Lissa? What the hell are you doing here, Lissa? What the hell are you, Lissa? His silent words were coming in loud and clear as he stared at me with those beautiful, gray-blue eyes.
Tony, there are eighteen vampires, twenty-eight werewolves and one human on the other side of this building, I replied, blinking at him as earnestly as I could. He flipped out some sort of communication device and sent something like a text message, I guess. All the other guys crawling in front of us whipped out their little communicators and got the message. Holy crap.
Lissa, you were supposed to stay at the hotel, Tony was grumbling inside my head.
And I would have stayed there if it hadn't been for the visit from Mr. Vampy and his three bitches, I returned snippily. We were still crawling along.
We need to get inside that door over there, Tony nodded toward a side door in the building—we'd gotten to the top of the ravine while having our mental conversation. It's locked, though, Tony went on, and it'll make noise if we knock it down. It would make noise, all right—the thing was made of steel.
I'll get it, I said and turned to mist right in front of his face. He looked quite shocked when I disappeared and flew over the heads of his advancing army to the space beneath the door. I unlocked all three deadbolts, and hoping the door didn't creak when I opened it, cautiously cracked it open. It only creaked a little so I opened it as wide as it would go, finding a concrete block sitting next to the wall. Somebody had obviously used the cinderblock for that purpose before so I grabbed it to prop the door open. The army was nearly at the door, still crawling along. I ducked inside so they couldn't see and turned back to mist.
The minute the first of Tony's troops slipped through the side door, the rogue vampire/werewolf army crashed through the front. Chaos wasn't the term. Chaos to the tenth power might come close. People were screaming, growling, hissing and fighting. I was still mist and having trouble sorting out who were the good guys and who were the bad guys for a bit until I finally relied on my nose. The bad vamps were my first targets, but I was shocked to see Radomir, Russell, Robert and Flavio, all fighting alongside Merrill. Dalroy, Rhett, and a couple of other vampires I didn't recognize were also fighting. I knew they were good, plus they didn't have the taint like Mr. Vampy did. Weldon, Winkler and Glen were all fighting too, while Tony's troops were doing their best to shoot the bad wolves. Some of them were already inside the building during the confirmation, I think. They'd just waited for their cronies outside to come crashing in before attacking.
Claws were formed on my hands that materialized out of thin air, taking the head from Mr. Vampy, first thing. He was the one I wanted to die first, so I tracked him down. Then came Tate's mother, Kevin's mother and the female werewolf that had been with them. They were quite surprised; there was definitely shock in their eyes when they saw claws form from nothing and take their heads. Swift. Clean. Too bad I didn't have time to question them, but they threatened too many others.
Winkler was fighting beside Glen and he was shouting at Glen to go back and protect Kellee who was cowering in a corner. Glen didn't want to stop fighting but he did as he was told and went back to Kellee. I followed to see what I could do in that area, swiping off a couple of vamp heads while I was at it. The shrieking started when some of the bad vamps and werewolves pulled out crossbows loaded with wooden arrows and started shooting. There were six bad vamps left but I wasn't sure how many rogue werewolves remained. Most had turned to werewolf, but those from the inside were still in human form. Tony's men were having quite a bit of success in that area, at least. And Merrill? Wherever he was, it was like a tornado had been loosed in the place—he and Flavio both. Those older vamps had some moves, let me tell you.
Right about that time, I noticed we had a mister with us. The Council must have sent one of them; he was off to the side, rematerializing slowly so he could help out I'm sure. In slow motion, almost, I saw two of the remaining bad vamps take aim with crossbows loaded with wooden arrows—one at the mister, the other at Glen. I was between both of them at the moment and time stood still for me right then. I could save one but not the other. Glen was too far away to do anything other than stand in front of Kellee, who was whimpering and cowering behind his back. The mister was solid enough to take a hit but not completely solidified. I had a choice to make and I prayed it was the right one; an arrow in Glen's torso might not have as devastating an effect as one to the mister. Both bolts were shot at nearly the same moment so I streamed toward the mister, my hands materializing out of thin air as I knocked the wooden shaft away. It had been aimed right at the center of the vampire's chest and would have killed him I think, if I hadn't deflected it. The one aimed at Glen? If I had known, my choice might have been different, I think. What do you do in that small moment? When time stands still and you find yourself transfixed while the train wreck happens before your eyes and you're helpless to do anything other than cry out? That image plays in your mind at times, for the rest of your life. Glen took the arrow in his left eye and he was dead before he hit the floor.
That infuriated me past anything I had ever felt as a vampire. The mister was shocked, I'm sure, when I materialized fully in front of him in less than two seconds, wading into the fray and slashing heads off anything unfriendly. I had the scent of Saxom's get in my nose that night, and anything that smelled like that died. They couldn't move fast enough. I'm sure I was shouting something as I killed, I just didn't know what it was. The rogue werewolves? Same thing. If I knew they were bad, they died. When I finally ran out of something to kill, I think I knocked out the front of the building. It blasted out in front of me, I know that much, and I was still enraged. I stood on the empty sidewalk in front of Galloway Recycling, screaming my lungs out in fury. The owners might have some recycling of their own to do if I took down the entire building. After my lengthy scream ended, I paused a moment just to catch my breath. That's when Merrill and Flavio came to stand nearby, one on either side of me.
"That was impressive," Flavio observed calmly. "But you disobeyed your sire. There will be consequences." As first words spoken after a battle go, those sucked.
"Lovely," I said, turning swiftly to go back inside the building, both vampires following behind. Merrill still hadn't said anything to me. Quite possibly, he was seething or something and didn't trust himself to say something until he had his temper under control. How did I know? Winkler was already kneeling beside Glen and I went to join him. I wanted to hurl curses at Kellee, who was weeping fake tears against the far wall, but neither her tears nor my anger would bring Glen back. And he and I had just started liking each other, teasing each other and having actual conversations.