Gallowglass handed Janet down and then me, making no use of the waiting ladder with its rusted metal treads that might give us away. It was so dark in the tunnel that I couldn’t see the faces of the vampires who caught us, but I could smell the battle on them. We hurried along the tunnel with as much speed as our need for silence allowed. Given the darkness, I was glad to have a vampire on each arm to steer me around the bends and would have fallen several times without the assistance of their keen eyes and quick reflexes.
Baldwin and Fernando were waiting for us at the intersection of three tunnels. Two blood-spattered mounds covered with tarps and a powdery white substance that gave off a faint glow marked where Benjamin’s children had met their death.
“We covered the heads and bodies with quicklime to mask the scent,” Fernando said. “It won’t eliminate it completely, but it should buy us some time.”
“How many?” Gallowglass asked.
“Nine,” Baldwin replied. One of his hands was completely clean and bore a sword, the other was caked with substances I preferred not to identify. The contrast made my stomach heave.
“How many are still inside?” Janet murmured.
“At least another nine, probably more.” Baldwin didn’t look worried at the prospect. “If they’re anything like this lot, you can expect them to be cocksure and clever.”
“Dirty fighters, too,” Fernando said.
“As expected,” Gallowglass said, his tone easy and relaxed. “We’ll be waiting for your signal to move into the compound. Good luck, Auntie.”
Baldwin whisked me away before I could say a word of farewell to Gallowglass and Fernando.
Perhaps it was better that way, since the single glance I cast over my shoulder captured faces that were etched with exhaustion.
The tunnel that Baldwin took us through led to the gates outside the compound where Ysabeau and Hamish were waiting. With all the wards down save the one on the gate that led directly to Knox, the only risk was that a vampire’s keen eyes would spot us.
Janet reduced that possibility with an all-encompassing disguising spell that concealed not only me but everybody within twenty feet. “Where’s Marcus?” I had expected to see him here.
Hamish pointed.
Marcus was already inside the perimeter, propped in the crook of a tree, a rifle aimed at a window.
He must have breached the compound’s stone walls by swinging from tree limb to tree limb. With no wards to worry about, provided he didn’t use the gate, Marcus had taken advantage of the pause in the action and would now provide cover for us as we went through the gate and entered the front door.
“Sharpshooter,” commented Baldwin.
“Marcus learned to handle a gun as a warmblood. He hunted squirrels when he was a child,” added Ysabeau. “Smaller and faster than vampires, I’m told.”
Marcus never acknowledged our presence, but he knew we were there. Janet and I set to work on the final knots that bound the alarm spell to Knox. She cast an anchoring spell, the kind witches used to shore up the foundations of their houses and keep their children from wandering away, and as I unbound the ward, I redirected its energy toward her. Our hope was that the spell wouldn’t even notice that the heavy object it now guarded was a granite boulder and not a massive iron gate.
It worked.
We would have been inside the house in moments if not for the inconvenient interruption of one of Benjamin’s sons, who came out to catch a cigarette only to discover the front gate standing open. His eyes widened.
A small hole appeared in his forehead.
One eye disappeared. Then another.
Benjamin’s son clutched at his throat. Blood welled between his fingers, and he emitted a strange whistling sound.
“Hello, salaud. I’m your grandmother.” Ysabeau thrust a dagger into the man’s heart.
The simultaneous loss of blood from so many places made it easy for Baldwin to grab the man’s head and twist it, breaking his neck and killing the vampire instantly. With another wrench his head came off his shoulders.
It had taken about forty-five seconds from the time Marcus fired his first shot to the moment Baldwin put the vampire’s head facedown in the snow.
Then the dogs started to bark.
“Merde,” Ysabeau whispered.
“Now. Go.” Baldwin took my arm, and Ysabeau took charge of Janet. Marcus tossed his rifle to Hamish, who caught it easily. He let forth a piercing whistle.
“Shoot anything that comes out of that door,” Marcus ordered. “I’m going after the dogs.”