Taran rose when Emme’s pale yellow light rescinded. She seemed better, a lot better. I could almost see her kick-starting her inner bee-atch. “Thanks, Emme.” Her eyes cut to mine. “You get me. Don’t you?”
I nodded.
She let out a shaky breath. “Then I won’t let you down.” Taran marched toward the vamps. “I’m ready. Let’s go.”
“Wait. I have to help Celia, too.” Emme reached her hands toward me, but I stepped away. “Celia—”
I shook my head. “I need the aggression.”
Shayna drummed the hilt of her sword with her fingertips, her pixie face pained. “Are you sure it’s necessary?”
I considered the bloodlust welcoming committee. “Trust me. It is.”
The mist thickened as we returned to the vampires, cloaking the shore and edging its way across the grassy knoll like a giant tarp. Shayna sheathed her sword and adjusted the bow against her back while I caught up to Taran. Taran stormed through the dense forest, stepping on every broken tree branch she encountered. Johnny Wilderness she wasn’t. “Taran, if you’re going to lead, try being a little quieter.”
Taran huffed. “Who gives a shit, Celia? After all the gunfire and screaming, these bastards know we’re here.”
Oh, yeah. She was back.
“Not if they are occupied feeding,” Misha said. He walked directly behind me, flanked by Tim and Hank, his guards, who held two high-powered rifles they’d managed to salvage. “Quenching their thirst is often enough of a distraction,” Misha continued. “As long as we don’t invade their immediate vicinity.”
I glanced over my shoulder. “Like we’re doing now?”
The corner of Misha’s pouty lips curved into a smile. “Precisely.”
“But whom are they feeding on?” Emme asked quietly.
“Four buses filled with tourists disappeared en route to Tahoe a few days past,” Misha said. “I suspect they emptied them with as much prey as they could manage, and disposed of the vehicles over a ravine.”
Taran groaned. “That sounds like a lot of strategizing for bloodthirsty creatures.”
Misha moved with pantherlike grace. “In the early phases of bloodlust, those infected maintain some ability to reason. They often hunt in packs to achieve greater abundances of food. As the infection progresses, their greed takes over and their thought processes diminish.”
Emme hurried to catch up to me, her voice trembling. “And they grow strong enough…to lift buses?”
Misha paused. “Much time has passed, my dear. It’s likely they can now raise a vehicle of that weight.”
Emme’s eyes widened. “But they’re not very bright, right? At least that’s something.”
Emme always strove to think positively. Taran…not so much.
“No, Emme. They’re just big, dumb-ass idiots with supernatural speed and the ability to beat us to death with a damn Greyhound Express so they can suck on our organs like Tootsie Pops.”
“Zip it, Taran,” I muttered when Emme blanched.
A sudden feeling of dread hit me like a rush of wind. The vampires hissed, low and furious, spinning to locate the threat. My beast beat against my chest, demanding to be released. I soothed her: Easy, girl. In her haste to protect me, she could get careless, and we both needed our wits about us.
Our group circled out instinctively, keeping our backs to the center. The problem was, not every danger slithered along the earth.
A sound mimicking the rattle of a snake and a plague of locusts resonated from above, first from one side, then the other, building and growing more fierce. Something—or some things—hid in the tall trees. Shayna whirled her transformed arrow point up. Tim and Hank cocked guns. I spun, wildly scanning above, except the denseness of the trees made it impossible to see.
Screw this. I threw my sweatshirt on the ground. My spaghetti stain was barely noticeable now that swamplike ash caked most of my skimpy tank. “Misha, does Zhahara’s compound have an open area? One with enough coverage for you to hide?”
Misha raised his chin, likely knowing what I planned. “There is a large field close to the stables encircled by trees and brush.” He pointed between a section of trees. “That way.”
“Okay. Good.” I protruded my claws and sliced a gash into my arm. Damn, my nails were sharp. I pressed on my open wound until blood oozed out, then wiped the warm fluid over every inch of my bare skin. Misha hissed, giving me the impression I resembled the vampire equivalent of fudge brownies. He blinked his feral gray eyes at me. With ice cream. He stepped forward. And sprinkles.