Blood Prophecy

CHAPTER 36



Lucy


It was one thing to train in the gym, to practice kickboxing and archery, to read about wars and tactical strategy and listen to Helena threaten to pull organs out of various people’s noses.

It was quite another thing to walk right into a war.

Objectively speaking, we knew the vampires at the Blood Moon were inside the circle, with a ring of Hope’s followers around them, and the rest of us on the outside ring. On paper, this would have looked great—if the vampires in the center were armed. Because even super speed and strength could only go so far against stakes and arrows. And Hope wasn’t about to give them that chance anyway. She was waiting for sunrise when they’d be at their weakest.

So we’d take away their element of surprise.

Jenna was already climbing up a soot-covered chain ladder to get a better vantage point. She didn’t have just one hand crossbow, she had three. Chloe followed behind her but Hunter stayed on the ground with Quinn since she was better at hand-to-hand. Kieran went off with Solange and the rest of the Black Lodge dispersed around the perimeter. Nicholas was right at my side, or I was at his, it hardly mattered. Where one of us went, the other followed.

We hadn’t even reached the Chandramaa yet, we were still technically on the outskirts of the official camp. And we still had no idea if or when the Hel-Blar would be released. And if they would make things better or considerably worse.

I already felt like I was moving in slow motion but everything around me was sped up. Even the brightness of the snow looked different. The reality of a sound attack wasn’t just about the logic behind the plan, it was also the thrum of my blood in my veins, my heart stuttering, my mouth going dry.

Hunter looked perfectly calm but when Spencer came up beside her, she nearly staked him. He ducked even as Quinn grabbed her elbow to stop her follow-through.

“You have got to stop sneaking up on me,” she grumbled at him.

“Sorry,” he said. “My unit’s pretty small but I set up a few spells to compensate. And no, before you ask, no one will smell like cheese.” He gave her a friendly nudge with his shoulder. Neither of them were quite used to his vampire strength yet so Quinn had to catch her when she nearly plowed into him. “Don’t die,” Spencer ordered. “One of us is enough.”

“I’ll take care of her,” Quinn promised.

“And I’ll stake you both right now if you two don’t cut it out,” Hunter added drily.

In the trees above us, Jenna shot arrows into the camp, the shafts wrapped with notes addressed to Helena Drake and Liam Drake. I shot a few more from my position. We hoped at least one of the arrows made it through the compromised Chandramaa ranks.

Which officially made this our last chance to talk our way out of this.

“Are you sure about this?” Quinn bent his head to whisper in Hunter’s ear. She leaned into him briefly but her answer didn’t change.

“I have to try.” When he tried to follow her, fierce and charming as only a Drake brother could be, she stopped him. “I have to do this alone.”

“It’s not safe.”

“Nowhere’s safe anymore,” she reminded him. “But they won’t listen to me if my vampire boyfriend is standing next to me. They’re seriously old school.” A muscle in his jaw leaped. “Jenna’s got me covered from up there.” She kissed him quickly, despite her earlier contention that she couldn’t be seen standing with him right now, never mind kissing him. When she moved away he pulled her sharply back, lengthening the kiss until it looked as though it could have easily burned through all of our fears.

“Kick some ass, Buffy,” he murmured.

“I’m going with you,” I said, catching up to Hunter. “I’m technically one of you and one of them. Maybe it’ll help.”

Nicholas didn’t look thrilled. “Maybe you should stay here.”

I just looked at him.

He sighed. “Then I’m coming with you.”

“No way. Didn’t you hear what Hunter just told Quinn. And anyway, remember our last date? When Helios-Ra students and Huntsmen tried to kill you? How is that going to help me?” I went on my tiptoes and kissed him quickly. “I’ll be fine.”

Hunter and I followed the trail to where it ended, knowing full well that both Quinn and Nicholas were tailing us. We’d have done the same thing. There were dozens of other eyes watching as we stepped into the narrow clearing, the snow crunching under my school-issued boots. Hunter stood straight-backed and proud as any new recruit. I just nocked an arrow, feeling trapped.

“The vampires know you’re here,” Hunter called out. She didn’t even call them names. I totally would have. “You’ve lost the element of surprise and the weapon of dawn.” I knew she specifically used “dawn” instead of sunrise. “Any minute now they’ll be coming out to defend themselves. We can end this before it starts.”

“Why would we want to?” someone said with a snort. “Now get out of the way, vampire lover.”

“Yeah, we’re not the monsters here,” another hunter broke in. “Or have you forgotten which side you’re on?”

“Oh, I haven’t forgotten,” she answered grimly, nudging me when I opened my mouth to fire back a retort. “This isn’t defending an innocent from a vampire feeding or even a Hel-Blar. And I’m not suggesting some vampires shouldn’t be taken out for everyone’s safety. I think we can agree Lady Natasha and Montmartre aren’t going to be missed.”

There was a soft, menacing hiss from somewhere behind me. I tensed but refused to give in to fear. Hunter didn’t betray even a flutter of nerves. “Jenna has our back,” she murmured to me. And the vampire, no doubt once one of Montmartre’s Host, wouldn’t have bothered wasting his time hissing if he’d really wanted to kill us where we stood.

“We have a right to protect our town,” someone said.

“But that’s not what this is,” Kieran argued, stepping up beside us. He and Hunter stood shoulder to shoulder, as I imagined they had since they were little. It was the same way I would have stood with Solange or any of her brothers. “This is genocide and murder. It’s not who we are. We deserve better than what Dawn is making us into.”

“They’re vampires and we’re vampire hunters. Do the math. They’ve been killing in Violet Hill, leaving bodies behind every night. That queen of theirs is insane, worse than the last two.”

“Most of that was Dawn,” I argued, searching the undergrowth, hoping to see a hunter I recognized, someone who might actually listen. “She murdered humans to manipulate you all into this attack. She manipulated the vampires too. She framed Solange.” I thought about the vampires we’d found in Kieran’s house that night. “And she hired vampires to kill Kieran, to set Solange off, to set us all off.” I was sure of it. “She’s playing you.”

“Son of a bitch,” Kieran muttered, realizing I was right.

“We don’t care,” a hunter barked, though I still couldn’t see his face.

“You have to listen!” Hunter insisted.

“We’re doing right. Who the hell are you to tell us differently?”

“She’s my best student,” Bellwood barked back, suddenly emerging out of the shadows. I’d never seen her in her field gear outside of the old yearbooks in the library. “If I don’t expel her for this, of course.”

“Um . . .”

I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen Hunter that flustered. Of course, what else can you say to the headmistress of your school while standing in the middle of the forest at night during a covert op, surrounded by hostile hunters and vampires?

She slanted us a look. “You didn’t really think you could do this alone and undetected, did you?” Her stern gaze shifted, raking the faces now peering out of the bushes and trees. I’d be willing to bet over half the hunters around us had studied at the academy under Bellwood.

“And Ms. Dailey is in on it too,” Kieran called out. “I saw her at the caves. She tried to poison Hunter, one of our own. How is that honorable?”

Bellwood nodded her approval. “I’ve taught you better than this.”

“School’s been out for a long time, lady,” a Huntsman sneered. “Now move!”

He wasn’t the only one yelling at us.

“Hunter Wild, you go back to school right now.”

Hunter spun around. “Grandpa?”

He barreled out of a thicket, wearing leather straps across his chest, studded with stakes, Hypnos, nose plugs, and wild fear in his blue eyes. “Get out of here,” he said. “That is an order, young lady.”

“Nothing like being scolded by your grandfather to really make you look like a force to be reckoned with,” Hunter muttered. “You know I can’t do that,” she added louder, even though the vein in his temple was pulsing alarmingly. “Grandpa, this is wrong. And it’s going to be a massacre.”

“This ambush was a perfectly good tactical move you just shot to hell,” he growled. He glared at Kieran. “I expected better from you.”

Kieran’s eyes flashed, his rare temper sparking. “That woman you’re working with killed my father. And her accomplice tried to kill Hunter. Of the two of us, you’re the one who should be ashamed.”

“What the bloody hell are you talking about?” Grandpa frowned. “Dawn didn’t kill your father.”

“Dawn is Hope,” Kieran told him. He made sure his voice carried. “The same Hope who murdered my father, the leader of the Helios-Ra, and made it look like vampires. Sound familiar?”

“And she’s working with the Host,” I added. “Just like she worked with Lady Natasha.”

“Not true.” Grandpa looked shocked. “You have pheromone poisoning. You’re just kids. It hits you harder.”

“Grandpa, I saw the hit list,” Hunter said, disgusted. “How could you?”

He went gray under the red flush of his temper. “Hard choices, kitten.”

“Kieran was on that list,” she snapped. “Did you even look at it?”

He shook his head. “I was just a messenger,” he said, sounding old.

A Huntsman strode out of his hiding place, furious. “I don’t give a damn about your politics. All I care about is taking out that nest of monsters over there.” He leaned into Hunter aggressively. “Now shut the hell up or I will do it for you.”

Hunter’s grandpa rounded on him, shoving him hard. “Don’t you threaten her.”

And then there was no more time for talking.

There was no warning.

The clearing went from a field of snow to a battlefield. Arrows and stakes cut the night into cold, dangerous pieces. Vampires rushed out of the camp and hunters swarmed forward.

And we were caught in the middle, because we didn’t want to kill either side.

This wasn’t going to end well.

The sound boiled the air. It made me nauseated, and light-headed as it vibrated in my eardrums. The silky, sinister speed of angry vampires was like a hundred snakes slithering around me. I was in the fight before my brain caught up, my reflexes recognizing what my body needed to do.

Hunter used a hammer fist strike to knock a Huntsman off her feet as she shot past me. We both spent a good five minutes tripping and shoving hunters as they tried to join the battle. I felt like I was back on the playground. I grabbed a long branch, using it like a staff and jamming it at a Host vampire’s knees to knock him off course as well. Nicholas was back at my side, silent and serious.

It was already taking all of our combined strength to stay together. The world was a confusing mass of weapons, hisses, limbs flailing. I couldn’t even see Quinn in the melee, but I knew he had to be nearby since I could just make out the gleam of Hunter’s blond hair.

I whipped a stake at the vampire who darted at me, snarling. It wasn’t enough to dust her. She howled, plucking the wooden stake from her flesh. I’d hit the right target, but it hadn’t gone through her rib cage with enough force to pierce her heart. It snagged her shirt and she pulled it completely free before flinging it back at me. I ducked even as Nicholas slammed the stake out of its trajectory with the side of his hand. I still only narrowly avoided losing an eye.

The vampire hissed, bloodlust making her eyes red. She turned to the nearest human.

Hunter.

“Hunter, watch out!” I yelled, even as the vampire turned on her. Hunter kicked out, slamming her boot into the vampire’s stomach. It would have bought her a few seconds if Hunter hadn’t slipped on a patch of ice and crashed onto her tailbone. When the vampire laughed, Hunter staked her foot to the ground, pinning her there long enough for Jody, of all people, to stake her. I blinked at her, nonplussed. Had the whole school come down for extracurricular credit? She took off before we could thank her. Or wonder what side she was fighting for.

Quinn’s mad laugh cut off with a strangled growl. He was tossed off his feet, landing on his back and skidding in the snow beside Hunter. Judging by the bruises and bleeding cuts all over his chest and arms, he’d been trying to fight his way to her. Hunter rolled over, shooting the Host in the chest before he could lean down and snap Quinn’s neck. He crumbled to ash.

Quinn grinned at Hunter, his blue eyes burning. They kept their gazes locked as they both jumped up, weapons raised. Another vampire was on her, dagger in his hand. Quinn pushed her out of the way.

“Not her, Elijah,” Spencer added, knocking the dagger out of his hand at the same time. He caught it before it skewered her. “She’s on our side.” He helped Hunter up. “I thought I said don’t die.”

“This friendly fire’s a bitch,” Quinn added, flipping his hair off his face before jumping back into the fray.

“We need to get high up,” I said to Nicholas.

He nodded tersely. “Quinn, cover us.”

Hunter came with us, using a small crossbow she plucked out of a pile of ashes and medieval chainmail armor. A hunter fell across our path, gurgling blood. A red-tipped arrow stuck out of his stomach. I had no idea who was winning or if there would even be a winner. It was hard to think, hard to do anything but survive. If we didn’t get this sorted by sunrise, I couldn’t imagine the resulting massacre. There was already blood in the snow and fires burning up in the treetops. A tent on the other side of the tree line billowed thick gray smoke, choking us. I needed to get up onto a platform where I could use my bow.

A Huntsman dropped, eyes rolling back in her head. The vampire beside her also staggered, a dart in the side of her neck. I couldn’t see Kieran anymore, or even Solange. There was too much happening, too many grunts of pain, too many snapping bones and swords clashing. A vertical deadly rain of stakes threatened everyone, no matter who or what we were defending.

Three hunters lay defenseless in the snow. Tyson crawled forward, keeping his head out of the line of fire, and dragged them into a copse of cedars to protect them. Tranquilizers were a good idea in theory, but they had their own pitfalls. Chloe and Jason rushed out to help them. I saw Duncan and Marcus doing the same with fallen vampires, bringing them to the same shelter. Sebastian helped Jason with a particularly large hunter.

While Quinn and Nicholas took on three Host between us and the platforms, I turned just in time to see a Huntsman, flung by an angry vampire, crash right into Hunter behind me. She fell hard on her knee, gasping in pain. She grabbed for her crossbow, which had skittered just out of reach. I didn’t have the space to nock an arrow. I leaped forward, kicking the crossbow back to her.

When she tried to stand up, her leg buckled. She nearly pitched forward. I tried to get to her but there was a vampire and a Huntsman in my path, each trying to tear the other’s throat out. I tried to go around them and got knocked off my feet.

Hunter propped herself up by holding onto a low branch to steady herself. She lifted her reclaimed crossbow, resting it on the branch and taking aim, but there was no hope for a clear shot. I scuttled toward her, staying on my back where I had enough clearance to use my own crossbow. I took out two Host vampires with regular bolts, turning them to ashes.

“You again.” Ms. Dailey, who I recognized from the caves, picked her way over clumps of ashes and the bodies of her fellow hunters. She looked so furious that she’d tipped over into a creepy calm.

And she was pointing a gun at Hunter.

Hunter froze. I fumbled to load my crossbow with another arrow. A boot clomped down beside me, nearly snapping it out of my hand.

“This is your fault,” Ms. Dailey spat. “If you’d just died like you were supposed to, Hope and I could have taken care of this under the radar. You had me put away.”

“You slipped me vampire roofies,” Hunter returned, her voice shaking slightly.

“You really could have been someone.” She shook her head. Her gun aim was steady. “You chose the wrong side, Hunter.”

I tried to creep closer and get proper aim but there were too many fists and stakes between us. The clouds of ashes didn’t help either. Quinn swore, trying to fight his way to Hunter, but he and Nicholas were surrounded by more Host.

Ms. Dailey pulled the trigger.

Hunter fell backward before I realized the bullet hadn’t touched her. It hit her grandfather instead.

“Grandpa!” She crawled to where he’d landed, sprawled on his back. “You’re okay!” she said. “You’re okay.” She pressed a wadded-up bandanna to the wound in his chest. Blood soaked through it within seconds. “No,” she pleaded. “Grandpa, don’t go.”

He coughed. “Don’t fuss, kitten.”

And then he shot Ms. Dailey over Hunter’s shoulder before she could fire again. She slammed into a tree, and fell into a spindly hazel thicket.

“I’ll get help,” I babbled, even though I had no idea how I was supposed to do that. There was no way I’d be able to find Uncle Geoffrey in this chaos. Hunter kept applying pressure to her grandpa’s chest. Her ponytail slipped over one shoulder, the tip dragging in his blood.

“No need for that.” He tried to smile, blood foaming at the corner of his mouth. “You’re a good girl, Hunter.”

And then he died, smiling and patting her hand.

Quinn slid to her side in the snow.

That’s when the first wave of Hel-Blar hit.