approaching sunrise fought with a surge of adrenaline in my system. It felt like I’d been awake for days, drinking gallons of coffee. Quinn let out a holler and leaped on the closest Hel-Blar, attacking before he could be attacked. He’d always been that way. Luckily, he was a good fighter and his hands were covered with ash before Connor finished cursing at him. I took out the next vampire with my last stake.
A second wave of Hel-Blar came snarling through the woods. When it became apparent that we were about to be dangerously outnumbered, I did the only thing I could do.
I ran.
I didn’t give my brothers a chance to stop me, just drove my stake into the chest of the Hel-Blar blocking me, then leapfrogged over him as he crumbled to ash. Quinn gave a shout when he realized what I was doing, but it was too late. The two Hel-Blar closest to Quinn and Connor stayed where they were, gnashing their teeth—but the others changed their course.
Because if there was one thing besides blood that a vampire, Hel-Blar or otherwise, couldn’t resist, it was the chase.
The Hel-Blar pursued me because they couldn’t not chase me. Some of us could chain the predator, even if it hurt like hell, but the Hel-Blar were feral to begin with. Self-control was not among their attributes. And prey that ran away was all the sweeter. It awoke something primal inside us all, even my dad, who was the most civilized of us.
I ran fast enough that for a while I left behind the stagnant pond stench, trading it for pine needles and frost.
But it didn’t last.
Dawn was too close, and I was too slow. I couldn’t run anymore, not with any kind of real speed. When the trees stopped blurring around me, I stopped altogether. Better to preserve my faltering strength for battle. At least the Hel-Blar were far enough away from Quinn, Connor, and Christabel. I stood my ground at the edge of a patch of frostbitten grass, under a tree glittering with gold-dust lichen. The ground was liberally strewn with broken branches. They would have to do as makeshift stakes if worse came to worst.
And in our family, lately, worse always came to worst.
Case in point, the Hel-Blar currently closing in on me. There were at least five that I could see. At the clacking of jaws, I raised my stake.
The first Hel-Blar leaped at my throat, maddened with thirst. He was clumsy with need, which gave me the chance to dodge out of the way and spin around to stake him from behind. Ash settled on the grass at my feet. The second Hel-Blar wasn’t nearly as animal in his thirst, and there was a gleam of intelligence in his bloodshot eyes. It was like that with some of them: they were present and clever enough to be conscious in their feeding.
Not good.
Saliva spattered over my boot.
Not good at all.
I jerked back, using the tree to stabilize me so I could kick out with force. The Hel-Blar hissed as my heel caught him in the sternum. He stumbled back against another vampire, and they both staggered. The third darted around their flailing limbs, snarling. I couldn’t see the fourth at all.