“Give me a little blood by mouth, if you can spare it,” was what I said instead as I considered my arm. Well, what was left of it. Always the left arm, the dispassionate part of me mused darkly. First burned by Max, now this. If it could talk, it would never stop bitching at me.
It was hanging by a few stubborn ligaments, but most of it was chewed off to the bone. Now I resemble the zombies, it occurred to me. Some of their limbs were a dead ringer for this one.
“It’ll hurt when it heals,” Tate rasped, pressing a knife and my mouth to his throat. “Drink deep. I’ll refill.”
Normally I wouldn’t have drunk from him, deeply or not, but these weren’t normal circumstances. Bottom line was, I’d have to be back in fighting condition and fast, because the things outside weren’t calling a time-out. With that in mind, I clamped my teeth over the puncture Tate made in his neck and sucked hard, biting to keep the wound open.
He made a noise I refused to diagnose, because I knew better. Cool blood filled my mouth and I swallowed, pulling harder, feeling shards of shooting pain erupt in my arm. His grip tightened until my upper body was glued to him, tilting his head back as I applied stronger suction. By the fourth pull my arm was in agony, but by the sixth, it had settled into a harsh tingling. At the ninth I was able to shove him back using two hands, panting as cravings for more awoke in me.
Tate’s eyes were green when I looked at him, and it made me scramble back further, because his expression said they weren’t lit up from battle.
I jumped to my feet, watching in amazement as the skin regrew on my limb, knitting back together like a scene from a science fiction movie.
The new blood coursing in me made me feel wilder, less human. Considering the amounts I’d no doubt lost, I was probably running on a sixty-forty mixture favoring the undead cells.
“Come on, soldier,” I said. “We have things to kill.”
Without a backward glance I ran up the stairs and back toward the fierce sounds of battle.
The vampires were clustered around the hall in front of the landing like an undead gauntlet. Every shrieking, unholy thing that tried to gnaw their way through them was set upon by all sides. It was holding so far, but one look told me the grim truth. This barricade wouldn’t last long enough. More and more creatures kept coming.
I sprinted forward to join the fray when I collided with Annette. She was wide-eyed and frantic, almost not seeing me as she rushed to smash a figurine against the wall. When nothing happened but broken glass, she gave a raw cry of despair and turned to seek out more objects.
“Annette!” I had to shake her to get her to focus on me. “Where are Tick Tock and Zero?”
She gestured in no general direction. “Tick Tock is on the other side of the house, Zero went to Anubus to attempt to beat the answer out of him, but I saw six of those…things follow after him, they’ve broken in! I heard Zero scream, and then I went this way. Oh, Cat, I can’t find it, I can’t find it!”
What it was didn’t require asking. This place was coming apart at the seams.
“Just keep at it, Annette, we’ll find whatever it is. We’ll hold them off—”
She shoved me. “You don’t understand. It’s on the news! Graves emptying, rumors of things crawling from them…all headed in this direction. We’re in an isolated area, but not that isolated. Don’t you see? Patra doesn’t need all of them to kill us; very soon she’ll know exactly where we are, because all the zombies are a sign pointing the way!”
Shit! Didn’t it ever stop? So our situation had upgraded from awful to doomed. Surprisingly, I was more angry than anything else. That bitch didn’t deserve to win. We might not be innocents, but she was far worse on many levels.
There was noise behind me, coming from the basement. Screams, God, more screams. And the sounds of crumbling structure. This is it, the realization came to me. The end. No, I couldn’t stop it, but I could choose how to meet it.
With renewed determination, I held out my sword. “You keep looking, Annette, no matter what. I’ll keep killing. If that bitch wants us, she can come and get us.”
“To the lower rooms, mates, move!” a shout ordered. Two dozen members of what was left of our forces began to fall back. I fought my way forward, seeing Bones and Mencheres at the end of the retreating line covering the exit. Both of them spun and slashed in a dizzying display of violence that made them seem like they’d been transformed into machines. I’d always guessed that Mencheres, once stripped of his polite manners, would be frighteningly lethal. I wasn’t wrong. He looked like a living nightmare.
Vlad grabbed me, forcing me backward. His hands felt hot, not cold like they should have from the freezing outside temperatures.
“Come along, they’ll join us soon,” he barked, propelling me with his body.
“No, I’m going up there!” I yelled, trying to wrest away.
“He’s the co-leader of his line so he’s where he should be,” was his reply. “But you’re coming with me.”