Dread Nemesis of Mine

chapter 8


Elyssa

Elyssa stared at the burned-out hull of the SUV in shock. Her father and Christian were in there! Adrenalin burned through her blood. She had to get to them. He couldn't be dead. But he probably was. What sick joke was the universe playing on her to steal her brother and her father from her in the space of a week? She reached for a sword, ready to slice through the mob of vampires surrounding her meager circle of Templars, but her sheath was empty. The sword was in the back of one of the SUVs.

She kicked away one attacker and looked around to see who was in charge. Everyone looked too busy fighting for their lives to think about the chain of command. Considering how many vampires were swarming them, she had to do something.

"Call for reinforcements," she shouted to a local Templar fighting next to her. "I'll cover your position."

He gave her a confused look at first, then seemed to realize who she was. He nodded and backed inside the circle, pulling out a cell phone.

The circle was faltering. Dozens of other Templars were scattered about, fighting individual battles. Considering the odds, they wouldn't last long. Whoever was supposed to have taken charge hadn't. She took a deep breath and bellowed, "Templars, form cohort! Skirmish ranks!"

As if she'd just pushed a button, individual Templars shouted out positions, trading spots and lining up in a wedge, while scattered individuals formed a smaller rank and fought their way toward the main group.

Elyssa backed behind the wedge for a clear view of the battlefield, and checked for Justin. She'd seen him through the throng only a moment ago. Thankfully, the attacking vampires were untrained at hand-to-hand. Maximus was obviously counting on sheer numbers to do the job, but with order restored to the Templar ranks, the tide of battle was turning.

She clubbed the closest vampire in the nose. He yelped. Elyssa thrust a foot straight out, slamming into his chest. He flew back, taking several other vampires tumbling to the ground with him.

With her view momentarily cleared, Elyssa spotted Justin dragging Bella from an SUV. She looked okay, but—Elyssa's eyes caught sight of a group of vampires rushing the two of them. Before he could react, a vampire slapped a sleeper collar on Justin.

"No!" Elyssa shouted. Despite years of training and a sense of duty hanging heavy around her neck, she didn't hesitate a second. She left the protective wedge and ran for him.

The vampire, who'd collared Justin, slung him over her back and dashed down the road. Elyssa dodged a clumsy swing from a vampire and shoved him away. Another charged straight at her. She ducked under his grasp and flipped him over her shoulder. Spun and drove her heel into his neck. A bone cracked and he lay still.

The vampires who'd cornered Justin now blocked the road. The diminutive sorceress, Bella, faced them down, a pale staff in her hand. Though Bella was a dhampyr like Elyssa, she was just an Arcane, not a trained fighter. Elyssa threaded a gauntlet of vampires, racing for Bella and Justin's kidnapper.

Before she could reach Bella, something hard smacked Elyssa in the temple. She rolled sideways to avoid another blow, but her eyesight blurred from the impact. She sprang back to her feet. Her vision cleared just as a muscular woman drove her fist right at the bridge of Elyssa's nose. She caught the fist. Twisted the arm. Drove her elbow into the vampire's arm and heard the crack of bone. The vampire screeched.

Elyssa swept the other woman's legs from under her, grabbed the vampire's neck, and drove her face-first into the brick street with a crunch. She looked back at Bella. Several vampires fanned out, encircling the dhampyr. Behind them, Elyssa saw the form of Justin's abductor speeding downhill on foot.

There was no way she'd help Bella with these vampires in time to give chase.

Bella twirled her staff and smacked a vampire in the head. She spun the rod around her waist and, sweeping low, upended the next vampire. The staff whirled over a shoulder, swung down and cracked the downed man in the face. Before the other vampires could react, Bella shouted, "Kineesi!" and stabbed the rod into the road. A bright blue light exploded around her, flinging the remaining attackers in all directions. One flew over Elyssa's head and bowled over several of his comrades.

"Holy smokes," Elyssa said. She'd obviously underestimated the woman.

The sorceress saw Elyssa and motioned her over. "We can still catch them!" She rushed to the back of the SUV and grabbed something. Turned and tossed a silver katana hilt-first to Elyssa.

Without another word, the two women sped down the street.

A blinding pulse of energy explodedthe bricks next to Elyssa. Shards of brick stabbed her flesh in countless places. Bella cried out. Somehow, they kept their feet.

"What the hell is that?" Elyssa shouted, looking back over her shoulder.

"There, look," Bella said, turning and pointing at a rooftop in the distance.

Zooming in her sight, Elyssa spotted a man on a roof, holding a sheet of paper in his hand. "Is he an Arcane?"

The other woman grabbed Elyssa by the arm and guided her toward the buildings on the left, taking them out of the man's line of sight. "No, he's a vampire, but he has weaponized scrolls."

And he'd killed her father. Rage boiled in her chest. Part of her wanted to turn around and tear the man to bloody shreds. But her father was dead and there was nothing she could do about it. Right now, she needed to catch the vampire with Justin. Her jaw hurt and Elyssa realized she was clenching her teeth so tight, they felt as though they would crack.

The vampire with Justin vanished around a corner in the distance. Elyssa and Bella blurred after her, whipping past buildings and fleeing pedestrians. They rounded the corner and smacked into a crowd of waiting vampires. Bella tumbled through them, losing the grip on her staff. Elyssa converted her forward momentum into a jump kick, catching one attacker on the chin.

Bella punched one guy in the crotch from her position on the ground. He screamed and went down. She rolled away from a vampire's foot as he tried to stomp her. Elyssa dodged a clumsy lunge by an attacker and, grabbing his shoulders, vaulted over him. Her foot lashed out in a backward kick and sent him stumbling against a brick wall. Bella's staff lay only feet away.

Elyssa swatted aside a punch from a woman dressed in a skintight, leather suit who obviously thought becoming a vampire meant she could live out her Catwoman fantasy.

The woman hissed in Spanish and clawed at Elyssa's eyes. Elyssa gripped the other woman's wrists. Twisted them out and away from each other. Kneed the vampire in the stomach, and finished her with a roundhouse to the face. Catwoman went down in a ragdoll heap.

Bella yelped as one of the vampires landed a punch on her face. She wobbled but managed to keep her feet. Elyssa snatched the staff from the ground. Whirling it, she cleared a path back to Bella, clubbing vampires on the head with it. Though she'd trained with a bo staff, it wasn't her specialty. True, she had the katana Bella had given her, but even as mad as she was, Elyssa couldn't bring herself to start slaughtering these stupid sheep Maximus called followers. They were brainwashed. Not evil.

Bella dodged a furious uppercut from the vampire. Elyssa came up behind the man and swung the staff up hard, nailing him in the crotch with the knobbed end of it. She pushed the staff forward. Bella grabbed the rod. Twirled it. Crushed the man in the balls with a fierce thrust. The vampire howled and fell to the ground, clutching at his injured manhood.

The two women exchanged fierce grins, and dashed past the fallen attackers.

The street dead-ended in two narrow alleys. Elyssa cursed. "Check the left, and I'll check the right," she said over her shoulder as she ran across the road. She reached the end of the alley and looked both ways down a long, deserted street. Bella emerged on the same street on the opposite side of a tall red-brick building.

"No!" Elyssa froze with indecision. Could the woman with Justin have already gotten away? She ran back into the alley and looked up the walls. It was at least three stories to the top and too wide for her to brace against. Elyssa ran up the left wall. About six feet up, she jumped the gap to the other wall. The moment her foot touched the rough brick, she reversed momentum and leapt back across. Within seconds, she reached the lip of the roof and pulled herself up.

The view here was better, but the crowded buildings and snarled alleys hid too much. The only movements she saw were still-fleeing pedestrians and the occasional car or truck in the distance. Police had formed a blockade on one end of the road, but not the other. The vampire with Justin must be headed away from the blockade, but there were too many narrow passageways and side streets for her to lose herself in. For all Elyssa knew, a waiting vehicle had already picked her up and Justin was gone.

"She went that way," Bella shouted from the ground, pointing toward a glowing green line wending down an alley.

"You used a spell?"

The other woman nodded. "We have to hurry. The trail will fade."

It'd take too long to get back down, Elyssa realized. Reversing her ascent wasn't as easy as jumping down the walls. She'd end up breaking her leg or worse, and the time required to recover would be all the time the abductor needed to get away. She looked at the street below. At the trail leading down the alley. She backed up to the opposite edge of the roof. Sprinted toward the ledge. Jumped.

Bella shouted something unladylike from below. Elyssa swung her arms to keep balanced. Already, gravity had her in its clutches. She stretched her foot forward. It barely caught the lip of the roof. Elyssa somehow kept her feet and ran.

"I'm following!" Bella shouted, her voice echoing from the alley.

Dodging right, Elyssa ran along the edge of the roof. The buildings were closer on this side. She jumped each gap without slowing. Ahead, a motor puttered to life. A tire screeched. A tiny green car pulled out from a parking space at the end of the alley. Elyssa saw Justin's limp form slumping in the passenger seat.

"It's him!" Elyssa shouted. She leapt across the alley to a lower building. Vaulted another gap and dropped onto a concrete wall below. Bella streaked past her as Elyssa made it to the alley floor. By the time she reached the street, Bella had pulled out her wand and was looking at the parked vehicles. Most of them were rusted heaps. Something chrome twinkled in the sunlight.

A motorcycle.

"This one!" Elyssa said, rushing to it.

Bella jammed her wand against the ignition. "Contarte."

The engine roared to life.

Bella gripped her staff and shouted another word. It collapsed into a compact rod. She secured it to her waist and hopped on the motorcycle behind Elyssa, gripping her tight. "Madre de dios, this is exciting! Let's go."

Elyssa gunned it. The bike was an old Suzuki—a real piece of junk compared to her Harley—but the vampire couldn't hope to outrun it in the compact car she was in. The bike's rear tire squealed and the front end lifted off the ground. Bella squealed.

A figure leapt atop a roof several blocks down. Elyssa saw the person unroll a parchment.

"Another scroll caster," she said, shouting over the noise of the wind and the engine.

The moment she said it, a sheet of ice crackled and crept across the road in front of them. The bike hit it. The tires lost their grip on the nearly frictionless surface. Elyssa let off the gas, but it was too late. They spun out of control and there was nothing she could do about it. If they hit bare asphalt sideways, the bike would flip. Since neither of them were wearing armor, they'd end up with a bloody road rash or worse.

Bella held her wand out and twirled it. A solid blast of air hit the bike, stopping the spin and straightening the bike. Except now they were sliding backwards at breakneck speed. Elyssa slid the katana from the sheath on her back. Stabbed it against the ice and pivoted the bike a hundred and eighty degrees. The bike straightened an instant before the front tire hit pavement. The rubber squealed. The katana sparked against the cobblestones. She slid the sword back into its sheath with one hand while gunning the gas with the other.

A brilliant ball of starfire speared from the figure on the roof. Elyssa leaned hard to the side as a pumpkin-sized globe of white energy turned a nearby dumpster into a heap of glowing slag. The caster tore open another scroll. Another sphere of starfire coalesced and bolted at them. Elyssa sped up, but it was too late to dodge. Her only hope was to lay the bike down and that would hurt. A lot.

At the last minute, Bella shouted and the air overhead shimmered into a mirror-like surface. The energy rebounded like a moonshot. The scroll caster screamed and tried to dive to the side, but he was too slow. The crackling starfire caught him in the chest, vaporizing the right side of his body into blackened mist. His smoldering corpse rolled off the roof and clanged into an empty dumpster.

"Amateurs," Bella said in a loud huff.

Elyssa saw the green car weaving through traffic ahead. She almost smiled. Now that vampire bitch was hers. She split the lane between two cars. Swerved right to avoid another. Bella's grip tightened. The vampire's car broke free of the traffic jam and turned left. Elyssa weaved through the last of the cars and leaned so hard into the turn, her knee almost touched the ground, and the wheels squealed with the effort of holding the road.

The green car screeched through a roundabout, clipping several cars along the way. Elyssa spotted a break in the chain guarding the center of the roundabout and steered through it, cutting the distance between her and the car in half. A truck pulled out from an alley right in front of the car. It swerved away and crunched into another car in the opposite lane.

A lone figure jumped from the car and blurred away down the street, empty-handed. Elyssa braked hard and screeched to a stop. She leapt off the bike. Rushed to the car. Tore the door open and gasped. The passenger seat was empty.

"No." She spun on her heel, searching the nearby traffic. "No!"

Bella came to her side and shouted a stream of Spanish. "The bastards tricked us. They must have pulled him out while we were getting the motorcycle."

"Or skating on ice." Elyssa groaned and pounded her fist against the roof of the car. A tear of frustration and disbelief burned down her cheek. She turned to Bella, weak with the realization of everything that had happened today. More tears gathered in her eyes, though she fought with everything she had to keep them at bay.

"Oh, god, Bella. Oh my god." Her knees went weak and she clutched at the other woman for support. "I've lost Justin. And my dad, he's—he's—" she couldn't say it. How could Thomas Borathen, a man who'd survived wars and everything else the supernatural community had thrown at him, die? It wasn't possible. It couldn't be.

But it was.