“Can’t stay and chat about it,” Ian ground out, rounding the next corner to nearly collide into Bones. “Ah, Crispin. Feeling frisky, I trust? It promises to be a busy morning.”
“So it does,” Bones said, landing a heavy hand on my shoulder. “You’re coming with me, Kitten. Ian, take her mum below.”
“Wait.”
I tugged at one of the knives on Bones’s belt. He was wearing several. Maybe this wasn’t so unexpected after all. “My ribs are fractured and I’ve got some torn ligaments. You’ll have to give me blood so that doesn’t slow me down.”
Ian let out a mocking grunt. “I won’t wait to hear the rest of this.”
“Nor should you,” Bones shot back. “Kitten, this way.”
He ignored the knife I held up and drew me up to the third level of the house. At first I thought he had weapons waiting for me. Or protective gear, Bones was big on me wearing that. But when we entered the bedroom and he pushed an unseen button in the closet, revealing a small room I hadn’t known was there, I understood.
And was furious.
“You’re out of your mind if you think I’m hiding in this box.”
“I don’t have time to argue,” Bones cut me off, shoving me inside. “There are monitors, a phone, your cell, and more of your belongings. These are ghouls attacking. With those rumors Majestic said were swirling around, who do you think they’ll target? You, and anyone guarding you. If you remain out of sight, it will improve the chances of everyone fighting, so for God’s sake, Kitten, stay here.”
One glance at Bones’s blazing eyes told me that awake or lights out, I would be in this shelter.
“You have a monitor facing this door,” he went on, tapping another button on an interior panel. “If anyone you don’t recognize tries to get in, you hit this. Now back away.”
Without waiting for me to comply, he pushed me farther into the room and hit the exterior device. The door slid shut with a heavy clinking sound of locks settling into place. They quieted with a finality that was appropriate for the settings. I was sealed in.
Something caught my attention farther back in this shoe box. Monitors. There were six of them, all with different angles. One pointed toward the closet exterior, as Bones had said, but the others were aimed at the outer grounds. It startled me to see the exterior of the house, because it spoke volumes about where we were. No wonder I hadn’t been allowed to even step outside. From the looks of it, I was in a small castle. I hadn’t been able to tell that from the inside, considering how modern the interior was.
Dawn was just breaking. The sparse lightening of the sky made it easier to see the rush of activity outside, since it didn’t appear that the cameras had night vision. Most of the angles were fixed at points around the castle, but one was aimed at the sloping hill of the lower yard.
I gasped. There were so many of them.
Over a hundred ghouls marched with lethal steadiness up the uneven ground. They were all armed. Some held even more deadly devices than guns or knives, like rocket launchers. How many people were here? Bones, Spade, Rodney, Ian…and a few guards, Spade had said. Against such numbers, it would be a slaughter. Why didn’t they land-mine the lawn? I raged. Why aren’t there more people here? And why are they lining up in front of the house like fucking targets, instead of barricading behind the walls!
A man strode up from the ranks and approached the castle. He was of medium height, with salt-and-pepper hair and a commanding manner. He was saying something, but the damn monitors didn’t have sound. The room was too reinforced for my ears, so I couldn’t hear on my own, either. Whatever it was, it didn’t appear to be well received. Bones pointed an emphatic finger at the man, and it wasn’t his index one. The guy spat at the ground before whirling around and returning to the others.
With or without sound, it was clear that negotiations wouldn’t happen.
The first of the machine guns began firing. As one, the vampires took to the air, while Rodney manned a machine gun of his own. I was relieved to see some unfamiliar faces come from the castle to join Bones and the others. The vampires disappeared from the screens for a few seconds, reemerging as they bombarded the ghouls like their bodies were inhuman missiles. When they flew off in bursts of speed, either the ghoul would be headless on the ground, or dazed.
It was an incredible sight to see. From my rapid calculation, there were a dozen vampires guarding the castle, and each one of them struck with the force of a guided tornado.
Except it didn’t appear to be enough. The ghouls who survived the fierce one-on-ones didn’t stay dazed long. They shook themselves off and began their grim march forward. Step by step, they were covering the distance to the castle. Their numbers were lessening, true, but they had an obvious determination. Bones and the others might be formidable, but math was math. There weren’t enough of them.