chapter 23
A thump rattled the freezer door. Amber felt the Clone’s rage. He didn’t understand what she was, but he recognized the threat she posed. And he wanted out. He should possess a telekinetic ability to slide the simple bolt lock open with his mind, but he apparently lacked the cognitive skills required. A snarl sounded from the other side of the freezer door as he slammed his body against it.
Metal buckled outward on the stainless steel surface. The door held.
Amber stiffened as fear coalesced with an inevitable sense of purpose. She’d found the rogue, vampire clone. Now she had to put him down or die trying.
She looked at Reid. Fear shone in his eyes, but not in his actions. He drew his weapon and took aim. Amber already had a round in the chamber. Whispering a quick, silent prayer, she raised her Glock.
Another metal-screeching thump ripped the hinges from the wall. The door burst open and slammed to the ground with an explosive crack that sounded like gunfire. Before she could shoot—or even blink—the clone appeared on top of the fallen door, fangs flashing and body flexed in a wide stance that resembled the starting position of a pro wrestler.
His eyes glowed a fiery red—a predatory shark with eyes the color of hellfire.
Despite a shared resemblance to John Cena, nothing about the creature reminded her of Gerard.
Filled with fatal determination, she took careful aim, knowing she had one shot. If the clone moved, she’d be unable to aim and shoot fast enough to stop him. This was her one and only chance. She had to make it count.
She aimed between his glowing red eyes and…the room erupted into chaos. Whether Reid fired and missed or the Clone moved faster than he could shoot hardly mattered. Hitting a moving vampire was like trying to catch a bullet. It wasn’t possible.
Reid’s shot grazed the vampire’s shoulder. She fired a millisecond later. The shot ricocheted off the freezer, hitting the cinderblock wall to the left—missing the moving vampire by no more than a foot. It might as well have been a mile.
As if by magic, he appeared before Reid and grabbed him by the wrist, snapping the bones in his arm mid-shaft. Reid roared. His gun clattered harmlessly to the ground. The vampire clone flashed his fangs, snarling at Reid like a rabid dog.
Amber wanted to blast the son-of-a-bitch to hell and back, but she couldn’t risk hitting Reid. The two were entangled in what looked like a masochistic lover’s embrace. Reid clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. His cheeks paled. Sweat beaded his brow. The clone pulled him closer, wrapping the fingers of his other hand around Reid’s neck. Using his thumb, he raised Reid’s chin, exposing his vulnerable throat.
Amber didn’t have a clear shot. If she fired at the clone’s head or chest, she’d likely hit Reid. So, she fired at the floor next to the clone’s feet, trying to draw his attention before he bit Reid or ripped his arm off at the shoulder.
The shot echoed through the room, the blast ringing in her ears, nearly deafening her. Gun smoke swirled up from the floor, the familiar smell of cordite triggering memories of Iraq.
Gerard’s doppelganger snarled, his head whipping around to glare. Amber fired again. The clone jerked to the left, his head snapping to the side before bullet met bone. Reid was bound to have felt a breeze as the bullet whizzed between his head and the clone’s, shattering cinderblock in the wall behind him. He flinched but didn’t make a sound.
As if in slow motion, he reached behind his back and pulled out the silver dagger with his good arm. The clone shook him like a rag doll. Reid’s agonized yelp pierced her ears and her heart. The dagger skittered across the floor.
Reid sank to his knees.
Fear and fury pumped adrenalin through Amber’s blood. Moving faster than she’d ever thought possible, she emptied her Glock, hitting the clone in the arm and the shoulder as he shoved Reid aside and dodged bullets like a buzzing fly avoiding a fly swatter.
Heart pounding, lungs burning, she whirled around, catching nothing but wind as the clone dodged to the right. She spun full circle—and came face to face with the blood-sucking bastard.
With one swipe of his arm, he knocked the gun from her hand and sent her sailing across the room. She slammed into the far wall, her head hitting the cinderblocks hard enough to stun. Colored stars exploded behind her eyes. Pain shot down her spine. Her muscles contracted in painful spasms.
Screams echoed in her throbbing skull—Megan’s? Her own? She couldn’t tell. Her vision blurred, but she could still see the creature’s rage-twisted face hovering over her. He opened his mouth. Fangs descended toward her throat. Time slowed—prolonging the inevitable—prolonging her terror.
Her heart slammed against her chest, beating hard and slow. She counted each painful thump as if ticking down the last seconds of her life. Her breath returned with a painful gasp. The next froze in her lungs.
Gerard’s face—not the damn clone’s—hovered before her. His blue eyes encouraged her to fight, the intensity of his gaze begging her not to give up.
Her starving lungs begged for air. She gulped in a mouthful. Gerard’s face faded. Her muscles tensed. She refused to let fear paralyze her. Not this time.
She wiggled her hand out from behind her back, sliding it slowly down her thigh toward the letter opener in her boot.
The clone sniffed her neck like a wolf trying to decide if the prey beneath his paws was something worth eating. A curious light shone in his red eyes—as if he sensed something different about her.
His large hand closed over her throat, tilting her head to the side. He sniffed again. Her heart beat faster.
Taking advantage of the unexpected delay in her imminent demise, she withdrew the dull silver blade. She raised her arm and tried driving the letter opener into his side. He grabbed her wrist. His fingers tightened. The letter opener fell harmlessly to the ground. A scream tore from her throat as pain shot up her arm.
“Amber!” Reid shouted, his voice sounded a million miles away.
A gun exploded. The vampire released her throat with a furious growl. Amber scooted away from him as he turned toward Reid.
Reid cradled his right arm to his chest, holding his gun in his left hand, awkwardly trying to aim. Pain etched his face. Determination shone in his eyes.
Not a lefty by any stretch of the imagination, he nonetheless emptied his clip into the creature’s flesh. Not a single bullet penetrated his skull or entered his heart.
Snarling with rage, the vampire sprang across the room and knocked the gun from Reid’s grasp. Reid fell backward, landing on the freezer door with a painful cry as he hugged his injured arm to his chest and waited for death.
His silver dagger lay within inches of where Amber had fallen. She picked it up and with surprising speed and grace, sprang to her feet with weapon raised.
Four steps. One clean swipe. Blood exploded from the creature’s neck, the arterial spray turning to ash as it peppered Reid’s face. The vampire turned. His head flopped sideways, attached to his body by nothing more than tendons and muscle. Bone protruded upward from his neck. His head lie at an awkward angle. The blood spurting from the fatal wound turned a powdery gray and floated to the floor.
There were no flames. His face turned a scalding red and then scorched black before his body exploded in a cloud of ash. The dust settled at Amber’s feet.
“Jesus!” Reid said as he wiped the ash from his cheeks with his good hand.
Knees shaking, Amber knelt down beside her partner, her heart pounding too hard for her to speak. Ashes floated upward, dusting her boots.
Gasping for air, she finally managed to push out the words in her head. “Are you okay?”
He cocked a brow. “Not really. My damn arm is broken and I got vampire ash in my mouth. But I’ll live. Thanks for saving my ass.”
“Thanks for saving mine.” She helped him to his feet. Her skin tingled with awareness. They weren’t out of danger yet.
“Where’s Megan?” Aside from a single scream, she hadn’t seen or heard Megan since entering the room.
Despite having told her to stay outside, Amber knew Megan well enough to know she wouldn’t obey—unless given no other choice. Something was definitely wrong.
“Cowering in the van?” Reid said, his voice sounding more hopeful than accusatory.
“Not likely.” Amber wobbled on her feet, jostling Reid’s injured arm.
He sucked air between his teeth. “Shit.”
“Sorry.” She propped him against a wall and collected their scattered weapons. She reloaded both guns and handed Reid his Sig Sauer. Her head pounded but she wasn’t nauseous and the room didn’t spin.
“You look a bit wobbly,” Reid said, stepping away from the wall to meet her in the center of the room. “How’s your head? You got slammed pretty hard.”
She should have been knocked unconscious.
Gingerly touching the lump on the back of her skull, she said, “Hurts like hell.”
But not as much as it should have. She’d hit her head hard enough to do permanent damage and her vision wasn’t even blurred. She had a headache, but she probably didn’t even have a real concussion.
A disquieting sense of pride filled her. She felt like an invincible crusader for justice.
“I owe you, Amber. You saved my life,” Reid said in a voice so filled with gratitude it made her flush.
Her ego tumbled quickly back down to earth. She wasn’t immortal and she was no damned hero. “Had you not taken his focus from me, I’d be dead right now. You don’t owe me a damn thing. We’re even, partner. Now let’s move. Megan’s in danger.”
Reid stopped dragging his feet and moved to catch up. “How do you know?”
“Dhampir intuition?” She chuckled, despite the terror choking off the words.
“I don’t give a damn what you call it,” Reid said, clenching his teeth against the pain. “Just trust your instincts.”
Were her instincts more evolved? Was she something more than human?
When the clone had her pinned down, his hand to her throat, she’d been terrified of dying. But even before Reid fired off those shots, distracting the creature, she’d felt a sense of calm overtake her, giving her confidence.
Had seeing Gerard’s face before her been nothing more than a hopeful hallucination from an oxygen-deprived brain? Or had she actually connected with him on a sub-conscious level?
As they approached the cafeteria door, wariness settled in Amber’s bones.
Something more dangerous than Gerard’s clone was out there.
And it wanted her dead.