The Vampire's Ultimatum (Fatal Allure Book 10) Read online

  “Amy?” Alexis gasped, clearly afraid if the shake in her tone was any indication, “What is happening?”

  “Friends,” I replied, smiling when a distant shriek sounded through the city and rose to a steady roar, “That’s our friends.”

  Slowly, without drawing the attention of the hunters who were still on the lookout for a threat, I slipped my hand into the back of my waistband and grasped the pistol, taking a deep breath and flipping the safety off. Things were about to get very heavy, very fast, and I hadn’t come this far just to catch a bullet in the neck without fighting back.

  “What did you do Amy?” Tristian asked, eyes darting around the exposed floor, “Who did you ca-”

  He was cut off when a scream sounded from the ground floor, before being cut short even faster. Whoever had screamed out had no doubt been killed, and given the animosity that anyone paranormal held for this little group of hunters, they hadn’t gone easily. The hunters around us weren’t taking the change in the atmosphere well, the sky now as pitch black as if it was midnight, more screams and moans drifting up from the lower floors and being silenced just as quickly.

  “Oh, fuck this,” Malcolm said, taking out his own pistol and marching right up to me, raising the weapon so it was level with my forehead and squeezing the trigger. I didn’t even have time to raise my hand before the gun fired, the report of the weapon deafening and my eyes watering from the sheer force of it. Which struck me as odd, given that I shouldn’t have been feeling anything at that point, but when I looked up things suddenly made a great deal of sense.

  “Well well,” Joseph cooed, holding Malcolm’s arm in the air and inspecting the weapon still grasped in its clenched fist. It took me a moment to realize that Malcolm himself was five feet away, laying flat on the floor and staring in mute horror at the bloody stump that had once been his elbow. Joseph chuckled to himself, tossing the bloody appendage aside and turning to address the rest of the gathered hunters, bowing deeply just as at least a dozen others made their appearance on the ledges around us.

  “Good evening gentlemen, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Joseph, a veteran of centuries of warfare, sabotage, hedonism, and indecency. Companion of whores and heroes, villains and messiahs, and an eternal friend of the alliance.” He looked up, fangs extending and his eyes turning black, mouth twisting into a smirk so feral that it almost made me regret calling him here. “And it is my pleasure to announce that all of you are going to die.”

  Chapter 3

  There was a beat of silence where nobody moved, the vampires who had just emerged standing absolutely still as they sized up their prey, while the hunters alternated between increasingly panicked glances at the enemy and concern for the fallen Malcolm, whose face was showing the first signs that he was recognizing the absolute agony that was emanating from the stump where an arm had been not twenty seconds ago.

  In the end, all it took was a single cough to break the spell that had risen over everyone, hunter and vampire alike immediately rising from their minor stupor and moving to kill the first thing they saw, weapons raised and fangs bared as they merged into one chaotic mess of violence. The air became heavy with the force of gunfire, all of us on the ground forcing ourselves close to the ground and hope that we didn’t get hit with any stray rounds, my friends grimacing in pain from being unable to block their ears from the aural assault of gunfire and screaming.

  As best I could given my position on the floor, I crawled over to each of them and undid the bindings around their wrists, their hands immediately going to their ears to try and get a moment to recover from the onslaught. All of them were showing signs that they hadn’t been taken in any way that was willing, more than a few bruises and bloodied lips telling the whole story, so none of them were in any shape to be a help during the battle.

  Not that it looked like Joseph needed any help on that front.

  The man himself was currently stood over two hunters that had been unfortunate enough to gain his immediate attention, the chest of one them burst open and his hand closed around the other’s throat, a few brief moments of struggling cut short as he wrenched his forearm viciously and snapped the hunter’s spine so badly that I heard it even over the surrounding gunfire. He immediately leapt after a group of three that hadn’t yet seen him, wearing the most unsettling grin that I’ve ever seen cross his face, looking every bit the monster that could have burnt an entire city to ashes. The other vampires weren’t doing too shabbily, taking advantage of the element of surprise and the primal fear that they struck with their mere presence to cut the numbers in half more or less instantly, the floor of the warehouse awash with the sight and scent of blood.

  Even I had to admit that the hunters were showing impressive skill, considering that almost none of them had the chance to prepare ahead of time for vampires, in either planning or equipment. The guns that they carried might have done the job of killing a human or a witch, appropriate for their goal tonight, but when it came to doing anything against vampires you might as well have been scratching them with a stick, the heavy slugs passing through skin and muscle that healed itself instantly and did nothing to slow them down in the slightest. The only hope they had of actually defending themselves fell to the knives and stakes at their wastes, blessed and razor sharp the same as mine, though closing the distance and engaging a single vampire was already a daunting prospect, let alone a whole group that could easily decide that you were the most delicious looking of your comrades.

  But even with this profound disadvantage and their obvious terror at facing such a sudden and unexpected foe, those who were not cut down immediately were doing a more than passable job of staying alive, even beating back an impressive attacking force as they tried to make their retreat. Standing in the middle of the mass with his stake at his side and his face twisted in a furious scowl, Tristian looked for once to be the leader everyone else treated him as, his normal bloodlust that I was so familiar with nowhere to be seen as he grabbed hunter after hunter and pulled them away towards the door, able to tell within seconds that this was a battle that they couldn’t possibly hope to win, not with the sky still clouded with darkness and the scent of blood driving the vampires into even more of a frenzy.

  Not that he was alone in trying to save as many of his hunters as he could, though Rick was new to all of this and certainly not accustomed to fighting against a foe that could move faster than you could blink and tear you apart before your heart had finished beating, he was adapting remarkably well, grabbing those that had fallen and dragging them back to their feet, firing his service weapon above the vampires heads to try in vain to get them to duck away. Whether he was skittish about actually killing anything himself or if he just knew it wasn’t going to do them any harm regardless I had no idea, but seeing him leap into action and do the first stupid thing he could to try and save the members of his team was… saddening. It wasn’t long ago that I could have considered myself a member of his team, to see myself replaced so quickly and easily by the very people whose mission it was to kill me and everyone that I loved was more than a little insulting.

  Personally, I was torn on what I should do here, my hand was still wrapped around the grip of the pistol but I had no idea if it was the right decision to raise it. Tristian and Rick were right there, it would be so easy to squeeze the trigger and end this whole situation in one fell swoop, but it just wasn’t that simple. As much as I wanted things to end, and I really, truly did with all my heart, the oath that I had sworn to protect life was something that I had taken very seriously through my life. Though I hadn’t realized it when I’d first walked in here prepared to make the hard choice, I was being given an entirely different choice than I’d anticipated, and it wasn’t one that conflicted with my desire to help people.

  Really, it was no choice at all.

  “Come on,” I said, slipping the pistol back into my waistband and taking Alexis’ hand, checking over each of the others before I started crawling. Th
ey were all pretty banged up, there was no way they wouldn’t be considering that they were all fighters, but Alexis had gotten the worst of it. I guess that the two detectives hadn’t really appreciated her stonewalling them back at the club, but at least one of them had paid pretty dearly for trying to hurt us further.

  I may not be prepared to pull the trigger on either my mentor or the man who had tried to take everything from me, but goddammit if I’m going to sit around and let my friends remain in danger, especially when they’re in absolutely no condition to do anything to help themselves. The vampires around us seemed to know what I was doing, forming a loose barrier around us to prevent any trigger-happy hunters from getting a shot off. I was somewhat ashamed to admit that I wasn’t expecting such an act from the vampires gathered here today, even now my first thought of what they would do was focused around death. By now I should have realized that vampires were just like us in many ways, but chief among them was the fact that they were capable of the simplest of good just as they could commit the greatest of evil.

  Though in my defense, the man who gathered them here today was Joseph, and you would be hard pressed to find someone who would consider him to be a mentally sound individual. From the sound of the screams and laughter filtering over from the other side of the room he’d quite literally torn someone apart, you had to be a very specific type of person to do that.

  Looking back, I could see how clearly Damon wanted to jump in to help, both of us well aware that Cara was somewhere back in there hiding away from the violence, but there wasn’t anything I could do for her right now, I had to focus on helping the people who were right here and depending on me, but as soon as I was able to I was going to push my way back through whoever I had to get back to her. I meant what I said, no way am I going to leave her behind again, I brought her into this weird, fucked up world of monsters and danger, it was my responsibility to take care of her through it all.

  God, the warehouse smelled terrible, and not just from the blood that was being spilt today. It smelled old like the dust was collecting dust, but there was that undercurrent of sulfur that slipped into your nostrils and seeped into your very blood, the kind that wouldn’t go away even days after you left. I have a feeling that something very bad happened here once upon a time, and that is probably the only reason that whatever ritual Faye and the others were performing had even worked in the first place. But I still had no idea how long that was going to last, or even how quickly everything would turn back to normal if they lost control of the spell. Would it just snap back to daylight, or would it be a gradual change? Would the vampires who had gathered here today have a chance to get to cover before the sun came out again, or would they just be incinerated where they stood? I didn’t know the answers to those questions, but that one fact alone was reason enough to finish this as quickly as I could. I already felt guilty enough for my friends being kidnapped, I didn’t want to have a mass vampire death on my conscience too.

  Finally, after what seemed an age of crawling, we managed to get through into one of the back hallways, separate from the one that I had entered through and that the hunters were currently trying to make their escape through. Not exactly elegant, and the dust and smell were still terrible, but at least there were concrete walls between us and the bullets now. I would have thought by now that the fighting would have shifted in one direction or another, but both sides seemingly didn’t want to give any ground at all, screaming and snarls still filling the air no matter how hard you tried to block it out. You had to give it to the hunters, they really were dedicated to their craft if they were able to match vampires blow for blow when it came to tenacity.

  “Shit,” I grunted, peeking my head out to get a look at the chaos. None of them were letting up, the doorway long since blocked by a line of vampires and the rest of them closing in, the hunters standing ready to meet them with their stakes in hand and their faces twisted in hatred. Rick was nowhere to be seen, same with the detective with both his arms left, the two of them no doubt having made their escape as soon as they were able to. Can’t say I blame them, given that I’m trying to do the exact same thing as we speak, so maybe I’m just a little jealous in this case. I still had to walk back through this mess after all.

  “Cara is still in there,” I said, turning back to look at my weary and wounded friends, “I’ve gotta go back and get her.”

  “Are you fucking insane?” Damon asked, the look on his face alone convincing me that he thought I had actually lost my mind, “Every hunter in there wants your head, not to mention that the whole place is covered in blood. Even if you trust the vampires you’ve gotta admit that’s just playing with fire.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” I answered, smiling gently and taking his hand, “I’m going to be fine, ok? I need you to keep an eye on everyone else, you’ve all been through a lot today and I’m really worried about Alexis. Can you keep them safe?”

  “I…” He growled in frustration, running a hand through his hair and nodding in exhaustion, “Yeah, yeah I can keep them safe. Just grab Cara and get back here quick, if it looks like things are going bad I’m going to come out and get you myself though.”

  I pressed a quick kiss to his lips, squeezing down on his hand one final time before I stepped away, waving behind me as I focused on the scene awaiting me. To my dismay the body count wasn’t solely made of hunters anymore, at least three vampires having been felled by stakes before their comrades had been able to take out their attackers, their bodies crumbling to dust before my very eyes. Ah, there it was, there was that familiar feeling of guilt and revulsion, there was the knowledge that no matter what choice I made tonight people were going to die. There was the knowledge that the fight very well may have been over by now if I’d only decided to pull the trigger when I’d had the chance, but I hadn’t, and now at least three of the people who had risked their existences to come and help me were dead.

  Judging by the roars that emanated from the other vampires gathered, the anger and horror wasn’t just my own.

  “Swine!” Joseph snarled, stepping into the fray so fast you would be forgiven for thinking that he’d simply teleported, two hunters, being separated from their legs before they could even hope to retaliate against him. I hadn’t even known the vampires that had been lost and I felt terrible, I couldn’t even imagine how he must have felt in that moment. He wouldn’t have picked just anyone to come along on this trip, after all, if they were his first calls then they must have held some place in his heart.

  But there were always two sides on a battlefield, and by the look on the face of the still present Tristian, the vampires were not the only ones with friends and loved ones dying here today. But while Joseph, as with all things in his life, threw himself head first into his rage and grief, Tristian’s approach was much more calculating, removing himself from the front line of attack and slipping through whatever opening he could find, winding his way through bloody fight after bloody fight on his way to his goal. Joseph and Tristian were the kings, and if you took the king that was game. He had just put Joseph in check.

  So, focused on tearing apart his latest target in front of him, Joseph didn’t notice Tristian slipping behind him, stake held in a white knuckled grip and his face set in a steely grimace. One quick movement is all it would take to end the existence of one of the most incredible creatures I had ever known in my life, and he had absolutely no idea it was about to happen.

  My hands acted of their own accord, the pistol I had holstered in my waistband coming into my view and my thumb flipping the safety, the sights centered over Tristian’s chest just as he raised his arm to deliver the final blow. My finger squeezed around the trigger, almost fully compressed when something took my legs out from under me, the pistol kicking back in my hand and sending a round sailing through the air. Though I’d been aiming for what looked like his heart, the round sank into the meat of his shoulder, tearing a messy hole in his skin and sending a shock up the entirety of his arm, t
he stake going flying harmlessly through the air as he screamed in pain. Joseph turned quickly at the scent of fresh blood so close to him, black eyes narrowing at the sight of the man in front of him, about to tear him apart like so many other hunters that night when he spotted the other two sprinting up at his side, wisely deciding to defend himself before taking revenge on an enemy.

  That, unfortunately, was all the time that Tristian needed to get away, knowing when a battle was lost and defeat was inevitable. What he did next, however, defied every expectation that I’d ever held, and dare I say actually gave me some respect for him, begrudging though it may be. Seeing that he only had a narrow window to get away before Joseph’s attention was back on him, and knowing that he was incapable of fighting back with a useless arm and no weapon, he turned around and started sprinting as fast as he could to the exit.

  Only, it wasn’t either of the exits that came with stairs. Taking only the barest of seconds to get an idea of where he was going, he took a flying leap out of the open side of the building, working arm outstretched to grab onto one of the long-abandoned chains hanging from disused and rotting scaffolding. He jerked to a momentary stop just before he fell out of view, but the chain snapped from years of exposure to the elements and sent him falling another two stories to the ground. I didn’t see him land, but the smashing of glass and the sounding of a car alarm told me that he at least hadn’t hit concrete, which meant that with his stubbornness he likely wasn’t dead.