How she envied him his ability to teleport.
With a flash of his long daggers, he decapitated the vamps in front before those behind him could even utter yelps of surprise.
Lisette darted forward at preternatural speed, arriving just as Richart spun around and severed the carotid arteries of the next two.
They stumbled back, grasping their throats as blood spurted and they began to bleed out faster than the virus could save them.
Only the fifth remained.
Just as Lisette arrived, that one delivered a roundhouse kick to her brother’s chest. Richart flew backward, hitting the side of a nearby building hard enough to crack the bricks. Dust and mortar exploded around him as he fell to the ground.
Merde! Lisette ducked the right hook the vamp aimed at her, dodged the upper cut that followed half a second later, and swung her shoto swords. He was so fast!
The lumberjack vamp spun out of reach of her weapons and drew his own: two sais, as long and sleek and well cared for as those Roland carried. And, unlike most vampires, the lumberjack vamp knew how to wield them.
He swung the sais.
Shock rippled through Lisette as she met his every strike. This vampire had been trained. And the bastard was tall, with arms that seemed as long as a gorilla’s. But her longer shoto swords made up for her shorter reach.
She swore as one of his blades caught her across the cheek.
Richart? she called mentally, unable to take her gaze from her opponent long enough to check on him. Are you all right?
A slew of French expletives filled her mind, grumbled in her brother’s familiar voice.
Relief made her smile. So did scoring a deep cut across the vamp’s right arm.
Fury mottled his rough-hewn features. His moves grew more careless. His thoughts filled with such hate and violence that it was hard to read any one thought in particular, but she did manage to discern that he had believed he would easily overpower her because she was a girl.
Dumb ass.
She swept the sai from his right hand.
He curled his empty fingers into a fist and slammed it into her jaw.
Pain exploded through her head as bone cracked. Her fingers tightened around the grips of her swords as her feet left the ground and she flew backward the way her brother had. She didn’t know what she hit, but stars burst into being around her, lighting up her vision and muddying it at the same time.
Richart roared over the ringing in her ears. Lisette! he shouted mentally as the sounds of fighting resumed.
I’m fine.
Dragging herself to her feet, she staggered a couple of steps until she could regain her balance. Bastard had punched her! When was the last time a vampire had caught her off guard or gotten close enough to strike her with his bare hands?
She didn’t wait for her fuzzy vision to clear, just dove back into the battle. Racing to her brother’s side, she added her blades to his. This vampire might be far more skilled with weapons than those they normally fought, but he couldn’t best two of them at once.
They defeated him in short order, cutting his carotid, brachial, and femoral arteries.
Richart looked at her as the vamp fell over onto his side. “What the hell was that?”
She shook her head. Some dumb ass must have turned a martial arts expert, she told him telepathically. Speaking hurt her cracked jaw too much.
“Brilliant,” her brother complained.
Too bad he wasn’t a gifted one, she told him with a shake of her head. With those skills, he would’ve made an excellent immortal.
Richart’s look turned uneasy. “You don’t think . . . He wasn’t immortal, was he?”
Nausea took her. Bastien had been immortal, but had lived as a vampire for two centuries. Hastily sheathing her weapons, she removed her cell phone from a back pocket and knelt to snap several pictures of the vamp’s face before he could deteriorate beyond recognition.#p#分页标题#e#
When she rose, Richart was dialing his own.
“Yes?” the Immortal Guardians’ leader said over the line.
“Seth,” Richart said. “We need you. Now. It’s important.”
Seth appeared beside them.
Before he could speak a word, Richart pointed to the fifth vamp. “Do you know him?”
Seth frowned down at the vamp. “No.”
“Are you sure?” Lisette pressed without moving her jaw.
He cut her a glance, then knelt beside the vamp and rolled him onto his back. A few seconds passed. “I’m sure.”
Both she and her brother sighed with relief.
Seth rose. “What’s going on?”
She fell silent as Richart told him.
His scowl deepening, Seth crossed to Lisette and gently cupped her face in his large hands. A comforting heat suffused her where they touched. The pain in her jaw disappeared as bone healed and swelling receded.
Smiling, she clasped his wrists and gave them a squeeze. “Thank you.”