“Why are you here?” Victor asks, having retreated away from the direct light of the sun. I can sense his uncomfortable stance, though. He isn’t used to seeing it, and he certainly isn’t used to fighting near it, if this all comes to a clash.
“For Eris,” the Chosen says.
“Then take her and be gone.”
“Ha! We weren’t here to take her. We were here to kill her.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Once she was captured, we knew she’d talk. We were under orders to take her out. So we did. Catching you two here, though, is a bonus.”
“Is Sin not man enough to fight us himself?” I ask. “He has to send his dogs to do it for him?”
They laugh again, deep and demonic, like the world was a cruel joke that they had orchestrated all by themselves.
“Sin wants results,” the leader says. “That’s all. He doesn’t care who kills Victor so long as it gets done. We thought you’d have retreated to the city walls by now. But no, your arrogance knows no bounds. The Day Walkers are here, the Thirst is in your countryside, and still you remain in your stone house that falls so easily in the daylight. Sin will be very pleased to hear of Victor’s death and your capture, Dawn.”
“I’d rather die than go with you!”
“That won’t be a choice you get to make, girl. You may have thought your boyfriend would protect you no matter what. Well, you’re about to see how wrong you are. You will see the true power of the Chosen. You will understand why
The Chosen up high in their windows jump down, landing twenty feet below with a loud thud, nothing like the soft landing of most vampires. But they aren’t fazed by their jarring impact, and as they approach, their silhouettes fill out and I see the monsters as they truly are: hideous. Black eyes and jaws lined with asymmetric fangs. No beauty, no subtlety in their movements. Nothing but death and destruction.
They don’t draw their stakes; they have no need for them. Instead, they raise their hands, the fingers having lengthened and the nails becoming like claws. All it would take is a single jab, a quick strike, and one of those claws could puncture a vampire’s heart. Victor’s heart.
“We can’t outrun them,” I say, drawing my stake. Victor does the same. “But maybe we can—”
A blur of motion, black eyes and bloodied fangs moving up the stairs. I can’t tell if it’s one or two or all of them. It’s heading toward me, so I hold out my stake, adrenaline replacing any training that I had. But my stake never connects; rather it’s Victor who appears in front of me, stopping the Chosen with his own strike. I don’t know if it’s fatal or not because the next moment I feel another attack coming.
By the time I turn to face him, it’s too late. The Chosen slams into me and I’m catapulted off my feet and down the stairs. I watch Victor and his quarry grow smaller as I’m carried away from them.
Everything slows down for me, and I hope that this fall is too great for me to survive. I don’t want to be knocked out, I want to be killed. If this is truly it, I’d rather die than see Victor meet the same fate, and I’d rather die than ever see the smile in Sin’s eyes.
When I hit the ground, all the wind escapes from my lungs and I struggle to bring it back in. Short gasps that grab at nothing. I try to get up, and the Chosen, John, helps me by squeezing my neck and lifting me high. My vision is shattered, as though I were looking through shards of glass and mirrors. I want Victor to appear behind John and ram a stake through him, but I can still see him fighting at the top of the stairs, which seem so far away. Especially because we’re separated by a great swath of sunlight. Victor is young enough, strong enough that the sun will burn him slowly as his body continually reheals. But the pain will be debilitating, unimaginable.
John throws me across the room and I hit the far wall, the back of my head slamming brutally against it before my entire body slides to the ground in a heap. My stake is out of my hand, lying somewhere between him and me. I reach for another one, but it feels like all my bones are rebelling, and I’m slow to grab it. When I finally do, I barely have the strength to stand on wobbly legs.
The other two Chosen have tackled Victor and now hold him in the sunlight. Smoke rises from his body, making him look like a demon from hell, his fangs bared, teeth clenched, and anger stretched across his bleeding face. His legs begin to give out on him, his face scorched from the sun, red and splotchy; blood runs across the furrows on his face and chest, the razor claws of the Chosen having cut deep. Then John approaches him and the others let go. With a horrendous sound, he delivers a right hook to Victor’s temple, and the vampire I love falls to the ground.
The Chosen look at us. We must seem so pathetic in our beaten state. I search them, looking for any weakness. I can tell Victor’s done all that he can. Some of them, the leader included, bleed from wounds received, and one yelps as he dislodges a stake deep in his ribs, just below the heart. They’re weaker now, but far too powerful still.
“So this is where it all ends, Victor,” the leader says. “In the sunlight.”
They laugh as one, preparing for their finale—when we all hear it. A roar in the distance. Something coming this way.
I look out the window and see the dust swirling into the air and, against the horizon, a black form taking shape. It’s bulky and cumbersome, flying along as though unsure if all four wheels are supposed to be on the ground.
I look at the Chosen, and they’re just as mystified. So this wasn’t part of their plan, this isn’t their friends showing up. Then, maybe, it’s ours.
When I turn back, I see exactly what it is: a black van. Not exactly the cavalry I would’ve called for, but I don’t have much time to consider it; the van turns sharply and screeches to a dead stop.
The door immediately slides open, and a black-clad Michael steps out. And in his arms is something I’ve only ever seen in pictures, the thing my brother once spoke of using in the war. It was a weapon used against the vampires in the trenches. One of the few ways to kill them, and one of the most stomach-churning.
A flamethrower.
I jump as far away as possible; Victor follows my lead. Just in time. Michael squeezes the trigger and unleashes liquid hell onto the Chosen. I can feel the searing heat so acutely that I check my clothes and hair to make sure nothing has caught fire. I look to see the entire room engulfed in yellow flames, turning things black.
And I hear the screams of the Chosen. It won’t kill them right away, but it will give us time.
“Get inside!” Michael yells, his finger never letting up, the fire growing across the floor, catching anything remotely flammable and igniting it.
I run toward the van; Victor meets me there. The Night Watchmen waiting inside grab our hands and pull us quickly into the vehicle. Michael jumps through the opening last, slamming the door shut. The tires spin, and we’re gone.
Chapter 25
The entire ride back I’m taking calming breaths, steadying my hands. I look at Victor: His wounds have worsened, the run from where he was to the van exposing him to direct sunlight, further burning his vampiric flesh. His perfect skin is now nothing but a patchwork of various blackened shades and raised scabs, blood and pus running from them.
“I’ll be okay,” he says to me, his words deep and gravelly, almost unrecognizable, as though even his voice box has been singed.
“Here,” Michael says, handing him a packet of blood, the Agency stamp on it.
“No,” Victor says, turning it away. “I want the people to see me as I am. Let them see how vulnerable even I am to the Chosen.”
The van has been heavily modified. All of the seats, except the front two, have been removed. Most of the windows have been blacked out, and metal stakes line a magnetic strip. There are four Night Watchmen plus the driver.
“How did you guys know we were in danger?” I ask.
