Chapter 34 34
We each headed off to our assigned locations on high alert. There was no sign of an intruder in the bedrooms or bathrooms upstairs. I was feeling like maybe I over reacted and interrupted everyone’s lunch for no good reason. Then I opened the door to the den. It stank of vampire. And not just any vampire. A soon to be boot stomped one. I glanced around the room, but, was unable to find him. His scent hadn’t left this room, so, he had to be in here. I looked up to find a mist swirling across the ceiling towards the port hole window. Not wanting him to get away I misted and gave chase as soon as I cleared my clothes.
We swirled out a small crack around the window and hung high in the air above the front yard for a moment. I could only guess he was wondering what his next move should be. The ward was up again. If he tried to cross it, he’d be back in the bug zapper. Speaking for myself, I really didn’t want another go at that. I broke off the chase to dive bomb Connor when he walked around the side of the house. He needed to know we had at least one intruder. He slapped at me! How dare he! Making a mental to note to retaliate once I was corporeal again, I returned to the chase. Which was pretty boring since all he did was dart around looking for an exit. Which there wasn’t. Clearly he did not understand how wards worked. They form a dome. We were essentially smoke trapped in an upside down bowl.
As we swirled around the front of the house for the second time, Vera and Tristan came out the front door and stood beside Connor who was watching us.
“You might as well surrender. There’s nowhere for you to go.” Vera called out. She leaned over to Connor. “Is Pearson being chased or doing the chasing?” Oh, she was so going to pay for that. As was my partner who chuckled. I swirled around to dive bomb her when I noticed someone hiding behind a SUV across the street. My senses were muted in this form. I couldn’t tell for sure what species they were or if they had magic. But, something about him screamed prey not predator so I assumed he was a magic of some kind. I started to dive to warn the others that we had company when a ripple of magic went through the air. The wizards below me looked around trying to locate the source of it. Before they could, a large rock was levitated from the Lobo’s garden and flew into Vera’s fore head. The impact caused her to fall backwards, unconscious, into the ward. As soon as her body touched the ward I head the popping sound of it deactivating. Bloody hell. Connor opened fire on the magic across the street as I returned to chasing down the vamp who was now free to move about the country. He darted towards the woods with me close on his…vapors.
He made a beeline for circle clearing. Perhaps the pack should rename it Grand Central Clearing since everything seemed to happen here. The vamp dove inside a hollowed out tree on the edge of the clearing. I felt the magic ripple through the air as he returned to his corporal form. Several feet from the tree, I too became solid again. Naked in the woods. Again.
“Lets try this again.” I called out to the tree where I could hear him moving around. “You got nowhere to go. Time to surrender.”
Huh. Didn’t know I was chasing a kamikaze vampire. The bastard came out of the tree fully dressed in jeans and a metal band t-shirt, swinging a sword. This was the first time I had actually seen him. He was about the same height as me, skinny with dirty blonde hair and brown eyes. His features were unattractively sharp and boring. He came at me with what I think was supposed to be a battle cry. Sounded more like he got his tallywacker stuck in his zipper. I smiled at him with my fangs showing as I rotated my right hand to call my sword. I could kill him with a fire ball, but, I needed him alive or at least undead. For the moment at least. Our swords rang when they met.
“I’m going to enjoy killing you, you wizard loving traitor!” He jumped up on one of the fallen trees to deliver a few thrusts. “They said not to draw your attention to me. That you would kill me. Ha. Like a woman could ever beat me.” How sweet, a chauvinist. Or a misogynist? I could never remember. Whichever he was, he was going down.
“And who might they be?” If I was lucky, maybe he would volunteer everything I needed to know. He seemed like one of those gloating types.
“The Syndicate of course you stupid bitch! Now I’m going to make you pay for all the pain your ward caused me” He swung his sword wildly at my head. I dodge easily out of the way before blocking his attempt to remove my appendix.
“So you’re part of The Syndicate?” I asked as I jumped backwards to keep from getting sliced across the middle. I heard Connor and Tristan come running into the clearing as I finished my question.
“I will be once I bring them your corpse. This will be my final act to prove I’m worthy. I killed that wolf and made it look like those weak witches did it. Everyone would have thought the wolves killed the witches if the stupid sheriff had just minded his own business. Then when the wolves and magics went to war with each, they’d killed each other off. And we’d take over as the rightfully rulers. But now that’s not going to happen. So instead of starting a war, I’m going to bring them the body of the not so powerful Cole Pearson. “I circled around on the downed trees, keeping it between us. I really did not like sword fighting naked. What if he got the girls? And what was stuck in my foot? It hurt like the dickens.
“Uh my corpse? You plan on bringing them my corpse?” Ok, how long had this idiot been a vampire?