Blood Ties (32 page)

I looked up at Michael and froze when I saw him. His teeth were fully extended, his face a horrific mask of death, glowing white in the moonlight.
His eyes were two dark pools as they stared out across the desert. He crouched over me, tucking me under his body between his legs. Low growls rumbled out of his chest.

Ghostly laughter came out of the
night. A smooth lilting voice with a Slavic accent spoke in scathing tones. “What? Have you no fight left in you Michel? Have the years made you soft?” The voiced tut-tutted. “I am disappointed. Here I have come all this way to kill the infamous Dragon and you cower before me, protecting a weak female. Oh, that’s right … she is your precious Alisé.”

Michael responded with a frightening snarl. The vibration shook me to the very core.

I heard a scream cut short. I saw blurred shapes, twisting and turning about on the floor of the desert, flashes of moonlight reflecting off their movements. I saw Selene appear, her hands on either side of a vampire’s head as he fell to his knees in front of her. I watched in sick fascination as she ripped the head off his body before she disappeared.

The voice moved to our left. “How did you enjoy Jensen’s little experiments? We all watched a live video feed of you screaming like a baby under his hands.” He chuckled. “I just love this new technology. So wondrous. We took bets on how long
you would last without killing your pet.” The voice sighed. “I lost. But it is of no consequence, it was a good show. Leave it to humans to take something so simple and fuck it up. On the other hand, it worked out well with your family riding to the rescue. You made my work easy.”

Michael’s voice snarled from his chest. “Vladislav, leave with your demons or die.”

A figure walked out of the darkness. He was about my height, over-weight with a paunch that did its best to cover his belt. As he came closer, I could see he’d been taken in the later years of life, perhaps in his sixties. His hair hung in a shaggy mass about his head. “You amuse me Marcheon. You’ve gone weak, offering me mercy.” He hissed, his fangs flashing white in the darkness. “I need no mercy, not from you, not from anyone!”

More screams echoed across the floor of the desert. They were fighting for their lives. God help them, God keep them safe. I started praying furiously under my breath.

“She’s a soft thing, begging for help from your God.” Six other vampires joined Vladislav’s side. He beckoned to Michael with a curl of his fingers. “Come now Michel, come fight me.”

Michael slowly stood when three more came to circle to our backs. I crouched down between his legs trying to make myself as small as possible.

“Come Mee … shell, come fight like the monster you truly are,” he taunted with flippant distain.

“Vladislav, as I have said … leave or die.”

“No no NO!” he screamed. “This is NOT the Great Marcheon speaking!” He was livid, his fangs protruding from thin lips. “What has happened to our nemesis?’ He half hissed, half snarled. “Have you lost your nerve for the hunt, the slaughter? What has changed you?” He took a step back and something like glee slid over his face.

A chorus of hisses echoed around us. “A Guardian … you have found a Guardian? Could this be true?” Vladislav lowered himself down onto his haunches to take a closer look at me. Michael shifted back into a crouch and moved his hands out
away from his body, readied to fight. A broad smile travelled across Vladislav’s face. “You do not know my little one, of what your lover believes.”

I stared at him, scooting closer to Michael’s leg, grabbing hold of his jeans.

“Well, my dear let me explain it to you, the short version.”

Michael hissed above me
, “You will die.”

Vladislav barked out a laugh and the others joined in a well synchronized chorus. He waved his hand as if he was amused to tears. “Oh Michel, how very trite.”

I clutched harder at Michael’s pant leg.

“My dear, a Guardian is very, very rare. So rare, in fact, that one may be born perhaps once a millennium. They say they have the ability to slip through time and disappear
and reappear,” he snapped his fingers, “… like that.” He glanced up at Michael with a smile. “And before you know it, you’re …” He sliced his hand across his throat.

He looked at me, smiling, his fangs peeking out from behind his lips. “Little girl, if you are one of these Guardians, you would be a prize beyond all others. Once trained properly, you would be a glorious death dealer.” He spread his hands wide. “Once I have taken you from Michel, I will personally take you under my care. Then when the time is right, I will turn you.”

A hideous snarl erupted out of Michael. The air around me crackled with electricity and it pressed in around me in a painful pressure. My ears hurt, like being at the bottom of the deep end of a pool.

Vladislav chuckled. “A Guardian has never before been made a vampire. You would make the most formidable … monster.”

I heard more screams and suddenly bodies were flying around us as they fought. I caught brief glimpses. Michael tensed above me and I released my hold on his jeans. I knew what was coming. God help us.

Vladislav threw his head back in a roar of laughter. “By God Michel. I’ll have you and your Guardian tonight!”

He charged towards us, his mouth gaping wide. I crouched down into a ball on the ground. I felt the air movements of the horrific dance above and around me, a sound of flesh against flesh. I looked up. Michael held the throats of two vampires. He smashed their heads together. They exploded in a burst of fluid and other things.

Hands grabbed me and yanked me away from him. I screamed, clawing at the ground, looking frantically in Michael’s direction as I was dragged away. He was draped with four vampires. My backwards movement suddenly stopped. Two severed arms lay next to me, twitching.

Behind me, Xavier’s teeth were buried into the throat of their previous owner. The vampire screamed as the bones in his neck snapped. Xavier dropped him and crouched over me, taking Michael’s place.

The screams were deafening. Michael was a killing machine. He was monstrous in the darkness, his movements like a graceful dance across the sands
, his roars echoing in the desert.

There was a sudden movement to my left.

Vladislav held two dart guns filled with the glowing blue fluid of the inhibitor. He pointed one at Michael and the other was shifting towards Xavier.

The sounds around me
dipped into a low octave. The battle seemed to slow to a stop. I leapt out from under Xavier and was on Vladislav before he had a chance to pull the trigger. He fell to the ground underneath me. The dart guns flew out of his hands in slow motion and a look of fear slowly slid across his face.

I picked up a rock in my two hands and brought it down on his skull. 
I screamed my rage at what used to be a face, my whole body giving it energy. It had erupted as if it had a life of its own.

My hands went down again and met his crushed skull with a wet, bone cracking thud.

It was suddenly quiet.

I heard the distant sounds of the Hummer burning. I heard my ragged breaths and my heart beating. I looked up to meet everyone’s stares.

They were posed as if frozen in the midst of movement. Selene clung to the back of a vampire who had fallen to his knees. Matt had his hand around another’s throat. Michael was turned towards me, his hand buried in a chest.

Xavier was still on the ground in the position I had left him, his eyes wide
with shock. Several more vampires were spread out, some on the ground, some in the midst of getting up, some just standing there, their arms at their sides, staring at me with a look of horror on their faces.

The vampires
backed away from us, hissing. I felt Vladislav stir underneath me. The next instant I was ripped off him. There was the sound of Vladislav’s vertebra snapping in Xavier’s hand. I was left standing, dizzy from the quick movement, wobbling on my feet.

Michael screamed, “
Do not let them escape!”

He pulled something white and glistening out of the chest of the vampire he held. He turned around to look at me. “
Get DOWN!”

A hard pressure whipped around me and
I dropped to my hands and knees.  It felt as if an invisible hand had shoved me hard to the ground. Pain seared through my head.

Mayhem broke out. His family flew towards the other vampires as they ran into the
desert. Michael snatched several in mid-movement. They didn’t have a chance. He was death, his teeth and hands ripping them into pieces. A chorus of deafening screams filled the night.

Then there was silence.

Michael stood tall, his clothing in tatters, plastered to his body. His hair clung in damp strands. He was motionless as if he were listening, hunting through the desert with his mind. He relaxed and turned to me. His fangs receded.

I distantly heard som
eone wailing. I knew it was me.

He
stepped over bodies towards me, his palms raised, glistening wet in the moonlight. “Liz, you’re safe now.”

The
wailing continued.

“Liz … sleep.”

I slumped on the ground. “Noooo …,” I cried out, sluggishly pushing his hands away as he reached down. He was cold and wet, slick from their clear blood. I didn’t want to touch it. I didn’t want to feel their death against my skin. Darkness fell around me as he rocked me, making small soothing noises in his throat, a soft stream of French flowing from his lips.

Chapter 20

I jerked awake to the sounds of small explosions.

The blaze
of the burning Hummer illuminated Michael’s family as they emerged from the darkness, time and again, to throw things onto the fire in a long arc. They exploded into a burst of flames as they landed. I watched in numb revulsion, knowing what they were throwing into the fire. Matt picked up a mostly intact body and threw it in an arc onto the Hummer. It exploded, bursting into brilliant blue flames that shot up into the sky.

Michael
looked down at me, his face streaked with dirt, his hair stringy and wet.

He stroked my hair soothingly. “Feeling better?”

I was numb from head to toes. My brain seemed to be on auto-pilot. My memory of what we had gone through was still there, but the thought of it didn’t drive me into hysterics. It should have. We had just gone through hell, one hell at the hands of a madman and another by vampires, vampires whose body parts were now fueling a funeral pyre. I swallowed. My mouth felt like cotton. I licked my dry lips and did the only thing I could do – gave a small nod of my head.

“It will be dawn soon,” he said.

I tried not to focus on his wet, matted hair and what still glistened on his skin. His pupils were enlarged, his irises, two pools of midnight black. The next thought that emerged from my brain screamed its need. I knew the answer. But just the same, I need to hear him say it. I needed the reassurance.

“They’re dead?”

“Yes. All of them.”

I had watched him kill without mercy, transformed into a horrif
ic creature of legend. His fangs had ripped into them, his hands grasping and ripping like they were claws, slaughtering multiple vampires at a time. He had been a demon, a destroyer.

I remembered how his hands had punched through their chests, ripping out their spines, his victim’s eyes wide in
shock; their mouths open in a grimace as they screamed. I remembered how he had grasped their necks, squeezing the flesh and bone underneath so that their heads fell from their bodies in a blurred movement.

I remembered it all, but there were flashes of darkness, as if there were moments of time where my memories had skipped forward. I wasn’t unhappy about it one bit. I wouldn’t be unhappy if most, if not all, disappeared. We were alive. We were safe. The vampire that had betrayed us was dead, burned to a crisp on the remains of the Hummer.

He moved to sit me on his lap. “See my love ... the sun.” Brilliant colors of yellow, orange, neon pink and blue slowly burst across the light cloud cover to spread across the desert as the sun peeked above the horizon, the silence disturbed only by the crackling, exploding sounds of burning vampire flesh.

“It’s beautiful,” I
said in awe. It was a glorious jewel from heaven. Michael’s face shone with bright pink hues, then turned an eerie blue. The blue gave way to a transparency as sunlight fell upon his face. He let out a long sigh, tears glittering in his eyes. He kissed me on my forehead as he slid his hand up my cheek in a long stroke to cup my face. I placed my hand over his and relaxed into his strong arms.

He was as cold as the desert
night, his heart, as silent as the sunrise. My dreams and his pain had brought us together again. Was he truly mine, my love I had lost so long ago? Or did a monster hold me in his arms? I reached up with my other hand to touch the tears that trailed down his cheeks, tears for the both of us.

He kissed the palm of my hand. “I’m so sorry my love,” he whispered and my vampire wrapped himself around me, crying silent tears.