“We’re under the Willamette,” Sam announced, and I shuddered. An entire river was over my head. Oh God, get me the hell out of here!
“The Shanghai Tunnels led to the river but never under it. They led right up to the boat dock so the people could be taken on ships,” Ryder said
Who the fuck cares? I couldn’t breathe. But my father seemed to get what he was blabbing about.
“Yes, they’ve clearly been planning this a while. Must have taken months to build. Probably when Charlie first showed up to the Hive. Or maybe even before,” he said.
My stomach dropped. Fugly. He knew. He had a hunch from day one about what I was and he’d probably had this backup plan in place ever since. Asshole. Even dead he was still messing with my life.
Screw it. No time to worry about it now. We were out of the swampy mess and into the tunnels I recognized. These were the Shanghai Tunnels I had toured as a child. Surprisingly large and open, and above all, creepy.
Sam stopped and put his fist into the air. We all froze, holding our breath.
Sounds ripped through the silence. “Let’s go! It’s dark out!” a man roared. A voice I didn’t recognize.
Lucas’ voice made the hair on my arms stand up: “Waiting a few more moments won’t hurt the plan. No one knows we’re here. Give the humans time to scramble and run about in fear.”
No. No. No. He couldn’t be in on it. He couldn’t.
The other voice seemed perturbed. “The others have already begun to fight. You’re making me question your loyalty, Lucas.”
Lucas let out a nervous laugh and then I heard skin hitting skin, that sound of crunching bone, and a body hitting the cold floor.
“Lucas!” I screamed, running forward, feeling awful for doubting him. He was clearly stalling so he could mess up their plans.
There were gas lamp torches lighting up the walls, and as I strode into view I saw about twenty hulking vampires staring at me. Lucas was standing over another vampire’s body.
“Down!” I shouted at him, and he hit the deck as bullets sprayed from my gun.
Dear God, please don’t let one of these ricochet and hit my head. That would be a very uncool way to die.
Air whooshed past me as my father sailed over me and slammed into the oncoming wall of angry bleeding vampires. I halted my firing, not going to risk hitting him for a second.
My eyes widened as the Viking started to move. My father was an efficient neck breaking machine. He literally severed a dozen spinal cords within moments. Ryder and the boys took care of the rest. Once they were unconscious, we shot them with cure darts. I gave my father the stank eye for interrupting my gunfire, but he ignored it. Running to Lucas, I helped him up.
“I knew you would figure it out,” he said, his voice cracking. “You’re a smart girl.”
Did Ryder just growl?
I shook my head, ignoring it. “What the hell happened, Lucas? Vampires in the Shanghai Tunnels and a breeding program with humans.”
Lucas looked sick. “I didn’t know until today. Allistair made these plans after kicking me out of the Quorum and I had no idea. Charlie, once he found out there was a cure, just before you killed him, he told the Hive to be suspicious of the new blood shipment.”
My stomach dropped. “No … no, don’t tell me.”
Lucas nodded. “When the new shipment came, it was put into storage per his orders before he died. Portland Hive did not partake in the celebrations. He said to wait and watch around the world. If in a few days no one was cured, then we could drink. Until then we were to feast on old refrigerated bottled blood, and in worst case steal humans through the Shanghai Tunnels and feed from them.
“Dammit!” I clenched my fists tightly, trying to control my anger. How bad could it be? We’d wiped out a lot of Portland in the last battle, and had just taken down another twenty. How many more were loose on the city?
Lucas gave me a devilish smile. “Of course, I wasn’t going to let Allistair win from the grave. We luckily got our shipments earlier than a lot of the Hives, so I’ve been peeling the dates off of the new shipment and replacing it with the old blood dates. I haven’t slept for days.”
Relief exploded into my chest and I crashed into him, giving him a huge hug. “Lucas! You’re brilliant.”
He smiled as I stepped back. “Don’t get too excited. It was just me. I only got about forty to fifty percent of those bottles to the vampires. So half the Hive.” His smile went huge, all white teeth and excitement. I couldn’t help but return that smile.
“So if fifty percent got the cure-blood … that leaves us with…?”
My father answered: “About five hundred vampires.”
