Part 50 (2/2)

”What are you doing here?” he demanded, pulling me to my feet. ”Are you okay?” His face darkened. ”I wondered why the hybrids were gathering here. Did Innokenti do this?”

”No,” I said breathlessly. ”It was my idea.”

William's expression grew even darker. ”I'm sure that's what he led you to believe.”

Five other vampires had come out of the trapdoor after William, and he began to pull me back toward them.

”I'm getting you out of here,” William said grimly.

”Wait, William. Wait,” I said, twisting in his grasp. ”I can't leave.”

”You can't stay here,” he said. ”It's too dangerous.”

A hand landed on William's chest.

”What's dangerous is leaving the keep. The woods are crawling with hybrids.”

I looked up. Anton had suddenly appeared beside us.

William released me and seized Anton.

”I should have known you were part of this,” William said furiously. ”She's an innocent girl. She doesn't understand what she's gotten herself into. I'm getting her out of here now. And if you try to stop me, I'll tear you apart.”

”Anton is right,” shouted a new voice.

I turned to see a pale, fair-haired vampire standing just behind us-he was one of the small group who had followed William through the trapdoor. He appeared to be young-probably about the same age I was. Of course, with vampires age was hard to tell. For all I knew, he could be hundreds of years old.

”Anton is right,” the fair-haired vampire said again. ”If you try to take the human girl through the woods, the hybrids will capture her and kill you. If you truly value her life, you will allow her to remain.”

William turned a face full of fury on the fair-haired vampire, but he loosened his grip on Anton and pushed him away.

”She will stay for now,” William said.

Then he stepped toward Anton. ”But if anything happens to Katie, I will hold you accountable.”

”Just do what you're supposed to do,” Anton said contemptuously, ”and everything will be fine.”

Anton walked back toward the parapet, and the fair-haired vampire went to his own post.

William seemed reluctant to leave me. ”Stay here and keep your head down. Nothing will harm you while I stand.”

”This is where I want to be,” I said.

Strange as it was, those words were true.

William gave me one last despairing look, and then retrieved his crossbow and rushed off to the parapet wall.

I huddled next to the trapdoor and listened to the sounds of the fight all around me. The crossbows sang with deadly regularity, and I could hear the shrieks of the hybrids as they were struck by the razor-sharp projectiles. I couldn't see what was going on, but I couldn't help but picture the scene below-hybrids swarming out of the trees, projectiles bursting into flame and hacking off limbs, lodging in chests, severing heads.

But beheading the hybrids, I knew, was only part of destroying them. They still had to be wrestled back into their graves and burned to ash. Otherwise, as I had already seen, they would continue to fight-even without their heads.

As far as I could tell, the entire vampire force was in the keep-there was no one left on the ground to do the wrestling or the burning.

I began to feel deeply uneasy. Immediate physical danger had been my preoccupation before. Now I began to think about the odds against us.

The hybrids would keep coming, and we were outnumbered.

What if I had doomed us all?

The shrieks from below continued.

Suddenly, there was a cry much closer at hand.

I turned to see a hybrid, its green-flame eyes burning with hatred, appear over the top of the parapet, angular smoke swirling around it. The creature's large, death-pale hand was wrapped around the handle of an axe.

As I watched, the hybrid buried the axe deeply in the shoulder of a vampire defender. The vampire dropped his crossbow and wrenched the axe out. Then, he swung it in an arc, aiming for the hybrid's neck.

I turned away quickly.

Unfortunately, as I looked to the other side, I saw another pair of flame-green eyes rise up over the parapet. A new hybrid bared his teeth in a feral cry.

I looked away again and spotted yet another hybrid. This one also had an axe, and he began hacking away at the two vampires defenders on either side of him. The hybrid was shot in the chest by a third vampire, and I heard him scream as he fell away.

But there were more cries from our circle of defenders, and more and more hybrids appeared over the parapet wall.

There were too many of them. We were soon going to be overwhelmed.

The sounds of the fight continued to swirl around me, as I closed my eyes and hoped that I was wrong.

My eyes flew open when I heard an ear-splitting shriek close by. I twisted around.

One of the hybrids had successfully made it over the parapet and was now standing on the roof. Angular smoke was swirling around him in a thick haze, and I remembered that I was the only one who could actually see the smoke. It was one of the gifts I had been given as a result of my heritage. I could track the smoke generated by the kost, but the smoke served to distract others-like vampires. The smoke was a defense mechanism of the kost-a field that could jam an enemy's senses. I realized with horror that the smoky haze generated by the hybrids was having an adverse effect on the vampire defenders.

For his part, the hybrid that had attained the roof of the keep was standing over a hapless vampire, hacking at his neck with an axe. The hybrid shrieked in triumph.

I turned away.

A moment later, I cried out when someone grabbed me by the arm and hauled me to my feet.

It was William.

”I'm getting you out of here,” he said. ”Now. No arguments this time.”

William dragged me through the trapdoor, and we ran down the spiral staircase in the darkness.

William pulled me out of the keep, and then picked me up. He ran toward the front of the keep, and then down the hill. We were heading toward the ring of pale trees at the end of the clearing.

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