Vampire Apocalypse (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles #3) (5 page)

Drew shot the one who was running,
pegged him in the back and took him down. I was having a hard time
getting a bead on the one who was bent over.

“
We have to go down,” Drew
hissed. “Make sure that one is dead and get the other.”

“
I’m on it, boss.” I stood
up, threw my leg over the railing, and jumped down to the sidewalk
below me.

Drew wasn’t an idiot; he went through
the apartment and took the stairs. I could make that jump for
several reasons. For one, I had a lot of abilities that vampires
had, like the ability to jump long distances and land them. Even if
I did break a bone or something, it would heal fast. But, Drew
wasn’t about to risk his body by making that jump.

As soon as I hit the ground, the
female vampire’s head snapped up and turned in my direction. As
soon as her she realized that I was the threat, that I was the one
who had shot the others, she stood to face me.

Sweet, just the position I needed. I
raised my weapon, took aim, and fired.

She had been expecting that. With
vampire speed, she dodged to the right and the bullet zipped past
her, missing its mark.

Damn it! I never missed.

Before I could get her within range
for another shot, she was in front of me. She grabbed my gun,
painfully twisting it out of my hand, and tossed it
aside.

Whatever. She wanted to play dirty, I
could play dirty.

Just as she reached out with her other
hand to grab my throat, I side stepped then turned and threw my leg
out, grabbing my knife as I spun. I landed the roundhouse on the
side of her ribcage. I’m sure it didn’t hurt her, but it jostled
her enough that she was momentarily stunned. It was just long
enough for me to charge her.

With my knife raised, our bodies met
and we fell into the hard cement. As we went down, I tried to
plunge the knife into her chest, but she grabbed my wrist and kept
the blade at bay. My other hand was holding her arm down. Well, not
necessarily down, but it was there. She was much stronger than me
and it would only be a second before she threw me off of
her.

So, I let the warmth flow through my
body, starting from my core and extending out to my fingertips
until the flames appeared. I pressed my palm down onto her arm,
letting the fire sear into her undead flesh.

“
Ahhhh!” she cried out and
twisted, releasing my knife hand in the process. As soon as my
wrist was free, I slammed the blade down into her chest. She
lurched upward, but quickly relaxed.

I relaxed for a moment, too. She lay
there, her pale face accentuating the dark red lipstick she wore. A
few droplets of blood slid off the corner of one of her lips.
Suddenly, I wanted to punch her in her dead face.

I was deterred from my act of
unnecessary violence by Drew’s boots pounding over the sidewalk
behind me. He ran to the unconscious vampire he had shot to confirm
that the UV bullet was doing the job it was supposed to
do.

I rose up off of the female, ran over
to collect my gun, and joined Drew just as he was firing two more
shots into the vampire’s chest. He finished, satisfied with the
amount of light we were seeing from within the body.

UV bullets were helpful for killing
vampires, but as I had learned early on in my training, sometimes
they didn’t work all that well. The older vampires were more immune
to the UV, so it took more to kill them. Therefore, UV bullets
worked better on the younger vampires.

“
Check the others,” he
ordered.

We hurried to make sure that the other
two vampires were truly dead and then I popped off a shot in the
female vampire that I’d wrestled with.

After we were done with that group, we
both gave each other a triumphant glance and silently hurried back
to our hiding spot on the apartment’s balcony to wait for more
vampires.

It was rare to see a lone vampire;
they usually wandered in groups now that there were so many of
them. I guess it was some kind of a predator thing, like how wolves
traveled in packs. When we attacked them we normally got more than
two or three kills.

So, imagine our surprise when we went
back into the apartment and found a vampire sitting on the couch,
his legs casually crossed as if he had been waiting for us. He was
dressed in black jeans and a black button down shirt, a gothic
looking cross embroidered on one side of the chest. His dark brown
hair was cut very close to his head.

Instantly, both of us had our guns
drawn, and I felt the fire surge into my fingertips in preparation
for defense.

At first, none of us said anything; he
just sat there on the couch staring at us with our weapons pointed
at him. Even in the dim apartment, his dark brown eyes twinkled
with amusement. I took an involuntary step backward. This guy, with
his demeanor and dress, was disturbingly similar to Trevor. That
caught me off guard, which didn’t happen very much anymore. The
only major difference between the two was that Trevor was super
pale and this guy was black. When people with dark skin became
vampires, the color didn’t change much, just a bit of a
fade.

The vampire was first to speak; I
guess he thought it was a good idea to say something before one of
us shot him.

“
Well, well … that was some
show you put on out there.” He didn’t move from his position on the
couch, which was a good thing for him because that
definitely
would have
gotten him shot.

“
What do you care? You’re
going to die, just like they did,” Drew snarled at him. I stayed
silent, wondering why we hadn’t already killed him.

The vampire smiled, showing his
pristine white teeth, fangs and all. “Trust me, you do not want to
kill me. I am here to help.”

I sensed Drew’s confusion,
but he didn’t show it. I was confused, too. Help with what? Killing
the vampires? That hardly seemed like something he would want to
help with … not to mention the fact that as Hunters, we were led to
believe that all vampires were bad and evil.
All
of them.

Drew shook his head slightly. “I
highly doubt there is anything that you can help us with. On top of
that, what would make you think that we would even want your
help?”

The vampire leaned back into the couch
cushions. “You intend to stop the new vampires from being made and
kill the existing ones, do you not?”

His eyes flicked back and forth
between Drew and I. When neither of us responded to his question,
he just continued, “I know who you are, Hunters, I also know that
you want to stop this destruction that my kind is
causing.”

Finally, I found my voice. “There is
nothing that you can do to help us. The only way you can help is to
accept the inevitable … you are going to die today.”

That bastard actually laughed at me.
“And the dhampir speaks. So gallant of you, Ms. Kallistrate.
However, your threats mean nothing to me. If you kill me now you
may never find the answers you seek.”

Shocked rippled through me. He knew
who I was and he knew I was half vampire. This information only
stunned me for half a minute and then I recovered … and charged
him.

I don’t know what happened exactly. I
could have just shot him, I could have used my fire on him, even
from that distance. But, no, I ran forward a couple of steps and
jumped, covering the space between us in the single leap. I landed
on his lap, knocking the couch backward in the process.

“
Chloe!” Drew called from
behind me. I couldn’t tell if he was warning me or pissed off, but
I didn’t really care. I pulled back my arm and slammed my fist in
Mr. Know It All Vampire’s face.

I hit him again, and again.
It wasn’t doing anything to him … in fact, it probably felt like I
was tickling him, but I didn’t care, it made
me
feel better. Drew stood back and
let me beat on him. However, I knew this was mostly because if he
intervened we would give the strange vampire an opening to attack
us while we were distracted. Therefore, it was better for him to
keep an eye on the enemy. After hitting him several more times, I
guess he grew tired of it because he pressed his palm against my
chest and pushed.

Mid-punch, I felt myself lift into the
air and let my fire loose from my fingers in attempt to get one
last hit in on him. None of the flames hit him. Before I knew it,
my back slammed into the entertainment center where the lady and
her cat pictures were. I bounced off of it, landing on the floor. I
turned over, trying to get up quickly, but the damn thing toppled
and fell over onto me.

Pain flashed through entire body and I
found myself trapped underneath the evil entertainment center. It
didn’t help that the television was an old one, not one of the
newer, lighter flat screens.

I tried to call for Drew to help me,
but nothing was coming out, and I felt a horrible pain in my chest.
I gasped, trying to suck air into my lungs and kicked against my
confines.

Suddenly, the entertainment center was
being lifted off of me. “I got you,” Drew reassured me as his face
come into view. Then he lifted the television off my midsection and
threw it in that crazy vampire’s direction. “Look what you did,
asshole!

The television flew by his head,
missing him by close to an inch. I kicked my feet and tried to get
up, wanting to tell Drew to just shoot the bastard. Unfortunately,
I still couldn’t manage words; only few choked gurgles escaped from
my throat when I tried to speak.

I felt Drew’s strong arms encircle me
and lift me to my feet.

Why in the hell wasn’t his attention
on the enemy? This was not like him at all, he never sacrificed a
kill to help another. We were Hunters! We were supposed to be able
to take care of ourselves.

“
Ugh,” I groaned, turning
to face my opponent. He must have seen the fury in my expression
because he got one look at me and lifted his hands into the air.
“Now, now … you attacked me. I told you, I’m simply here to
help.”

“
There is nothing you can
do that will help us!” I wanted to yell at him, but my voice
cracked and was more of an angry whisper.

Drew silently slid into a position
where he was between me and that vampire. At that point I wasn’t
sure if his intention was to protect me from the enemy or to
protect him from me.

“
Drew! Shoot him!” I threw
my hands in the air. “Why haven’t you killed him yet?”

“
Because I want to know
what he has to say.”
He didn’t look away
from the vampire when he spoke.

“
What? Are you kidding me?
He
knows
me, he
has obviously been following us or had us followed. He is a
freaking vampire, just kill him already.”

The two males met gazes; staring each
other down in some kind of silent challenge. “And that is exactly
why we need to find out more information from him,” Drew
finished.

“
Ugh!” I marched over to
where my gun had been thrown, snatched it off the floor, and then
held it up, aiming right at the vampire’s chest. “Fine. You want to
talk, let’s talk.”

Drew shook his head, probably in
exasperation. “Chloe, if he was going to kill us he would have
already. He has had plenty of opportunity.”

“
I don’t see you lowering
your gun,” I shot back at him.

He didn’t answer, so I flicked my gun
toward the tiny little kitchen table that was set up in a corner of
the room. “Go sit over there.”

Still standing by the overturned
couch, he threw a glance at Drew before he silently complied with
my demand. He strode confidently over to the table and pulled out a
chair. “Aren’t you going to join me?” he asked.

I tried not to limp as I crossed the
room to sit at the table with him. My left leg was killing me from
when I was crushed by the entertainment center. I hoped I managed
to look unharmed, though, I didn’t want that guy seeing any
weakness in me. Before I sat down I met Drew’s eyes and he nodded,
indicating that he would stay standing.

I pulled out a chair and plopped down
into it. “Well, you seem to know us, now tell us who you
are.”

His lips curled into a smile. “Of
course you would want to know, it’s only fair, I suppose. My name
is Anthony Christos.”

Drew’s eyes widened and Anthony smiled
with satisfaction. “Ah, you know of me?” He directed the question
to Drew.

“
Of course I know who
Anthony Christos is, but that doesn’t mean that you are who you
claim to be.”

“
I have no reason to
lie.”

“
Wait,” I interrupted. “I
don’t know who Anthony Christos is. Why is that so
important?”

Drew actually had the audacity to roll
his eyes while we held this guy at gun point and interrogated him.
“Didn’t you learn it in school?”

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes.
“You mean while I was held captive in my evil father’s mansion for
a year? Oh wait … no, you must mean after I got back and spent a
few months back in classes, and then the vampire apocalypse
started. I’m so sorry, I must not have been paying close enough
attention.”