Page 268 of Golden Eagle

Fulk looked at him, expression going strange. “Not regular vampires.”

Much’s brows jumped up and down. “The afflicted ones? Christ, I didn’t think they had any of those in America.”

“They do now, somehow, because they’re in the building, and coming this way.”

As if to prove his point, another roar sounded, this time closer, louder.

Fulk gave a little hiss. His face looked paler, Trina thought. “Here, darling, that’s enough.” He got his wrist loose, and lifted it to suck at it himself a moment, laving the marks with his tongue until they stopped bleeding.

Trina wondered if that was ever going to look normal to her.

Mia tipped her head back and breathed through her mouth a moment, gasping. Licked the blood off her lips and teeth. Amazingly, the gunshots had stopped bleeding. New color bloomed in her cheeks. “Shit,” she said, on a deep exhale. She blinked, righted her head, and was lucid again. Pain etched her face, but she was herself, and very much not dead. “God, that hurts like abitch.”

“We’ll need to have someone have a look at you later,” Fulk said, tugging his sleeve back down. “An X-ray to be sure there’s no bullets still inside. But you should be able to walk.”

“Can you?” Anna asked her, hand still on her shoulder.

Mia wiggled her feet. “I think so.”

More gunshots echoed beyond the door Fulk and Anna had come through; several thumped into the wood of the door itself.

“They’ll have that down, soon,” Fulk said. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

Anna stood, and helped Mia up.

“Those other vampires,” Trina said. “Even if we get out” – which she really doubted they’d be able to do – “what will they do?”

Fulk made a grim face, and didn’t answer.

Trina wished she’d told Miguel to evacuate the building before all of this started.

She turned, and saw Kolya standing over a slumped Dr. Fowler. Fowler held a hand to his face, over one eye, where Kolya had obviously decked him.Fucking bastard, she thought savagely, and took a step toward him.

She didn’t reach him, though.

Mia strode past her, shaking, but not limping. She reached Fowler in a few long strides – Fulk and Anna protesting loudly – leaned down, and gripped the front of his shirt in one hand. She dragged him up – up, up, until his toes dangled, only the tips scraping the carpet. He reached for her hand, scrabbling at it, trying to pry it loose, but it didn’t matter. He was a human, and she was a vampire, and, streaked with blood, probably carrying more than one bullet, Mia carried him over, and slammed his back against the wall. Brought her other hand up, and gripped his jaw with white-knuckled force, until he cried out in pain.

“What’s coming after us?” she snarled, her voice more growl than girl.

When he didn’t speak right away, she tightened her hand. He yelped, and, jaw nearly crushed between her fingers, said, “Devils. They’re awful. They’ll kill you.”

She shook him. “Why would you side with them instead of us? Why would you support Romulus?”

And that’s what he was doing, wasn’t he? That was the whole point of the New York branch. Not to fight in the coming war, the way the Virginia branch claimed. Dr. Fowler and those who worked under him were trying to prove themselves valuable enough to keep alive. They’d already decided Romulus would win the coming war, and they wanted to prove their worth to him, so they might serve him.

“Because,” he choked out, “I want to live.”

With the hand at his jaw, Mia pulled his head toward her, snarling, her teeth bared – and slammed the back of his head against the wall.

“Whoa,” Jamie said, reaching out.

Much stayed him with a hand.

Mia pounded his head against the wall once, twice, three times…again and again. Until the sheetrock cracked and caved in. Until blood spattered, and ran down the back of his neck.

At the last, she pulled him forward, limp and dangling, and with both hands snapped his neck in one easy movement, for good measure. When she dropped him, he fell in an unnatural pile of wrong angles.

She stood breathing hard, still growling, chest heaving.

Something slammed into the far door, the one Much had locked. Again. Again. There was snarling, and scratching, and all the immortals went instantly taut. Those were vampires out there – wrong ones.Devils.

“There’s not enough line to rappel down to the street,” Kolya said, his voice as flat and informative as ever.

“We’ll have to fight out way out,” Fulk said, surveying them. “Humans, or vampires?”

“Humans,” they all said together.

---