Crescendo

Chapter 2 - War

Chapter 2 - WarI landed into the bar a few seconds behind Dante, using the ley line. The dank bar and the heavy smell of old smoke and beer caught me by surprise, but I didn't let it slow me down. In one sweep I saw vampires everywhere drinking from their hosts, knowing full well they had been attacked. They had no way to resist the vampire's thrall. My hand went to the snaps of my dagger sheath at my thigh. With a flick I let the Dagger of Delphi loose. Like a silver arrow it darted to the nearest vampire, and plunged into its chest. With an inward gasp, the dark-skinned female vampire fell to the floor, her heart poisoned with silver.

A mere two seconds later, the air twanged with another's presence. I turned my head to find red-headed Quist standing over the female vampire which the dagger had dropped. He lunged with the laser wand he held, and ran it across her long neck. Deadly accurate, it severed the female vampire's head cleanly. Within a few seconds, the body began to fleck with decay. Must have been a new turn. Older vampires took longer to decompose.

Dagger of Delphi flew off to the next vampire—a woman with long black hair, hovering over a man at another pinball machine. But it couldn't get to her chest and hovered, waiting. s**t. I grabbed up a cue ball from a nearby pool table and threw it with keen accuracy, hitting her on the shoulder. She snapped her head my direction and pulled back from her human, letting them sink, and then drop to the floor. Her eyes glowed red, her mouth rimmed with blood.

“Look, honey, that's no way to get a date,” I quipped. She turned fully toward me, her grimace terrifying, the bottom half of her face painted in the gore of her feast. She lunged toward me. She didn't get far. The dagger plunged into her chest. Her body buckled instantly.

Once she was down, Quist moved in and lopped off her head with the laser. I couldn't believe it no longer bothered me to see him do this—to watch a head roll away from the shoulders completely detached. Well, as long as they were vampires, it didn't bother me at all.

The Dagger of Delphi went on to the next vampire, and the same sequence was repeated. In the background I heard fighting. I turned to see the flurry of motion. Dante was fighting someone. I knew him. Shoulder-length caramel-colored hair, the handsome cocky look on his face. Leif Sufferden. Exactly who we had been watching, and we'd found him and his cronies in the act of feasting on humans. Not illegal, according to vampire law, but I wasn't about to agree with such behavior. Especially since the two who were now in charge of N.A.V.A.—North American Vampire Association—were my enemies.

I moved forward, but someone grabbed me by the hair and tugged me around. This couldn't be more like being on a roller derby rink.

“OW!” I cried. s**t! That hurt enough to bring tears to my eyes. My head had been pulled back with such violent force, I was momentarily stunned. In the next second I found myself staring up into a vampire's face who I feared almost as much as Leif. My throat exposed oh-so conveniently to her.

“Ohhh, yum,” Darla managed to purr her delight in having caught me in her talons.

“Help!” I cried.

She smiled. “Oh, you can do better than that.” Lips rimmed in crimson, she opened her mouth, and moved in closer toward my neck, her eyes had become black marbles in her head, and her fangs like sharpened white fence posts. All this filled my vision while I worked to resist her. But she had a hold on me, and I couldn't pull my mystic-ring hand around to shove her away.

“Sabrina!” Quist shouted. “Sabrina!”

My spine forced against the rim of the pool table, the pain gave me enough awareness to pull my eyes away from hers. It really pissed me off that Darla was able to catch me off guard like this.

“Let go of my hair you b***h!” I finally slid my right hand out from behind myself and thrust the mystic ring into her face. Darla released my hair and threw me a startled look. I returned a scornful one. While she tried to puzzle out what had happened—how I had managed to thrall her, instead of the other way around—I said, “Take a flying leap!” With a flick of my hand, Darla went flying through the air. She landed, crashing into pool cues in a corner. Her shock wore off quickly as she sprang to her feet, growled, and gnashed her teeth at me.

Then the unexpected dart of silver shot across my sight and jammed into her chest. With a sudden intake of air, she stumbled back, hands flaying, feet going out from underneath her. She fell with a sharp grunt. Downed like a bowling pin. She screeched in pain and tried to pull the dagger out. I'd learned that the dagger, once it had found its target, would not relent. No vampire could pull it from their own chest.

Quist darted toward her with the laser.

“No!” I said to him. He looked sharply to me, a hard frown etched on his freckled face. I drew my hand out. “Dagger of Delphi, return to me,” I beckoned to my weapon. The dagger obediently pulled itself from Darla's chest. At that same moment Dante's dark form drew up on the other side of me. He threw something that twirled through the air and stuck into Leif. He dropped to the floor only three feet from us, a broken cue stick embedded in his chest. He was still alive, but struggling to pull it free.

“You b***h!” Leif hissed, voice rough.

“I want them to go back to her,” I said to Dante and Quist. “In whatever condition. Let Ilona know we're watching them and we're willing to stop them.”

Distant sirens wailed. Police and other first responders. They'd be here in two minutes.

“We have to leave,” Dante said. I looked around the bar. Humans who were still able to stand, staggered around, bleeding from the vampire bites. Gasps, moans, and expletives as the vampire thrall no longer affected them. They eyed us fearfully. As fearful of us as they were of the vampires. There was no time to alter their memories.

The vampires who were still alive, misted out of existence, one by one, like the cowards they really are.

Leif pulled the make-shift stake out of his chest and threw it to the floor. He looked up at me, murder in his eyes, and a bloody hole in his chest. “I'll get you for this, you b***h!”

I wasn't daunted by his vulgar language, and said, “Give a message to Ilona. If she doesn't rescind the Hunting Human Law, she'll be next.” By this time my body was shaking from the adrenaline pouring through me.

“I'll get you for this, bitch.” Leif hobbled over to Darla, his Life-time mate, clutched her by the middle and vanished.

I grabbed Dante's and Quist's hand. We locked onto the ley line and were gone.