“Only mere humans,” I whispered, stroking the side of Michael’s head, tears threatening even though I couldn’t relax yet, couldn’t let myself fall apart.
“He didn’t make it?” Willard hadn’t been here. She hadn’t seen the vampire’s fatal blow.
“No.” I forced myself to stand and take a deep breath, hoping to steady myself, though my entire body quivered with rage. I was going to find that bastard, yank my sword out of his hands, and use it to kill him.
“I’m sorry. I attacked that elf when I ran across him back in that maze—” Willard tilted her head toward the hallway she’d come from, “—but he hurled me against a wall with the power of a Mack truck and disappeared into his warren.”
Only then did I realize that the side of Willard’s face was bloody, and she gripped her ribs with one hand as she held her rifle with the other, her finger on the trigger as she glared into the dark hallway.
“He’s got my sword,” I said.
“I saw. Can it kill a vampire?”
“If I cleave off his head. And I’ll have zero trouble doing that right now.” With the rage coursing through my limbs, I could have beheaded an army of vampires.
“We’ll go after him. He’s a murderer and needs to be stopped.” Willard turned to head deeper into the castle.
“Wait.” I dashed tears out of my eyes, stalked to the ogre’s body, and ripped the chain with the cat charm off his neck. Though I had no idea how it worked, I was positive it was what summoned and controlled the big tiger. “We’re not running around back there and stumbling into the devil knows how many more traps are littering this place.”
“Can you sense him? Did he leave the castle?”
“I can, and he’s still here. He’s in an underground level somewhere, toward the back.”
“What’s the plan then?” Willard, dashing away the blood on her face, looked ready to stomp back there and find him, but she waited.
I grabbed one of the lanterns off the wall. “We get Michael’s body out of here, get the cub out of the tower if she’s still there, then burn this hellhole to the ground so that coward has to come out and face us in the daylight.”
“I don’t think the amount of daylight out there visible through that fog is going to kill him,” Willard said, but she ran around the room, snatching lanterns from the walls.
“Maybe not, but I’ll do that.”
18
I’d failed and Michael was dead.
From the trees around the burning castle, I hurled another grenade over the high walls and onto the rooftop. It exploded with a thunderous boom that shook the earth but did nothing to alleviate my anger. Anger with the situation and anger with myself. I’d expected traps, and I’d still managed to walk into one.
I grabbed another grenade and pulled the pin.
The log structure burned heartily from all sides, the flames writhing in the weak morning light, blurred and surreal in the omnipresent fog. The water in the moat reflected the hazy orange of the fire. When the grenades blew, they added carnage to the slaughterhouse, but they weren’t needed. Willard and I had doused numerous halls and rooms in kerosene from the lanterns, lighting carpets and tapestries and furnishings with the dedication of revenge-fueled arsonists.
The tower where the cub had been was burning like a candle. When we’d checked, she hadn’t been in there. Hopefully, the big tiger had taken her someplace safe, but it further distressed me, knowing I would never see her again.
Everything about this morning was abysmal. I threw another grenade.
Two of the alligators in the moat scurried up onto land. At first, I thought they were being magically compelled to attack us, but they rushed toward the woods. They were fleeing the flames, not doing the vampire’s bidding. But he still had some of those wolves with him. I sensed their auras down in a basement, just as I sensed his.
“Has he moved yet?” Willard asked over the snapping and cracking of wood.
She stood behind me, rifle at the ready and eyes alert as she scanned the hilltop.
“He’s still underground back there.” I waved toward the rear of the burning castle, a portion we hadn’t seen yet. We had stationed ourselves to the side of the structure so we would see if he came out of either the front or back.
“He could have a fire-proof saferoom.”
“If he does, we’ll find it once the castle burns to the ground.” I squeezed my hand around the haft of a great axe I’d removed from one of the walls inside. It wasn’t Chopper by any stretch of the imagination, but a hint of magic imbued the blade. It might work to behead the vampire if I could get close enough to him.
“We should split up so we can cover both exits in case he runs.”
“I already have a plan for if he runs.” I held up the cat charm I’d taken from the ogre.
Willard arched her eyebrows. “Pretty.”
“It summons the tiger.”
“Do we want that?”
“Yes.” I hoped.
I also hoped I could get the charm to work. I hadn’t seen the ogre mutter an activation word to call forth the tiger.
Gripping the charm in my hand, I whispered, “Come back to this realm, my friend.”
Willard must have caught the words over the roar of the fire, or was a gifted lip reader, because her eyebrows flew up again. There was little doubt that the tiger had been responsible for the slayings of the past week, including that of her agent, but if my guess was right, he couldn’t act of his own volition. He’d been forced by magic to do as the ogre wished, the ogre who’d been obediently serving the vampire.
“Come back, tiger,” I whispered, worried when nothing happened. Maybe I had to know his name to summon him.
The aura I’d been monitoring for the last twenty minutes stirred. The vampire was on the move.
I pointed toward the castle’s back door—he was heading in that direction. Willard and I would have to chase after him ourselves.
“He’s going for that door.” As I started in that direction, a silver mist formed. The tiger.
I shifted the big axe into both hands in case I was wrong about the figurine and he attacked me.
Willard jogged off, not waiting to see the creature solidifying in the mist.
“The wolves are coming with him,” I called after her, intending to follow as soon as the tiger fully formed.
“Good. I can kill them with this.” She hefted her mundane rifle as she ran.
I almost yelled a reminder that only shots directly to the eye had worked before, but she knew that. And could do that.
The tiger solidified in front of me, his head as high as my shoulder as he stood on all fours.
“I need your help.” I squeezed the cat figurine, clenching against the shaft of the axe. “Will you chase down the vampire and hold him down so I can kill him? Permanently?”
Unwavering green eyes stared at me. He had to understand—he’d run off to find the cub when I’d told him about her—but could he communicate? And would he be willing to do what I asked? Or did I have to make it an order?
You retrieved the cub, he spoke telepathically into my mind.
“Yeah.”
Gunshots rang out. The wolves had run out the back gate ahead of the vampire, and Willard was firing at them as they leaped over the moat. I had to get over there to help her, but the tiger would improve our odds vastly.
And cared for her, he said.
“I tried. She wouldn’t eat or drink.”
Our kind cannot do so in this world. I thought she would die because she had no statuette, no link back to Del’noth. The tiger gazed past my shoulder toward the wolves and toward Willard firing at them from the cover of a tree.
“Will you help us?” I hated to rush his story, but the vampire wouldn’t give us time for a long tête-à-tête.
I was the one who took her from her mother, compelled to do so by the ogre. His gaze returned to mine. To be used as bait for your treasure-hunter acquaintance to find.
“Yeah, they screwed us all over. Come help me deal with the vampire, eh?” More gunshots fired, and I couldn’t wait any longer for the tiger to decide if he was going to help. Maybe a sterner order would have compelled him to obey, but the last thing I wanted was for that to backfire and for him to attack me.
As I rushed across the hilltop between the trees and the moat, coughing at the smoke curling down my throat and dodging charred pieces of wood blowing off the castle, the vampire stepped into view. He focused on Willard. Chopper rested on his shoulder, but it was an empty hand he stretched toward her.
I wasn’t close enough to use the axe, so I yanked out Fezzik. He hurled his power at Willard an instant before I fired, and she flew backward, smashing into a tree. Two out of four wolves remained on their feet, and they charged toward her.
My bullets pounded into the vampire’s side under his raised arm. He jerked it down and faced me. I fired into his chest. The rounds struck true, but he had no blood to bleed, no organs to destroy. Even magical bullets weren’t enough to blow away a vampire.
He squinted at me, and I braced myself for an attack, but when he raised his hand, it was to form a shimmering silver circle that hung perpendicular to the earth. A portal. I’d never seen one, but I knew from stories told by the magical what they looked like. He intended to escape—with my sword.
I roared and ran at him, firing. He turned for the portal, and I knew I wouldn’t reach him in time.
My clip ran empty, and I almost threw my trusty firearm at the vampire in frustration—and in the vain hope that he would trip over it and go down. Then a blur of silver blasted past me. The tiger.
He slammed into our foe like a pile driver, and Chopper flew out of the vampire’s hands as they tumbled to the ground. I cast aside the axe and sprinted for my sword as the snarls and snapping of jaws rose over the crackling fire. Whether the tiger’s claws could destroy a vampire, I didn’t know, but I snatched up Chopper to help.
They rolled on the ground, and I couldn’t get in to strike at the vampire without the risk of hurting the tiger. Then a blast of magical power struck my ally in the chest. He flew backward as if he weighed ten pounds instead of a thousand.