Page 10 of Thirst
Any other day, a team of slayers would stop the carriage by sabotaging its wheels. But that wouldn’t do today. The plan relied on the Krudelbach vampires and servants not noticing anything amiss with how “Ilyana” returned home.
As soon as his lantern caught the outline of our temporary obstruction, the coachman called into the night, “Whoa. Whoa there.”
The team of four horses slowed, to a cacophony of snorting, neighing, and clattering hooves. They maneuvered around the wagon at a walking pace.
Captain Stark stepped into their way, sword drawn. “Halt!” The well-trained beasts stopped, and the carriage rolled to teeter with one polished wheel hanging off the road.
We’d dressed in the dirty rags of brigands, but Captain Stark fit them well, her figure dense with muscle and coated in fighting scars. The scarf concealing the bottom half of her face also hid dozens of bite marks littering her neck and shoulders. Whether they’d been acquired as souvenirs of missions completed or from a life before the temple was anyone’s guess.
“Surrenderyer valuables, and we won’t skewer ya,” she said, affecting a lazy drawl.
“Brigands? Damn fools.” The coachman turned from Captain Stark to the shadows that Reilly, Dustyn, and I made just outside the halo of his lantern. We’d drawn crossbows. Dustyn aimed his weapon at the coachman, while Reilly and I were poised to shoot at the door of the carriage from two different angles.
Captain Stark had deliberately left a golden symbol of Aetherius visible on her belt. It was large and clean, catching the light on the backdrop of washed-out rags and her dirt-smeared, pale skin. Beside it hung a small bag of coins, positioned so the man couldn’t miss the unspoken offer she carried.
“Wait. That looks like… Are you…” He drifted off with a gasp, then stilled when Dustyn came close enough for him to see the crossbow pointed at him.
The carriage’s door opened by an inch, preceding an aristocratic voice steeped in entitlement. “Why have we stopped? I specifi?—”
Reilly flinched.Crash!His crossbow bolt whistled through the tiny window. Dustyn lowered his weapon to whip toward him, mouth gaping in disbelief.
“Idiot,” I hissed under my breath.
No scent of vampire blood permeated the air. Ilyana emerged from the teetering carriage, her heeled shoes immaculate on the dirt path. Her nostrils flared. I shot at her while her attention shifted toward a trembling Reilly.
In a split second, she lunged out of the way and grabbed his shoulder. Terror would make his blood as sweet as honey to her enhanced senses.
Captain Stark cursed and charged. The edge of hersword caught the lantern light while she rushed toward them.
After loosing a high-pitched shriek, Reilly tried to fight back. He pummeled Ilyana’s torso with awkward punches. She maneuvered behind him and dug her sharp nails into his skin, tearing and causing rivulets of blood to drip from the wounds. Her magic took control of the water in his blood to form a rope that started to loop around his torso like a living creature.
I could’ve stopped her magic with my own by nulling her abilities. But my attention was caught on her fangs. A single bead of venom hung off of one shining point. I witnessed a statistical anomaly in motion, a bite already loaded with venom. In a microsecond, she’d have her fangs buried in Reilly’s neck, and my final prototype would have a live test subject.
I could’ve let it happen, to test the preventative one last time.
Yet I didn’t think, I only reacted.
I tossed my spent weapon aside and grabbed the loaded crossbow from Dustyn’s grip. With vampiric speed of my own, I aimed and fired.
Ilyana’s expression went slack as blood and ocular matter sprayed from the hole straight through one of her blood-red eyes. She dropped to the ground at Captain Stark’s feet as the more experienced slayer skidded to a stop. The blood rope lost its form with a splash.
Reilly turned and fell to his knees before me, gripping my calves as he sobbed. “Thank you. Thank you. Aetherius bless you!”
My chest felt hollow as I stared at the crossbow still vibrating from the shot.Years of research, and I just threw away a perfectly viable test subject. What’s wrongwith me?
But the truth settled fast. I couldn’t leave his fate to chance when I had the ability to intervene. And all that mattered anymore was creating that cure for Zane.
My lip curled into a sneer as he continued to grovel. “Consider another profession, recruit.” I pulled myself free of his grip.
Captain Stark kicked the body, which twitched with the last vestiges of life.Vampires were nearly impossible to kill, except by extreme means: decapitation, a drink of consecrated water, exposure to fire or the sun, and the old slayer mainstay, a strike through the heart. Most other wounds that’d be fatal to a human would put a vampire in a near-death state.
I pulled a stake and mallet from my belt. She nodded and sheathed her sword, letting me have the kill. Since we needed her body as intact as possible, there was only one option to send her soul to the beyond.
I flipped Ilyana onto her back and unbuttoned the fabric under her chin, revealing the pale skin of her chest. The dress needed to remain intact as well. I knelt over her and set the stake’s tip above her pulse. She moaned in pain, head lolling as her vampiric healing attempted to fix the extensive damage already done to her. With a few brutal pounds of the mallet, I cracked any resistance from her ribs and ended her struggle. Her body fell limp with true death.
Now that it was over, Captain Stark went to speak with the coachman. She’d shifted her rags aside to expose the crossed stake and blade symbol of a vampire slayer embossed in her leather jerkin, then unhooked the bag of coins from her belt and pressed it into his hand.
His eyes gleamed when he spotted the pouch, and the possessive curl of his fingers told meexactly what mattered to him. Whatever she said after that, he nodded along eagerly, greed already doing half the work for her.
