Corbin Helsing met me in the doorway. His eyes widened as he saw the room’s carnage, blue fire rampant. “The master is dead, the Kiss weakened, though it looks like you hardly needed the advantage, since I just barely killed him. What the f**k is that blue stuff?”

I blinked at him, shocked at myself for a moment. I usually avoided using the blue, particularly if Christian was near, and here I had almost just left it burning. “Don’t speak of the blue flame. Just stake them, so I can get rid of it,” I told him, sore, and pissed, and depressed about those pathetic creatures. I couldn’t scrounge up an ounce of good manners just then, so I sounded as mean as I felt.

Corbin didn’t even seem to notice, just nodding and setting to work, staking all fourteen of the creatures quickly and quietly, chanting softly over every crumpled vampire.

He stood as he finished, his chanting increasing in volume. All at once, every still body in the room turned to ash. Corbin nodded grimly.

I called off the flames, closing my eyes as it rushed back into my body, causing me to shiver. Corbin was giving me wide eyes. I shook my head at him. “Don’t ask. Just lead.”

We searched the rest of the floor, finding one, smaller pocket of vampires. They all fought hard, but they were weakened, and no teeth reached us as we dispatched the ugly creatures, one by one.

“Some of them begged me for death, back in the other room. I never knew the new ones could even speak,” I told Corbin, as we made our way down the hallway.

Corbin shook his head, his jaw tightening. “They can’t, normally. Something truly f**ked-up was going on with this Kiss, though I can’t say for sure just what. I’m determined to find out, though. If not tonight, then tomorrow.”

He looked at me as he spoke, and I nodded at him. I believed him, and I wanted him to find those answers. Those vampires being something other than the mindless killing machines I was used to had been disconcerting, to say the least.

We made our way downstairs, taking out another five vamps in a closet of a room. They cowered all the while, one of them sobbing almost like a human as it begged for it’s end, and Corbin grimaced even as he turned them to dust. “Something is very wrong here,” he said. I agreed wholeheartedly.

Christian was still fighting in the first room when we joined him. Ten lay headless on the ground, and he was actively fighting one, with two more cowering in the corner. He took it’s head as we entered the room, as though he’d just been toying with it. Perverse bastard probably had been.

Christian pointed to the two vamps cowering in the corner, looking almost angry. “Those things begged me not to hurt them, and didn’t attack. Make fun of me all you want, but I don’t have it in me to kill something that pathetic.”

I raised my hands, giving him a look. I hadn’t been about to make fun of him. Not for that, anyways.

Corbin just nodded, approaching the two vamps. “That’s fine. I have it from here.” He knelt down near them, holding out a hand. He whispered to them, sounding reassuring. “I’ll end your suffering,” he told them.

I watched, fascinated, as one of them actually reached out and clutched his hand. Corbin chanted softly, and the creature went slack. It didn’t even twitch when he staked it. The other vamp didn’t hesitate to take his hand when he reached out again.

The house was completely clean of vampires when we headed out.

Our misfit crew was waiting outside, looking anxious and tense, as though expecting ravenous vampires to break out of the house at any second. We got a lot of relieved looks when they saw that it was us.

“The house is cleared,” Corbin told them, and that was all.

We didn’t tell them about the strange, depressing vampires we’d encountered. I don’t think any of us were anywhere near approaching proud of the slaughter.

I advanced silently to the next house, wanting to move on from that strange ordeal, Christian a silent presence at my back. Our ragtag crew followed.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Best Friend/Arch Nemesis

 We were fortunate to have a necromancer with us. Their magic had almost no use against the living, but they had a special affinity for the dead. Gretchen was able to sense a necro presence from small distances. Which was particularly useful here since she could give us a sense of what we were walking into with each building we came to.

She froze as we approached one of the larger buildings. “This one is swarming with them.” Her voice was hushed with fear. “We’re going to need a lot more backup. This building must have many underground levels. I can feel thousands of them.”

“All in this one building?” I asked her.

She nodded. “I sense heavy movement in there. I think it is some sort of escape route they’re using.”

Christian cursed. “We’re almost out of TNT. And nothing I brought is big enough to take out that many of them.”

“Back up a little. There’s something I can try,” I told our small group. Christian raised a brow at me, but they all backed away.

I approached the structure cautiously. I placed my hand on the wall, concentrating. I paced back to my group, speaking to the necromancer. “Can you bind the door against them? Keep them from getting out?” My knowledge of necromancy was negligible, but I could remember that they had some spells for binding the dead to a location.

She bit her lip, looking unsure. “For how long?”

“I only need a few minutes. But during those few minutes they will be wanting very badly to get out.”