They had to have answers tonight.
With every step he took, his heart pounded more and more with excitement and dread. Nearly there. Nearly there.
They were almost a hundred feet from the cave when a flash of movement on his right caught his attention. Daniel spun, swinging his bow off his back and nocking an arrow against it in one swift movement. His fingers were numb, but he’d still hit his target.
He went completely still as he controlled his frantic urge to gasp for breath. The hair on his nape rose as he felt eyes on him. Someone was out there watching them, stalking them.
***
Aria
Aria stood at the bottom of the stairs, staring at the doorway above her head. William and Tempest remained unmoving beside her. Xavier stood resolutely on her other side. The vampires were still up there; she could hear them moving about the barn, their feet stomping over its surface. The lingering scent of animals in the barn and the thick wood would cover their scent, but they couldn’t allow them to remain above.
She didn’t think the vampires would find the door, but if they did…
She’d put an arrow straight through the heart of the first one who entered. “We’ll go out the back way and circle around to the front of the barn,” she said.
“Or we could wait for them to pass on,” William said. “Which they’ll probably do when the storm breaks.”
“And if they don’t? We’re close enough to the palace that they could be considering using the barn as part of their base. With the storm, we can sneak up on them a lot easier. The rain and wind will mask any scent or noise we may make,” Aria said. “We’ll also be taking out some of Sabine’s numbers.”
“And if she notices them missing?” William asked.
“Do you really think she will?”
“I don’t know,” he reluctantly admitted.
“She knows we’re still out here, she has to expect that we’ll still be looking to fight her. She might even think they fled,” Tempest said.
“If they were smart they would,” Xavier replied.
“They would,” Aria agreed. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
She turned and walked back to the main room. Everyone within remained eerily silent as she strode into the center of the room. “We’re going to go after them,” she whispered. “We can’t take the chance they’ll remain after the storm. We’ll take at least twenty with us.”
Men and women rose to gather their weapons as they worked it out between them who would go and who would remain. Aria waited for them to decide, before striding down the back hallway, passed the rooms lining it to the door at the end of the hall. The humans who would be coming with them, followed her.
William opened the door and peered into the hallway beyond before entering it. She followed him down the dank-smelling, ten-foot long hall to the wall beyond. William’s fingers searched over the wood before he pushed on something and the door swung inward to reveal the root cellar beyond.
The sharp scent of mildew and dirt wafted over her as she stepped into the abandoned cellar. The wood over her head sagged beneath the weight of the earth trying to reclaim it. She warily examined the bowing beams as she walked over to another small door, sagging on its hinges and splintering down the middle.
She waited for everyone else to fill the room. The last woman in closed the door behind her, briefly plunging them into complete darkness until Aria turned the rotten handle and cautiously pulled the door open. Rain lashed against her, stinging her face and numbing her skin as she stepped into the storm.
The wind howled through the trees. From somewhere deep in the forest, a branch cracked and plunged to the ground, taking more branches with it in a cascading, thundering crash as it fell. She wiped the water from her eyes to focus on the barn a hundred feet away from them. Behind her, the others filtered out into the storm.
She gazed over the humans and vampires surrounding her before jerking her head toward the barn. They moved silently across the muddy, slippery ground, or at least they couldn’t be heard over the whipping wind and pelting rain. As Aria gripped the handle of the barn door, she held up a finger to halt everyone before putting it down and sliding the door open in one fluid motion.
She pulled her bow from her back and grabbed an arrow as five of the vamps within leapt to their feet. The other five remained asleep, for now. Shock registered on the vampire’s faces before William’s arrow struck the first one and sent him reeling backward. Aria unleashed three arrows in rapid succession, killing two vamps and catching a third in his shoulder.