Once again, to give her courage, he swept his hand down her braided hair as he walked the two of them closer to the gates. She straightened her shoulders, wrapped one arm around his waist and kept pace with him. Only he knew the cost to her. Her body shook terribly with each step, but she kept her head up and she didn’t falter.
Around them, his brethren gathered, fanning out in a semicircle to take in a wide area behind them. Tariq and Gary stood frozen, while Sandu joined them at the forefront, waiting for the first wave of Sergey’s pawns. These would be the lesser vampires. They had learned his “cannon fodder” were newly made vampires in the form of human psychic males, eager to be turned so they could have the same power as the vampires they chose to serve. They would expect the gates to be wide open because Sergey had said they would be.
The human security force had weapons designed specifically to kill the vampires, and they were stationed along the top of the fence in safeguarded positions where they could defend the compound yet not get taken prisoner by the enemy. With the safeguards woven so tightly, it was nearly impossible for even a stray arrow or bullet to slip through to injure or kill one of them, yet they could fire their unique weapons at the vampires at will.
Ferro released Gary and Tariq so they could participate in the upcoming battle after Julija had woven safeguards to prevent anyone from inviting vampires into the compound.
He clearly was still fighting the compulsion to open the gate. Julija countered the impulse in Tariq and Gary with a spell, helping to ease the need to obey that vicious hook in their brains.
It was always unnerving to see newly made and starving vampires coming all at once. They were hideous creatures with twisted faces, once handsome, some still partially so, but most decomposed and rotting in places, as they weren’t experienced enough to hold illusion through the desperate starvation they’d awakened with. Hair fell out of scabbed scalps, so only a few long stringy strands hung oily and loose. Teeth were pointed and jagged, the thin lips drawn back from shrunken gums. Maggots crawled on them, wiggling over the rotting flesh as they rushed forward, eager for blood promised to them—the rich satisfying blood of an ancient.
The newly made vampires were so frantic they would take any blood. Sergey had kept them in the ground for a longer period of time so they would wake starving. He wanted this killing frenzy, this madness, a desperation that would ensure they would kill and devour every living creature they came into contact with.
Sergey needed a bloodbath, the insanity of a chaotic seige, so he could slip in and reclaim Elisabeta. Once in the compound, he knew he could find her unerringly. He had lived with her scent, her soft, soothing presence, and he would never be able to live without it. She had been the one to give him the small details that allowed him to defeat his brothers. They had intelligence, but he had Elisabeta, his secret weapon, and he needed her back. He couldn’t continue without her. He had relied on her for all those long centuries and he didn’t know how to move forward without her.
