Biting the Bullet (7 page)

With the exception of our doubled teams, everybody walked out on his or her own, advanced a few feet, stopped, crouched.

Stared into the darkness. Strained to see beyond the blackness and got ready to shoot. The idea was for the guy behind to move forward, tapping the frontrunner on the shoulder as he passed. In this way we meant to leapfrog to the semi.

The first two groups had reached the truck and Mehdi had helped them inside when the reavers attacked.

They were better organized than the last bunch, coming at us almost in formation from the north side of the road. The distant whinny of horses told us how they’d arrived so quick upon the heels of the last group. They were also better armed than their predecessors. When I heard pistol fire followed by an agonized scream my heart stopped for an anguished moment as I tried to place the voice. “Doc!” somebody yelled from midpack, and then all hell broke loose.

I’m still not sure how we all didn’t kill each other that night; bullets were flying so fast and furious during that battle. The reavers rolled into us, firing seemingly at random. But there was a method to their madness. Reavers operate by strict rules. I didn’t know what the punishments entailed, but they must’ve been extreme, because even the old gnarly ones wouldn’t break them. The main no-no revolved around killing. Reavers were only allowed to eliminate people who’d been Marked for murder. In other words, me.

Everybody else had to survive. So while the reavers had to take me out, they only wanted to take everybody else down.

What they didn’t count on was the supreme skill and professionalism of their foes. Though they outnumbered us at least three to one at the start of the attack, within sixty seconds we’d whittled their numbers to fifteen.

Our guys had taken a couple more hits. One second Otto had been crouched near to me, a half grin on his face, saying, “If I had a wheelbarrow full of dynamite I’d blow these fuckers to Mars.” The next second he lay writhing on the ground, trying not to scream, his hip shattered. As I stood over him, nailing reavers when I had a clear shot, pulling up when I realized I’d just aimed at one of my own, I saw Ricardo drop beneath a mass of monsters. Grace had made little progress toward the truck, and was bleeding heavily from a facial wound. Still, I thought we had them.

Then two more groups appeared, coming from both our flanks. These didn’t have firearms, but we already knew the power of their claws, and several swung swords. Terrence and Ashley fired into them, but they didn’t have the right angle to get more than one or two head shots per burst.

“Form on me!” yelled David.

Our guys from the farmhouse joined us and we tried to keep moving, but they swarmed us. Terrence went down under a reaver’s claws. Vayl, seeing him fall, took the reaver’s eye with his sword and pulled the wounded man to his feet. I holstered Grief and grabbed his machine gun. Switching it to three-round burst mode, I fired into the crowd of reavers coming at me, their tongues lolling in anticipation of tasting my soul.

“Jasmine!” called Vayl. “Do not stop!”

Easier said than done. I inched forward, almost tripped over a body, ducked quickly to avoid a neck-ripping swipe, and nearly screamed as the corpse between my legs lurched to its feet. I managed to mute the scream into a squawk as I jumped back, banging into Cole in my rush to avoid the rising reaver.

“Son of a bitch!” he cried. “I missed!”

“Watch out! Watch out!” I yelled. “The dead are rising!”

All around us the reavers we’d defeated the first time around had rediscovered vertical. Multiple thoughts streaked through my mind simultaneously. Not all of them made sense, but a skilled translator might put them in the following light:
Oh Jesus! Oh crap! Zombies! The Wizard’s a necromancer. He could be around here somewhere, pulling their strings. So
should I just run off into the night like some rabid raccoon and hope I luck into him? How stupid is that? Plus, it’s not
him. It’s probably an apprentice. You know that. It may even be the mole. Is anybody murmuring a spell? How the hell can
I tell? We are so outnumbered! Did Ashley just go down? My God, I think the semi is farther away than ever. Is that
possible? Oh Jesus, was that Terrence’s leg? Don’t turn your head. I said don’t — never mind. Holy shit, that’s the barrel
of a Colt .45 aimed right at my face!

The reaver, a live one, grinned wide enough to show the gap between his front teeth as his finger squeezed the trigger.

“Vayl,” I whispered, my eyes somehow tracking straight to his in my final moment.

“Jasmine!” He lunged toward me, too late. The gun boomed and I went down almost at the same time. Except the horrifying pain I expected never split into my brain. A zombie had tackled me, its puppetlike efforts to take off my head such a welcome relief to point-blank murder I actually giggled. I know. Inappropriate. That’s pretty much how it happens with me.

The zombie’s weight left me as Vayl picked it up and threw it at least twenty feet. I took the hand Vayl offered and remembered to grab the SAW as he jerked me upright. Ahead of us Cole lifted Terrence onto his shoulder. Two reavers came at him, one living, one dead. Somehow the zombie missed our guys and clawed the living reaver instead, taking out most of his face. When he turned toward us I took out his legs with my machine gun.

“What is it with these zombies?” I asked Vayl. “Not that I’m complaining. But you’d think they’d come from two-thousand-year-old corpses the way they’re behaving.”

“Maybe their master is new to the art.”

“Huh.”

“Aaaah!” I spun at the sound. The zombie behind me clutched at the gaping hole in his chest. A living reaver had circled back to the farmhouse door. Had taken a bead on me. Somehow the zombie had gotten between us.

I took aim at the zombie. Hesitated. Moved my sites to the reaver. It yelled at the zombie. Gestured for it to clear the line of fire.

Instead the zombie shambled straight toward the living reaver.

What the hell?

I glanced over my shoulder, hoping for some confirmation from Vayl that he’d witnessed this bizarre event as well. He was with Otto, lifting him off the ground. Grace and Ashley were already limping away ahead of them.

I looked back. The zombie had reached the living reaver. Grabbed the gun. Moved clear. I took the shot. The reaver fell dead. I waited for the zombie to make its next move. It hesitated. Appeared to study the gun as if it wasn’t sure what to do with it and, in the process, managed to blow its own head off.

“Jasmine!”

“Coming!”

I ran to join Vayl and Otto, guarding them the rest of the way to the truck. I had to take out three more zombies. More a matter of immobilizing them with leg shots than actually destroying them, since you can only turn them off by distracting or killing the necromancer whose spirit moved them in the first place.

Multiple hands reached out and helped us into the back of the semi.

“Jet,” Dave said, “you ride with Mehdi for now.”

With a sharp nod, Jet jumped out. “Everybody set?” he asked grimly.

“Yeah, close the doors,” Dave told him.

Moments later we were sealed inside, speeding away from a battle that really had been my responsibility. Maybe I should’ve aborted the mission when I woke inside that Chinook with the taste of hell still fresh on my tongue. But I just couldn’t see the Department of Defense saying, “No, really, Ms. Parks, we don’t mind taking it up the wazoo because you were disturbed by something you saw in a dream.”

Unfortunately not all of my truckmates saw it that way. As soon as Dave lit the lantern, I encountered the blood-stained glare of Amazon Grace. She clearly wanted to slam me against the wall and pound me purple. I gave her a courtroom stare — no emotion whatsoever — and moved my gaze onward.

Most of the group was busy with the wounded. Special Ops folks cross-train like elite athletes, so while each has his or her specialty, they can also back each other up in a pinch. Cam and Natchez took turns laboring over Otto and Ashley, Cam with a couple of syringes that I assumed held painkiller, Natch with antibacterial spray, gauze, and tape.

Dave crouched beside Ricardo, who’d been shot in the arm and — “I know,” he muttered. “I’m never going to hear the end of it.”

“I keep telling you to keep your ass down,” Dave said. The bullet had gone clear through his right butt cheek, leaving his pants soaked with blood.

Dave glanced over at the medic. “Adela,” he said, “how’s Terrence?” The native New Yorker was by far the worst of the wounded. His ankle had nearly been torn off by a close-range shot. She’d tied a tourniquet around it, but nobody was sure he’d be able to keep his foot. He’d also suffered gaping wounds across his chest where, after repeated hits, the reaver’s claws had sheared through his body armor.

Adela shrugged. “They all need to be evacuated,” she told him. “The sooner, the better.” Her eyes darted to Vayl’s and then away so fast you’d have thought she had a crush on him. Until you saw the sign she made with her right hand.

Since I was sitting beside him it was easy to lean against his shoulder, give him the sideways nod.
See that?

The slight raise of his chin signaled he had. It was an ancient gesture made popular recently by a bunch of girls who’d achieved CNN status by declaring that a coven of vampires had tried to bewitch them over to the dark side. They said they’d saved themselves by using the sign to ward off evil. Called mano cornuto, it’s a gesture originated in Italy where the index and pinky fingers of the left hand are raised while the others are curled into the palm. So apparently if you’re a Texas Longhorns fan, making this gesture gets you both loyalty
and
protection from evil.

As soon as these teenyboppers opened their mouths I knew a couple of things for sure. The vampire community, the ones trying to blend, to live in peace with humans and other supernatural beings, were probably laughing their asses off at the girls’ choice of verbiage. Vamps don’t organize into covens. Nor do they do any bewitching. Hypnotizing, yeah, but not bewitching. And they probably agreed with me that the dark side is mainly reserved for people who need to replace their lightbulbs.

I also knew life wasn’t going to improve for Vayl or
others
like him while people like Adela were running around forking their fingers at them. And that was just the mild stuff. Before we’d boarded our Learjet for Germany, FOX News had reported that a group of drunken rednecks had lynched a woman in Alabama. They’d accused her of practicing black magic, hexing one of their buddies so that he couldn’t perform in the bedroom. And who knows, maybe they were right. Problem was, although the hanging had been carried out in broad daylight on the courthouse lawn, nobody would step up and point out the perpetrators.

It’s an old story, I guess. People get away with murder all the time. In the end it does matter who you know, how much money’s in your account, and who gives a crap about you. It shouldn’t. But it does.

On this mission, it would help a ton if our team of backup ass kickers felt friendly toward us. But sentiment seemed to be leaning hard in the other direction as the wounded sat stoically, staring at the ceiling, trying not to cry out as their comrades patched them up.

Bergman joined Cole, Vayl, and I at the far corner of the semi, closest to the doors. Cassandra moved toward us as well, lost her balance, and nearly fell. Dave half rose and caught her, his hands steadying her at the waist as she found her equilibrium. “You okay?” he asked kindly.

She nodded, but her lips began to tremble, and moments later tears rolled down her cheeks. She hid her face, turned to go, but Dave pulled her into his arms. He rubbed her back tenderly. Whispered into her ear. She made some soft reply. I strained to hear, wishing my enhanced Sensitivity involved audio. It didn’t. I’d just have to worm the information out of Cassandra the old-fashioned way.

I looked around the truck, gauging reactions to the chick flick. Most of the guys had decided to pretend it wasn’t happening. Adela flicked another warding gesture at Cassandra. How original. And Amazon Grace looked thunderously pissed. Only Cam and Natchez exchanged grins.

Vayl bent toward me to murmur, “Amazing, is it not?”

“What?”

“How effortlessly some slip into love.”

I snorted. “I’d hardly call it that,” I whispered, trying to keep the sibilance out of my voice. I didn’t want him to know his comment pissed me off. “They’ve known each other for what, five minutes?”

Vayl put his finger under my chin, lifting my face to make sure I met his eyes. It was only the second time he’d touched me in weeks. I’d tried to forget how the simple brush of his skin against mine could zap me like an electric wire. It disturbed me, made me feel like I spent most of my time operating on standby. Like I was only fully functional when I was aware of how much Vayl could rock my world, if I let him.

“Love knows no boundaries,” he said, his eyes that soft amber hue I’d begun to equate with the finer emotions.

“Neither do horses,” I drawled.

He dropped his hand. Sat back. “What do you mean by that?”

“You lead them to a barrel full of oats, they’ll eat till their stomachs burst. You put them in a pasture, they’ll run off if you don’t fence it. They don’t even go to the same spot to crap every time so you can manage their manure.” So much for amber. Vayl’s eyes hardened to blue, which was how I could tell I’d affected his emotions pretty much the way I’d attempted to. He said, “I assume you have a point to make with this semihysterical outpouring.”

“Just because something doesn’t have boundaries doesn’t mean it’s good. Or right. Or even possible.”

“What is your problem with Cassandra and David?”

“David just lost his wife. He’s not ready for a serious relationship.”

“It has been well over a year, Jasmine —”

“He’s not ready. End of story.”

But Vayl wouldn’t let it go that easy. He gave me his sternest gaze. “Whose feelings are you describing now, really? Your twin’s?

Or your own?”