I sprinted up to her. A bloody human lay on the ground, still as death. Not in formal wear. Mine?
The attack came from above.
Two vamps landed on me. I was a tangle of limbs and dress and fangs and talons. If I’d had any thoughts of dignity or of keeping an attacker alive, they vanished. I fired five rounds into the nearest torso. The vamp was armored, but the gear wasn’t designed for continuous fire at close range. The vamp fell.
Fangs snapped at my neck. I was already throwing myself to the side. The vamp fangs scraped through flesh, clamping onto my right shoulder instead. Both front and back.
Dog-fang vamps. Upper and lower fangs. I knew this vamp clan.
She shook me like a dog. Brought her arms down, hard. My upper arm bone snapped. Muscles tore from the shoulder joint. My semi-automatic fell as lightning pain flashed through me. My arm went numb. Bitch-vamp leaped up, into the trees. Her teeth in my shoulder. She wrenched me off the ground with her and into the air. This sucked.
Beast’s mental tone was ironic.Jane is stupid.
Shut up. Gimme some pain relief.
Midair, I stabbed the vamp. Groin strikes. Three of them, none hitting the artery feeding her leg, but finding the weakness in her armor I was hoping for. She gasped and her fangs released my shoulder as we landed on the ground in a tight copse of trees. Her leg buckled. I’d hit something—nerve, tendon, something important.
Beast-fast, in a motion that was half-dancefloor, half-cat, I caught my feet, swiveled my body around and struck again, trying for her throat, slicing her face instead. I moved in, my blade scraped off her gorget.This bitch came prepared.
She backhanded me. I spun, falling. A tree came at me. I hit it. Face first. Saw stars. Pain ricocheted through me from my broken arm. I landed hard. I let myself collapse to the side of the tree, twisting around to face her as gravity finished its work.
Three shots. Three shots. Three shots. Eli’s firing style. But not at my vamp. I caught a glimpse of him. He was fighting two vamps who wielded swords. Deon stood behind him. Firing. Three shot pattern. Toward me.
Dog-fanged-bitch-vamp fell on me. Fangs out, mouth bloody. My blood. As she tumbled I raised the blade at the weak area of her armor, the groin. My previous strikes helped. My new blade pierced her armor at the weak point. Deon’s gift, Deon’s wound. I shoved in and cut around, following the path of least resistance. She grunted. Pulled her fist back for a face punch.
From behind me, two shots fired into her open mouth. Hot brass bounced onto my bare chest. Burned. The vamp fell to the side. “Crapity crap,” I gasped.
Off to the side, another vamp fell. Eli finished off the third one and took both their heads. Deon, standing to the side, did a little dance. I rolled over and cut through the dog-fanged vamp’s neck to the vertebra. The blade was really sharp. I had to stop to breathe and leaned against the tree.
Mi-Sook finished taking the dog-vamp’s head with a left-hand backswing of a longsword.
“Bonus, my lady,” she demanded, grinning like a fiend.
“What aboutmybonus,” Deon demanded.
“Yeah. Whatever,” I panted. “Granted. For everyone.” The words were way too gaspy and soft. My vision seemed to be doing wonky things.
Mi-Sook frowned at me. Swept her gaze around the woods. Sniffed. Grimaced. Cursed again in the language I didn’t know. Dropped her longsword. Pulled a small knife and slit her wrist. Poured it over my shoulder.
I vaguely remembered that I had some healing amulets. Somewhere.Oh. Right. Inside Bruiser. Where they were needed.“The human?” I mumbled, remembering why we had gone into the woods.
“Alive,” Mi-Sook said, “and with a little luck, she should stay that way. It was the woman who owns the chapel.”
“Ah. Ummm.”
“Queenie? You okay?” Deon asked.
“I don’t feel so good.”
And then everything went dark.
???
I woke to Eli placing me gently into a limo. The world whirled around me. I retched. Someone held my head out the car door and I vomited onto the asphalt. I hated the taste and acid burn of sickness, and it was only champagne from before the wedding. Not even meat or salmon, which would probably have tasted worse.
Beast did not get to eat fish or cow, she mourned.
Eli wiped my mouth with a soft cloth, eased me upright, shoved me over, against someone who held me upright by putting their arms around my waist, and got in beside me. I was pretty sure Eli had carried me out of the woods and around the chapel.
