Chapter Nineteen
~A Fighting Chance~
Laura’s breath caught as her ears picked up on the noise. She could hear footsteps coming, too. Carefully, she inched closer to the edge of the stairs. She could see Logan, standing in front of the entrance below, with his shoulders stiff.
The footsteps were coming from the same tunnel Logan and Laura had come from. They echoed loudly across the chamber, amplified by the hollow space of the cave. Whoever was coming wasn’t afraid of alerting them to their presence.
“Well, well, well,” a voice boomed through the air. Laura instantly recognized its source: it was the voice of the vampire who had held her captive before. “Look who we have here.”
Laura moved back from the ledge. Her heart was pounding fast with fear. How had he tracked them so quickly? Logan had said they were days ahead of any pursuers!
“You shouldn’t be here.” Logan’s voice was grave. A wild laugh answered from below.
“I shouldn’t be here? You dare tell me what to do? You are an outcast, forever damned for having committed treason against the Vassiz. You have forsaken your race, broken the ancient doctrine that binds us to who we are. You have spat on everything you have been gifted. And for what? A human?”
“Leave now,” Logan warned. “You saw what I did to your friend.”
“Oh, I don’t think I will be going anywhere. Vladimir was a fool, and he paid the price for his ineptitude. He took you lightly. I won’t be making the same mistake. When I deliver you and your human to the elders, all their glory shall come upon me. I will be exalted as the one who delivered the rogue to them, and take my place amongst the most revered of all our kind.”
Laura couldn’t see anything. She couldn’t take the unknowing, the uncertainty of what was happening below her. Summoning all her courage, she dropped to her belly and crawled to the edge. Peeking over, she saw that Logan still hadn’t moved. And she saw the other vampire’s shape right at the entrance.
“They sent out a call, you know,” the vampire continued. “The first such in hundreds of years. All of the Vassiz know what you have done, and they have united against you. The packs smell blood on the water. They’re coming for you. But once I’m done, they will be too late.”
Laura could tell a fight was about to break out. One Logan might lose. And she couldn’t do anything about it. She hated feeling so helpless. Being so helpless.
“So, traitor, tell me, where is your human? Her scent is weak, but I know she is here.”
Logan growled. “You will not have her.”
Wait. The tombstone! The one Logan had nearly dropped! She looked down, did a quick calculation in her head. The vampire… he was standing right below it! If she could just reach it, maybe push it forward…
“Oh?” The vampire laughed cruelly. “We have been through this before, have we not?”
“I have spared your life once,” Logan said. “This time, I might not be so kind.”
“No. This time, you won’t have the opportunity. Once I defeat you, I will make you watch as I have my way with your human bitch. I will make you watch her scream, make you watch her squirm under my touch, and you will be helpless to interfere. Yes, I think I’ll quite enjoy doing that. I haven’t taken a young girl like her in quite some time. The elders have asked for both of you, alive. They made no mention to the condition of your health.”
Laura crawled on hands and knees towards the last tombstone. She felt the earth shift underneath her with every motion she made, and prayed that nothing would collapse to alert the vampire to her presence.
“So be it,” Logan said. “If that is your choice, I am prepared to face you. Although I do not look forward to having the blood of two vampires on my hands.”
The other vampire laughed again. “You are weak, Logan. Your conscience is what holds you back from your true potential. A pity, what I will have to do to you…”
Laura’s dress caught on a rock, and she pulled it forward. Her breath caught at the sound of thread ripping.
“…you would have risen high in the ranks of the ancient blood…”
He hadn’t heard her. She was at the tombstone, now. It stood, balanced by a hair. She pushed it with both hands. It didn’t budge.
“…the elders would have taken you for one of their own…”
She was running out of time, and she knew it. How much longer would the vampire stand beneath her?
“One of their own?” Logan sounded shocked.
She backed up, and threw her weight against the stone. And felt it shift ever so slightly under her shoulder. Again, she backed up and thrust herself against the rock.
A loud crack sounded, and she felt the earth give way. She scrambled back.
“What was—” the vampire began, but cut off with an ear-piercing scream.
The stone broke off, and fell. Almost instantly an enormous crash sounded, and the scream broke off.
Suddenly the earth below her began to move. The ledge was caving in, falling down. She had broken the entire structure!
She flung herself backwards as the stone crumpled. Large cracks and fissures jerked their way unevenly towards her. One by one, large pieces of stone started to fall, creating a deafening roar as they hit the ground below.
Laura leapt to the side, to the safety of the stairs. She grabbed desperately at a the steps ground, and pulled herself up just in time. The ledge behind her had fully collapsed.
An eerie silence descended on the cave after the last stone had fallen. Laura was breathing hard. The drop must have been fifty, sixty feet, and if she had fallen… well, she didn’t want to think about that.
But she was safe, finally. She sat down against the wall. And before she knew it, Logan was at her side.
“You killed him,” he exclaimed in wonder. “Nobody has killed a vampire, certainly no human, since… since the start of our recorded history! There’s never been a human responsible for a vampire death!”
“And now I’m just like you,” Laura said. “We’ve both got vampire blood on our hands.”
“So we do,” Logan laughed. He bent down to offer a hand, and she took it, rising up.
“Now what do we go?” Laura asked.
“After the elders discover this death, they’re going to double their efforts to catch us. Quadruple them. I fear we’ll have all the clans in North America coming after us.”
“We can escape.” Laura’s voice took a newfound confidence. For the first time since discovering the true identity of her pursuers, she did not feel helpless. In fact, she felt better than that. She felt strong. “I know we can.”
“Glad to have you confidence,” Logan told her. “But it looks like what you did left us with little option of what to do next.”
“What do you mean?”
“The entrance,” Logan explained. “Everything collapsed right in front of it. Even with my strength, I don’t think I’ll be able to move the rocks.”
“Do you mean…”
“Yes. We have to enter the tunnels.”