Sealed With a Curse(45)

My tigress eyes replaced my own, but her vision couldn’t pierce through the thickness of the fog. I froze. Watching. Waiting. The urge to attack growing.

Water exploded like the start of a fountain to our left. I’d caught a glimpse of something wide, green, and thick before its arms encased the closest vampire. He vanished in a burst of water and a holler of agony. Shayna and I rushed to the edge, only to get flooded with an eruption of blood and ash.

Bullets shot wildly into the water, and the roars of my angered beast escaped. My sisters screamed—except for Shayna. Her eyes narrowed at the water as she reached for her stack of kindling. She placed the stick against her bow. As she pulled, gold light flickered from her necklace to her fingertips, transforming the wood into a thick gold arrow, the tip wide and deadly. She closed her eyes and pointed to where the vamp had dematerialized—only to aim four feet away at the last second and propel the arrow at an unimaginable velocity.

A two-hundred-pound infected female broke through the water, tipping the side of our boat forward. Green fluid bulged her thickened muscles; a maw full of sharp teeth snapped with hunger. She screamed, revealing the arrow protruding from the top of her skull down into her throat. Shayna failed to hit the heart.

But I didn’t.

My claws struck hard through the vampire’s chest, crushing her sternum until my fingertips gathered around the hot, pumping muscle. I yanked it out in an upsurge of putrid-smelling fluid and ash. The force knocked me back, but I jumped to my feet, landing on the starboard bow.

“Stay down until I say,” I hissed at Taran and Emme.

Taran’s mouth tightened as she clutched Emme against her. “I thought these assholes couldn’t swim.”

“We’re in shallow water,” Shayna answered tightly. She pointed another transformed arrow down into the lake, one foot on the floor of the boat, the other bent at the knee against the gunwale. Her hands stayed perfectly still as she waited for the next attack. Across from us, the vamps inched around the perimeter of the boats, the barrels of the gun pointing down. Misha stood in the middle, fury and hatred pushing back the mist around him.

Something bumped the floor beneath Taran and Emme. Emme’s head shot up. I shook my head. Don’t move, I mouthed.

The vamps in the boat next to Misha’s didn’t heed me. They scrambled away from the thud against the starboard, announcing breakfast time to the bloodlusters prowling beneath. They surfaced, hungry jaws snapping as they dragged two vampires into the murky depths—including Colleen.

A cluster of Shayna’s arrows flew by my ear in high-pitched whistles over the rapid fire of guns. Colleen reached her arms up to the boat’s edge, her screeches garbled by the blood pooling in her mouth. Half her scalp was missing and deep gashes carved most of her face. Beneath her, the water bubbled as if piranha feasted.

The bloodlusters continued to claw at the boat, splintering the edges. Misha’s vampires emptied their clips, puncturing them full of holes. Their putrid green blood stained the sides of the boats. And still they wouldn’t die.

One of Misha’s vampires gripped Colleen’s arms, while the remaining reloaded and fired at their invisible targets, stopping the onslaught as quickly as it began.

A bloodluster bobbed to the surface, his matted blond hair stuck between the serrated teeth of his slack jaw. A hole the size of a quarter had been drilled into his chest, and his breath heaved as if he were choking on vomit. Shayna pointed her arrow, but Misha stopped her with a raise of his hand.

“Ma-master,” Colleen choked.

Emme covered her mouth, gagging. One of the other Catholic schoolgirls held Colleen against her chest, sobbing softly. Colleen’s organs hung in nauseating clumps from the remnants of her demolished torso, droplets of blood turning to ash before they disappeared into the mist.

Misha’s eyes bored into Colleen’s as he communicated his thoughts through the blood bond all masters shared with their keep.

“Y-yes, Master,” she answered. “I…I do, Master. Thank you, Master.” She swallowed more blood, her voice shaking. “I’ll always love you, Master.”

With a deep sigh, Misha nodded at the vamp holding Colleen.

I blocked Emme’s view when the vamp reached beneath Colleen’s open chest cavity to yank out her heart. Tears slid down Emme’s cheeks as a burst of ash signaled Colleen’s demise. I would have given anything for the opportunity to lie to my little sister and convince her Colleen hadn’t suffered and would be okay. But she had. And she wouldn’t.

Misha heaved the floating bloodluster onto the boat by the throat and tore into him until ash caked his face.