Chapter 13

Leisha stopped and turned to face the fellow vampire, Samantha staying close to her side. “There’s an emergency I must attend to,” Leisha said. “No offense was meant toward you or Victor.”

Ellery slowly walked toward them, her red evening gown swishing at her ankles. “If it was as innocent as that, my dear friend, you wouldn’t be trying to sneak away.” Her eyes narrowed. “And I have my powers back again. So I know how nervous you two are.” She placed a hand on Leisha’s cheek and looked into her eyes. “In all the years I’ve known you, I have never sensed such fear in you.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Samantha said.

Ellery turned her attention to her. “Ah, little beauty. I’m glad to see you survived the night. Congratulations on becoming a human servant.” Removing her hand from Leisha, she reached over and stroked the girl’s hair. “Too bad you couldn’t have been mine. I daresay I would have made the transition very enjoyable indeed.” Ellery angled her head slightly. “Finally. My summons have been answered.”

Leisha looked behind Ellery to see Annette and Victor striding toward them, a large group of vampires trailing behind. Leisha wished she had brought every weapon she owned. Unfortunately, all she had was a dagger strapped to her calf. Samantha didn’t have anything, let alone the strength to fight.

“Leisha,” Victor said. “Annette tells me you were trying to flee.”

Eyebrows drawing together, Leisha met Nikita’s gaze in the crowd. Very subtly, he shook his head. Ellery must have sensed Leisha’s confusion, because she answered Leisha’s unspoken question. “This morning, we discovered that Annette and I are able to communicate with each other telepathically. As a fellow telepath, you probably could too, if you were willing to let her into that complex little brain of yours.”

“I think a resounding no would be answer enough,” Leisha said. She looked at Victor and tried for ignorance. “What’s the problem, Victor? Everything has gone back to normal now. And ordinarily, I’m doing my own thing, so I thought I’d go back to my life.”

He gave a cold smile. “I believe we already had a conversation about your privileges changing to better serve me.”

Leisha straightened and took a breath, preparing herself for the unavoidable altercation. “I’m finished being ruled, Victor. I’ll not yield to anyone anymore.”

A flush rose to his cheeks. “You’ve made your choice then. I hope you understand: your fate will be much worse than Leighanna’s.”

Leisha pulled Samantha behind her and went into a fighting stance. At Victor’s nod, six vampires slowly began to approach.

“Wait a minute,” called Ellery.

Everyone stopped and turned their attention to her. Leisha wondered if Ellery might actually try to save her.

The empath’s eyes sparkled in the crystal lighting. “I think you’ve missed a crucial detail here.”

“What would that be?” snapped Annette.

Looking at everyone in the room, Ellery raised her voice. “Focus carefully, all of you. Direct your attention on our Leisha here, and simply listen.”

It was a mere second before vampires started murmuring. Annette appeared thrilled. “It’s unheard of for a vampire to get pregnant. Even if one of us got pregnant while human, there is no way a fetus would have survived the transformation back. This has to be the child who has been prophesied.” She brought her hands together. “After all this time searching for him, and Leisha walks right into our lair with the babe nestled in her belly.”

A vampire standing on her left glanced between Annette and Leisha. He was tall and handsome with a thick head of black hair. His eyes gave off a shrewd intelligence. “We don’t know that this is the prophecy child. What if we kill it and then the true child is born later and destroys us while we sit in ignorance.” Victor stared at the man, his eyes slightly squinted in thought. “We can always kill them and continue our search to be certain. No one can ever accuse me of not being thorough.” Victor gestured to the six men who had halted. “I don’t care about the servant, but don’t kill Leisha. I want to know where that babe came from before I snuff out her existence.”

There was a buzz of people muttering to each other as they stood by and watched.

Leisha pulled out her dagger as they approached. “If you see an opportunity to run,” she whispered as quietly as she could to Samantha, “take it.”

Leisha rushed forward and met the oncoming vampires halfway. A vampire with spiky hair came at her in a full frontal attack. She dropped down to avoid his sidekick and swept her leg through his standing one, making him fall. She quickly plunged the dagger into his heart, twisted, and yanked back. It wouldn’t kill him, but he’d be down for a while.

Before she could stand, something grasped her hair and pulled her back flat on the ground. His mistake was when he proudly stood over her, both feet on either side of her waist. Arms reaching down, it looked like he was about to strangle her. She swung her weapon and castrated him, blood pouring over her. Spinning and quickly rising to her feet, Leisha faced her next assailant.

The vampire in front of her was named Carl. He smiled ruthlessly as two other vampires grabbed her from behind. She waited until Carl was close enough, then used the bodies holding her as leverage to jump and wrap her ankles around Carl’s neck. His arms flailed as she squeezed tightly, but it was too late. She released the head and landed just as his neck made a sickly snap. She threw the vamp on her right over her back so he landed on the floor. Before he could recover, she stomped on his windpipe, snapping his neck as well.

There wasn’t enough time to duck, so when the other vampire punched her in the eye, so she rolled with the force of it, flipping over backwards and jumping into the air. As she landed in front of her attacker, Leisha jabbed her weapon into his heart and twisted.

Turning, she smiled at the other challenger and beckoned him. The last vampire paused and looked to Victor for guidance. Leisha used that opportunity to rush back to Samantha, who looked like she didn’t know what to do. Leisha grabbed her arm and propelled her forward. “Run! I’ll find you.”

Samantha ran out the sliding glass doors. Leisha turned just in time to defend herself from yet another group of vampires.

This time there were seven of them. They came at her two or three at a time. Leisha fought off the first wave, but the second attack was more organized. The vampires landed several blows to her jaw and eyes.

Allowing anger to fuel her, Leisha growled and reached out on either side of her. She poked her fingers through the vampires’ eyes to buy her time. When she regained her equilibrium, Leisha saw six more vampires rushing toward the fight.

Three came at her directly while the others surrounded her from behind. Leisha brought her blade up and deflected the three in front of her while trying to use her other arm to punch behind her back. One of the vampires caught her free hand as she swung back and the other two behind her used that opportunity to grab her around the waist and neck. Her throat was bruising quickly under the pressure and she instinctively dropped her sword and clawed and the arm around her neck. She began to panic, her movements becoming wild and desperate.

Leisha could feel capillaries bursting in her eyes as more hands grasped her legs and forced her on the floor. Darkness threatened her vision and Leisha felt tears of defeat leaking out the corners of her eyes.

Suddenly, the bruising grips were ripped away and three vampires cried out in surprise as they were thrown into the watching crowd. Sputtering, Leisha was surprised to see Nikita there, fighting off the incoming vampires. He used a machete to decapitate anyone who came near him. Moving with grace, every motion of his arms brought a fresh spray of blood from his attackers.

The assassin made eye contact with her and nodded. She smiled at him and jumped up while fingering her dagger to return to the battle. After a few minutes, Nikita spoke to her. “We need to get out of here. There’re too many.”

Leisha nodded and looked around as she blocked one vampire with her arm while aiming a roundhouse kick at another’s head. Parrying another onslaught, she saw her opportunity. “Be ready!” she called to him.

She beat off the two vampires attacking her and before anyone else could challenge her, she turned toward Victor. He was standing on the counter of the front desk a hundred yards away to have a good vantage point, she assumed. He saw her look over and saluted her, trying to contain a smug grin.

Leisha copied his gesture with her left hand while she threw her dagger with her right. The blade flew swiftly, and Victor, caught off guard by such an aggressive move, didn’t move fast enough. The dagger sunk into his chest with a meaty thunk. Surprise flickered across Victor’s face as blood was blossomed outward from where the dagger struck — right into his heart.

The vampires in the room paused, their shock and disbelief evident.

Leisha used the diversion to make escape. She didn’t have to look for Nikita; she knew he’d be right behind her. They were out the doors and down the street in no time. Following Samantha’s scent, they caught up with her in moments. They didn’t bother to slow down. Approaching from behind, Nikita scooped the girl up into his arms and kept racing by Leisha’s side.

Samantha gasped when he picked her up, but calmed when she saw it was him. The girl closed her eyes tight and put her face into Nikita’s neck. Leisha knew from experience that being carried at such speed made Samantha phenomenally motion sick.

Nikita was turning toward the airport, but Leisha stopped him and pointed toward the border. “We travel on foot until we reach France.”

Shrugging, Nikita maneuvered Samantha to his back. Leisha ran to a tall building and climbed up the bricks, using her left foot as much as possible since her right leg was still healing. Her hands ached from the altercation with the vampires, but she still managed to ascend, with Nikita right behind her. Facing the direction Leisha indicated, they ran as fast as they could. Just before plummeting off the edge of the twenty-story building, they jumped. Wind blasted the vampire’s cheeks and hair as they hurtled high. Exhilaration crashed over Leisha like a tidal wave, sending tingling sensations up and down her spine, arms, and legs; she could hear Samantha whimper at Nikita’s back, but didn’t allow it to ruin the moment. Leisha couldn’t help but savor the feeling absolute freedom when she propelled herself toward the clouds.

They landed hard on another rooftop. Leisha’s knees buckled, but she recovered herself almost instantly. They continued on, leaping from building to building, working their way toward the edge of the city.

“We’ll have to drink more frequently if we continue to exert this kind of energy.” Nikita said after another long jump. “Though they might track us that way.”

“No, they won’t.” Leisha wiped bloody sweat from her brow. Clear of the city, they dropped to the ground made a dash for a small forest. “I’ll pick out our victims. They’ll be the kind of thugs who don’t get reported missing. Trust me.”