Luke Irontree & the Last Vampire War (Books 8-10), page 76
Recovering quickly, the wolf slammed its body against the door, digging in to keep the vamps from shutting it. A second wolf slammed into the door, leaning against it and stopping it from advancing toward the frame. A split second later, the fast bipedal wolf—it looked like Simone at this distance in the dark—smashed into the door, shoving it backwards. She hit it so hard, it flew open, scattering the vampires as she tumbled to the ground.
The two wolves leapt into the room and over Simone, snarling and snapping to protect Simone and drive back the vampire. Another pair of wolves pounced on the vampire that had jumped out the window, tearing it to shreds. A moment later, one of the bipedals slammed a stake into its chest to end it permanently.
Since the entrance was breached, Luke slowed enough to feed a shell into his shotgun and top it off as he aimed for the door. The three wolves—Simone had quickly recovered and sprang up—wreaked havoc with any vampire that tried to challenge their right to the entryway. They didn’t advance, holding the space as their allies approached.
Luke’s werewolves boiled into the house, advancing past Simone and the other two werewolves. Staying in place, they protected the entrance while catching their breaths.
Luke hoped the teams on the back and side entrances were having similarly good luck. If everyone did their assigned jobs, the teams roving in the woods would have a boring night. But if any fangers slipped through, they’d be there to make sure no one would escape. They’d assigned the volunteers drifting into town to the woods teams to work with his more experienced and reliable wolves. It promised to be the best option to test their enthusiastic allies.
Dodging the wolves in the doorway, he tucked out of the way and let the other wolves move into the house while he took a breather. That lawn was a longer dash than he’d wanted. Yet another reason to dislike lawns, though it had made for decently easy running.
The werewolves worked their way through the first floor, tearing apart any vampire or werewolf henchperson that dared resist them. One team took up their station at the stairs leading up to the next floor. Luke had wanted to ensure the first floor was cleared before splitting their forces. In a house this size, there would likely be a basement too, so his people had been advised to find the stairs down as quickly as possible. The basement would be the strongest place for the vampires to hide and defend.
Delilah, stopping and wiping a hand across her sweaty brow, bent over for a second to stretch. “Damn. Being on the injured reserve was not good for my conditioning.” She stood up, stretching, but hissed as she grabbed her side. “Still a bit tight around the scar,” she said by way of explanation.
“We find our target?” Luke had briefed everyone on their target, though he’d had to rely on ancient depictions since there wasn’t any modern photographic evidence to his appearance.
“Not yet. We’ve only found a few older ones to dust. Most of the hired help is freshly whelped and messy. Anyway, I think we’ve found the stairs down. I’ve got a team checking the last couple rooms on this floor.”
Luke wiped a drop of sweat from his eyebrow. “Good. Did the teams at the other doors get in?”
Delilah twisted gently, stretching her torso. “Not that I saw. I’ll go let them in. Do we hit the second floor first or split and go up and down?”
Footsteps thundered on the stairs from the next floor up, and Pieter poked his head over the railing. “Luke, we got a problem here!”
“I guess that solves that problem. Finish securing the first floor and send me some backup. Looks like I’m headed upstairs.” He took off, jogging to where Pieter stood by the wall next to the stairs.
A shot barked out, and Luke dove to the side out of habit. Rolling back to his feet, he ran out of view of the stairwell, making for Pieter. “How many?”
“I saw at least three as they moved by the top landing, but it was hard to tell. They were moving fast and looked armed.”
Nodding, Luke handed Pieter his shotgun and pulled around the AK-47 he liked to carry for situations like this. Though they had massive supplies of silver thanks to their bloody battle at the vampire fort in southeastern Oregon, he didn’t want to waste it firing blindly. Plus, he could only carry so many shells and they had no idea what waited them below.
Racking a round, he reached up to make sure his helmet was secure. “Gather the teams. I’m leading the way.”
Before anyone could protest, he stepped into the open. A shot splashed into the wall next to him, spraying splinters and drywall dust. “I’m coming up. Drop your weapons and live. You’ve got one chance. Anyone armed and fighting dies.”
He punctuated his statement by firing a short burst upstairs. A blur dove out of the way. Mounting the first step, he fired another burst. With each step he took, he fired another few rounds. Someone braver than his friends leaned into the stairwell and fired. Ducking his head, Luke grunted as buckshot hit his chest, knocking him back a step.
A low growl rumbled in his throat. Aiming up, he held the trigger and sprayed left to right and back until the AK clicked empty. With a quick, practiced motion, he grabbed the magazine, flipping it, and rocked the magazine taped to the other side into the magwell.
Instead of the slow advance, he fired off a few rounds, then sprinted to the top, yelling as he went. As soon as he hit the top step, he leapt forward, tucked the gun into his stomach as he landed and rolled, and came out behind the vampires who’d been firing at him from the top of the stairs. From his knees, he took aim and put three bursts into three of the vamps before they could get out of their crouched positions. The fourth leveled an AR-15 at Luke as he swung his barrel around to take out the last vamp.
The vamp sneered at Luke, a gleam of hatred in its eyes. Luke dove to his left as the first shot rang out. A second never sounded. A werewolf tackled the shooter and yanked the gun from its grasp, smashing it in the face with the butt of the gun.
As the vamp lay stunned, the werewolf grabbed a stake from its bandolier of stakes and ended the vampire. Storming noisily up the stairs, a platoon of werewolves joined Luke and the first wolf. Half of them dashed past Luke to set up a defensive position while the other half staked the other three fangers. Picking himself off the ground, Luke took a second to survey the situation. They had a long hallway and what looked like another set of stairs leading up at the other end of the hall.
Luke walked to the top of the stairs and called down, “Send up the next platoon.”
Behind him, doors crashed open as pissed-off werewolves didn’t even bother trying the doorknobs, instead kicking them open. If any doors remained on their hinges after they were done, he’d be surprised. He didn’t blame them.
The pack was still upset about the number of injuries and deaths sustained in their recent assault and the beheadings. His werewolf family was very interested in extracting payback, even it was just a door owned by a vampire.
Luke, spotting Pieter overseeing his platoon cleaning out the hallway, walked up to him, grabbing his shoulders. “Call if you need backup. I’m going to go see what’s up with the basement.”
Pieter nodded crisply. “Right. Good luck.”
A few shots rang out down the hall. No one seemed bothered by the shots, so he guessed they’d used the pack link for the “all-clear” to indicate it wasn’t one of their people who’d been shot.
Once he descended to the ground floor, he found Delilah and Simone with their teams, watching the closed door that supposedly lead downstairs. “Any news?”
“No. All quiet,” Delilah said. Simone growled low in her throat, and Delilah nodded. “Too quiet.”
Luke raised an eyebrow as he looked at his friend. “Do you understand her wolf communication?”
“Well enough,” Delilah replied, smiling at her girlfriend.
He was happy they’d found each other and had such a solid relationship. They both deserved each other.
“I can understand that. Have you opened the door?” he asked.
“No. Didn’t want to alert them that we might be curious about what was hidden behind it.” She shrugged. “Also didn’t want to catch a bullet between the teeth.”
He snorted and lowered his voice, “Stand back and clear out some space behind me. I’m going to take a look.”
He wished he had Roxi by his side. She was an absolute terror in situations like this, and between the two of them, he felt like he could take on the whole world with her. But they’d decided leading the teams hunting the forest for any vamps trying to escape or infiltrate their lines would be the best use of her stealth skills, especially with a bow and arrows if she needed to take down someone silently. She’d also asked Tutyr to join her. In his dog form, he’d be particularly useful in the dark.
“On my mark, give me five seconds then follow me down, but watch out for me,” he said.
“Got it.” Delilah looked around at the werewolves hanging around. “You heard the man.”
Simone chuffed.
Chuckling, Delilah smirked. “Right, follow Luke into danger as he does something bonkers.”
He suspected their level of communication wasn’t that sophisticated, but Delilah was using it to get a second whack at making fun of him in her friendly manner. Though she wasn’t always the most jocular of people, he appreciated her stepping up to pick up a little of the slack with Pablo still in the hospital.
Tapping the door frame lightly, he decided to use the AK-47 again and pulled the partial magazine, replacing it with another taped together double magazine. Pulling back the charging lever, he pointed it toward the door as he reached toward the doorknob.
With a quick inhalation, he pulled it open briskly and let go. Someone must have caught it since it didn’t bounce into the wall. Forcing his mind back onto his task, he opened fire, firing blindly down the stairs toward the bottom.
“Mark,” he said loudly to be overheard over his firing. “Here goes…”
Chapter
Fifteen
Thundering down the stairs, he kept up his steady fire, spraying short bursts at different angles to make sure no one had a safe spot to fire back from. A high-pitched shot answered, and he grunted as it ricocheted off his shoulder, cutting a gash in his hoodie.
When his gun clicked empty, he quickly flipped the magazine and kept firing. A few more shots missed him. Once he hit the bottom, he found a spot to tuck into, maintaining his periodic bursts of fire. Soon, his team would be coming down and he needed to keep the way clear. Once the other magazine came up empty, he just dropped the AK. Someone coming behind would pick it up and return it to him. Stowing it was time he didn’t have.
He yanked around the Winchester M12 and opened fire. The tight confines of the hallway were perfect for the short trench gun and would allow him to show the vamps why the Germans of World War One feared the weapons so much. Silver would almost assuredly find a new home in such conditions.
A flash of movement twenty feet in front of him drew his eye, so he fired. Someone screamed in agony a split second later. A vamp rolled on the ground, more preoccupied by the silver burning inside its body than staying hidden in its nook.
Hurtling from its hiding spot, a vampire probably hoping Luke was sidetracked by its downed comrade broke from cover, dashing down the hallway.
Luke fired. The fanger exploded into dust. As he jogged down the hall toward the first vampire he’d shot, he kicked out, catching the fanger in the teeth as he passed. Someone else could finish it off. Keeping his finger on the trigger guard and the barrel pointed down the hall, he grabbed two shells from his ammo bandolier and reached across the gun to feed them into the magazine.
A whimper ahead drew his attention as he advanced. Swinging the barrel of his gun toward the sound, a fanger curled up in the nook of a doorway. Its hands shot into the air, surrendering.
“Please don’t kill me. I have information,” the vampire begged.
Luke nodded, keeping his barrel leveled at the vampire as he glanced ahead to watch for any danger.
“We got him,” Delilah said quietly. “Let’s go, fanger. Move real slow, and you won’t have any problems.”
Now that the vamp was taken care of, Luke pushed it to the back of his mind and resumed his march down the hallway. Once he found a turn in the hallway, he stopped and fed some more shells into his Winchester.
A faint scrape of leather on concrete drew his attention. Delilah’s shoes had rubber soles, and the werewolves had wolfy paws. He raised his fist into the air, halting all activity behind him. A quick glance over his shoulder told him the vampire was no longer in the hallway. Luke didn’t want the vamp to remember its loyalty to its fanged siblings at the wrong time.
“I heard gunfire near the stairs,” someone whispered ahead. A moment later, something thudded to the ground.
Letting his mind tune into his vampy sense—he actually could this far outside of Portland in the rural lands near the Coast Range. Since the battle at the fort, he’d been able to pick up the proximity of vampires in a more refined way that nearly allowed him to gauge their distance with relative accuracy.
He stayed hidden, back against the wall before the turn, and waited. With one hand still on his gun, he held up the other and signaled six vampires coming. Behind him, a quiet growl broke the silence. He whipped his head around and glared down the hall. The growling stopped immediately. Sure that Simone was already on it, he’d have to check in with her to make sure the team was reminded not to break discipline.
The approaching vampires stopped. They must have heard the growl. One of the vampires reversed course rapidly.
“Shit,” he thought.
The vamps weren’t as close as he wanted them—he wanted them in meat grinder range—but they were within range. Pivoting into the other section of hallway, he didn’t wait to acquire a target. He just fired, then pumped another shell into the firing chamber and squeezed the trigger again.
By the time the second shot echoed down the hall, he spotted his mistake. Just because they were close didn’t mean they were straight ahead. The tunnel took another zag, returning to its original direction.
He beckoned his team after him and sprinted forward, hoping they were keeping up. Sliding around the corner, he took a quick aim and fired down the hall as he slammed into the wall to stop himself. He fired once more but hit nothing.
A vampire broke from cover and sprinted away from Luke, but not fast enough. Its remains splatted onto the ground, creating a slick. Another vampire thudded into the hall as if thrown, landing against the wall, and fell to the ground in a heap. It sprang to its feet, but Luke drew a bead and fired.
But while he’d focused on the free vampire, three fangers dashed down the hallway. Luke opened fire, taking out the one in the back as it puffed into dust. As he dashed past, he cast a quick glance in the nook they’d been hiding in. A vampire with its throat cut lay on the ground. That must have been the thump from earlier. Thus was its punishment for speaking and breaking their cover. The injury wouldn’t kill it, but it would incapacitate it, leaving it to be killed or captured by the vampire hunters.
Before he could fire again, they turned down another hallway.
“Get the master out of here!” one of the remaining vampires shouted.
That’s exactly what Luke wanted to hear. He sprinted down the hall as fast as he could, only slowing to take the corner. There were only occasional offset doorways he’d passed so far. He’d left them for his team to break into and clear out. He doubted there was much of immediate interest in them, though they’d sweep them for any valuables and technology. He wanted to find something that actually looked like a safe-room or strong room. So far, it just looked like a shitty basement apartment building.
Around the next corner, he caught a glimpse of black hair flying out behind the fleeing vampire and fired. The vamp took another turn, the silver buckshot peppering the wall where it had been standing a moment before.
“Dammit,” Luke bit out.
He didn’t slow down. Though he had supernatural foot speed compared to a human, an old vampire could outrun him. An empty shell flew out of the ejection port as he pumped the shotgun, but it was his last shell. He couldn’t stop and reload or even slow to do it on the fly if he wanted to keep close enough to the vamps to find out who the “master” was. He hoped it was indeed their intended target but only keeping up would let him find out.
Taking another corner, he skidded to a halt. A vampire stood facing him down at the other end of the corridor. The vamp held a semi-automatic pistol in one hand and a short, curved sword in the other.
Luke blinked hard, his jaw opening slightly. The face. The beard. The long black hair. It had been a thousand years since he’d seen that face, directing a band of vampires that had cut down the party of vampire hunters he’d joined in Samarkand.
“Come to meet your death, hunter?” the vampire said through a thick accent that spoke of its origins in Central Asia.
A sneer-like grin spread across Luke’s face. “No. Just to extract one I missed a long time ago.” Reaching up, Luke tugged down the zipper on his hoodie, revealing the lorica segmentata. “Do you recognize this armor? The last time you saw me wearing it was in the mountains south of Tuva and Mongolia.”
The vampire barked a humorless laugh. “Small world. So, you’re he? The one called the wood-fanged demon?”
Luke nodded once. “You can put down the gun—it won’t penetrate the armor—and you and I can handle this like civilized beings. Sword to sword.”
“Maybe it won’t, but you’ve got a face I’d love to put a bullet in.” The vampire raised his aim.
Luke charged forward, lowering his head to present the top of his helmet and the wide, plunging neck guard. The vampire fired, and Luke grunted as the bullet hit him in the chest. Staggering, Luke regained his balance and kept running.
The second shot slammed into the neck guard, forcing Luke’s head up and exposing his face. Desperate for a quick distraction, Luke hurled his empty shotgun at the vampire’s gun hand. The third shot went wide, plowing into the wall.
