Just as we were exiting one of the alleys, Anthony stopped short. I heard it at the same time as he did … voices. Anthony held up his hand in a fist, signaling to stop. The group halted between us. I filtered my concentration onto the voices, gradually I heard footsteps and then breathing.
The voices were coming from vampires, not human soldiers. Three of them as far as I could tell. They were headed in our direction and not far away at all. Feminine laughter rung out above the others and then a few male chuckles of lower volume.
My hand went to my holster automatically. I knew what was going to happen, we had a crap ton of human blood pumping through this alley, there was no way that those vamps weren’t going to catch the scent of us.
Closer now, “Wait, do you smell that?”
Crap. Well, there were more of us than them. Should be no problem.
“Yeah,” the feminine voice whispered, “I do.” She inhaled deeply. “There are more than one too.”
“Come on,” one of the other vamps demanded in a low voice.
I nudged Alice, who was in front of me and signaled that they were coming. She reached up and as silently as possible, drew her swords from their sheaths. Her face serious, and a bit scared, she gripped one in each hand, ready for whatever she had to face.
Christina already had a huge knife in her left hand, but the rest of us opted for guns, even Anthony.
“This way,” one of the male voices directed the others.
I was at the rear from where they were coming from, so Anthony was going to have to initiate the kills. I just hoped he wasn’t going to screw us over and would actually do it.
The vampires were silent as they approached the alley, trying to be a quiet as possible so that we wouldn’t hear them coming. Most vampires didn’t assume that two dhampirs and a full blooded vampire would be hanging out with a bunch of humans, and they never expected any of them to be a Hunter.
Anthony pointed his pistol at the opening of the alley, waiting for the enemy to find us.
One of the males was the first to show. He rounded the corner cautiously, but without a weapon that we could see. His blond hair fell down into his face, covering one of his bright blue eyes. The moment those eyes fell onto the humans among us, the one we could still see flickered and turned red. The sign of blood lust.
“Do not move another inch,” Anthony ordered. The barrel of his gun was only about a foot away from the vampire’s heart.
The blond vampire flashed his gaze over the entire group, taking in the details. With the weapons and the mix of humans and vampire, he put it together pretty quickly. He stepped back, slowly raising his hands into the air just as the others entered the alley. “Whoa, hold up, we aren’t going to hurt anyone.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Anthony told him. “You two,” he waved the gun toward the other vampires who had halted abruptly when they saw that their plan had not gone smoothly, “hands up.”
Drew marched forward, a gun gripped in each hand. “I’ll take care of them.”
“Wait,” I hissed, moving around the others until I was next to him. “You can’t. We should try to do this quietly if we can.” I was already fitting the silencer onto my gun.
Too late. The idiot vampires took the moment of distraction and used it to their benefit. Everything happened quickly. The first vampire reached out and grabbed the barrel of Drew’s left gun, pulling him forward and then punching him in the face.
“Son of a bi…” Drew’s curse was cut off by scream of the vampire when Anthony pulled the trigger and shot him in the heart. The vampire released Drew’s weapon, letting it fall to the cement with a dull clatter.
The female vampire screeched and bared her pearly white fangs at us. She was promptly rewarded for this with one of Christina’s knives in her chest. Her screech was cut short when the large blade buried to the hilt in her heart. Only a gurgling sound released as she choked on her own blood. A few crimson drops slid out of her mouth and over her lips. She fell to her knees, her red eyes wide, clutching the handle of the knife with her right hand. Her left hand tried to move up and join the right one, but she didn’t have the strength left.
The other male turned to run, knowing that he was out numbered. His back was a big, easy target. I took the shot at him. He crumpled to his knees and then fell forward onto the filthy pavement of the alleyway. The UV light began to eat at his undead flesh, the glow filtering slowly through his body.
I held my guns at the ready and stood stock still, breathing hard. My adrenaline was pumping so hard at the moment that I couldn’t force myself to put my weapons down.