The men answered by drawing close to Fiona, or as close as they could with all the awkward benches in the way. With swords drawn, they formed a protective triangle around her, facing away from her.
What he feared the most had come upon him. His woman was at his back and dozens of death vampires moved forward on swift-running feet through the forest. How could he keep her alive against so many?
They came.
They were so beautiful, dark hair, bluish translucent skin, dark eyes, muscled like gods, fierce, fair of face. Mon Dieu. Even after more than two centuries of battling them, he could still be almost mesmerized by such incredible beauty.
But he knew their beauty served them in exactly that way—for what mortal or ascender, other than trained warriors, could withstand such magnificence? They were designed to enthrall, to trap, to kill the mortal in order to quench their addiction to the powerful effects of dying blood.
He lowered his chin and dropped into a fighting stance.
Three attacked him at once, but his sword flew in swift arcs and at preternatural speed, leaping over the bench in front of him, and before he had even struck steel two pretty-boys were on the ground cut, bleeding, and flying toward death on swift wings.
The third was older and much more skilled with his sword. He matched strike for strike. Jean-Pierre focused his attention on his adversary’s waist and, noting the direction of movement, he countered, struck, and decapitated him.
He did not dare look behind him but he heard Fiona softly within his head. Five to the left.
How calm his woman sounded in the midst of battle.
Five to his left and another three to his right. Merde.
He had never seen so many death vampires in one place before, not even at the Borderlands during the night.
To Fiona, he sent, Make yourself very small, low to the ground, near a bench if possible.
What he had to do next would require skill and much movement. He did not want a blade to touch her accidentally. He folded, materialized behind the ones to his right, and took out three along the hamstring, then resumed his place in front of Fiona.
The remaining two were bewildered by the maneuver, but they gathered their fighting wits and approached. He could not risk leaving Fiona again.
He drew a deep breath, plotted his course, and moved like a whirlwind, spinning and striking with preternatural speed. The other warriors did the same. He brought them all to the ground but none were dead and they would heal.
What he had to do next, he did not have time to issue a warning to Fiona.
He moved from one to the next and took each head in a barbaric series of moves. This he would have protected her from if he could have.
More came. On and on he fought. He caught glimpses of Fiona crouched, keeping herself low to the ground, but moving away from the warriors when needed. She never once uttered a sound. Luken and Zacharius fought as well, in the same manner, with speed, agility, and the training of centuries.
Fiona’s determination shaped itself into a rock. The beauty of the death vampires meant nothing to her, had no power over her, because she knew what they did to arrive at such beauty. After all, her blood had fed them for over a hundred years. The only thing that really surprised her was how much they looked alike—not completely, but there was an overwhelming resemblance. She knew this was true of the monsters, but she’d never seen it before.
Rage boiled in her blood, in her chest, in her lungs until she felt choked with it. She wished for a sword in her hand and the ability to battle as the warriors around her were battling. These creatures deserved death and as each Warrior of the Blood took death vampires to the ground, something primal within her rejoiced, even savored the blood that now poured over the pine needles and into the hard ground beneath.
Her heartbeat pounded in her head, loud, hard thumps. She should have been horrified by what she saw around her, but she knew how these men fought. She had heard tales for months now, and she had listened to the battles of the Militia Warriors over the loudspeaker at HQ.
On her dates with Jean-Pierre she had asked him many questions about what his battles were like. He had been reluctant to speak at first, but in the end her persistence had been rewarded and more and more he had opened up about the thrill of slaying the enemy, because he knew each kill meant that he had saved lives.
So it was that she rejoiced with every death now.
The number of death vampires that came began to diminish. The fighting had extended farther away from her since there were bodies everywhere. She recalled what Jean-Pierre had told her about Central Command, so she made a phone call to Alison who connected her. Central Command served Endelle and the Warriors of the Blood, while HQ served Seriffe and the Thunder God Warriors, as the Militia Warriors were known among the ranks.
“Carla here, Fiona. How may I serve?” How calm she sounded even though no doubt Alison had told her what was going on. Carla worked Central during the day while her counterpart, Jeannie, served the warriors at night. Both women were utterly adored by the Warriors of the Blood.
“We need cleanup. There have to be at least thirty, maybe forty, death vamps on the ground, but some are still half alive so the morgue should have Militia Warriors on standby.” She heard the clicking of fingernails on a keyboard.
“We’ve still got a battle going, right?” Carla asked.
“Yes.” The women at Central were so calm.
“Small bursts. Let the men know. Just say those words so everyone can hear.”
Fiona had never done this before but she called out in a loud voice, “Small bursts.”
Thorne, who had a break in the fighting, echoed her. “Small bursts.”
“Done,” Fiona said into her phone.
The flashes of light were almost blinding, but by report she knew it was nothing compared with the comprehensive cleanup Central was capable of doing.
Bodies disappeared, body parts, severed heads, debris she didn’t want to put a name to, mostly big stuff.
Another wave of death vampires came, almost as heavy as the first. The battle raged.
The circle closed nearer to her again. Thorne and Santiago formed another wall around her. She knelt in the pine needles, her silk skirt a very thin layer of protection against the prickly needles and rough ground.
In intervals, Fiona made her calls to Carla. Small bursts of light kept everyone’s eyesight safe. Debris vanished.
Not until a good fifteen minutes had passed did the last of the death vampires fall. After one last conversation with Carla, all that remained was Fiona surrounded by five warriors. Each of the men bent over, gasping to catch his breath from the sudden harsh exertion. Each pointed his identified sword toward the dirt to protect the others. Sweat streamed and mingled with blood spatter on bare skin.
Fiona rose to her feet.
“Madre de Dios,” Santiago cried. “There must have been over seventy, maybe eighty.”
“Shit,” Luken stated succinctly.
“Lady present,” Thorne said.
“No, please,” Fiona cried. “Don’t hold back on my account. I’ll say it, too. Shit!”
Jean-Pierre met her gaze. “Ça va?”
“I’m fine, really. I am. You … you were all wonderful, really wonderful.” She met each gaze. She wanted them to know she approved, that she wasn’t upset by what she’d seen. “I only wish I could have battled alongside you.”
Zacharius nodded his understanding. “You, above all, would want them dead.”
“Yes,” she cried, her voice splitting resonance. “Oh, yes. All of them. All of them.”
“Did you hear that?” Luken pumped his fist in the air. “She fucking split resonance.”
“Split-resonance,” Jean-Pierre said. “That is power, Fiona. Much power. So, oui, your powers are emerging.”
For some reason, the image that ran through her head was one she had carried with her all her life as a blood slave, one of the face of every woman who had died because she’d been worn out by being drained of her blood and brought back to life month after month, year after year.
Fiona had memorized each face, each name.
Throughout the decades of her captivity, she had often recited those names and promised retaliation if it was ever within her power to destroy those who had taken all those precious lives.
This was what lived in her, a dark storm, the thunder and lightning that possessed her soul. This was why she kept Jean-Pierre at bay: because she didn’t have room for him. But would he ever understand? So long as those faces lived in her mind, so long as she had breath, she would work to eliminate all the death vampires from the face of the earth, any dimension, so help her God.
She blinked and realized that the men were all watching her, each pair of eyes, each face full of concern. She took a breath and dipped her chin. “Thank you” was what came out of her mouth. And she meant it.
“Jesus,” Luken murmured. “Fiona, we’re so sorry you had to see all this, to be afflicted again.”
But heat invaded her heart and she stared at him hard. “I’m grateful they’re dead, Warrior Luken. Every last one of them. I never thought I would be this person, this woman, to be grateful that any creature died. But don’t you see, my blood may have fueled them all for who knows how long.
“Do you know the anguish I feel because of that? Do you know how enraged I am that my blood, through no fault of my own, may have been the cause of the deaths of the innocent? No, do not tell me you were sorry that I witnessed this slaughter, because I’m grateful on so many levels. So, I will say this again, thank you.” She knew she had split her resonance again, and more than one pair of brows rose because of it.
Luken folded a dark towel into his hands, wiped his face and neck down first, then went to work on the blade of his sword.
Thorne cleared his throat after which his rough voice hit the airwaves. “You spoke of a warning. You had a warning this was going to happen. Can you tell me about that?”
She met his gaze. She saw the wary shift of his eyes away from her, in the direction of the Convent building, then back. “One of the sisters called to me telepathically and issued the warning just before the death vamps arrived.” There was more to tell, a lot more, but this was not the time, nor the place, especially given the haunted look in Thorne’s eyes. Since everyone present thought he was celibate, and she knew by Marguerite’s admission that he wasn’t, she had no intention of talking about the woman in front of the other warriors.