Part Four: End - f

Barry gulped nervously and turned back to focus on the darkened lobby. They continued inside, each member of the raiding party making sure to be as quiet as possible. Then, out of nowhere, chaos erupted. One second, everything was empty and abandoned, and the next, dozens of dark shapes started running out of every conceivable spot that could've been hiding an adult-sized person.

They were fast. Almost too fast. Alpha Team couldn't really see the creatures. But they could all hear them. The vampires were screeching their heads off, the noise so overwhelmingly loud that it hurt. The wolves got it the worst because of their heightened hearing. All of them, except for Kendra, nearly collapsed to the floor, howling in pain. Ian, Deirdre, and Anya were shaking their heads. Although the noise was hurting Kendra, she managed to shrug the worst of it off. The wolves might have been getting the worst of it, but the knights and mages weren’t much better off. Nearly every one of them had hands clamped to their heads and were gritting their teeth in pain.

"Hurry! You have to get it together. They're coming," Conor was yelling at her. His face was contorted with worry.

Kendra forced herself to ignore the high-pitched, drilling sound of the vampires and, with great effort, let out an earsplitting roar of her own. It traveled out of her throat with enough force to hurt but it did the trick. The roar rallied those with her and with visible effort of their own, her wolves shook off the sonic attack and each one let out roars of their own. The knights and mages rallied next. Gunshots erupted out of the knights’ weapons and glowing orbs of light started racing through the dark lobby. Kendra saw several vampires get hit in that barrage and go down, their bodies torn to shreds or burnt to still-sizzling ash. One of the vampires was a bit braver than the others and zoomed right at Barry the fire mage. Unfortunately for it, the reddish-orange aura surrounding the man wasn’t just for show. As soon as the vampire touched that glow, it burst into flames. There was a nearly deafening scream of pain and agony that ripped out of its throat, even louder than the hideous screeching the vampires were making, and then it fell to the ground in a heap. It spent several minutes trying to put the flames out but after failing to do so in time, it stopped thrashing and went eerily still. The flames continued to eat at its flesh and pretty soon there was nothing but a darkened, smoking pile of flesh and bone.

“Kill them,” Melena yelled sharply, her voice brimming with strength and a confidence that was clearly infectious.

As one, the knights moved forward. Their eyes were intent and staring. Their guns jerked in precise, sharp movements. Every few seconds they would fire and whatever vampire they were targeting would crumple to the floor sporting several new bullet holes. The knights were using UV rounds that would leak radiation into any vampire hit by them, poisoning them from the inside out. This rendered them lethargic and easier to deliver kill shots to, mostly consisting of decapitations delivered from extremely sharp sabers strapped to the knights’ backs. There were several headless bodies and severed heads with dead, lifeless eyes carelessly tossed all over the floor.

That was a mercy compared to what Kendra and her wolves did to them. As soon as Melena gave the kill order, the four of them let out howls and charged straight into the throng of vampires. Ian was the first to make contact and after three seconds, there was almost nothing left of his vamp but a lump of bloodied flesh and a few twitching limbs. Kendra batted one with a huge paw and smacked its head clean off. She used the momentum of the swipe to slash into a second vampire that had been next to it. Her claws gouged and ripped into its flesh. It screamed in sudden agony and then collapsed as blood sluggishly pooled across the lobby floor beneath it.

"On your left," Conor shouted. A new vampire was running at Kendra, being careful to stay in what it thought was her blindspot.

Unfortunately for it, she had Conor literally watching over her.

She turned her head and her amber eyes suddenly glowed with white light. The vampire stiffened. Its eyes widened sharply before they glazed over. Then, without a word, it turned and walked over to a wall where it proceeded to smash its head into it over and over again with increasing fervor. Blood splattered and within a few seconds, it fell onto its back with most of its head caved in.

"Holy shit," a mage said, this one was a water mage named Gianna Holbrook. "What the hell was that?"

She was looking at the vampire Kendra controlled with a mixture of fear and respect. Kendra, however, left her to continue staring and ran back into the fight. She saw Anya and Deirdre circling a number of vampires and went to help them. There was a clear path of death leading up to her two she-wolves and felt a bit of fierce pride swell up inside her at how well they handled themselves. Off to her right, the knights continued to shoot targets as the mages lobbed several forms of elemental magic around. Barry was throwing what looked like javelins made of fire while his compatriots were tossing everything from water, to earth, to pure wind.

It wasn’t long before the vamps realized how outclassed they were. The wolves, knights, and mages were too well coordinated. Too powerful. Within twenty or thirty minutes, over thirty vampires were dead.

"Fucking run away!" one of them said, a younger man that looked barely twenty years old. A group of about ten vampires heard the call to run away and immediately did so. Others, however, didn’t get the message or just flat out ignored it. Despite the fact that the vampires were an eclectic mix of ages, genders, and races, each one had one thing in common.

They were insane and some of them were clearly too far gone to think clearly.

Kendra could see that insanity in each of their eerie, blood red eyes. She could almost feel their hunger blazing inside their minds, driving them to do things they never would have done when they had been human. Now that restraint had been completely obliterated by their need to feed on human blood. They lacked the ability to do anything but feed and kill.

So Kendra lacked compassion for them.

In her mind, she saw all the people the vampires had taken from her.

Conor.

Bev.

Megyn.

Leo.

Kevin.

Oscar.

Bruce.

Zoe.

Grady.

Pope.

None of them were coming back, except for the pseudo-life Conor was in and even then, that was barely living. These bloodsucking, monstrous leeches had ripped them away from her. Had torn them out of her grasp right when she had finally gotten something she craved her whole life. A family. They had barged into her home and slaughtered her family without any mercy. So she would show them none too. The vampires, every last one of them, were going to die. She had determined that before she ever set foot in the hotel. She was going to eradicate every last one. Whatever it took and whatever cost was required of her.

As the vampires tried to retreat, Kendra let out a howl of unfiltered rage. Her body started to hump and move weirdly. Her front paws exploded with muscle and she stood on her hindlegs. Long, sharp claws erupted out of her fingers. Her body swelled with even more muscle. When her transformation into the alpha state was done, she roared so loudly it felt like the whole building was shaking. She jumped toward the retreating creatures, the pure strength in her legs carrying her up and over them so she could cut off their retreat. She lashed out with one of her enormous paws and snagged one of the vampires. Her massive, canine-like head leaned in closer as the vampire squirmed and tried to fight back. Kendra’s hand closed into a fist, crushing the vampire's head in the process. Then she tossed the body at the rest of the vampires, most of them just standing there and gaping up at her in complete shock. Despite their months-long war, most of the vampires had never seen anything quite so...hugely…terrifying as the over eight-foot tall, humanoid werewolf.

“No point running,” Kendra growled, right before she ripped into the group of bloodsuckers.

They tried to run but their mind numbing fear wasn’t doing them any favors. Most of them were colliding with each in their haste to get the hell away from her. She ripped through them in short order and in just a few seconds, only dismembered bits were left over. Another loud roar ripped out of her throat as she looked around for more of them to kill.

“You got one coming up behind you,” Conor shouted. “Back left. Maybe three feet away.”

Without even glancing back, her arm shot out and swatted away the vampire Conor was talking about. It had jumped down from an upper story and tried to attack while her attention was focused elsewhere. Thanks to Conor, however, it was sent crashing into and completely through a wall, disappearing out of sight with a scream that gradually faded into silence.

“Another to the right,” Conor said again. “Three and a half feet.”

Kendra did the same thing to that one and a similar scream could be heard only to die out seconds later. She whirled toward the sound of Conor’s voice and found him standing there, leaning against one of the railings. There was a touch of a smirk on his lips as he looked at her. Then his gaze traveled up to the second floor mezzanine level.

“Got about two dozen more coming,” he said. “Can you handle that many?”

A sudden scream cut through the noise of the battle and Kendra’s head whipped toward it. One of the mages just went down under a pile of vampires. When she focused on them, she heard the unmistakable sounds of rending flesh and more screams of pain.

A low, rumbling growl moved up her throat.

“Not a problem,” she said.

Her eyes flashed amber fire and then she hunched down, her intense gaze focused solely on the mezzanine level. Then she jumped and hurled herself through the air. She sailed over some wooden railings and landed with a rumbling impact on the second floor. The vampires looked at her for a second, some of them with clear reservations about fighting such a nightmarish creature. Then, as one, they attacked her. They were strong. And vicious and very nearly unstoppable.

But that was against ordinary opponents.

Not Kendra.

Her sheer size and brutal strength made it almost too easy to rip through the vampires trying to kill her. In seconds, there was only one of them left and that one was being lifted effortlessly into the air by the throat.

“Where’s Drake?” she asked. Her voice was rough and gravelly but comprehensible.

The vampire actually looked down at her and its lips pulled away in a sneer of disgust. She was a middle-aged woman with dark, red hair that was long and silky. She was dressed in chic, fashionable clothes that must have cost a fortune and part of a tattoo poked out from underneath the collar of her shirt. If she had passed by the vampire on the street, she never would’ve thought she was a monster. She looked so human. So ordinary. The blood red gleam to her eyes and her wickedly sharp fangs betrayed her nature, however. Even now, she was trying to bash and fight her way out of Kendra’s chokehold. The strength of her hits were insanely strong but Kendra’s alpha state was built stronger. They did little damage and whatever damage they did manage quickly healed.

Kendra yanked the vampire woman closer and roared right in her face. When she was done she asked the same question.

“Where…”

Her hand squeezed a little tighter.

“Is…”

Her hand squeezed even harder.

“Drake?”

There were faint gurgles and choking sounds at first and then the woman managed to spit out a choked, “Fuck off.”

In a fit of rage, Kendra slammed the fashionable redhead onto the mezzanine’s marble flooring and her head exploded like a watermelon being hit with a baseball bat. Kendra flicked her hand and bits of blood and skull fragments went flying off it.

“I’m coming for you Drake!” Kendra yelled. “You’re next.”