A bullet tore through one shoulder. Seth swore and telepathically summoned Zach, sending him mental images of the base and directing him to the jungle.
Seth drew a katana as a vampire raced past after a fleeing soldier. One swing of the sword swept the vamp’s head from his body, which did indeed bear a Russian uniform.
Another bullet struck Seth in the hip as he cut a swath to the wall and, leaping it and the fence beyond, made his way to the jungle.
The Immortal Guardians awaited him there, weapons drawn.
“The vampires haven’t breached the base yet,” he informed them. “They’re satisfied, for the time being, with tormenting the soldiers. Avoid the sandy moat—it’s full of mines—and have at ’em. Kill those you must. Tranq the others. Save as many soldiers as you can. I’ll bury their memories later.”
The immortals’ eyes all flashed amber as they shot forward—a sea of black that rose like a tidal wave, swept over the walls, and poured inside.
More screams erupted as vampires began to fall and the rest of them realized they were now the ones under attack.
Seth leapt into the fray.
“The ones in black are friendlies,” General Lane announced over hidden speakers. “Repeat, the ones in black are friendlies. Do not shoot them. They are here to help us.”
Exclamations of disbelief filled the night. The soldiers no doubt had noticed the immortals’ glowing eyes and fangs. But soldiers were trained to follow orders without question, and follow orders these did, doing their best to restrict their fire to vampires and swearing when they accidentally hit an immortal.
Seth grabbed a vampire that had just knocked a soldier to the ground, intent on disemboweling him. Tossing the vampire up in the air, Seth swung his katana and decapitated the vamp as he fell to the ground. The fallen soldier gaped up at him, fear bright in his eyes.
Seth knew his own likely glowed golden as he fisted a hand in the man’s uniform shirt. “Grab your gun.”
The soldier scrambled to grab the gun he had dropped.
Seth lifted the soldier and raced in a blur over to a small structure of unknown purpose behind which several other soldiers had hunkered down.
“Don’t shoot!” the soldier screamed as his friends all turned their weapons upon them.
As one, they gaped up at Seth.
Seth released the soldier. “Aim for the chest or torso, and once they slow down enough for you to see them more clearly, hit the major arteries.”
Drawing his second katana, Seth spun around and buried the blades in two vampires who raced up behind him. The vampires stopped short, then stumbled backward. Blood splattered Seth as his blades flashed again and severed major arteries.
“What the fuck are you?” a soldier blurted.
“A friend,” Seth said and pointed his sword at the vampires as they gasped their last breath. Bloodstains spread across their Russian Spetsnaz camo uniforms. “They are the enemy. Take care to distinguish between the two.”
He saw a dozen vampires descend upon Ethan and, without another word, raced toward him, cutting his way through vampires as he went and rescuing what soldiers he could.
Ethan swore as a vampire’s blade sank into his side.
A dozen or so had converged upon him at once. Unlike the night he had fought similar numbers on Heather’s front porch, he didn’t have the house behind him to limit the vampires’ attack. He was out in the open here, his back exposed.
As he slashed a vamp’s carotid artery, another blade sliced a deep channel across his back. Pain lanced through him.
Ethan spun around to punish the fucker who had cut him and heaved a sigh of relief when Seth took two of the vampires out from behind.
“Thanks.” Bolstering his energy, Ethan tore anew into the group crowding him.
With Seth at his back, it didn’t take long. Damn, he loved fighting alongside Seth. He didn’t often have the privilege of doing so. The eldest of them was all grace and power, his every movement smooth and delivered seemingly without effort. He was what every immortal fighting here tonight aspired to be.
“You’ve been watching too many chick flicks,” Seth muttered, a smile in his voice.
Ethan laughed as the last vampire in the group fell.
“Safe hunting,” Seth said and shot away to help Roland and Sarah.
“What the fuck?” a soldier wearing a headset whispered in the base’s underground video surveillance room.
Large flat screens adorned three walls. Smaller screens rested on desks manned by half a dozen soldiers. The action all currently displayed strained credulity.
“This isn’t happening,” another soldier whispered. “This isn’t real. It can’t be.”
General Lane could only stare as the violence played out before them in high def.
The immortal Marcus and his wife Ami stood by his side.
More soldiers had crowded into the room behind them.
Most were too stunned by what took place on the screens to question when and how the hell General Lane and two visitors had managed to join them. And none had seemed to put together that the general’s companions were garbed like the glowing-eyed men and women in black who tore vampires apart like tissue paper topside.
General Lane’s heart pounded. The vampires and immortals could move so swiftly that, at times, they became a barely discernible blur. Then the motion would cease, and he and the others would see an immortal yank his or her blade from the body of a vampire, then turn to seek another target and blur again.
“They’re so fast,” someone whispered.
“Shit!” someone in the back shouted. “That one just saved Conner! Did you see that?”
General Lane followed his gaze to a monitor on the left and saw Seth speaking to a small cluster of soldiers. Seth spun around all of a sudden and slew two vampires who attacked him from behind. Then the immortal leader shot away in a blur.
General Lane kept his gaze on Seth, saw him help Ethan and the others, saw him deliver three more soldiers safely to the group. Saw Ethan deliver two as well.
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” someone murmured.
“They’re saving our asses is what’s happening,” another said. “The ones in black are saving our asses.”
“Yeah, but what the fuck are they?”
Pounding erupted on the access doors above. General Lane leaned forward to examine one of the smaller monitors and swore. Several vampires had yanked a damned tree up by its roots and were using it as a battering ram to try to break through the heavy doors and reach the men below.
Marcus pointed to the monitor. “Where is this?”
General Lane took an AK-47 from a nearby soldier, then turned to the door and started shouldering his way through the wide-eyed throng. “I’ll show you.”
“Bring a couple dozen men with us,” Marcus ordered as he and his wife followed.
Colonel Colson, the officer who had greeted them upon their arrival, immediately began to issue orders.
Booms echoed down the hallway, a marcato accompaniment to the boots clomping rhythmically on the floor. Heavy doors that would ordinarily withstand the direct hit of a bunker-busting missile began to buckle.
The strength the vampires must be applying to it boggled the mind.
The immortal Marcus planted himself a few yards in front of the doors and turned to face them.
Gasps sounded as the soldiers in their midst got a better look at his attire and finally realized that one of the preternatural beings in black stood in their midst.
Marcus motioned to them. “Put your backs to the walls so they can only come at you from one direction.”
When no one moved, General Lane commanded, “Do as he says.”
The soldiers parted like the Red Sea and put their backs to the walls.
More heavily armed soldiers from the surveillance room jogged up the hallway and did the same, faces grim with determination.
Marcus accepted their presence with a nod. “Torso shots will slow them down enough for you to hit the major arteries here, here, here, and here.” He pointed out all of the major arteries on his own body, then drew short swords. “General Lane, you should consider returning to the—”
“I’m staying here.” He wasn’t going to ask these soldiers to do anything he wasn’t prepared to do himself.
“So be it. But I want you in the back, ready to issue orders should we fall and . . .” He turned to the small woman beside him. “I ask that you take Ami with you and see to her safety.”
Ami drew a couple of Glock 18s. “I’m staying here with you. I can see to my own safety, husband. You’ve seen me in battle before.”
“This is different.”
She arched a brow. “Different than the two of us standing against and defeating thirty-four vampires?”
“Holy shit,” a soldier whispered. “They are vampires.”
“I’m pretty sure this guy is, too,” another responded as Marcus’s eyes flashed amber.
Marcus smiled at his petite wife and shook his head. “You always were too stubborn for your own good.”
Grinning, she winked up at him. “Like minds.”
He laughed and, dipping his head, captured her lips in a long, hot kiss.
Eyebrows shot up as soldiers exchanged looks.
Another loud thunk thundered through the hallway, followed by a groan as the doors buckled a little more beneath the pounding.
Marcus ended the kiss. “General Lane, I still want you in the back. You’re too valuable to lose.”