He became aware that Nicholas had grown quiet. Lucas opened his eyes.
“My lord,” Nicholas began. “Four warriors are on their way out of Minneapolis. I couldn’t risk more for fear that this was a feint by Klemens, and the real target was the HQ in the city.”
“How long before they arrive?”
“Minutes. It’s only twenty miles or so. It probably took them as long to get geared up and into the truck as it will to drive there. They’ll ping me when they arrive.”
Lucas nodded silently, no longer seeing his surroundings, though his eyes remained open. He was already back in Minnetonka with his vampires. “Tell them to hurry, Nick. Klemens’s troops have broken the first perimeter.” His eyes closed as pain knifed his heart. “They’re sparing no one,” he added in a whisper. Lucas wept bloody tears as he witnessed the carnage, as he felt the agony of his vampires. Klemens would pay for this. If it was the last thing Lucas did on this earth, he would make that bastard pay with his life for this and for Raphael.
The journey became an endless blur of rage and agony. Some part of him heard Nicholas tell him the four Minneapolis vamps had arrived and were engaging. He heard murmured casualty reports, but he didn’t need those. He knew what the situation was on the ground, knew just how desperate it had become. The four helped, but they weren’t enough.
Finally, he felt the helicopter tilt as it began its descent. At the same moment, he heard Nick tell someone they were minutes out. Lucas opened his eyes and scanned the vampires he’d brought with him, wanting to be certain they were ready. He’d lost enough tonight. He didn’t want to lose anyone else.
Clicking the appropriate switch on his headgear, he said, “Gentlemen.” Every head turned his way. “Scorched earth. None of theirs walks away from this.”
His warriors nodded grimly. They hadn’t been privy to his firsthand observations, but every one of them would have heard Nick’s conversations. First with the vampires in Minnetonka, and then with the Minneapolis contingent once the four arrived at the enclave. They knew how brutal Klemens’s attack had been, not only to the Minnetonka vampires, but to the humans, as well.
They were still a hundred yards off the ground when Lucas stood and yanked off his headset. He barely registered the deafening noise as he stood in the helicopter’s open doorway and took in the scene on the ground. The stench of the battle hit him first, familiar in so many ways. Blood, flesh and fire—no matter how far man progressed, the smell of a battlefield was still the same. But there was more than the physical smell to this battlefield. He was a vampire lord, and these were his people. Their terror was an acrid taste on the back of his tongue, their deaths a deafening scream in his mind, an ache in his heart.
He scanned the Minnetonka enclave as the helicopter descended. It wasn’t a single structure but a walled compound, with several buildings gathered around the central hall. Some of the smaller structures were individual homes, while other, larger buildings were shared by several vampires. The wall had been breached, but he knew that. The attackers had blown through the sturdy gate, which had never been intended to withstand an attack of this nature. It was designed to keep the vampires safe from human intrusion and curiosity. And until today, it had never been called on to do anything more.
“My lord,” Nicholas shouted as they hovered well off the ground, preparatory to landing. “Let me go ahead—”
That was all Lucas heard as he leapt to the ground and raced toward the battle, his vampire speed taking him out from under the whirring rotor of the descending craft. In a split second, he identified his own vampires, separating them in his mind’s eye from those sent by Klemens. He ripped into the first enemy with a roar, tearing him bodily off the male vampire he was fighting and ripping his head from his body with a vicious twist. He tossed the two pieces aside and kept going.
“Inside, my lord,” someone shouted, and Lucas’s head turned, following the voice as he kept moving. “The main house, Sire!” Lucas recognized Thad, bleeding and broken, in a fight for his life. He started toward him to help, but Nicholas appeared out of nowhere, stepping between Thad and the brute he’d been holding off despite being outclassed by fifty pounds or more.
Lucas raced into the main building, taking the outside stairs at a single leap and bursting through the door. Time seemed to slow as he took in the huge room with a sweeping scan. Blood and bodies were everywhere. A battle raged at the foot of the big staircase, and he recognized twelve-year-old Dex holding a thick-bladed ax, tears rolling down his cheeks as he swung the heavy weapon in a wide arc, trying to hold off the two hulking vampires who were toying with him. What the hell was Dex—
A very human scream sounded from upstairs, and Lucas understood. Dex’s head swung toward the sound, and one of the enemy vamps grabbed the ax, yanking it from Dex’s hand, nearly pulling the boy with it. The brute reached for the human child, but his fingers never made it that far. Lucas rammed his fist into the vampire’s back and tore his spine in two. Before the injured vampire had even begun to collapse, Lucas had taken out his sadistic buddy, as well, lifting him bodily and tossing him in the direction of the door where Lucas’s fresh and bloodthirsty warriors were following in their master’s wake.
“Watch the boy,” Lucas growled and tore up the stairs faster than the human eye could follow.
He didn’t have to look for the attackers; he followed the scent of blood. Human blood. The women had been gathered upstairs. For safety, no doubt. Thad and his troops had made their last stand in this building, and God knew they’d lasted longer than anyone had the right to expect. But it hadn’t been enough.
Lucas rounded a corner and howled furiously at the sight that greeted him. He’d feared a bloodbath awaited him, and there was blood enough. But it was savagery of a different sort that caused it. Klemens’s vampires had attacked the compound’s women and raped at will, while their allies held off the defending males down below. And the rapists were still at it. Lucas’s rage sent waves of power coursing through the entire house, rattling the walls and shattering windows. The two vampires he’d caught in the act jumped up, ready to fight until they saw whom they were facing. They stumbled back then, edging toward the windows in their desperation to escape. But there was no escape. Not for the murderers of innocent civilians. And not for rapists.
Lucas advanced slowly, holding the two attackers in place with a thought. He felt more than heard some of his own vampires enter the room and spoke without turning. “Get the women out of here. Gently.”
The women whimpered in fear when Lucas’s vampires approached them, and he spared a wisp of power to send them all into sleep. He would speak to Thad when this was over and recommend the leader permit him to wipe the women’s memories of the events in this room. Not the attack. People had died here today. There could be no forgetting that. But these women didn’t need to remember the rest of it. Not if they didn’t want to.
He focused again on the two enemy vampires now cringing before him, trying to shrink into the floor itself. They were covered in the blood of their victims, fangs fully distended, and they were both huge. Taller even than Lucas, and far more heavily muscled. The vampires in the yard had been the same. Klemens had apparently been gathering thugs for some time, preparing an army for the day he would make his move. Lucas sneered privately. It would take more than a few slabs of beef to win this war.
He crouched in front of the nearest attacker. He hadn’t touched the vamp yet, but then he didn’t need to.
“What were your orders?” he asked.
The vampire had the good sense to shake his head. He might be terrified of Lucas, but Klemens was no one to cross lightly either.
“How about you?” Lucas asked, addressing the second prisoner.
Clearly emboldened by his fellow thug’s success, he too shook his head and uttered a grunting sort of noise that Lucas took for a negative.
Lucas bared his teeth. “Oh, I so hoped you’d feel that way. Nicholas,” he called over his shoulder, having felt his lieutenant enter the room. “Ask Thad if he has a soundproofed room where I can converse with these two. If not . . .” Lucas turned back and eyed the captives lazily. “I’ll just have to rip out their vocal cords and take the truth from their tiny brains . . . after we play a bit, of course. I bet Thad and his people would love to spend some quality time with them first.”
One of the vampires whined in fear. Lucas studied the bastard as he would a piece of shit on his heel. “You’d rather I kill you quick?”
The vampire nodded, his eyes begging for mercy. But Lucas only laughed. “Where would be the fun in that?”
Chapter Six
Kathryn turned off the alarm on her cell phone before it could ring. Despite what she’d thought the night before, there hadn’t been any flights into Minneapolis until this morning. So she’d booked the first one at six o’clock this morning, and then gone looking for a gym to work off some of her nervous energy. That had been a bust, too. She’d driven up and down every street before admitting a 24-hour FitnessCenter wasn’t going to materialize on the next corner. She could have driven to Spearfish, or even Rapid City, but that was a good hour’s drive each way, and she hadn’t been that eager to work out. She’d finally stopped at the local Starbuck’s—apparently there was no town too small for Starbuck’s—and forced herself to stick to decaf coffee while using their Wi-Fi connection to dig up what she could on Carmichael and his gallery. That hadn’t taken much time, and without caffeine there didn’t seem to be much point to the coffee, so she’d gone back to the motel and tried to grab a few hours of sleep. She didn’t know why she’d bothered. Every time she closed her eyes, the facts of Daniel’s case would appear—her personal checklist imprinted on the inside of her eyelids, with every item checked off and the inescapable conclusion that she still knew absolutely nothing.
And if that wasn’t bad enough, when she managed to erase the checklist, it was only to be replaced by an endless loop of speculation as to where Lucas had been off to in such a rush last night.
