He caught a fleeting Holy shit! Vampires are real! thought before he accidentally hit the third one too hard and killed him.
The last two turned their weapons on him. Blood spurted from their chests as they jerked and danced like marionettes on strings and dropped their aim. One squeezed and held the trigger. A couple of mercenaries to the south cried out as they were hit.
Étienne heard Sheldon whoop and credited him with the hits. Don’t get cocky, he spoke into Sheldon’s mind. Stay low and stay mobile.
“Dude,” Sheldon said over the racket, “stay out of my head. You startled me so badly I nearly shot myself in the foot.”
In the distance, Richart laughed.
Smiling, Étienne shook his head.
A quick scan of the mercenaries’ minds as they fell and breathed their last told him nothing of their employers.
Determined to come out of this with something, he made his way to the south, taking out soldiers as he went. Thanks to the jackass who had shot his colleagues, several of the soldiers were looking his way as Étienne swept toward them. A few got in lucky shots. One managed to tranq him. But the antidote he had taken earlier, once injected, not only countered the effects of the drug already in his system, it had a prophylactic effect, protecting him from reaction to further exposure for several hours.
Fortunately for him, it still worked.
Étienne wasn’t used to taking prisoners and kept instinctively striking killing blows.
Sheldon apparently hadn’t mastered the shoot-to-wound mind-set either, killing as many as Étienne did. The boy may not be the brightest bulb, but he was damned proficient with a weapon.
Are you helping Richart at all? Étienne risked asking. His brother had not been dosed with the antidote. If he were hit with a tranquilizer dart, he would lose a lot of speed and strength. If he were hit with enough, he would go down.
“Richart doesn’t need help. He keeps popping up between two groups and the stupid bastards are panicking and shooting each other.”
Nevertheless, keep checking on him. He doesn’t have the antidote.
Sheldon laughed. “One of them just tranqed himself. Dumbass.”
Shaking his head, Étienne ignored the wounds opening on his body as bullets tore through flesh.
Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyrie” rose in the distance, the music swelling as the whup-whup-whup of a helicopter approached.
“What the hell is that?” one of the mercenaries demanded, firing his weapon at Étienne as he looked up into the trees.
Étienne smiled. “The cavalry.” He knocked the firearm from the distracted man’s hand and punched him hard enough to give him a concussion.
The man dropped like a stone. As did two of his comrades.
The branches above Étienne began to thrash and sway as a Black Hawk helicopter slowed and hovered overhead. Ropes fell to the ground. Soldiers in green camouflage tumbled from the open doors and slid down the lines to land fluidly on their feet.
A blond—just under six feet tall—issued orders with hand signals, sending half the troops to Richart’s side of the house, then leading the rest to Étienne.
And still the music roared.
Bodies in a ready-for-anything crouch, tranquilizer guns loaded with the human dose of the tranquilizer aimed and ready to fire, network soldiers nodded to Étienne as they flowed past him.
Mercenaries dropped like flies as tranquilizer darts found vulnerable throats.
Shaded by the trees, Étienne tugged off his protective shades, head covering, and gloves, and smiled as the blond strolled toward him. “You do like to make an entrance, don’t you?”
Chris Reordon grinned. “May as well have fun with it. Besides, it will help me with the coverup. Any calls the neighbors make to nine-one-one will be intercepted and they’ll be told we’re filming a movie.”
“That won’t attract spectators?”
He shrugged. “If it does, my guys will steer them away.”
The walkie-talkie on his shoulder squawked. “Location secure,” a tinny voice declared. “Targets down.”
Chris reached up and pressed a button. “Set up a perimeter and stay sharp. If they repeat last night’s performance, they’ll have a second team sweep in shortly.”
“Yes, sir.”
The network guards began to check the downed men and call out their conditions.
“Dead.”
“Dead.”
“Dead.”
“Dead.”
Chris frowned at Étienne.
Étienne pursed his lips. He thought he had left some alive.
“Dead.”
“Alive. Pulse thready. Pupils blown.”
“Same with this one.”
Chris sighed heavily.
“What?” Étienne asked, beginning to feel defensive. “What does that mean?”