InsistentHunger (24 page)

“Get a grip,” she muttered to herself as she checked her
work and then moved as silently as she could through the woods.

Since she couldn’t risk a frontal attack, she would have to
trick the nice little demons and one idiot demon hunter into coming out of
hiding. Thank God for discount stores, even if the lack of supplies in Oxbow
had forced her to drive to the city to get everything she wanted.

Paige checked her watch and moved a little faster. She could
hear the vamps shuffling through the tall, dry grass. Through the trunks of the
trees and swaying branches, she could catch glimpses of them mindlessly staring
at nothing. A branch cracked under Paige’s foot and she froze. Her mouth went
dry. However, when she looked toward the house, none of the vamps had even
twitched. Thank God for stupid demons.

Everything was taking longer than it should. Page could feel
a cold desperation rising in her chest as she hurried to the next spot where
the trees thinned. Pulling out long colorful streamers, she attached them to
the branches. Yellow and pink and neon green strips of fabric swayed in the
mild breeze. Paige used plastic zip ties to secure them and then set up the
platform, clicking the fireworks into place.

If this worked, whoever was in that house was going to come
out and whoever was in the woods would show himself. Hopefully she could figure
out step two in her plan just as soon as she saw who ran in which direction.
And if either Hunter or Brady had been idiotic enough to get captured,
hopefully she could make a big enough distraction to give them a chance to free
themselves. It was a bad plan, but it was the only plan she had.

A loud popping noise on the far side of the house suggested
that her first trap had gone off. A long streak of orange raced into the air,
leaving behind a wobbling trail of gray smoke against the black sky.

Paige ducked through the trees, racing for the hill she had
scouted earlier. It gave her the best view of both traps. Once she reached it
and threw herself down in the middle of a patch of alligator weeds, she could
see vamps starting to move toward the fireworks.

Sparklers went off, their white flickers flaring brilliantly
and then fading to nothing. A whistling bomb soared twenty feet into the air,
exploded and then showered color down onto the scene. Vamps started running,
and with each step their movements grew more fluid, more sure. Their stumbling
aimless wander turned into a purposeful pursuit.

Last time she’d been at a lair, she’d been the bait. She’d
never gotten to see the point at which the mindless vamps had turned into
hunting predators. It was terrifying. However, those predators reached her trap
and they became almost childlike. Hands reached up to stroke and pull at
streamers she had tied to the branches. One of the fireworks hit the side of a
vamp’s body and sparks flew everywhere. The vamp cried out wordlessly and his
companions ignored him completely as he fell to the ground.

The door to the Carter house came open and a new vamp
appeared. This one didn’t chase after Paige’s trap. He stared out into the
dark, intentionally turning his back to the fireworks in order to study the
trees.

Paige sank down into the weeds and leaf litter and held her
breath. Her heart beat rabbit fast, which was fair considering she was the prey
in this little scenario. She was the prey, and if they caught her, she had very
little doubt about how she’d end up. However, this prey had teeth. And if they
had done something to Brady, she was going to burn their lair to the ground.

A new vampire appeared at the door with the first and the
two talked. Hands gestured and then vamps number one and two stepped out into
the yard and walked in opposite directions. They never even glanced toward the
mob of mindless demons with their colorful toys. Vamps had ripped the streamers
from the trees and were wandering again, their fingers working at the fabric of
their newly gained possessions. Vamps who hadn’t managed to claim a prize
remained near the fireworks platform and stared into space.

The two higher-level vamps were circling the house now. The
only place they weren’t looking was the spot where the fireworks had gone off.
Too late, it occurred to Paige that she shouldn’t have set the second trap.
These guys knew she was not hiding near her traps, and her second trap was
going to narrow the search even more. Obviously not all vamps were dumb. She
pulled her Glock out of its holster and waited.

Several pops sounded before the first fireworks rose into
the air from her second trap. Either she hadn’t gotten the plastic feet set
into the dirt or she had done it crooked. The fireworks darted toward the
house. A green screamer careened right at the second story, exploding right
before it hit the roof. One of the two smart vamps cursed and leapt back as he
was showered with sparks.

For one brief happy moment, Paige hoped that he was going to
catch on fire. Unfortunately he patted his clothing and put out the sparks that
had landed on him.

The second smart vamp trotted over toward his position and
the two of them talked again. Hands gesturing out toward the woods, they split
up the territory and started moving toward the dark. Both were far too close
for comfort.

Another form appeared at the open door. This one had either
a rifle or a shotgun in hand, and for some reason that surprised Paige. These
were vampires. They had the superspeed and the good vision and the superhuman
smell, so it seemed a little unfair that they got to carry firearms as well.

Page scanned the woods, searching for any sign of movement.
Nothing. She couldn’t see Hunter or Brady. She could, however, see the two
smart vamps steadily moving closer. Both were off to her right, the closest
near enough to make her sweat.

Most of the stupid vamps were at her second trap now. Paige
couldn’t make a run for it. When she decided to fuck up a plan, she really went
for it. Her best advantage right now was her Glock and a really good aim. She’d
grown up hunting in these woods, and she knew that the trees made the sound of
the gunshot echo weirdly. A shot would go off and it would sound like it was
coming from every direction at once. Hopefully that would be true with vampire
hearing just as much as it was with human hearing.

Paige lined up her shot, her Glock pointed at the closest
vamp’s head. Two shots in quick succession and he wouldn’t have any head left.
That would send him back to hell. Her hand sweated on the grip of the gun. He
was so close that her every instinct said to take him out, but if she did, the
other would come running. Maybe. These guys were acting human, too human. But
she couldn’t assume that she understood them.

If she got out of this alive, she was leaving the hunting to
Hunter. She had never been an adrenaline junkie. Other people talked about the
thrill of adrenaline, but it upset her stomach.

Changing her target, she aimed at the more distant of the
two vampires. Her instinct might tell her to kill the closer one, but strategy
told her to make a different move. Before she could second-guess herself, she
pulled the trigger twice. Kickback made her second shot go a little high, but
the first found its mark. Even in the dim light from the shadowed moon, Paige
could see his head explode. Hollow-point rounds definitely made a difference.

The first vamp turned his back on her and ran toward his
partner. Shotgun vamp stepped out onto the porch. He walked around the opposite
side of the house where he was lost to Paige. But that meant he couldn’t see
her either.

Paige eased backward. At this point, she only wanted to get
out of this mess. She could stake out Hunter’s car and torture him into
explaining what was going on, assuming he was alive. Her stomach churned at the
thought of either Hunter or Brady dead or trapped in the lair, but her big plan
was a big flop. She didn’t have another play.

Leaves rustled under her and Paige froze. The one smart vamp
was still with his downed partner, doing something she did not want to think
about. She had no idea what that was, but her imagination was getting a little
too disturbing. The stupid vamps were still obsessing with her fireworks
display, despite the fact that the last rocket had gone off and the woods were
silent.

Taking a little scared breath, she backed farther away from
the house. Where the hell were Brady and Hunter? With all this noise, one of
them should have shown himself. Of course, maybe Hunter figured that she got
herself into the mess and she could get herself out. She could just imagine him
sitting at his car with a huge grin, waiting to see whether she got eaten.

But Brady would have come running if he’d been near. She
knew that. Absolutely in her gut she knew that he would come for her if he
could.

She eased back another few feet and debated whether or not
she could risk running. Her legs ached with the need to move, but she couldn’t
be stupid. Not now. Or she couldn’t continue being stupid. Objectively, this
whole plan was slightly on the side of stupid.

She turned to scan the woods behind her and the last she
knew was a terrible pain in the back of her head before the whole world started
spinning and her limbs collapsed despite her desperate last attempt to run. And
then, darkness.

Chapter Eighteen

Paige woke with a groan. Either someone hit her or… She
couldn’t come up with an “or”. Someone had hit her. More than once, probably.
Her shoulder hurt and her head and her left leg just above the knee. It took
her scrambled brain several minutes to remember.

“Well shit.”

Paige opened her eyes a little, but even with them narrowed,
the light felt too bright. It cut through her head and made the pounding worse.
Instead of seeing a hospital, which she suspected she needed, she was on a bed
in the center of a stone room.

Overhead, heavy beams held the weight of the rooms above and
the stone was so old that moss had grown over most of the wall. She was in a
basement. And from the fact that the only windows were about twelve inches tall
and four inches wide, she suspected she wasn’t getting out unless she went
through the door.

The door had weathered wood with iron strapping. This place
was built to hold someone. The only parts of the room that didn’t belong in the
1800s were the single bulb set high up between the rafters with a wire
disappearing into the ceiling and an old gray toilet sitting in the corner.

Ignoring various pains, Paige got her feet on the floor. The
bed was another relic from the past. Heavy timbers and hand-forged iron held it
together. She wouldn’t be able to take it apart without tools and possibly a
blowtorch. So much for MacGyvering some weapon out of bits of the bed. Using
the wall as leverage, she pushed herself up. Her left leg got pins and needles
and her lower back twinged a warning.

“Great. Why couldn’t someone have kidnapped me about ten
years ago before the parts started getting rusty?” she muttered. Actually, a
better question hit her—why hadn’t they killed her? She’d pretty much figured
the two options were that her plan would work or she’d be dead.

She didn’t have much of a chance to worry because a click
warned her that someone was about to open the door to her prison. Turning to
face the door, Paige shook her arms to loosen the muscles and reviewed every
unarmed combat class she’d ever taken in the academy. The door opened out, so
she wasn’t going to have a chance to hide behind it, so she just had to play it
by ear.

The door came open and Paige sucked in a quick breath as she
stared down the business end of a large handgun. It looked like a .357, but it
was hard to tell because the light behind the man was so bright that Paige was
having trouble seeing more than a silhouette.

“The master wants to see you.”

“Good for him,” Paige answered without moving. Annoyed
people made mistakes and she was talented at annoying others. Pissing off the
captor was a shitty plan, but those were the only kind she was coming up with
lately

“Move!” The man’s voice went up a half-octave. This wasn’t
an experienced guard. And unless Paige missed her guess, he was a human guard.
She had no idea why she thought that, but her gut just whispered that she was
facing a human. An annoyed human. Annoyed people might make mistakes, but they
also shot people and that wasn’t in her plan.

She showed her hands, palms out. “You don’t have to wave
that thing around.”

“I’ll shoot you,” he warned with a false sort of bravado.
Yep, this was a flunky.

“Hey, you don’t want to do that. You shoot me here and the
blood is going all over this very nice floor,” she said sarcastically as she
toed the hard packed dirt.

“Get out here. We’re going to see the master.”

Paige sighed. She was out of plans, good or bad. That left
going with the flow until she figured out how to run like hell without getting
eaten. “The master. Got it. Master, huh? A little cliché, but then you guys
have the dungeon theme going for you, so clearly you embrace your clichés.”
Paige stepped out of the room. The hall was narrow and dark, the same retro
fitted light bulbs set between ceiling beams that were much higher than a
modern house.

“That way.” The man pointed with the gun toward the opposite
end of the hall where she could see a set of dark wood stairs.

“No problem. Just don’t shoot me in the back by accident.”
Paige moved toward the stairs. She wanted to run. Running would get her away
from the man with the gun, but she forced herself to move with a deliberate
slowness.

She’d trained a lot of officers and she always told them
that the more dangerous the situation, the more they had to get control of
their emotions. She really couldn’t imagine a more dangerous situation than
this one and she couldn’t let her emotions send her screaming up the stairs, no
matter how much she wanted to.