Blood Run (51 page)

“I can’t…I’m sorry, Peter, but I can’t leave him.” She choked back a sob. It wouldn’t help. They were almost surely going to die, and she didn’t want to do it crying. “Take Ash and Snow, and get them out of here. I’ll…I’ll try and catch up.”

Peter snapped a glance behind them to where they’d secreted the horses earlier. “Doesn’t matter now,” he said. His voice had dropped to nearly a whisper, and he drew closer to her. “They’re back there, too. We can’t get to the horses.”

Promise looked over her shoulder, and her stomach dropped at the sight of more vampires slipping in and out between the trees, coming for them. For her. She hoped, fleetingly, that the horses had already run. Maybe they would even get all the way back to the safe house where Lea and Mark could take care of them. It gave her a small measure of relief to imagine it.

Chance hissed again, but drew a step closer to Promise and Peter. She saw the warring in his small face, the unimaginable conflict. The burning.

A vampire crossed the stream, another slid past the ruin of the big tree behind them. Their eyes burned eerily, sending flashes of orange light darting through the forest like evil faeries, deadly lightning bugs.

Peter put an arm around her and pulled her to his side. “I love you,” he said, without taking his eyes from the oncoming monsters.

She looked up at his profile, watched his throat working. “I want it to be you,” she said, whispering. Fear and an odd anticipation wound through her, and he looked at her in confusion. “To be the one,” she said, her voice barely a breath now. “To be the one who…who changes me.”

Pain filled his eyes, but also, deep down, a tiny spark of black eagerness. He drew her against him. He searched her eyes, and she looked back, unblinking. She reached behind her and grabbed Chance’s hand, and he turned and huddled against her back, hissing miserably. The vampires were mere steps away. Peter lowered his head to her neck.

She closed her eyes.

An angry buzzing underscored by a high-pitched whine broke across the woods. Peter’s grip on Promise tightened and then released as they turned toward the sound. Flashes of good, white light blinked in and out between the trees as the whine grew louder.

“A dirt bike,” Peter breathed, “maybe two.”

The vampires had stopped in their tracks, distracted by the noise and the light. Promise took the opportunity to draw Chance even closer to her, wrapping her arms around him. He shivered against her, and his arms wrapped around her waist.

Then the light broke the tree line, and two dirt bikes roared into the clearing. Vampires cringed back, confused, as the thin, nimble motorcycles shot past them. The first bike slid to a halt in front of Peter and Promise, and Chance struggled in Promise’s grip. The second bike circled, causing the vampires to fall back in fear.

The first rider raised the face shield of his helmet. Evans.

“Horses!” he shouted over the growling engine. “Where are they?”

Peter pointed back behind the downed tree, and Evans nodded. “I’m going to clear a path so you can get to them!” He snapped the visor down and twisted the throttle. The motorcycle screamed past them.

Peter ran behind it, and Promise started after him, but Chance had thrown himself down to the ground and would not budge. He gibbered and choked, his eyes alight with fear as Promise pulled at his hand.

“Peter!” she screamed. “Help me!”

Peter turned and knelt to the sobbing little boy. He scooped Chance up and flung him over his shoulder. Chance kicked his legs and clawed at Peter’s back, raging. “Come on!” Peter said to Promise and began to run.

They dodged the downed tree as the second motorcycle wailed behind them, turning and turning in figure eights, holding off the vampires who were now getting over their initial fear. They began to close in, and the rider had to make tighter and tighter passes, pressed back the way Peter and Promise had gone.

Evans was ahead of them, riding along the trunk of the tree, and in the bouncing, flashing headlight, the horses appeared. Their heads were up, and Ash’s nostrils were flaring in alarm. Evans broke to the side, and the dirt bike screamed away, giving them a wide berth. He circled up behind the horses, pushing back the vampires that were trying to get down the slope.

“Ash!” Promise yelled, and Ash stomped and whinnied. Then he broke from his spot next to the trunk of the tree and ran the short distance to her. Snow followed.

“Get on him!” Peter yelled to be heard over the screaming, thrashing bundle on his shoulder. “Then I’ll hand Chance to you!”

Promise mounted Ash, and he shivered with anxiety as Peter approached with Chance. He snorted and whinnied, and Snow whinnied in answer as Ash’s eyes rolled in panic at the approach of the second motorcycle that had just come around the root ball of the downed tree. Promise gripped the big horse’s wildly rotating ear. “Ash,” she said, and the horse shivered again and then stilled.

Peter pushed Chance, hissing and struggling, onto the saddle in front of Promise. She gripped him around the waist and leaned to whisper in his ear. Peter spun and threw himself onto Snow.

Evans came back past them, the cycle whining and spitting a rooster tail of dirt. Peter kicked Snow into a run, and now it was Ash’s turn to follow. Promise’s head snapped back, but she managed to hold onto the pommel, her arms around Chance. The second motorcycle brought up the rear.

As they rode away, some of the vampires milled in confusion, and some fell to fighting with each other. But most began to run, chasing after the scent of Promise.

They broke from the forest, and Evans turned sharply, nearly skidding, to ride back past the horses. The vampires were close. He twisted the throttle, and the bike jumped like an animal, eager for battle. He rode past the lead vampire and threw out an elbow to clip the running monster. It flipped end over end, slamming down onto its back. Then the second motorcycle roared past him, whining crazily, and he turned in time to see the other rider had popped a wheelie. Despite the tension, Evans laughed, and adrenalin shot into his limbs. He suddenly felt both strong and light as though propelled by divine purpose. He whooped and circled back around the vampires, revving the engine, creating a barrier between them and the retreating horses. The other rider pulled up next to him, and they began to do figure-eights, kicking up sand and hunks of grass from the field.

The first hint of dawn began to lighten the sky to a hard, dull gray. The vampires–some already beginning to smolder–turned and ran for the woods.

Evans stopped his bike, flipped his visor up, and put his foot down. The other rider pulled up next to him and took her helmet off. Miller.

He grinned across to her and shook his head. “A wheelie? Are you crazy?”

She smirked and tossed her hair back. “We used to ride these suckers all the time when I was a kid. I knew I still had it in me.”

Evans shook his head, laughing, and looked down. A large splash of blood right next to his boot was shining in the new light. The laugh died in his throat. “Shit,” he said and his voice trembled. “We have to go!” He slapped his visor down.

The galloping horses were almost to Willow’s End when Evans and Miller caught up. Snow was ahead of Ash, and now Evans could see that Peter held Ash’s rein. Peter’s eyes rolled back to the sound of the approaching cycles, and his expression was one of desperation. Evan’s eyes went to Promise. She was slumped over Chance, her eyes closed. Chance was leaned over Ash’s neck, and he was sobbing. Fresh blood filled his mouth, making it a reddish black cave.

Promise’s neck was covered in blood. Blood ran in rivulets down Ash’s saddle and dripped from the stirrup. Her skin was white, almost translucent in the cold, gray morning air.

Evans twisted the throttle and shot past Peter. His heart was in his throat, and he was filled with a helpless rage. His mind raged, semi-incoherently:
All for nothing if she didn’t make it, it was all for nothing! All for nothing!
Thoughts of his own lost sister got tangled in the maelstrom of his mind. Anger pulsed heavily through his heart, burning.

Lea and Mark were already in the front yard of the safe house, having heard the motorcycles approach. Lea’s worried frown flew open into a smile when she spotted the horses behind the motorcycles, and Mark squeezed her hand and whooped in triumph.

Evans roared up and dumped the cycle, rolling away from it as it slid, chattering, across the pavement. He jumped up, running, and tore his helmet off. “Cloth…padding…we need something to stop the bleeding!” he yelled to Lea. “Hurry! She’s been bit!”

The color drained from Lea’s face, and her eyes went again to the approaching horses. She could see Promise slumped over, barely holding on. Lea spun with a cry and bolted into the house.

Peter rode up and was off Snow even before she’d come to a full stop. He stepped in front of Ash, and the horse pulled up abruptly, his hooves clattering on the roadway. Peter was at Ash’s side in a second and pulled Promise’s unresisting body down into his arms.

Chance watched with eyes full of wretched misery. He was just a small boy again, pushed past his abilities to endure the disease whipping through his body. “Destiny!” he cried, sobbing, “I’m so sor–”

Then Evans was upon him. He ripped Chance from Ash’s back and threw him down to the ground. Chance huddled at the horse’s feet, shivering and crying. Evans raised a crossbow.

“Evans, don’t!” Peter roared, and the power in his voice caused Evans to step sharply back and bring the crossbow up. His face was twisted with rage.

“Listen to me, Evans,” Peter said. “She’ll hate you. She’ll hate you if you do it, and she’ll never forgive you. And look…” Peter gestured to the cringing boy. “He’s just a kid, Ev. You’ll never forgive yourself, either.”

Evans hesitated, the crossbow angling between Peter and Chance. Then he threw it down with a cry of disgust. “Fuuuuck!” he yelled, the veins standing out in his throat, and kicked the crossbow away. He shot Peter another look of rage so hot his eyes nearly smoked. Then he ran around Ash to where Peter had lain Promise on the ground.

He knelt beside her and took her hand in his. Lea knelt on her other side and pressed a towel to the small, ragged holes in her neck, although the bleeding had already stopped. Mark and Miller stood to one side, their faces drawn in despair.

“Promise,” Lea said and caressed her friend’s cheek. “Can you hear me? It’s Lea, Promise. Can you open your eyes?”

Peter came from behind Ash with Chance pressed to his side. They stood a distance away. Peter’s face was still, and Chance’s eyes ran with tears. He wiped abjectly at the blood on his chin and cried harder.

“Chance is here, Promise,” Lea said, pushing the hair back from Promise’s forehead. “You did it, Promise, you saved him. We’ll all stay here together until they get the cure figured out and then everything will be back to normal. You’ll have your little brother back…isn’t that great, Promise? Open your eyes for me, okay? Okay, Promise?”

Promise’s eyes opened slowly. She stared, unseeing, at the dead, gray sky above her. Then her eyes shifted to Lea, and Lea fell back with a cry of alarm. Promise’s eyes burned with orange fire. Evans put a hand to Promise’s shoulder to restrain her, but she squirmed and shifted away from his grip. She sat up, and her eyes bathed him in hot light.

She was hissing.

~ ~ ~

She became aware of the world as a series of intermittent flashes. There were two distinct parts to her consciousness: the ‘hot’ and the ‘cool’. In the hot, she felt consumed by rage and a deep hunger that engaged not just her stomach, but her entire body. Each cell seemed its own mouth, its own stomach, its own wanting, amounting to a ravenousness, too, of the mind and spirit. Underlying the rage was a damning sense of loneliness. She was only ‘she’…unnamed and alone. She had no sense of a past or a present to which she might proceed. There was only now, and rage, and hunger, but there was also fear. She was afraid of and in this hot place. And something told her that it was not the norm, to feel afraid of her own reality.

In the cool, she seemed to remember a family…a mother, a father, a young boy who was either her brother or her son. A house like other houses, a feeling of…contentment? Was that the word for it? Voices spoke sometimes in the cool, calling to someone. She tried to answer; to let them know the person they sought was not here in the cool with her. But she couldn’t find her voice, she couldn’t find…she couldn’t find…
herself
.

She preferred the cool, drifting and comfortable. She liked the voices although she tended forget them when they weren’t there.

“…come back to me, okay? Come back to me, Promise…”

“…have to fight it, remember, like you said to me, and I know you can, I know you can fight it, you have to try and come back to where…”

“…still here. He won’t leave you. Won’t leave before he knows…”

“…sorry, so sorry, love you, love you, sorry, so sorry…”

The last one was the worst. It said the same things every time, and it was sad, so sad. It made her…guilty? Yes, guilty but also depressed. She was sad for the voice and wanted very much to help. To soothe the pain away.

But how could she when she didn’t even know where the voice was?

She felt the hot gathering like heavy clouds somewhere far away but not far enough. It was coming. Coming to take her again. She hated the hot, hated the hunger…she would do anything to get away from it.

Anything.

Anything?
A sly voice asked from somewhere close but also far away. This voice was not outside but inside. Was it her missing voice? She wasn’t sure, but she listened intently as the voice continued.

Leave both behind? No hot and no cool?

She realized that it
was
an option. To just leave both, melt out of them. Into…what?

She didn’t know, but it seemed a black nothing flapped in bitter wind just out of her consciousness. A dark darker than anything, more silent than anything, and empty…empty…empty.

And that scared her more than the hunger.