Screams echoed from far down the tunnel. My blood went cold, and the hairs on my neck bristled. Elyssa's porcelain skin went a shade whiter. She took a step back, hands grasping the hilts of her sai swords in a manic grip.
I put a hand on her wrist. "Are you okay?"
Her pupils were wide and dilated. "I—I'm sorry. The memories. Almost dying…"
I enclosed her in my arms. "I'll save you again if I have to."
She managed a weak smile. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? Another gold star for your fridge?"
I replied with a long deep kiss. "I don't need gold stars, just the touch of your lips."
"I really must write that down for the romance novel I'm writing," Bella said.
Embarrassment flushed my face and I pulled away, having forgotten the world didn't really stop when I kissed Elyssa. "We'd better move out."
"We need to contain these things ourselves," Michael said, face grim. "The space is too narrow to bring down a large force of Templars." His eyes locked onto the cages at the back of the room and the vampling there. In a few quick steps, he closed the distance, and impaled the zombified vampire's head. The vampling hissed and flailed, despite the sword jutting from its skull. Michael slid his sword free and stared at the creature. "They don't die easily."
"Da nah!" screamed the cherub, its nubby arms grasping at Michael's legs.
He ran it through with his sword.
A shrill scream tore from the creature's mouth. A tortured face appeared beneath the smooth oily surface on its head where the nose and eyes should have been. Smoky black wings, insubstantial apparitions unfolded from its back. Despite the scream, it didn't die.
Michael slid his sword from the cherub's flesh with a sick, wet sound. His eyes met mine. For a moment, I almost sensed understanding in his gaze. Respect. And then the moment was gone.
I looked around for my lost gun, but settled for an assault rifle left by a fallen vampire. If I could avoid shooting myself or my companions, it might come in handy. Elyssa adjusted the straps on my scabbard, tilting the sword so I could reach it.
"Thanks."
She kissed me on the cheek. "Michael and I will take point. You help guard the rear."
Fausta raised an eyebrow. "Unless I'm mistaken, I'm the one in charge here, Borathen."
Elyssa rolled her eyes. "Fine. Orders, sir?"
"Michael and I will take point. Bella, you and the Healers will barricade yourselves in here and keep an eye on the prisoners. Borathen, you and incubus boy guard our flank. I've ordered squads to block all the exits so the vamplings can't escape and infect the populace."
"Sir, yes, sir!" Elyssa said, tossing in a sarcastic salute.
"You really don't make a good soldier," I said in a low voice. "You're too used to bossing everyone around."
A confident smile spread her lips. "Because I'm usually right."
"Move out," Fausta said.
"I'm coming, too," Adam said, anger burning in his eyes. "I've got plenty of juice left."
Fausta nodded. "Let's do it."
We headed for the door, leaving Meghan and Bella behind. Then my stomach heaved and cold sweat broke out on my face. I staggered, taking deep breaths to keep from upchucking all over the place.
"What's wrong?" Elyssa said, gripping my arm to keep me upright.
Meghan came to my side, and ran her wand along my body. "Magic poisoning." She took my chin and turned my gaze into her blue eyes. "Did you do any spells recently?"
"Yeah." I told her about the camouflaged hole.
"I think he saved me from that explosion earlier too," Adam said. "Because my shield wouldn't have done a thing to protect me from a blast like that."
Meghan's eyes grew wide. "A complete novice containing an explosion? Impossible."
"The boy has potential," Bella said.
"Can you make me feel better until we get through this?" I asked, though the nausea seemed to be fading again.
Meghan sighed and pulled a piece of bubblegum from a pouch on her side. "Chew this. I give it to first-timers to help with the sickness. But they usually don't have it this bad." She pulled out another piece. "On second thought, have two."
I tossed them in my mouth and chewed. "Minty."
"Is he okay to fight?" Fausta asked, eyes narrowed.
"The gum will help." Meghan pursed her lips. "And he has more spirit than most, anyway. Considering what he's been through, I wouldn't hesitate to trust him with my life."
I felt my face flush. "Uh, wow. Thanks, Meghan."
"If you're the best of your kind, there is still hope for the world." She smiled. "Good luck."
Adam pecked her on the lips. "I'll be back."
Her smiled vanished, replaced by a worried frown. "Keep your mind, Adam."
I wasn't sure what she meant by that, and didn't have time to ponder as Fausta stomped her foot and waved us on. We ran down the tunnel. Screams and shouts echoed from ahead. Once we reached myriad hallways, grunts, shouts, and shrieks seem to come from all sides. We came to the bottom of the stairs leading into the courtyard. A groups of Templars in black Nightingale armor stood, swords ready, at the top. Fausta saluted them, and we moved on.
We found the first bodies a couple-hundred feet in. I recognized the care-free kids who'd been smoking weed from earlier. Their throats were torn open, their mouths open with horror in the final moments of life. Four vamplings with mouths fastened to the dead, sucked the blood from their veins with greedy slurping sounds. One of the vamplings, formerly a female, as evidenced by the filthy tattered skirt and blouse she wore, slurped at a pool of blood on the floor.
None of the undead creatures looked as bad or smelled as ripe as the ones Elyssa and I had faced when saving my father from Maximus. These couldn't have been turned for long. Michael's sword blurred, taking the head of the nearest creature. Fausta flashed the other way, dropping two as Elyssa's brother finished off the last one. The headless bodies thrashed wildly, arms groping. The head of the female vampling landed in the pool of blood. Her tongue continued to lick at it, as though nothing had changed.
"Templars are still immune to the vampling virus right?" I asked Elyssa as Michael and Fausta beheaded the people murdered by the vamplings, and then dismembered the undead, even as their body parts continued to struggle.
She nodded. "Far as I can tell, once the Divinity—Daelissa—granted us our abilities, she couldn't just take them away, or I think we'd have noticed."
A shuffling noise sounded behind us. We turned and saw two more of the walking dead shambling our way. Elyssa grunted twice, her sword a silver blur, and both vamplings dropped headless to the floor, their fanged mouths snarling as they bounced off the stone. The bodies squirmed, hands grasping blindly while gouts of thick rancid smelling blood drained from the necks. I'd hoped they would go still and just die. Instead, we had to butcher them as Fausta and Michael had done the others.
My heart pounded like mad and sweat broke out on my forehead. These things were relentless. Why wouldn't they just die? A flashback from the fight in the catacombs beneath Maximus's Atlanta lair gripped me with claustrophobia. The stench. The press of fetid bodies. The pure rot. The grunting and hissing and biting. They just kept coming and coming and coming and they never ever stopped.
"Justin, are you okay?"
I jerked back into focus on the present and Elyssa's concerned face. I nodded. "Yeah. Sorry. Guess it freaked me out more than I thought it would."
A nod. "Me too." She touched my hand. "I hate these things."
Even Fausta's look of grim determination couldn't hide her shaking hands as she and Michael walked past the still-twitching bodies on the floor. Adam put a hand over his mouth and looked away from the slaughter. Looking away did nothing to help me. I still smelled the coppery scent of death, the blood of the newly fallen, and the stagnant blood of the vamplings.
Our progress turned into a slog. Fausta called in other squads of Templars to clear any side halls, making sure to clear every room and passage of the foul creatures as we made slow progress down flights of stairs and toward the room the things had originated. I remembered the red metal door from my escape with Katie. Now, at least, I knew why Maximus had kept it shut.
I wondered if he could really be so power hungry as to unleash a vampling plague on the world. Remembering our little talk and his grand sense of ego, I realized how stupid a question that was. Of course he would. If he couldn't win, nobody would.
The hallway ended at the now warped and broken red door. The hinges and lock had been blasted off. Groans, shuffling feet, and most of all, the stench gave away the occupants of the room beyond. Several feet behind me on the left, a familiar spiral staircase led down to the room where Maximus had imprisoned me, now dark.
"We'll contain them at this chokepoint," Fausta said, nodding toward the broken door. "No sense going in that hellhole." She pulled out her phone. "I'll call for the Custodians to come down and clean up the mess with some flamethrowers."
"They don't need flamethrowers with me around," Adam said, brandishing his staff. He gestured, and a glowing white ball hovered in the air before him. With a wave, he sent it inside the room.
Something roared. A vampling lunged from the doorway.
Michael's sword flashed, cutting the thing's arms off before it could reach Adam. The Arcane jumped back with a shout.
More snarls echoed as Adam's globe of light hovered a few feet inside the doorframe.
"Turn it off!" Fausta hissed.
It blinked out.
"It's not the light," Michael said. "They smell our blood."
Pattering feet sounded from within. Shuffles, heaves, and groans built into a growing cacophony as the monsters felt the draw of the life force pumping through our veins and homed in on it.