The enemy vampire dove for his prey, only to be interrupted by the fearsome woman who grabbed him by the neck and flew him up toward the clouds. With a quick twist, his neck was broken. With a swipe from her ancient scimitar, he was dead. The head fell to the ground as she tossed his body toward Baojia’s hiding place. Just then, dark shapes crested the hill.
He slunk out of the mouth of the tunnel, drawing his right sword as he crept toward the shadows. The hunters were taking their time, not being quiet. They wanted to elicit fear by toying with what they thought were defenseless humans in the center of the crater. Snarling and laughing as they came closer, none of them noticed the loss of their friend.
What they did notice was the sudden silence when two of their number fell through the earth. Baojia grinned.
Playtime was over.
Three down, ten to go. He raced around the perimeter, arm sweeping out to take the head of one shocked vampire before he was even spotted. A grab of the hair. A quick slice. Another thud. The body slumped to the ground and he tossed the head over his shoulder as the crazed vampires began to realize they had walked into a trap. Their attention immediately diverted from the humans in the center of the circle, all nine vampires suddenly went on alert. One took to the air and was out of his sight. One began to run, only to have his feet sink into the earth as Brigid burst from the ground and used what little time she had to turn the screaming vampire to ash.
The rain was falling harder. He felt a heavy sheet hit his back and reveled in the feel of it, cool against his skin.
Baojia took a deep breath and let out an angry roar as every eye turned toward him.
Two more dead. Only seven now.
Another headless body thudded to the ground.
Make that six, plus the driver.
His first real attack came as he heard Carwyn exclaiming from across the crater and two gunshots fired. The vampire ran toward him, hands out, directing a sheet of water at him as he tried to knock Baojia off his feet. Damn. His breath rushed out. These creatures—high on whatever Ivan had been feeding them—were stronger.
The drops turned to tiny blades under the other water vampire’s command. Baojia didn’t halt, though he felt his flesh break open in a hundred places from the impact of the driving rain. He ducked to the side to dodge another watery attack before he reached out with his amnis and grabbed the water, turning it on his attacker to slice into his face as the vampire screamed.
The immortal was dark-haired. Possibly Mexican, but not certainly. Baojia ran at him, letting his enemy get close enough to grab an outstretched arm, drawing him toward his body as Baojia ducked his head, bracing his neck as he rammed his forehead into the vulnerable underside of his opponent’s jaw. The vampire’s head slammed back as Baojia grabbed him by the hair and held, bringing his blade up to sever the spine with one efficient slice. He dropped the body and looked for the next opponent.
There was a blond vampire trying to run away. Too damn bad. His fangs long and gleaming, Baojia ran after him, jumping over scrub and/p>teoppo ignoring the sting of cactus as he raced to catch him. He caught up with him a few hundred feet from the crater. Not wanting to waste time, Baojia pounced on the other man’s back. A young one, he guessed, from the level of amnis. He was an earth vampire and tried to let the ground swallow him. Baojia was halfway sunk in the ground before a jerk and a swipe ended his enemy’s life.
Natalie.
He was too far away from her. He left the body where he’d killed it and raced back. Carwyn was ripping into another vampire only a few feet away as he heard more shots, but not from where Ben was still sitting. Natalie was still crouched next to the boy. Still clutching her stun gun as if her life depended on it, but happily isolated from the bloodshed around her.
“Who’s shooting?” he yelled.
Carwyn twisted a scrambling immortal’s head under his arm, reached down to grab at the man’s arm, and pulled, holding him as his neck was detached and the scrambling stopped. Then Carwyn looked over at Baojia and grinned. “That’d be my