Page 85 of Kiss Across the Universe
Their faces were hard, uncaring.
Alannah clutched Maggie to her and jumped again. The upstairs reading nook formed around her. She had chosen the corner behind the sectional, where the chances that one of the children might be was minimal.
Jesse spun, one of the triplets in her arms. “Oh, thank god!” she cried, hurrying over to Alannah.
Alannah put Maggie on the sofa. “Can you watch them by yourself?” she said quickly.
Jesse shifted the baby in her arm, to reveal the Glock strapped to her hip. “Let them try again,” she said grimly.
Alannah nodded. “They might, Jesse. I’m going back to help the others.”
Jesse just nodded.
Alannah jumped back to the far end of the verandah. As she landed, she heard Jesse in her mind, screaming across the timescape.Come to me! Enemies around us, attacking. Come now!
In addition to the verbal scream came fragments of images. The view of the yard in front of the house from the upstairs window that Jesse must be standing next to right now, and the assailants who were moving closer, drawing inward.
Kit and Remi and Rafe stood between them and the house. Kit held his knife. Rafe was bare handed. Remi had a crooked branch in one hand, that looked pathetically short and spindly.
Alannah clutched at the verandah rail, her heart in her mouth. There were too many of them confronting the three. She had to join them. She had to bolster their numbers. Only, she had never fought like this. Not a standing fight.
And she hesitated, while railing at herself for being weak and cowardly.
But then she saw that two of the assailants were angling toward Kit, the only human out there.
Alannah jumped, again without thought. She found herself next to Kit. She raised her hands. Also without thought. Her upper lip curled.
Kit glanced at her. “Don’t let them corner you. Jump away if you need to.”
No ‘go back and be safe’. No protests that she shouldn’t be there.
She nodded.
The assailants’ steady pace toward them faltered. Alannah thought for a moment that her sudden appearance had given them pause.
“We’re right behind you,” came another voice. Alexander’s.
“All of us,” Neven said.
Alannah heard the sound of a gun being cocked. “And we’re armed,” Sydney added.
“So are we,” Mixon called from the tree line, where he had remained. “And ours are far superior to yours. Demonstrate, Pascal.”
One of them, a woman with blue hair, swung the muzzle of her long gun to one side, and triggered it.
The huge chopping block, that was actually the remains of a fallen tree and still deeply rooted in the ground, exploded into burning wood chips. The earth around it grew black, then glowed, as the sand itself melted and turned to glass.
“That was full power,” Mixon called. “We don’t need nearly that much power to kill you all. Humansandvampires.”
“Kill us, and you don’t get your pet traveler,” Kit said.
Mixon peered down at his fingernails. “What makes you think we want any of you?”
“You just stole one of the babies!” Alannah screamed, fury making her voice loud and penetrating.
“Which you took back,” Mixon replied. “So now, this hunt has become an extermination. We’re clearing out a troublesome nest.” He looked up and nodded.
Sydney’s rifle fired first. “Take cover!” she screamed, as Mixon clutched at his belly and bowed over.
