Luke Irontree & the Last Vampire War (Books 8-10), page 68
“Very,” Luke replied, a small surge of nerves settling over him.
It had been a long time since he’d done a street-by-street house hunt in this neighborhood. They’d left that task to the street teams and the newer people, now that he had a small army of hunters to lead. He also didn’t want to fail in front of his friends now that he was testing the boundaries of something new.
And after nearly two thousand years of stasis, a change in his abilities was cause to be nervous.
When they parked and jumped out of Pablo’s truck, Luke checked his gladius and rudis, both strapped to his back. That was something else he hadn’t done in a while. Since they’d been fighting in remote areas where he was surrounded by friend and enemies with no civilians around, he’d kept the weapons in the open.
“Am I covered?” he asked, trying to look over his shoulder.
“Here.” Roxi took his hood and draped it to cover the pommels of both weapons.
Roxi got away with wearing a lightweight three-quarter length trench coat that stopped at her knees. It was still summer, though they were getting close to the arrival of autumn, but few people questioned odd wardrobe choices in Portland, even a slightly out-of-season jacket.
“You both ready?” Sam asked.
“Let’s do it,” Luke said, almost as a pep talk to himself.
As soon as he took the first step, the nerves washed away now that action was imminent. It had always been that way for him. Roxi caught up while Sam and Simone tucked in behind them.
Luke focused on his vampy senses, homing in on the house he wanted. He didn’t know how many fangers were inside, not exactly. But as he concentrated, narrowing his senses, he thought the numbers were within their ability to handle.
They stopped in the shadow of a large tree a few houses down from their target.
“What’s the play?” Sam asked.
Luke chuckled. “Normally, I’d say we just kick the back door down and turn them all to sludge…” He stared down the street for a moment. “Roxi, Sam. You two are on the front door. Give me and Simone time to slip around back. Then you two walk up to the front door and knock. Or pick the lock and let yourself in.”
“Just like that?” Sam asked.
“Just like that,” Luke said.
“OK.”
Luke waved Simone after him. Together, they slipped into the side yard and let themselves into the backyard through the gate. Simone, her eyes wide, looked everywhere, her movements twitchy and anxious. He couldn’t blame her. This was the first time she’d been paired with him on something like a house raid since she’d joined them. Any of the raiding she’d done after she’d moved to Portland had been while he’d been imprisoned and removed from the map in the vampires’ arena. Since he’d emerged, it had been large-scale operations.
They stopped at the corner of the house before swinging around to the back.
Luke reached out and laid his hand on Simone’s forearm. “Don’t worry. There’s not that many inside. We’re just going in for a little chat.”
She nodded briskly.
“Let’s go,” he whispered, reaching over his shoulder to draw his gladius.
Simone pulled out a stake, leaving the machete on her hip in its scabbard. Luke led the way, ducking under a couple windows before stopping at the edge of a sliding glass door. Reaching out, he pushed the handle, and the door slid a little. They’d left it unlocked.
Shaking his head, he smirked. The vampires in this city needed a healthier sense of fear. Fear… He knew once the vampires inside the house realized who had come looking for them, they’d react in terror. He swallowed the saliva pooling in his mouth at the prospect of the terror of vampires and shook his head.
Turning his head, he made eye contact with Simone. She nodded at him. He slowly slid the door open and stepped inside, waving Simone in after him. Carefully, he slid the door closed behind them and locked it.
“What the fuck… Oh shit!” The vampire, its eyes wide, turned around and sprinted out of the kitchen. “Run! Hunters!”
Simone yanked the machete out, taking a couple steps away from Luke so she had room to work if she needed to. Luke raised a hand, waving her back. She nodded and lowered her weapons, though she still looked like she was coiled like a mousetrap, ready to spring into action.
Moving toward the door leading out of the kitchen, Luke raised his hand next to his mouth. “I’m not here to kill. I’m here to talk.”
He waited. Somewhere deeper in the house, he could hear a panicked conversation, though he couldn’t make out anything.
“I swear,” he called out. “You talk. You give me the information I want, or as close to it as you can, and you can leave. Unharmed and still undead.”
“Bullshit!” a male voice yelled back.
Sam chuckled. “I think your reputation is working against you.”
Grumbling, Luke clenched his jaw. “I guess so.” He tipped his head toward the stairs leading up. “If you don’t want to talk, we can do this the other way. I can kill you all and find some vampires who are smarter than you.”
A window shattered, and Simone jogged to the sliding glass door. “Luke, this way.”
Luke joined Simone at the door as someone landed gracelessly on the lawn. They came up clutching a bloody forearm, a long gash the source of the blood. With a growl, Luke yanked the door open and pointed his rudis at the vampire and drained it, a trickle of golden light linking the body and the tip of the rudis for a brief moment before the vampire puffed into powder and floated about on the light summer evening breeze.
Stalking out into the yard, he looked up into the terrified faces of two vampires. He raised the rudis, two lines of light connecting to it, and drained them before they could even move.
“Shit,” he mumbled. “Simone, can you have Sam and Roxi sweep through the upstairs? You watch the front door. I’ll watch this side of the house. If they can spare any vamps and capture them, great. If not, we’ll try another house.”
“Right.” Simone disappeared into the house.
A couple minutes later, Roxi poked her head out the window. “Looks like these three were the only ones here. Why’d you kill both of these?”
He shook his head, pursing his lips. “I tried to only drain one, but it connected to both. Damn it.”
Roxi snorted, shaking her head and trying to contain her laughter. “Let’s sweep the house and move on.”
Luke nodded and plopped down on a nearby patio chair. A few minutes later, his three companions emerged through the sliding glass door, a few laptops tucked under their arms. They also probably had some pilfered cell phones stashed in pockets for the tech team to go through.
“What now?” Sam asked.
“I guess we try again.” Luke stood up and headed toward the side gate.
He didn’t bother looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was following. He could hear their breathing and the sound of equipment jingling. Fifteen minutes later, they parked out of the way of another house. They could have stopped at several along the way, but Roxi and Sam thought it would be better if they moved further away from their first house in case they’d attracted any unwanted attention.
This time, they swept in quieter and rounded up four vampires who’d been too distracted with their bottled blood. Picking up a discarded bottle, Roxi peered at the label, then turned and showed it to Sam, who stood next to her. Simone kept the cluster of vampires contained with her shotgun pointed at them.
“No wonder they were easy to round up,” Sam said, handing the bottle over to Luke.
He spun it around and checked out the white label. Human female blood. Heroin. That would explain the docility of the four vampires. They had either just been on the nod or were about to be, though the adrenaline of four vampire hunters busting into their nest seemed to be keeping them somewhat alert, at least for three of them. One of them periodically drifted off, their head snapping back up only to start the process over again.
Luke set the bottle aside. “I don’t know if we’ll be able to get anything out of them in this condition.”
Sam shrugged. “Don’t know unless you ask.”
“Simone,” Roxi said, nodding toward the one dozing off yet again.
Together, they dragged the vampire away from the others. That seemed to wake it up. It tried to thrash about and get away, but the strength of a vampire hunter and a werewolf kept the stoned vampire in check. They stopped along the wall opposite the other three. Backing away from each other, they held the vampire’s arms out wide.
Sam stepped in, leveling her shotgun at the remaining three fangers. “I think our new friends could use an object lesson.”
With a curt nod, Luke pulled his rudis out and focused on the undead heart of the vampire they held. Soon, he felt the connection but also, to a lesser extent, three more connections. The three vampires behind him whined. Scowling, he tightened his concentration on the one in front of him. The other three more tenuous threads snapped. He thought he heard the vampires behind him sigh in relief. In a matter of moments, the thread disappeared into Luke’s rudis and, through it, into him. The remains of the vampire sluiced to the floor, splattering on the laminate wood flooring. Roxi and Simone danced away, trying to avoid any unwanted vamp goo being splashed on their shoes and pants.
Luke turned around. The three vampires huddled together, holding each other, their already pale faces even paler.
“Do you know who I am?” Luke asked.
One of the vampires nodded; the other two just stared down at the floor.
“Who am I?”
“Y-you’re the…” The vampire swallowed. “You’re the w-w-w…”
“Say it,” Luke barked out.
“The Wood-Fanged Demon.”
“And do you know what I do to vampires?”
“M-m-murder us.”
Luke tsked, shaking his head. “Semantics. Can I murder murderers? I bring justice to the souls stolen and the humans robbed of life. But today’s your lucky day. I want something more than your undead lives. And if you give it to me, I’ll let you run away and find a deep dark hole to hide in. You saw what I can do. There’s no escape without cooperation.”
“What do you want?” the vampire stammered.
“Information. I want the location of the dark entity.”
“The what?”
“I want the one you all fear. The one you grovel to. Saubarag.”
The vampire didn’t so much as flinch, a note of confusion joining the fear contorting its face. Luke wasn’t sure what to expect when he used the name of the god who’d transformed himself from a tiny god in a smaller pantheon into one of the supreme dark powers on earth. Luke had only just discovered it a few days ago. But he had no idea what the rank-and-file vampires knew about the one who controlled them. Neither of the other two vampires did anything besides tremble.
If a vampire could pee—Luke didn’t actually know if they could urinate—they’d be pissing themselves in fear. These were probably, at best, low-level foot soldiers. Newly turned thralls or victims. They wouldn’t know anything important. If Luke actually found someone in the first few houses who did know something, it would be a major miracle. Today didn’t look like it was going to be their day for divine interventions.
Careful not to stab himself, he folded his arms. “If you can’t give me that little sneak thief of a god who calls him Saubarag, give me Constantius or Eusebius.”
Those names seemed to strike a note where Saubarag hadn’t.
“I see you recognize them. Where can I find them?”
“I-I-I don’t know,” the vampire said.
Luke pointed to one of the other vampires. “You. Do you know?”
The vampire shook its head vigorously.
Aiming his rudis at the other one, he asked, “You?”
It shook its head weakly. A growl rose in Luke’s throat as he turned around and stalked across the room. Spinning around, he jabbed his sword to the cluster of vampires. “Run.”
They didn’t move.
“I’m going to let one of you go. And it’s going to be whoever is the fastest. Spread the word. The Wood-Fanged Demon is coming. If you want to live, I want information. Now Run!” Luke's anger, always bubbling under the surface lately, spiked. Jabbing out with his rudis, he quickly drained one of the vampires, the surge of power only serving to stoke his fury.
As the other two vampires were drenched in the sloppy remains of their companion, they shot to their feet, slipping on the sludge that was their friend and clawing at each other to gain some advantage over their competition.
One vampire tumbled backwards, allowing the other to stumble toward the window, often using all four limbs to make forward progress. Not even stopping to kick out the window, the fanger hurled itself headfirst through the window, sending jagged shards flying everywhere.
Stepping toward the window, Luke looked down into the backyard. The vamp twitched on the ground, trying to claw its way toward escape. The headlong fall from the window must have cut important things in its neck as a dark shiny patch spread from its oddly bent neck. The sound of thumping feet flying down the stairs turned into a noisy thud and roll as the other fanger tripped and fell down the rest of the stairs. A moment later, the sliding door thumped in its frame.
Luke pointed his rudis out the window and held the incantation firmly in his mind but didn’t unleash it. As soon as he saw the other fanger approach its mostly dead friend, Luke unleashed the incantation.
The vamp on the ground exploded, drenching the other vamp as it jumped over what was its last companion’s body. It fell to the ground, clawed back up, and sprinted out of sight. Most young vampires just turned to goo and sluiced down to the ground. But every once in a while, a young one would explode. Despite losing a lot of the sludge that ran through its veins, this one made a ridiculously large mess.
Snorting, Luke bent over and grabbed the shirt the vamp he’d drained had worn and wiped down the rudis before putting it away. “We should sweep for any computers then get out of here.”
“OK…” Sam said, nodding shakily, and disappeared with Simone.
Roxi waited until she no longer heard their friends. “How are you doing, dōšagīh?”
He thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know. Angry.” Looking down at his hand, he squeezed them into fists to hide the slight tremble in his fingers. “I’m feeling a bit…over charged.”
She nodded, pursing her lips. “You’ve drained a lot of vamps the last few days. Have you ever done that before?”
He thought about it but had trouble focusing. “I don’t think so. I never take more than I need to heal. Usually, we just stake most everything and go. I never get a chance to glut. Is Sam OK?”
“I think she’s a bit nervous about the shift in your powers. You suddenly have a new tool and have been using it a lot. They’re probably used to one way of doing things with you. Now…”
He furrowed his brow and stared at the floor, the dark pool of vampire goo slowly spreading. “That’s probably true.”
“Luke. We’re ready here,” Sam called from downstairs.
“We better go, in case anyone called the authorities after the little window dive.” Roxi rubbed his back reassuringly, then guided him toward the stairs.
He descended absentmindedly, thinking about Roxi’s words. His new ability to trigger the rudis’s power without direct contact was a powerful tool, but it was too early to know what the side effects might be. Following quietly, he let his friends guide him out the back, around the side of the house, and back to Pablo’s truck.
Focusing on how he felt physically, he ignored the quietness of his friends and the lack of their usual banter. Though that could be explained by the missing loved ones not healed enough to be there. His body buzzed like he’d drank too much coffee. Focusing, except through the lens of his anger, was difficult. But he could feel the vampires more directly than he ever had before when it was just a general sense of nearness and directionality.
“Luke? Luke? Luke!” Sam called.
He shook his head and looked up.
Sam narrowed her eyes as she assessed him. “What do you want to do now? Hit another house? Call it for the evening?”
“Let’s keep working. I doubt we’ll get an answer so easily, but we need to make sure the vampires know about the changing situation and that word gets back to someone willing to betray their master for survival.”
Sam’s eyes flicked to Roxi briefly. She nodded lightly.
“OK. Simone. Start driving. We’ll find another neighborhood to hit next.”
Normally, he might have been annoyed Sam had checked in with Roxi to get confirmation before executing Luke’s plans, but he didn’t have the focus available for it at the moment. When the effects of too many vampires wore off, he’d have to check in with Roxi so they could have a long talk about what was going on with him.
Twenty minutes later, they stopped in another neighborhood. He had no idea which one. He hadn’t paid attention until he called out that he felt some vampires, though he’d felt them the entire trip. But by then, he figured they’d traveled far enough.
He couldn’t tell if it was his new senses picking up the constant sensation of vampires or if there were just that many in Portland. With the size and proximity of the fortress they’d blown up a few days ago, probably both. Once they returned for the evening, he’d talk with Roxi and see what her perceptions were so he could figure out a baseline for himself.
As soon as his feet hit the ground, he focused on the task of hunting. Hunting and killing seemed to be the only thing his body and mind could coordinate on, especially as juiced up as he was. But now that it was time to hunt, he felt like a leashed dog waiting to be unclipped so he could run and sink his fangs into his quarry.
Like the previous house, they found no one who could tell them anything of value, so they let one run free and killed the rest. Eager to get another raid in, he urged the team to move on so they could find another house. It yielded the same results.
