He waited for Hubert to answer his challenge, to come out of hiding and confront Vincent with a display of his own. But the only response was another bolt of sizzling energy that shot across the clearing and splashed harmlessly against his shields.
“If that’s the way you want it, old man,” he muttered, and sent a ball of vampire-fueled fire roaring into the cactus cluster, igniting it like a giant torch, with flames blasting twenty feet into the sky.
Hubert gave a high-pitched yell, and darted away from the conflagration, giving Vincent his first direct sight of the enemy. He’d never seen Hubert before, and hadn’t thought to ask what the vampire looked like. Physical appearance wasn’t important; only power mattered. And that’s what Vincent focused on when he studied the European invader. He could see the rainbow shimmer of the lord’s shields in the glimmer of the flames, could feel the unrelenting pressure as Hubert probed for a weakness in Vincent’s shields, as well. But other than that probe, his attack was curiously passive, his energies concentrated on maintaining his shields.
It wasn’t what Vincent would have expected from a lord as old and experienced as Hubert, and he wondered if the invader was a victim of his own strategy. The power necessary to maintain control over his zombie fighters might be taking such a toll on his strength that it was leaving him vulnerable to the far more dangerous enemy right in front of him.
But at the same time, Vincent knew that Hubert had a whole village full of blood donors sitting down below like a human buffet. The European should have been at peak strength.
All of these thoughts raced through his mind in an instant as he calculated the fastest way to dispose of Hubert and get back to his fighters, and to Lana. If Hubert was weakened by his own actions, then all the better. It was time to get this fight started.
Shifting his gaze to the tumble of rocks behind Hubert, who remained curiously unmoving, Vincent seized them with his power and sent them flying down the hill. They slammed into Hubert, who flinched visibly on impact. His shields held, but they wavered as he stumbled forward, nearly going to his knees. He grimaced in pain, his fangs flashing, as he struggled to regain his feet.
But this wasn’t an old-fashioned human sort of duel, with rules of honor and chivalry. Vincent struck while his enemy was down. Striding over the empty space between them, he curled hands together in front of his chest and shaped his power into a massive cudgel of energy. Swinging it around his head, building momentum as he drew closer, he stomped to a halt just before he would have hit Hubert’s shield, and powered the cudgel downward at the vampire lord’s head.
There was a fraction of resistance, a bare slowing of his downward stroke as the weapon penetrated Hubert’s shield. And then there were blood and brains splattering everywhere, trapped within the shield for a gruesome few seconds as Hubert struggled to stay alive, before his shield collapsed, and he crumpled to the ground.
Vincent stared, shocked at the ease of his victory, but not so stunned that he paused in delivering the final blow. Reaching into the gory mess, he punched a hole in Hubert’s chest, ripped out his heart, and tossed it onto the burning cactus. Seconds later, Lord Hubert of Lyon was gone, an unlamented footnote to the history of Vampire.
And yet . . . something wasn’t right about this. Vincent had never doubted he would prevail in this fight. This was his territory, and he knew his strength. But he’d expected more of a challenge. He thought again of the zombie vampires, and the toll they might have taken on Hubert’s strength. And perhaps that explained it, but it did nothing to ease the pebble of unease that was building in his gut. Turning, he raced for the plateau’s edge and started downward.
He could see the battle still raging down below, could catch glimpses of movement as the moon flirted with the clouds overhead. He heard the crack of Lana’s rifle as she fired repeatedly, systematically. The closer he got, the more individual sounds carried up to him, the roars and grunts from his own fighters punctuating the almost steady keening growl that rose above Hubert’s zombie vampires.
The pebble in his gut became a boulder. He needed to get back to his people. The feeling of wrongness was driving him forward with a frenzy that had him leaping from foothold to foothold, rocks skidding beneath his feet in a shower of dirt and stone before him. Lana was down there. Michael and all of his fighters were, too. But Lana was so much more vulnerable, her connection to him too new to save her if the unimaginable happened. What if she’d been the ultimate target? What if Hubert hoped to destroy Vincent by killing his mate?
It would work. Vincent couldn’t imagine surviving the agony of losing Lana, couldn’t imagine wanting to go on without her.
Reaching the flat, he tore across the battleground, tearing through Hubert’s zombies, tossing them aside, ripping out hearts and tearing off heads in his urgency to destroy them all before disaster struck. He couldn’t have said what the disaster would be, couldn’t envision whatever Hubert’s plan had been. What kind of vampire lord weakened himself so severely that he couldn’t survive a challenge? What horrible revenge had he hoped to inflict?
Vincent reached the giant boulder where Lana was secured, her gun still firing at an almost inhuman pace. As he climbed, he could hear the battle winding down behind him. Even Lana’s steady gunfire was slowing. She rolled over in alarm when he made the final leap to her side, her gun coming up, finger on the trigger. She froze, eyes wide, when she recognized him, then lowered the weapon with a curse.
“God damn it, Vincent! I almost shot you. What the fuck?”
Vincent didn’t waste time on words, just gathered her up, and stretched his shields to cover them both, staring out into the moonlit night and listening as the battle was reduced to the muted growls of his fighters and the dying cries of their enemies. There was no mercy in vampire society. Vanquished enemies were destroyed. There was no other outcome.
“Vincent,” Lana said, drawing his attention with the soft intensity of her voice. “What’s going on, babe?”
He dragged his gaze from the battlefield where he’d been counting his fighters, noting each face, scanning for injuries.
“Querida,” he said fervently, stroking a hand over the long braid of her black hair.
“Vincent? You’re scaring me.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. Something’s wrong with this. I was convinced Hubert had a surprise planned, something we hadn’t thought of, but . . .” He scowled, still unable to put words to his fear. “Come on,” he said suddenly. “I need to talk to Michael.”
He waited while she secured her weapons and slung the two rifles over her shoulder. Then he gripped her around the waist and stepped to the edge of the boulder.
“Hold on,” he warned her, and stepped off the rock, dropping them to the ground fifteen feet below. His knees bent, thighs flexing as he absorbed the impact. Lana uttered a tiny squeak, and gripped his arms briefly, but she couldn’t have been that surprised. She knew what he was capable of.
“Asshole,” she whispered. “A little warning next time.”
Vincent kissed the top of her head in apology, but his mind wasn’t on it. His arm tightened around her when she would have turned for the landing zone where they’d be meeting the helicopter. He was still consumed with the need to protect her, still waiting for the unknown to happen. Lana glanced up at him, but didn’t say anything, and didn’t try to break away.
“Jefe,” Michael said, coming toward him with a victorious grin. Behind him, Vincent’s warriors were dispatching the few remaining fallen enemies, and slapping each other’s backs in celebration. If they’d been in the city, the blood bars would be going wild tonight, his fighters pumping adrenaline and blood lust so thick, it would color the air.
“Michael,” Vincent said tightly, his attention never leaving the hills around them as he continued to scan with all his vampire senses.
“What is it?” Michael asked, suddenly tuning in to Vincent’s tension. “Hubert?” he asked, turning to mimic Vincent’s search of the surrounding area.