Rare Vigilance by M.A. Grant

Chapter Twenty

They raced toward the nearest building, intent on getting something, anything, between them and the creature. It howled the moment they broke into their sprint and scrabbled after them. The memory of claws slicing through body armor made it hard to draw breath. He focused on Cristian’s hand instead, on how tightly it held his own, and followed him.

The empty building loomed ahead of them through the gap in the fallen chain-link fence. Atlas hesitated. Even as dark as it was outside, moving inside meant what little sight he had would disappear, lost in that jarring transition. He needed to warn Cristian, to urge him to get away while he could, to not let him be slowed down. But the words wouldn’t come, couldn’t when they were already out of time.

Cristian’s grip on his hand tightened. “Trust me,” he yelled, still running full out toward the building.

Atlas squeezed back, took one final look at the clear path before them, then closed his eyes.

Every other sense roared into higher life. Cristian’s even breath despite their desperate flight, the pounding of their feet over the solid ground. Cristian’s hand lifted his just a bit, warning him of something, and ahead he could hear the change from packed dirt to grit-covered concrete under Cristian’s feet. The warning meant he didn’t overreact when he felt that same shift of ground. Instead, he threw all his trust into Cristian’s decisions and let him lead them deeper inside.

Their steps echoed through the cavernous space, ringing dully off the metal rafters overhead. They were deep enough inside now that Atlas opened his eyes, adapting as they shot past rusty machines. Their reflections skimmed like pale ghosts over the surface of broken windows. There was no point hiding their location. The monster hunting them could smell them, could probably sense their heat. Any time spent finding a hiding place would be wasted.

His eyes had almost fully adjusted when Cristian warned, “Left.” He heard it, processed it, even understood what was about to happen. He was still unprepared for Cristian’s sudden pivot, the graceful way he redirected Atlas’s motion in the spin, keeping him upright as they burst through a broken wall and into one of the former offices. Behind them, claws and feet slid in a desperate effort to adjust, only to fail. The strigoi’s roar of disappointment and frustration rattled through the building.

“Which way?” Atlas panted as Cristian led them through two more side rooms, slamming rickety doors behind them on the way.

“Window, or risk going through two more offices and out the back exit,” Cristian said.

“Window,” Atlas decided. He grabbed a broken chair off one of the tables. Cristian copied him and they ended up near one of the partially broken windows. “Aim for the top corner,” Atlas ordered, “and watch your face.”

The strigoi had surely corrected its course. The doors were flimsy, would fall to its claws in a matter of seconds, and Atlas knew all of this, but couldn’t allow himself to give in to the fear gnawing at him. They had a chance. Cristian had gotten them a chance, and he’d be damned if he wasted it.

He levered himself up and out of the cleared window with a forearm. Slivers of glass poked at him through his shirtsleeve, but it was better than using his bare hands and leaving behind a blood trail to be followed. His knees wobbled and his legs burned, reminders of the adrenaline wearing off and the shock setting in. He pushed past it and focused on running back around the front of the building. The strigoi probably wouldn’t expect them to double back. And if they got there before it did, there was a straight shot of sidewalk to the car.

They were halfway to the front of the building when they heard the monster’s scream and the clatter of it scrambling out the window after them. They reached the sidewalk in front of the building. They ran for their lives, desperate to reach their final destination. They made it halfway down the stretch before Cristian glanced back. His eyes widened, he started to yell, and Atlas knew what he was going to say before the words formed.

Their pursuer slammed into Cristian so hard they tumbled through a weathered wooden fence and into an empty parking lot near the riverfront. The strigoi skittered over the uneven pavement. Cristian hit the edge of a broken parking block and flipped off in a different direction, rolling to a stop a few feet away from the creature. Both were dazed, each struggling to get up first, and it gave Atlas the opportunity he needed. He wouldn’t lose Cristian.

He rushed the strigoi, lowering his shoulder and bracing for the hit. He ran through the contact, through the sensation of claws digging into his unprotected shoulders, teetering for a horrifying, breathless moment on the edge of the tall concrete retaining wall before plunging into the dark water below.

Cold. Darkness. Pain.

Atlas pushed away from the strigoi, his hands slipping over its skin as it fought against its unexpected submersion. It managed another accidental swipe of its claws against his ribs, but didn’t get hold of him. He forced his way to the surface, broke that final barrier, and gasped, filling his lungs with air in case it seized him and dragged him under.

“Atlas!”

He turned and found Cristian at water level, racing along the low, parallel, maintenance walkway. The river, wide and sluggish from observation above, was stronger than he expected. The slow, inexorable pull of its current tried to drag him farther away from the walls and safety.

“Atlas, come on,” Cristian yelled again.

His new injuries pulled with every stroke. He didn’t dare to put his head fully under water and lose track of the distant splashing of their attacker as he swam back. Cristian ran ahead, tracking his progress and angle. He was waiting for Atlas when he finally got within arm’s reach of the wall. Cristian crouched and reached out a hand, snagging hold of Atlas’s arm and dragging him bodily back up onto the narrow strip of concrete.

The shivers wouldn’t stop, no matter how hard Atlas tried to control them. Cristian helped him to his feet. He didn’t remind him to hurry. He simply led them toward the narrow stairs leading back up to the public access. The moment their feet hit the solid ground at the top of the river wall, Cristian steered him toward the car. He’d drifted farther downriver than he thought as they ran past the building they’d tried to escape through. The strigoi’s claws had left deep gouges in the entryway, a grim reminder of how close they’d come to bearing such injuries themselves.

“Keys?” Cristian asked.

Shit. He patted his pockets. “Here,” he said in relief when he found them.

“Good. Get the car going.”

“No,” Atlas protested instantly.

Cristian pushed him toward the vehicle. There was a strange new tension around his mouth as he tried to hide his fangs and his eyes had changed color completely, all dark blue replaced with gold.

“You’re bleeding,” Cristian bit out. “Get in the car. I’ll join you soon.” He cocked his head and listened in the direction they’d just come from. “It’s out of the river. Hurry.”

Unlocking the doors took several fumbling tries. He flung himself inside and tried to start the ignition, but a flash of movement beyond the windshield distracted him. Cristian was grappling with the strigoi. They snarled and ripped at each other, so fast he could barely track their movements. He only knew that Cristian was fighting for all his worth, unable to keep up with the attack.

The engine turned over.

Cristian screamed. Atlas looked up, saw Cristian bowed backward, one of the creature’s clawed hands buried deep into his right shoulder, while its other hand raked at his exposed chest and stomach. Cristian reached behind him and dug his fingers into its eyes, forcing it to relinquish its hold before it could draw him in for a bite.

Atlas slammed his hand down on the horn in warning, then threw the car in drive. The engine roared as he floored it.

Cristian dove away from the strigoi. He hit the ground and rolled with the momentum, moving himself fully out of the way. The strigoi took a step toward him, right into the illuminated path of the headlights, and Atlas steadied himself. The front of the car crunched into it and sent it flying over the broken pavement. He accelerated again. This time, the bumper caught it as it tried to rise, and forced it back down to the ground. Atlas swallowed down bile when the car lurched and the thing underneath the tires crunched and popped. He flung the car into a quick reverse, and roared back to meet Cristian.

He threw himself into the backseat of the car, bleeding on his fancy jacket. The door barely had time to close before Atlas was gunning their way down the narrow street in reverse, twisted in his seat so he could see their path. There was no point looking back. The thing might be dead. If it wasn’t, his goal was to get Cristian away. They could figure out what the hell to do after they were both safe.

“Cristian, you okay?” Atlas asked as he spun them onto the blessedly empty cross street. He put the car back in drive and finally risked a single glance down the long stretch to the warehouse. There, far away, a crumpled, unmoving form. Thank God.

“Not sure,” Cristian admitted. “Hurts.”

Atlas tossed his phone back to him. “Call the doc. Make sure she’s waiting for us.”

Cristian grunted his assent and sat up. Atlas ached at the low hiss of pain he heard. He tugged at the inside of his lip with his teeth, trying not to allow himself to be drawn back to the memory of the first attack, when he could hear the confused groans of his platoon members bleeding out around him. Hearing Cristian’s voice helped, even as he recounted the details of their fight. The grim narration was easy to ignore if he simply focused on the rasp of his words.

The rustle of fabric made him glance back in the mirror. Cristian held his jacket to his neck, the skin of his wrist and knuckles white from the pressure he was putting against the deep puncture wounds. Atlas returned his eyes to the road and pressed down harder on the gas pedal.

“I’ll find out. In the meantime, put my father on,” Cristian ordered. He leaned forward, closer to Atlas, and asked, “Where are you injured?”

Atlas took quick stock, shifting in his seat so he could feel the movement of different limbs. “Shoulder’s bruised. Mostly scratches over my back and ribs.”

“Were you bitten?” The question wavered with genuine fear, enough that Atlas fumbled to reach back to reassure him.

“No,” he said, squeezing awkwardly at Cristian’s elbow. “No bites.”

“Finally, some fucking luck,” Cristian muttered. Into the phone, he said, “Neither of us were bitten. Atlas got clawed though. I can smell the blood.”

No point making an argument he’d lose. He could feel the blood welling up under his jacket, its warmth noticeable against the cold, soaked fabric of his clothes. “You’re worse off,” he said before giving one last squeeze and taking his hand back.

“I’ll be fine.” Cristian stayed perched near the console, watching out the windshield, as he listened to the doctor and waited for his father to come on the line.

Decebal’s voice carried through the phone, even with it pressed to Cristian’s ear. He was speaking in Romanian, and Atlas assumed Cristian would respond the same way. He didn’t. Instead, he held the phone out, turned it to speaker, and said, “We’re both here.”

Decebal switched back to English effortlessly. “How long until you’re back?”

“Five minutes?” Atlas guessed. He glanced at the speedometer and winced. “If we don’t get pulled over.”

“I’m sending some of our people to recover the body,” Decebal said.

“They’ll see it from the end of the road,” Cristian said. His fangs caught the light when he grinned. “Atlas ran it over with the car.”

“Effective,” Decebal said, as if Atlas hadn’t destroyed the front of one of his luxury cars. “And Deborah?”

Atlas didn’t recognize the name. Cristian made a thoughtful noise though. “She never showed. Send Ioana to check her office. I’m worried.”

“As am I. I will see you soon.”

The tires screeched as they turned onto the road leading to the house. Four dark cars passed them in a rush. Decebal’s people must have been given some kind of warning, because all the cars hugged the side of the road as they zipped by so Atlas didn’t have to slow or stop. The security gate was still open and he slid inside before it closed.

“Garage,” Cristian told him. “They’ll be downstairs waiting for us.”

They were. Doctor Dosou and a man Atlas assumed was another doctor were actually in the garage as they parked. The second they emerged from the car, she hurried forward with her companion, gloves already in place. “Atlas,” she called, “this is Doctor Ned Dalphin. He’s going to work on you. Cristian, you’re with me.”

The doctors herded them into the medical office, but didn’t bother separating them out into different rooms. Instead, Atlas took a seat on an extra surgery bed in the corner of the room, while Cristian got the operating table under the better lights.

The doctor, who said to call him Ned, got Atlas to walk him through what happened while he helped him peel out of his jacket so he could get a better look at the claw marks. “Yeah,” he muttered as he peeked under strips of the shredded dress shirt, “we’ll want to close those up. Butterflies should work though. How’s your shoulder?” He prodded at it, nodding when Atlas grunted. “Bruised, but not out of joint. So that’s a plus.”

“Sure,” Atlas said.

“How much of that river’s in your lungs and stomach?”

“No idea, honestly. I wasn’t really worrying about a secondary infection.”

Cristian snorted, drawing Atlas’s attention. It wasn’t that funny, but seeing him wearing a genuine smile went a long way to making up for the rest of the sight. He was a mess. His hair was tacky with sweat and blood. Bruises littered his jaw and cheeks. His shirt hadn’t been removed yet, but Atlas knew there would be worse injuries under the mauled fabric. Now, out of the heat of battle, he noticed the rips in Cristian’s slacks and the way he curled on himself to protect his back.

“Ribs?” Atlas croaked at Cristian as Ned started to clean the worst of the claw marks with saline-soaked gauze.

The gauze wasn’t enough, so Ned wrapped a gown around Atlas’s stomach with the order, “Hold this,” and began irrigating the wounds with saline instead. Atlas clamped his jaw against a whimper at the familiar pressure of liquid over broken skin. He was back in the hospital, with people cleaning what was left of him so the surgeons could step in.

“Definitely bruised,” Cristian said from far away. “Yours?”

“Fine,” he ground out. The cool trickles down his back made goosebumps rise until they pulled on the opened skin.

“I don’t believe you, you glory hound. Prove it. Breathe for me.”

He wasn’t in the hospital. He was here, in Decebal’s house, and Cristian was with him. Cristian was concerned, since his statement was taunt and hidden worry in one. He focused on Cristian’s challenge. He took a breath, but it was too quick and shallow. It let him feel the changing path of the saline over his skin and he clenched his fingers tighter into the fabric of the gown.

“Slower,” Cristian warned. “Anyone can hyperventilate.”

The teasing helped. He managed another breath, slower this time, and another after that. Each inhalation got deeper, more measured, and the misery and dizziness faded bit by bit. Once he had himself back under control, he glanced over to Cristian and asked, “How’s the rest of you?”

“I’ve had better nights.”

“That’s an understatement,” Doctor Dosou interrupted. She wore a deep frown as she lifted sections of the jacket, keeping as much pressure on it as she could. “You’re lucky it didn’t hit the artery. It isn’t healing like it should.”

“I’ll be fine, Héléne,” Cristian promised around a pained smile. She ignored it, so he directed it to Atlas, who was equally unimpressed.

“You’re still recovering from the juniper, and I don’t think the bags will be able to do much more,” she warned, poking a spot that made Cristian swear and go even paler than he already was. “You need a donor.”

Of course, that was the statement Decebal walked in on. Atlas tried to straighten in his seat and immediately regretted it. Decebal paused at his side long enough to take in the injuries on his back and the way Ned was bandaging them before striding over to his son. He hissed when Héléne lifted the jacket to expose Cristian’s wound and crossed his arms over his chest. “Who?” he asked.

Cristian grimaced. “I’ll use the bags—”

“This is not up for debate. Pick. Someone,” Decebal bit out.

“I’ll grab Lucy,” Héléne said.

Cristian protested when she rushed out, or started to, since Decebal roared out his name with a thunderous tone that made Atlas flinch. Cristian shut up. “What attacked you?” Decebal asked.

“Strigoi,” Cristian said.

“This is not the time for lies, Cristian—”

Cristian jumped down from the operating table, waved off Ned’s yelled orders to stay put, and stalked to one of the cabinets. Ned swore and worked faster to finish adding the last butterfly bandages to Atlas’s wounds. Cristian opened doors until he found some of the small paper cups.

“What are you doing?” Atlas asked as Cristian selected one.

Cristian winced and peeled away the jacket just enough to scrape the edge of the cup over his skin, collecting a trickle of blood. He held the cup out to Decebal. “Look.”

Atlas wasn’t sure of the significance of the gesture until Decebal snatched the cup from his son’s grip and drank the offering. Atlas started up from the bed, but a piercing look from Cristian held him in place despite his worries of what memories Decebal might be seeing.

Blood gone, the man closed his eyes. His body tensed. His fingers twitched, his eyes flickered and rolled under the lids, and Atlas was about to shove Ned toward him when he took a deep, shuddering inhalation and broke out of the momentary stupor.

“I told you,” Cristian said steadily. “Now do you believe me?”

He stared at Cristian for a long moment before saying, hoarsely, “Yes.” He shook his head like he was trying to shake something loose inside his skull. “Yes, I believe you.”

“What do we do?”

Decebal crumpled the cup. “Find their sire. End this madness.”

“It’s the Wharrams,” Atlas said. When the pair looked at him, he explained, “We caught their mole a week ago. This timing is too convenient.” Hopefully it was enough. God, let it be enough so he didn’t have to explain all of what he knew to support the accusation.

“I will speak to the Council about our suspicions,” Decebal began, only to trail off. He and Cristian turned toward the door, heads cocked expectantly.

Peter, one of Decebal’s employees, burst into the room. His hair was disheveled, his chest heaving as he sucked in air, and his eyes were wide with shock.

“Creatures,” he gasped out to Decebal.

“Where?”

“We’re holding them to the gardens,” Peter said, “but there are too many. They’ll be inside soon.”

“Have they found our nest?” Decebal demanded.

Peter shook his head.

Decebal pointed at Atlas. “Get my son out.”

“We’ll leave through the garage,” Atlas told Cristian. He stood, world wavering a little, and dug the key to the damaged car from his pocket.

“I can help here,” Cristian argued, as if his injuries were nothing more than minor inconveniences.

Decebal turned back to him, eyes blazing, hands shaking as he clasped them around the back of Cristian’s head. “You cannot, fiul meu.”

Yells from outside the medical office. Héléne must have run out to help and left the door to the hall open. Decebal looked back over his shoulder, hearing something Atlas couldn’t make out from the rising din. Whatever it was, Cristian heard it too, because he watched the doorway as if he expected Death itself to come waltzing through. Decebal turned back to his son, pressing their foreheads together. “You must live. I’ll send someone to help you, but you must go now.”

He pulled back and looked to Atlas, desperate. “Run far, understand? If their sire knows where you are, they will not stop hunting.”

“And you?” Atlas asked.

Decebal’s leonine gaze swung back to the door. “I will destroy their nest. Once it is safe, I will call you both home.”

Atlas held Cristian back until Decebal was gone. He knew Cristian’s pain at not following his father. He’d felt the same urge to protect when his platoon was attacked. It had nearly cost him his life, and he’d promised Decebal Cristian would not suffer the same fate.

“We have to go,” he said. “Stay close to me.”

The hall was empty. Atlas knew it was a false peace. Somewhere overhead, the Vladislavic family was fighting for all their worth. They were dying. Even vampires would be hard pressed to survive such an onslaught. He and his platoon had fallen against the creatures’ speed, knocked down and torn apart before they could fire a shot or draw their knives. And here he was, without any kind of defense, about to run straight into a garage that could be filled with the creatures.

A cold sweat broke out over his skin. The lights, normally so gentle on his eyes, grew harsher the farther they ran down the hall. Every sound echoed around and through him—the squelching thud of their footfalls, their breathing, Cristian’s soft grunts of pain as he moved—and he fought the impossible fear that the strigoi would hear them through the floors and walls and converge on them. Feed on them.

Cristian stopped him when they reached the door. “Will you be able to drive?” he asked. “You’re shaking.”

“Better to have something to focus on,” Atlas admitted.

Cristian’s thumb rubbed against his hand, a brief, reassuring pressure, before he let go and took hold of the door handle. “Ready?”

There was no other choice. Not when they heard the splintering of wood and the muted sounds of growls and screams suddenly sharpened. The fighting had broken through into the nest. Decebal must not have been able to hold the line.

Cristian glanced back, his hand lifting from the handle in a moment of indecision. Atlas couldn’t let him go down that road, not when it could distract him from the dangers ahead. He ignored the rising clamor at their backs and opened the door. The damaged car sat where they’d left it haphazardly parked. There were no shadows moving along the walls, no screeches, no claws dragging over concrete. If they hurried, they might make it into the car before the creatures found them.

They flung themselves into the front seats and Atlas started the car with a breathless prayer. It caught just as their time ran out. The first strigoi raced through the open door and keyed on the engine’s noise, the way it caught and changed pitch when thrown into drive. Atlas raced forward, clipping the creature with the ruined bumper, following the wide lane as it turned into the second line of cars and up, up, up, out of the garage. The lights around the property illuminated the strigoi crawling and sprinting and hunting through the grounds. Atlas counted five rushing toward a figure near the garage entrance. He started to slow when he recognized Helias, but Cristian’s hand pressed down on his thigh, urging him forward. Helias lunged toward the first strigoi with a bared snarl, narrowly avoiding its snapping jaws. And then they were past the rear corner of the house and the rest of the chaos lay before them.

Decebal’s grounds security had fallen first, judging from the bodies scattered on the edges of the gardens. Even with their losses, the scene didn’t look like a battlefield, which was the most disturbing part. The house, ablaze with light, had a few broken windows. The truest sign of the violence were the groups gathered in small clusters, vampires working together to keep a strigoi or two at bay as they tried to kill them without dying in the process.

Atlas kept to the far edge of the paved drive and accelerated. He flinched, but avoided swerving, when a strigoi launched out of the shadows and hit the rear panel as they passed. Cristian swore for him and turned around in his seat, attention caught by the most intense fighting near the door of the house. Atlas kept his eyes on the road. He could only spare a quick glance out the window, catching a flash of Decebal in mid-fight, his fangs buried in a strigoi’s throat. And then they were at the gate and careening down the private road. Atlas gave the car more and more gas, letting the roar of its engine drown out the lingering sounds of the fight in his head.

It wasn’t until they were on the main road, speeding toward Scarsdale proper, that Cristian dared to ask, “What now?”

“We leave town.”

“Father’s sending someone to help us get out. Where do we wait for them in the meantime?” Cristian peered out the window at the picture-perfect houses flashing by. They stood untouched by death or destruction, and he curled his lip and gave up on them soon enough. “Rapture?”

Atlas glanced back in the rearview mirror. No cars behind them. A lucky break at last. “No. Too obvious a choice. The Wharrams know your father’s world. They’ll expect you to go there.”

“Shit,” Cristian whispered. “You’re right.”

A familiar intersection lay ahead. Atlas tapped his finger on the steering wheel, mind spinning. Between the intelligence he’d handed over and her own research, Bryony would know all of the Vladislavic haunts. She and her underlings would know Whitethorn; they’d found Atlas there, after all. But there was one place she hadn’t seemed to pin down yet.

He signaled and got in the turn lane, following it onto the quiet, residential street.

“Umm, Atlas, where are we going?”

“My place.”