Breed: Slayer Read online

  Suspicion will fall on him. Others with similar gifts will inevitably learn he knew Howard was alive, and didn’t report my indiscretion, or take matters into his own hands. His life will be forfeit.

  “You could kill me now, of course,” Dillon pushes off the wall he’s been leaning on. It’s the only sign he’s feeling any insecurity; the slight adjustment needed to prepare to fight should his reasoning fail. “Or, we could all go and stop Sam killing your mother?”

  “Libby!” Howard and I cry in unison, and leap through the window, across the prison rooftops, back across the wall, and toward home without a backward glance.

  Consequences

  “THERE WILL BE consequences, you know,” Howard says between breaths as we crash from one rooftop to another, keeping pace in our shared desire to protect our family.

  “Really? You think? What? You mean like, I’m grounded?”

  The grim humour has returned now, part of the mental preparation I need for whatever lies ahead.

  “Maxi,” he slows so we can share a moment on the journey, obviously wanting to impart a sense of finality to this decision, like it was ever a real decision anyway, or there was some other choice, “if you do this, you break covenant with The Breed. Forever. If you let me finish this alone, you can still come away clean, you and Dillon. I can take this Sam out, and Nell, and you can say I got away from you. You can still have that life, Maxi.”

  I throw my head back and laugh. Not my habitual harsh bark of sarcasm, but a genuine guffaw of amusement. My shoulders are shaking and tears form in my eyes, then spill out and run down my cheeks. Dillon throws a bemused look back over his shoulder, but shrugs the typical hunter shrug, and picks up his pace; no doubt intending to scout out the area before we reach home. Not that Howard or I need any briefing this time. We know the lay of the land very well.

  “What?” Howard says as I wipe the tears from my eyes and level my gaze back at him, a smile on my face for the first time tonight. He looks so earnest; it almost sets me off again.

  “Howard, really, you think?”

  I still can’t keep a straight face as I remind him of the one slight flaw in his otherwise wonderfully insane plan. I’m ignoring the part where he thinks he could take out three slayers in one night single-handed, keep Libby alive, fake his own death for the third time, and then disappear without a trace.

  “What am I going to say, I didn’t know you survived our first encounter? I mean, come on Howard, we live in the same house!”

  We both laugh now, a moment of shared glee tinged with hysteria. Neither of us wants to turn our attention to the task in hand just yet. Howard’s face turns serious.

  “I am sorry, Maxi. I should have stayed away.”

  “Yeah.”

  I want to say more. Like, ‘well, duh, of course you should, you bloody stupid idiot, now look at the mess we’re in. It’s a miracle you’re alive now, and it’ll be an even bigger one if both you and Libby still are at the end of the night.’ Or maybe, ‘so why didn’t you then?’ I don’t, though, because beneath my anger at Howard for his mistake is the nagging guilt.

  If I hadn’t gone in there after him, they would never have found him. Tomorrow they would have been gone, and he would have been safe. Did my desire to get away from The Breed subconsciously influence my behaviour? Did I, on some level, want to bring things to a head? I can’t say for sure, but I can’t deny that, mixed in with all the other emotions, is an element of relief that part of my life is over now.

  “Me too.”

  As the silence descends between us, broken only by the occasional scrape of feet or claws on roof tiles, chimneys, and TV aerials, our thoughts turn toward home and the vulnerable heart of our odd little family.

  “Libby...” he wants to reassure me, but his voice sounds strangled.

  “He won’t have killed her, don’t worry.”

  I’m not as sure as I sound, but I don’t think Sam will be interested in killing a mere human without an audience. Once Nell arrives with the bad news, I reckon he’ll want to keep her alive, as bait and leverage against us.

  WE PLOP DOWN beside Dillon, who is waiting in the bushes at the back of the house. It’s still in complete darkness, except for the intermittent ghostly glow of the TV flickering in the den window. He pushes his chin up towards the garage.

  “They’re in there,” he whispers, though I’m sure both Sam and Nell will be able to sense Howard’s presence, and expect mine.

  “So?” Howard looks expectantly from me to Dillon and back. “What is the plan?”

  “Kill or be killed,” Dillon’s face is deadpan. The merest hint of a smile tickles the corners of his mouth. “Of course, being killed is not widely considered a viable option.”

  With another wink, he dashes across the lawn and presses his back to the garage wall. Howard rushes to join him, never one to be left behind. I circuit the garage and land on its roof in a graceful bound. I’m in no rush. If I’m right about Sam, the longer it takes us to make our move, the less focused he will be on Libby, and the better her chances of survival.

  The irony of mounting an assault on my own home, and coming in through the garage as Libby requested isn’t lost on me. I kick out the long, thin, high window down the side. I drop delicately onto the glass, landing in my usual crouch. Howard and Dillon vault in through the bigger square window at the back, with no concern for noise or elegance. I sigh.

  Sam is just disappearing down the stairs into the basement, his arm locked around Libby’s neck, dragging her behind him. Nell freezes at the head of the stairs, a stoat mesmerized by a snake. Her head snaps from side to side, from Howard and Dillon to me, and past us to the two windows.

  “Decisions, decisions, Nell,” I let the derision show in my voice. I can’t understand how she’s lasted so long. Her father must have been a weak vampire for her to finish him off herself. I suspect now that it was Sam who killed him. Thinking about it, I never have seen Nell take her prey down single-handed. The question is, will her fear win out? Or will she feel compelled to stay with Sam, her protector?

  “He can’t help you this time, Nell.” I figure it can’t hurt to try to tip the scales a little. “Bigger fish to fry, and all that.”

  I shrug, to show the nonchalance we all wear so habitually. It’s our badge of pride, our shared joke; the stoicism of accepting whatever shit life throws at you. It comes from the certainty of knowing that, whatever it is, it’s nothing compared to what we can throw back.

  Not surprisingly, Nell doesn’t share my nonchalance this time. She bolts past Dillon and Howard with a backward hiss. She disappears away from me through a window for the second time tonight, this time of her own volition. No one moves to stop her. Bigger fish to fry.

  “And then there was one,” Howard nods towards the basement where Sam lays in wait with whatever trap he plans to spring.

  “Don’t underestimate him, Howard.”

  It’s Dillon who issues the warning, before I have the chance, and Dillon who moves first and leads the way down the stairs.

  I cross the space at high speed, even for me, and reach the top of the stairs before Howard, blocking his path. Our eyes meet. There are tears in his, and his eyebrows are pulled low. The skin of his eyelids droops, giving them an unaccustomed hooded appearance. He opens his mouth, and his lips tremble, but nothing comes out. I break the silence.

  “Keep your head in there,” I murmur, “she’s going to need you.”

  I start the slow descent, but he grabs my hand and gives it a quick squeeze, saying, “and I am going to need you,” before letting go and taking the first step behind me.

  DILLON HAS STOPPED a half-dozen steps from the bottom of the stairs, and is looking into the gloom. I stop beside him and follow his gaze to where Sam stands waiting in the normal side of the basement. It’s strewn with washing, an old sofa, and a few other odd bits of furniture. He still has his arm around Libby’s neck, forcing her to stand on tiptoes; leaning against him so she doe
sn’t fall. She is taking sharp breaths, which escape in whimpering sobs.

  Sam is glaring at Dillon defiantly. His eyes move to me and narrow in anger as a low growl rumbles out from his throat. It seems to fill the dark space, taking on a life of its own. When his focus shifts to Howard, the corners of his mouth turn up in a sneer of satisfaction. He runs his tongue slowly around the tip of first one fang then the other, licks then bites his lower lip, running it slowly between his teeth. I feel Howard’s shiver of dread that matches my own, but keep my eyes fixed on Sam in the gloom.

  None of us has trouble with the lack of light down here, except Libby, and she is trembling with her eyes closed anyway. She is too petrified to want to see anything that might happen now. She looks so fragile. I feel a stab of pity for her, and then fear that she might be taken from me, which is in turn replaced by a more forceful surge of anger at Sam.

  “Ah, ah, a-ah,” Sam wags his finger from side to side as he adjusts his grip on Libby’s neck, stifling the gasp she takes between sobs as his hold on her loosens briefly. “You wouldn’t want your mother to come to any harm, now would you Max?”

  The sneer would be enough to belie any perceived concern for her welfare, even if I hadn’t heard the stories of how Sam killed his own mother - torturing her and taunting her alongside his father.

  I suppress the shudder that runs down my spine and jump down into the basement. I take a step towards Sam, the oldest of our troop.

  “That’s quite far enough, thank you,” Sam’s deep-throated growl threatens in a way Vinnie’s never could. Three centuries’ worth of practice, I guess.

  I pause, sensing Dillon and Howard hesitating behind me, knowing instinctively that something is wrong again. Why would Sam, a seasoned hunter, allow himself to be trapped like this? Was he so over-confident? Of course, he would have expected Jax and Vinnie to be here, and Nell; to have the numbers on his side. For Howard to be dead. But had he counted on Dillon?

  At that thought, I feel a flash of dismay. My body feels heavy and sluggish, my arms, legs, and head lead weights dragging it down. My mouth runs dry and my palms begin to sweat. Then numbness takes hold of me. I counted on Dillon. The fear intensifies, as I imagine what the plan must have been.

  Dillon was the only one who knew. He must have told Sam, or let it slip. It doesn’t matter now which, does it? Dillon must have told Sam about Howard, Libby, and me playing happy families while I joined their murderous little party, cheerfully finishing off every other vampire to cross my path.

  I imagine Sam’s reaction to the news. He would have been furious, hitting out at the nearest thing. Sam must have declared me morally bankrupt; a hollow judgment coming from him, but one carrying the weight of law among The Breed, unfortunately. Then they laid their trap. I wonder how long Sam has known? How long has he been tormenting me, planning to expose and destroy us?

  It must have been a while. The whole point of cleansing the city was to get at Howard and me. The Coven here hasn’t exactly been vicious or overreaching; they certainly haven’t done anything to call for the unprecedented carnage of the past week. Usually, we just travel the country keeping the peace, ridding the human population of the worst of their nightmares, preventing the balance from tipping over into utter chaos.

  The zero-tolerance policy is zero tolerance for me. All those deaths are down to me, the blood on my hands. The stop-off here in my hometown was intended solely to force me to lead them to Howard. It worked, I realise with abject horror.

  “Oh yes,” The smooth reassurance is gone from Dillon’s voice, now it is mocking, “it worked, all right. You should have seen her, Sam,” he adds, a wistful note creeping in, “I think you can safely say we’ve unleashed the demon.”

  At that, I know where the source of my dread is, where the cold ball of fear in the pit of my stomach originated, and it was not in my own mind, any more than the wave of euphoria that swept over me earlier stemmed from me. I know, with a stony certainty, the extent of Dillon’s duplicity. Even now, he is in my head, subtly and lightly, in a way I have not mastered, directing my thoughts and emotions.

  ‘Get out right now, or you’re dead,’ I shoot the thought at the stray wisp of his consciousness, and am rewarded by the startled movement from behind me, from Dillon. He’s obviously surprised to be caught out.

  ‘Steady, Maxi, don’t want to lose it all now do we?’

  The voice is as silky in my head as if he had spoken aloud. I want to believe him. Dillon is with us. This is just another part of the plan, to lull Sam into a false sense of security.

  I am wise to him now, though. I can tell his influence, and recognize betrayal inherent in the words. He’s trying to lull me, to make me trust him. I am nothing, they always tell me, if not a quick study.

  ‘Out, Dillon,’ I project my focus back into his mind. I feel him try to sever the link, but I’m too quick for him. Suddenly I am in his head. He’s afraid of me. He’s also angry and disappointed.

  “Shame,” Dillon’s voice sounds alien, hearing it through his own ears for the first time, as he speaks his parting words to Sam, “if she hadn’t been so,” he pauses, searching for the right word, “obstinate, we could have really done something with this one.”

  I allow the adrenaline to come, revel in the changes in my body. The tingling in my fingertips as my talons extend from their sheaths, the grinding in my mouth as my fangs drop into place, and the tension in my neck, shoulders, and forearms, as blood pumps into the muscles. For the first time, I welcome the transformation, looking forward to the bloodbath that will surely follow. The real shame, I muse, is that I didn’t do this long ago, let loose the demon, as Dillon so aptly put it, and make the world a safer place.

  Howard and I are back-to-back in the basement, cornered and undone, and yet I know with absolute certainty that Sam’s reign of madness must end, and that I will do everything in my power to stop it.

  For a while we stand, each waiting for the others to move. Sam is the first to break, throwing Libby aside and lunging for me. I dodge, and he stumbles past me. Dillon rushes toward Libby, and picks her up with no effort, ignoring her screaming and kicking. As Sam dives at me and I dodge again, Dillon flies past us and up the stairs with Libby. Howard takes off after him.

  I look back at Sam in time to see his fist coming at me. I turn my head so the blow misses my nose and hits me on the cheekbone, which cracks. My head flies back, light bursts in my eye, and my mouth fills with blood. Sam’s nostrils flare. I get a flash of an image of my body torn and lifeless, and Sam raising a chunk of my flesh in victory.

  I stare into Sam’s eyes and see in their glowering fires the reflection of the images in my head. He’s so intent on the kill, my mind is absorbing his bloodlust. I must have unlocked part of my brain with all that mind hopping, but I don’t know how to shut it off. My own power is working against me. Sam’s fury is sapping my strength, replacing it with a crushing fear that is only feeding his hatred.

  Trying to shut the images out, I jump back from Sam’s next punch, but he follows up with a body blow that doubles me up. I try to drag air into my lungs and block out the pain. I see the knee coming towards me, and tense in anticipation. The stabbing jolt to the back of my neck, Sam’s elbow, comes as an unwelcome surprise.

  I fall, and roll instinctively, and Sam’s foot whizzes past my ear, where my head would have been. I scramble to my feet, staying in a low crouch, giving him the smallest possible target, and dodge his next few lunges. I am winded and wounded, and Sam is raging like a beserker. I haven’t even thrown a punch, and I am tiring.

  Sam lands a clout to the side of my head. I reel, my vision blurring. I fall backward. I hope, as the blackness creeps into my mind, that Howard managed to get Libby away from Dillon.

  My body convulses from the impact of further blows, but I can’t feel them. When I hear the sirens, they seem distant, unreal. I hear Dillon hissing, “Sam,” and realise the onslaught has stopped, but think, as I slip into unconsciousnes
s, that it’s because I’m dead.

  Are You Sure?

  IN THE DARKNESS, I hear the hum of activity, but my brain will not latch onto the words. It’s all just a blur. I breathe in. A sharp pain shoots through my chest, forcing the air back out in a groan. Rolling my head from side to side results in agonizing spasms in my neck and back. I open my eyes just enough to look through my eyelashes. I’m on a stretcher with a strange human peering over me.

  I open my eyes wider, trying to ignore the screaming headache, and the moron promptly shines a torch at me. I wince and turn away, biting back the urge to moan again.

  “She’s coming to; I think she’s going to make it.”

  “Of course, she’ll bloody make it.”

  I recognize the sing-song voice of Doctor Chan; the only doctor Libby has allowed near me since I was a small child. My interesting allergies, and one young intern’s insistence that I was a haemophiliac and not just a carrier, threatened to draw too much attention to me, so she sought out a sympathetic and informed practitioner. In Doctor Chan, she found someone not only willing to treat a variety of unusual childhood ailments in an extremely slow growing child without asking too many questions, but to shield his most unusual patient from the rest of the medical profession. It was years before Libby trusted him enough to confide in him the true nature of my problems, but when she did, he just smiled and nodded, like he had known all along.

  “She’s a tough cookie our Maxine, aren’t you dear?”

  He is beside me now, ushering the other man aside. He tries to hide his reaction to my wounds, but I see the surprise and concern in his wide eyes and wrinkled forehead. His hands shake, before he has chance to smooth the mask of reassuring competence back over his face and steady his nerves.

  “Hey, Doc,” I manage a weak smile and try to sit up, but the effort sends waves of nausea and dizziness through me. Suddenly I am back in my body, conscious of every break and bruise, and wishing I wasn’t. “Got anything for the pain?”