But vampires could also be like rabbits. Throw in a reckless, vicious few who didn’t seem to care about competition, and suddenly they’d be coming out of the woodwork…and wild. The feeding here had been a careless one like that.
A Union guard staggered toward Cole, his head cast to the side. His face was gray, his throat a raw and bleeding mass where something had ripped it away. The three men were at a set distance from one another; they had learned how to watch one another’s backs. Cole moved straight forward, Brendan and Cody flanking him.
The creature went down easily with a single strong slash of Cole’s sword.
A boy came next. A drummer boy, perhaps. He couldn’t have been more than thirteen or fourteen.
Some distant mother’s child, not dead by canon fire, or the enemy’s intent, but dead when he should have lived to go home one day, and tell his children and grandchildren tales of the great conflagration, and how it had ended in time, when people became reasonable again. What would come, he would never know.
There was no choice: the boy suddenly hurled himself at Brendan, fangs dripping, an eerie cry tearing from his throat.
Cole pinned him but inches from his companion’s face. Brendan shuddered and quickly flashed Cole a nod of acknowledgment and gratitude.
More.
Older soldiers.
Even younger soldiers.
Emaciated, but no longer needing the bandages that had covered their wounds, the splints that held together shattered bones.
They came.
And they went down.
At one point Cole grew particularly tense: at least ten of the maniacal beings flooded into the fray at once. There was so little room in the corridors and offices of the prison, and with this battle different from standard warfare in that the enemy must always be kept at arm’s length, at times he doubted they’d make it out alive.
In a fury of motion and intent, the three fought together, closing their circle at times, stepping out when it was necessary to repel the attacks before the creatures came too close. Cody could best withstand a slash of the fangs, but it was critical that even he be constantly aware of an assault from any direction.
It had been worse than this, though, Cole thought, back in Victory, Texas. His thoughts always returned to his decimated hometown. There, the vampires had risen and sheltered, had gained strength and learned how best to survive their new existence. They could be shadow and wings against the umber light of the moon, and they could suddenly be behind a man and everywhere around him with no warning.
And in Victory there had been those infected who could still be saved. Sometimes vampires retained a certain amount of humanity—call it a soul—that bred a desperate, choking kind of hope when one fought them.
This prison had been…this had been a massacre. A changing with no guidance. A certainty that all infected would become monsters.
Out of the corner of his eye, Cole saw a flash of darkness—a shadow, a form. Instantly, he knew that this being was older. Clever—bent on survival.
There was always a head, king or leader in a pack of vampires. Once he was taken down, the rest fell far more easily. An idiot in life was an idiot as a vampire. Pure and simple. Murdering idiots were easy to kill in life, and they were easy to kill off again in death.
Thing was, sometimes, once a leader was killed, another picked up the reins. Or those who survived an out-and-out fight with human counterparts moved on and subtly started up again until they had power once more. Power in numbers. The right numbers.
It was a slippery slope for a would-be king. You needed enough followers to perform all your dangerous dirty work, but not so many that people began to realize that a real plague had been unleashed.
He spun around, certain that the creature was coming to lunge upon his back and sink his fangs into Cole’s neck.
No. There was nothing there.
He spun around again, moving swiftly and with maximum speed.
“Cole!”
Cody shouted the warning. There was one to the front of him, one to the right. Think quick, double time on movement. Holy water to the left, his sword to the front with a massive slash.
Again, he felt it. Something…something at his rear. He could feel the hair rising at his nape.
Still there was that thing…behind him…no things! Two—
He spun as Brendan shouted a warning. There were two. They seemed to be in concentrated battle with each other. Cole snapped open a vial of the holy water and tossed it, then drew back with his sword, ready to strike.
The first of the creatures burst into dust, ash and a clattering of bones. The second turned—at his mercy.
He heard a shriek, a cry. There was a blur before his eyes and he spun again—it was in front of him.
“No!”
He slashed the air, and the form pitted downward, rolling to make an escape.
It registered in his mind that the voice was feminine.
Well, they held women prisoners here sometimes. Women they suspected of spying. The Union had always threatened that women would be executed for spying right along with their male counterparts, though that had yet to happen.
But this one…
Yes, she appeared to be a shadow form because she was wearing men’s black breeches and a black cotton shirt. She had blond hair that glistened in the light of the moon and the few torches that still burned in the yard.
He saw her face.
Aquiline, sculpted, the face of an angel. Huge eyes, which glittered like gold, stared up at him. In contrast, her skin was as delicate and pale as porcelain.
He couldn’t hesitate!
He strode forward, intending to finish her off. Straddling over her form, he raised his stake high in the air.
“Damn you, what are you, an idiot cowboy?” she demanded, scuttling a little away from him.
She was whole; she didn’t seem maddened, diseased, in any way.
He had to hesitate; she might be among the living. Untainted.
“Who the hell are you, and why the hell shouldn’t I kill you?” he demanded.
“Strike Cole, strike! It’s deception, it’s always deception!” Brendan cried.
He lifted his stake again.
“Please, for the love of God! I don’t want to hurt you!” she cried. She glanced toward the others, then back at him.
“What?”
“Cole!” Cody shouted in warning.
At his back!
He twisted, just in time to spear the man wearing a preacher’s collar who was about to rip apart his back. He didn’t dare take more than seconds to shake the fellow from his stake, not with the woman beneath his feet.
The body fell near her and she shuddered, but her eyes never left Cole’s.
“Cole!” Brendan warned—there were two of them circling him.
“Give me a reason not to kill you!” Cole shouted to the woman at his feet.
She continued staring straight up at him.
“Cole!” Cody shouted at him this time; he could see that Cody was involved in helping Brendan—there were three around him, and now one had gained a certain power and speed, probably one of the first to be infected in the prison.
It