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“I
did not expect you here so soon,” the Nosphoros said from somewhere on the ceiling of the enormous cavern as Aleksandar stepped from the corridor. His eyes flickered around, taking in the scene carefully. There was little that might get in the way of their impending fight. The circle of ultraviolet lights was still set up and, Aleksandar noted, plugged in. The large switch that operated the lights sat on the wall of the alcove which held the lamps. Aleksandar noted it. He might need it later.
“Alicia is smarter than I gave her credit for,” the Nosphoros continued, his voice bouncing around the cavern, making it impossible to pinpoint the direction of the source. “And far braver. Tell me, do you mourn her, or have you made peace with the monster you have made yourself?”
Aleksandar scanned the cavern, searching for a flicker of movement that would announce the location of the Nosphoros.
“Of course, the murder of your father should have told you. You were a monster all along.”
Too late, Aleksandar realised the Nosphoros had moved to the wall directly
behind him. He did not see the Nosphoros as it leapt, tackling him to the ground. It was a short battle before Aleksandar threw the Nosphoros back. Seeing movement further down the corridor, revealing the girls led by Meaghan, Aleksandar moved backwards in an effort to lure his foe away from them. It worked. The creature was too focussed on Aleksandar to notice the girls.
Retrieving the hawthorn stake, Aleksandar crouched low. “Before this night is through,” he told the Nosphoros in a low voice, “you will understand just how true that is.”
The Nosphoros smiled before leaping again.
Meaghan stood in the shadows at the edge of the cavern and watched as Aleksandar and the Nosphoros engaged. Their movements were unbelievably fast. Meaghan could not keep track of the blows, or of the swift movements of their feet as they shifted their weight, stepped and danced around each other. She turned back to the girls, all of whom were naked and trembling.
“All right,” she whispered. “In a line. Run to the stairs. Go!”
There was a brief hesitation before the first girl ran. Once she started, the others followed, keeping as close to the cavern wall as possible while the Opyri and Nosphoros battled in the centre.
From the corner of his eye, Aleksandar noted the pale figures of the girls making a break for the stairs. A blow to his knee made him stumble. He lost sight of the girls as he tried to regain his balance, and the Nosphoros noticed them. He hissed, breaking from Aleksandar to get to them. Aleksandar followed, drawing the Nosphoros back into the fight.
“Bastard,” the Nosphoros growled at him.
Aleksandar grinned.
“When you are dead, I will make a point of rounding them up again. They will die in agony because of this.”
“You will be ash long before I am dead,” Aleksandar answered. For all his bravado, Aleksandar was not as certain as he sounded. He could feel the effect of his recent feed fading already, his ageless body having healed from far too many new blows. If this continued, the Nosphoros would wear him down before the girls managed to find their way out of the tunnel. Aleksandar crouched again, noting a small cut on the creature’s forearm that had not yet healed. He smiled.
Perhaps he had a chance after all.
They leapt at one another, engaging once more. Three times the hawthorn stake switched owners. The third time, Aleksandar felt his legs swept from under him and he landed hard on his back. The Nosphoros went down with him, the stake raised high. Before he had a chance to plunge the thing back into Aleksandar’s chest, three shots rang out. The Nosphoros spasmed thrice and fell back under the barrage. Aleksandar turned briefly to look.
Meaghan stood on the platform at the top of the stairs, the gun in her hand, still smoking.
“Run!” Aleksandar snapped at her before diving after the Nosphoros.
Meaghan swallowed, lowered her gun and sprinted into the tunnel.
“Did you hear that?” Lucan whispered to Brody.
Brody turned to him, his eyes wide. “Gunfire.”
“Run.” Lucan was off and running before Brody could react. His mind fell blank as he sprinted after the impossibly fast vampire. He cursed as Brendon overtook him.
Lucan disappeared from sight.
Meaghan nearly crashed into the girl in front of her. They had all stopped in a circular room, gazing wildly around themselves.
“Which way?” one girl asked, her voice thick with tears.
Meaghan shook her head and looked around. Eight tunnels branched off from this small space. The girls turned to her.
“Which way?” another girl asked.
Trying hard to quell a rising panic, Meaghan opened her mouth to answer, when a pale man arrived at the entrance to the third tunnel to the right. Meaghan raised her gun, recognising the dark eyes immediately.
Lucan slid on the dusty stone floor, very nearly toppling over. The sight of the collection of naked and filthy young women had caught him off guard. He blinked at them, noting the heavy breathing and pounding feet of the detective and Brendon behind him.
They both arrived before Lucan could think of something to say.
“Whoa,” Brody said, sliding just as Lucan had done, avoiding hitting Brendon. Brendon slammed hard into Lucan’s back, unable to stop quite so fast.
“Hey,” Brody said, seeing Meaghan with the gun. He raised both his hands. “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.”
“You’re human,” Meaghan said to the man.
“Yes,” the man said. “My name is Detective Stephen Brody. I’m... You’re Meaghan.”
Meaghan blinked. “Yes,” she said slowly.
“You’re alive!”
“Obviously.”
“You’ve been on file as a missing person for quite some time. We’ve been looking for you.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
“The police.”
“What’s he doing here, then?” Meaghan demanded, her gun still trained on Lucan.
“He’s helping us. He’s a friend of Aleksandar’s.”
Very slowly, Meaghan lowered her gun. “Aleksandar’s in trouble.”
“You’ve seen him?” Lucan asked, stepping forward.
Meaghan nodded. “Back that way.” She pointed. “He’s fighting a Nos... something or other.”
“Nosphoros,” Brendon said.
“Yes. That. He helped us escape... I don’t think he’s going to last long.”
Brody nodded. He walked forward. “If you go through the tunnel we just came out of, you’ll find yourself in a disused subway. Take this.” Brody handed her his phone. “Call for help as soon as you get a signal. Here, take my jacket.”
Meaghan took the offered jacket and phone.
“Hurry,” she told Detective Brody. “Please.”
Brody nodded. “You too.”
The two groups split, the women following Meaghan into the tunnel and vanishing from sight.
“She’d have made a good cop,” Brody noted to himself as he followed Lucan into the tunnel Meaghan had indicated.
Lucan moved forward at a jog, forcing Brendon and Brody to do the same.
“I should not have stopped going to the gym,” Brody grumbled between breaths.
They jogged on until the sound of a fight reached their ears. They sped up.
Aleksandar flipped the Nosphoros over his back, feeling the creature’s nails dig deep trenches in his back as he did so. The creature flew, crashing into the tray of implements that had been used on Aleksandar earlier. Knives, syringes and other implements went sprawling.
Not waiting for the Nosphoros to recover, Aleksandar darted forward, pausing only to retrieve the hawthorn stake which he had lost for the eighth time. They were up and fighting again.
“Jesus!” Brody cursed as he tried to aim his gun. The two vampires at the bottom of the cavern were moving too quickly for him to get a clean shot, and the stakes were too high for him to miss and accidentally hit Aleksandar.
Brendon stood beside the detective, his jaw hanging open as he watched Aleksandar and the Nosphoros fight.
Lucan scanned the cavern, searching for a way to help the Prince of House Svetoslav. At the bottom of the stairs, against the wall were five sets of chains, open manacles at the end of each. Seeing an opportunity in those chains, Lucan leapt from the platform with a single command. “Down.”
“Shit,” Brody said, putting away his gun and sprinting down the stairs, Brendon fast on his heels.
By the time he reached Lucan, the Opyri had already torn two chains from the wall and was working on the third.
Aleksandar twirled, ducking low and striking upwards with the stake. He felt it hit and heard the crunch as the stake pierced the lower ribs, striking up at an angle. With a shriek, the Nosphoros stumbled backwards, then collapsed. Aleksandar watched him fall, noticing Lucan, Brendon and Brody at the bottom of the stairs, chains in their hands.
A soft grunt at the other end of the cavern caught Aleksandar’s attention. He turned on his heel and stared as a woman stumbled from the corridor.
Alicia.
She stumbled, bent over double and clinging to the wall, using it to steady herself, before lifting her eyes to examine the scene before her. She saw Aleksandar, bloodied but still standing, and smiled weakly.
“Alicia!” Brody gasped. He dropped his chain and started running for her.
Feeling his heart swell, Aleksandar took a step towards Alicia. A hand flashed out and grabbed his other ankle, lifting it with surprising strength. The cavern spun wildly as Aleksandar flipped over, landing hard on his back.
Everyone had been too distracted to notice the Nosphoros remove the stake from its chest, despite the radiating paralysis caused by the wood. No one noticed the creature reach out and take up a syringe filled with a dark liquid either.
Before anyone could react, Aleksandar was on his back, the Nosphoros pressing its weight on top of him.
Instinct saved Aleksandar the blow from the hawthorn stake. He raised both arms in an ‘X’, the tip of the stake stopping mere millimetres from Aleksandar’s throat. Nothing could have prevented the next strike. The Nosphoros plunged the syringe into the base of Aleksandar’s neck, emptying half the syringe before Brody could pull his gun and fire. Two shots hit the Nosphoros in his shoulder and the side of his head, toppling him and relieving Aleksandar of his weight.
Ripping the syringe from his neck, Aleksandar rolled to his feet.
“My lord!” Lucan said, snatching the chain Brendon was holding and running toward the prince. He tossed one of the chains, which Aleksandar deftly caught. Moving quickly while the Nosphoros fought the disorientation of the after-effects of the hawthorn and being shot in the head, Aleksandar and Lucan clapped the manacles of each of their chains around the wrists of the Nosphoros.
Screeching like a banshee, The Nosphoros struggled hard, lashing out. Lucan and Aleksandar jumped back, out of striking range.
With a hard kick, Aleksandar sent the Nosphoros sprawling. It staggered into the circle of ultraviolet lamps.
“Brendon!” Lucan called as he sprinted across the circle of lamps to the other side, still clutching his chain. “The switch! Flip the switch!”
The Nosphoros, made mindless by the hunger and pain, launched itself towards Aleksandar. Lucan yanked back on his chain, dragging the creature back with a sharp jerk. It spun, saw Lucan and leapt forward, only to be yanked back by Aleksandar.
Brendon sprinted for the massive light switch he saw near the lamps while the demonic creature in the centre of the circle leapt at various targets, only to be jerked back to the middle.
Not stopping to ensure this was the correct switch, Brendon grabbed the handle and pushed up. It clicked into place with a loud, echoing thunk. Brendon heard the sizzle of exposed electricity and then the world became suddenly bright.
The desperate lunging of the Nosphoros increased as it now abandoned its desire for blood and sought to hide from the synthetic sunlight that ate at its skin. Aleksandar strained at the chain, keeping the creature as much in the centre of light as possible. The puncture wound at his neck throbbed and itched, the sensation spreading over his shoulder and through his chest. Aleksandar fought through it, gritting his teeth against the pain and concentrating on the task at hand.
Smoke filled Aleksandar’s nostrils, bringing the stench of burning flesh. The Nosphoros gave a desperate wail moments before it burst into flame. Thrashing wildly, it sank to its knees. It thrashed there a moment, wailing and shrieking, before falling forward.
Aleksandar dropped the chain, his strength spent, and spun away from the light. He stumbled forward a few steps, the room spinning wildly in his vision, before his legs buckled. He fell onto his hands and knees hard, the jolt sending a sharp pain through his entire body.
He coughed, feeling his lungs fighting against something thick filling them. He coughed again, and spat up black blood.