Vadim wouldn't make the mistake of exposing Amelia, but he had threatened the children, and he would want to show Emeline he could get to them, even with the Carpathian hunters around. With their added safeguards, it didn't make sense that Vadim could strike, even with his splinter in Amelia. They had safeguarded the children, allowing Amelia and the others to come together as they often did in the evenings, but the hunters remained especially vigilant. Liv was with Amelia. Nearest to her. She was Carpathian and a lifemate to one of the hunters. She would be his first target.
The birds took wing, flying low, a heavy migration, so heavy the air seemed to groan and there was little to breathe. They flew at the children, the Waltons and Genevieve. Pecking, ripping at them with beaks and talons. Dragomir threw a hasty shield over them as he burst past them. He saw Tariq materialize and with him the healer, Maksim, and the triplets, Tomas, Mataias and Lojos. Dragomir's job, along with the other ancients, was to get to Liv and Amelia.
He winged his way over the lawn filled with creatures that should have been gophers but had morphed into something altogether different. The mutations flung their bodies at the hunters, swarming up legs, hurtling themselves onto arms and backs. Biting ferociously. Their giant teeth tore large chunks of flesh out of the Carpathians while the birds circled and came back for a second assault. The timing was perfect, the mutated creatures keeping the Carpathians occupied with their terrible teeth while the birds regrouped and circled, darting in to try to tear the little ones from Danny's hands. He had dropped to the ground, covering both little girls with his body. Genevieve covered him, adding a second layer of protection.
The mutated gophers bore through the ground to get at the children, forcing Danny and Genevieve to stand, each protecting a child, vulnerable now to the attack from the birds. Tariq and Gary laid double protection over all the humans, so that the birds battered at an invisible barrier and the mutated creatures threw themselves over and over at the shield.
Tariq used a torch, throwing flame across the lawn, incinerating as many of the gophers as possible. Most ducked into the holes and came up behind him. Gary caught them with his flamethrower. The ones he didn't get went back into the holes, regrouping as the birds made a third attack.
Dragomir saw the ground moving, a solid green-brown carpet and realized it was the frogs. They hopped to the girls, covering them, weighing them down, taking them to the water's edge. Amelia screamed and beat at them.
"Take my hand. Get my hand." She reached frantically for her sister. Their fingertips touched, but Liv was pulled away from her.
The sheer numbers of frogs carried the smaller girl into the lake. Amelia threw herself into the lake, diving, coming up, looking around hysterically and diving again. Dragomir dove straight down into the water from above, right over the spot Liv had disappeared. He could see the girl being dragged, her little body thrashing as thousands of frogs of all shapes forced her body toward the floor of the lake.
Amelia dove under again and this time they met beneath the water, staring eye to eye. The frantic, desperate look slowly faded, replaced by silver eyes. Glowing silver eyes. Eyes filled with hatred and triumph. Amelia swam straight at him so fast her body was a blur in the water.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Valentin swimming at an angle to reach for Liv. The frogs used sticky hands, feet and tongues to hold Liv to the lake floor. As Valentin approached, large bullfrogs leapt on his back, impervious to his spells and waving hands. He kept swimming toward Liv. Fish surrounded Valentin, cutting him off from her. They darted in, huge mutations, teeth grabbing and pulling, in a feeding frenzy.
Dragomir timed Amelia's attack, spinning to one side and clipping her hard as she rocketed past him. Vadim had shown his hand. He had to know Dragomir would recognize the girl was possessed. They'd stared at each other. He'd revealed himself to Dragomir. He planned to sacrifice Amelia to make his try at the children. That worried Dragomir. If Vadim was willing to lose his spy, he was planning something much bigger.
To his shock, he felt Emeline moving through his mind, searching for the way to undo his command to safeguard the house.
Stop. I cannot concentrate when I worry about you. The girl will die. He was trying to save the teen, mostly because Emeline cared for her but also because she belonged to Tariq. That and he wouldn't allow the vampire to harm one more child if he could stop it.
He half expected Emeline to fight him, but she didn't. He felt her there in his mind, watching, but she remained silent.
A large mutated fish hit him from behind just as Amelia's body jerked to a halt and then was spun around. She came flying at him, this time with her body contorted, her face a mask of twisted hatred. He stared into Vadim's eyes. They were silver rimmed with a red glow. The teen slashed at him with a knife she must have had hidden in her clothing. The blade slipped under his arm, the tip dragging a slice down his ribs as he wrapped her up, one hand catching her wrist to force her to drop the knife.
Her hand opened, and as the knife fell toward the lake floor, a fish caught it in its mouth and rocketed toward Dragomir, blade facing him. He had his hands full trying to subdue the teenager, their bodies turning one way and then the other. It was Emeline who hissed a warning.
At the last second, with her warning burning in his mind, Dragomir thrust the teen from him and turned to face the fish. The blade bit into him as he batted it aside with his forearm. Instantly he knew the edge had been treated with a concoction of Vadim's.
Get out now, Emeline. I may have to kill her. Do you want to see that? Do you want me to live with the knowledge that you witnessed, even shared in a kill? She had to leave. To be safe. It wasn't safe in his body with poison spreading. He spun to face Amelia, his heart heavy. He knew Vadim intended to kill her. If he thought Emeline was watching, he would do it in a sick, twisted way that hurt the teen as much as possible. Sivamet, you have to go. Please. The burn down his ribs increased until it was almost impossible to block the pain, but the one along his forearm was like a wrenching, excruciating hole that seemed to be spreading. He didn't bother to look; it wouldn't matter what he saw. He had to prevent Vadim from abandoning Amelia in the lake. To do that, all the vampire had to do was kill the teenager.
Dragomir could see Amelia had come to the realization that the vampire was in her, forcing her to do things to the people she loved. There was desperation behind the eyes Vadim had taken over. She tried to fight for supremacy, looking toward Liv, her little sister. Twice she turned toward the drowning child to try to get to her, and both times, Vadim forced her back to face Dragomir.
Liv and Amelia are the targets. He's striking at the children, he told the hunters, even as he swam straight for the teenager. If he kills Amelia, his sliver will be impossible to find. He'll attach to a fish, or a frog, and it will make its way back to him. How did he get in? Amelia didn't let him in. She couldn't, not with the safeguards we wove around her.
Ancients were everywhere, swimming to save Liv, sweeping the frogs and fish from Valentin, circling Amelia so she had no way to escape. Dragomir saw it in her eyes, that moment of realization that Vadim was going to kill her. That he would drown her before he would allow her out of the lake.
Save yourself, Dragomir. I want Amelia alive, I do, but I can feel the poison spreading through you. Get out now. Let the others save her. Get out of there.
His heart clenched hard in his chest. He knew what it cost Emeline to say that to him. She loved the children. She'd sacrificed her life for them, endured torture and continued to safeguard them. With all that, she'd chosen him, taking the chance that one of the other hunters might not reach Amelia if he abandoned his task.
There is no choice, Han sivamak. I cannot allow this child to die. Please, wait for me and know that I put you above all others always. It wasn't enough if it was a final good-bye, but he had to let her know how much she meant to him, how much her choice meant to him.
Amelia hurtled herself through the water, determined to gou
ge out his eyes. Dragomir caught her around the waist and kicked hard at the fish and frogs leaping onto his back to tear at his flesh. The water around him turned red. The mutations were after Amelia now, in earnest, trying to keep her from Dragomir. She fought the hunter, tearing at him with her fingernails, punching and kicking, frantic to get away. Then she went quiet, opened her mouth and gulped lake water. At the same time, she inhaled.
He gripped her hard around the waist and shot out of the lake up into the sky. He turned her upside down so the water was forced to drain out of her as he took her to the dock. The birds screamed when they saw him and circled around to begin the attack on him. He threw up a shield and started pumping her lungs and stomach to rid her of the water.
The moment it began to trickle out of her mouth, he turned her on her side. All the while, his hand was over her pulse, making certain she stayed alive and Vadim couldn't escape. The birds went insane, screeching as they dive-bombed. Each vicious creature the master vampire created and manipulated turned its assault on Dragomir.
Dragomir knew they were too close to the lake. Too many of Vadim's creatures surrounded him. If the vampire was successful in killing Amelia, his sliver could escape her body and had a very good chance of returning to him.
I have immediate need. Amelia must be transported to the safe room with my body. I will be inside her trying to keep Vadim from killing her.
He would have to leave his body behind, unprotected, but she didn't have the time it would take to get her to the safe room.
He heard the soft echo of Emeline's cry. No. No, don't do this. The wrenching pain in her voice nearly shattered him. He sent as much emotion to her as possible, giving her his heart as he shed his body, leaving it vulnerable to Vadim's mutations.
Amelia's mind was the real battlefield. Vadim wanted her dead before they contained her. The sliver of evil commanded her lungs to cease breathing. Dragomir forced the air to continue in and out of her. He felt the anger as the master vampire realized he wasn't alone in Amelia's mind. The force of the undead's rage, coiled and ugly, hit him hard. Waves of turbulent sound bounced through Amelia's head, high-pitched, painful. Vadim tried to drive Dragomir out of the teen while he went after her heartbeat.
In the midst of the waves crashing into him, driving his spirit time and again away from Amelia's lungs, Dragomir suddenly realized the frantic drumming of the girl's heart had ceased. He immediately stimulated the heart, forcing it to beat and pump the precious blood through her body to her brain.
He was aware of Tariq there, carrying the body, moving fast, the healer and others surrounding him. Sandu was there, carrying his body with the ancients guarding him. They took them through the house where the children lived, rushing deeper into the walls where the safe rooms were built in. Each room was off a child's room, and once they were inside, would be in the ground surrounded by safeguards where no one or their monsters could reach the children.
Amelia's body was laid out on the bed. Dragomir's body was on the floor beside the bed. Gary shed his body fast and entered the fray. Tell me. It was a demand, nothing less.
He is striking at her heart and lungs, desperate to kill her so he can get out. If you can take over keeping her alive, I will hunt him.
The poison he put in your body is lethal. You would have little time, but by shedding your body, it shut down your heart. The poison can't spread.
That was one consolation, although Dragomir hadn't given a thought to what was happening in his body from the knife cuts. He hadn't had time. Is Liv alive?
Yes, Valentin and the others pulled her out of the lake. She is strong, that one. Valentin commanded she breathe underwater and she did. Without a single lesson.
Do you hear that, Amelia? Liv is alive. All the children survived. You cannot allow him to defeat you. There was no response, but Dragomir didn't expect any.
The girl was in a comatose state. There was no fighting Vadim and winning. She was human. She was a teenager. She couldn't process the kind of evil inside of her. He had deliberately allowed her to see him, to know that she was the one causing all the trouble, the one trying to kill Dragomir and Emeline. Vadim wanted her to want death. To seek it.
Gary was an ancient healer with the knowledge and experience of an entire line of healers. He was also a hunter with that same lineage pouring their experiences of battle into him. He was fast and he moved through the teen's body, repairing each massive problem Vadim began. Aneurisms, strokes, lungs filling with fluid, Vadim tried them all, while the healer rushed to repair or stop the damage.
Dragomir was quiet, looking for a pattern in the attacks on Amelia. There always was a pattern. Always. No one could help it, and an ancient vampire such as Vadim least of all. He'd developed a huge sense of self-preservation over the centuries and he would keep to the things that had always worked for him. Vadim knew he had to kill the girl to free the sliver. However, if he didn't kill her, they might not find the sliver in her and the Carpathians wouldn't kill her--to them she was an innocent child. Why had Vadim outed her as the spy? Why would he do that?
Dragomir had already dimmed his spirit's light in order to move through Amelia's brain looking for that tiny little discolored spot that would be Vadim's sliver embedded there. The vampire needed a base from which to conduct his attacks, which meant he must be in the brain. The sliver couldn't move around. It would get lost in the bloodstream and be carried away too far from the brain to be of any use to Vadim.
Dragomir examined each portion of the brain with slow, meticulous care. Xavier, the high mage, had been the first to embed slivers of himself into others so he could see his enemies and fight from a distance. Vadim and Sergey both carried a sliver of the high mage in them, allowing them to use his spells when they needed them. None of the Carpathians were particularly adept at finding the slivers because, until now, Xavier had been the only one using such a forbidden technique.
Dragomir went through the entirety of Amelia's brain and found nothing. There was no dark spot he could see. Nothing that seemed off to him. He had a moment of doubt. Was he wrong about where Vadim had to be to direct her heart and lungs to shut down? He had concentrated his efforts in the brain stem. He'd looked everywhere throughout the brain, but he had been certain Vadim would have chosen the brain stem for his sliver to reside.
The cerebrum controlled action. He'd had to control Amelia's movements when he had taken on the lightning in the healing grounds, and again when she fought Dragomir underwater. He had just started to move around the brain toward the cerebrum when Amelia's body convulsed. Nerve cells fired in massive bursts, lighting up areas of the brain as the electrical charges spasmed. Dragomir spun around to study the brain stem under the fiery glow of the electrical charges.
There it was. He was certain. The tiniest little curved splinter, barely discernable, lying in a shallow crevice of the cerebrum. Dragomir floated closer, keeping his light as dim as possible. The electrical charges sputtered and slowly died out as the seizure eased. Dragomir moved with infinite slowness, coming into position above Vadim's sliver.
I think I've found him. Keep his attention centered on you, he said to the healer.
Gary responded by using the white-hot light of his spirit to build a shield around Amelia's heart, effectively stopping Vadim from giving her a heart attack. The little spot wiggled just once, and then waves of rage and hatred burst through Amelia's brain. Dragomir didn't wait. He dropped right over the splinter and shed his spirit's light on the dark, destructive piece of himself Vadim had placed in the teen.
At once the splinter began to smoke, to blister. It tried to escape by attempting to burrow, but that allowed Dragomir to get even closer, wholly incinerating the tail of the tiny sliver. Rage filled the brain, and Amelia's body came up off the bed and was slammed back down. Once. Twice. Again and again. Tariq caught her and held her against the mattress. Dragomir was certain he heard Emeline sob.
The moment that small sound echoed through his mind, Vadim
's splinter erupted into a mass of cruelties. He sent agonized pain after pain through Amelia's body. He knew he couldn't save his splinter, and he wanted Emeline to suffer. So, he tortured Amelia, causing as much pain as possible to the teenager, all the while fighting to stay alive, skittering from one crevice to another, trying to get Dragomir to miss and burn the sensitive brain tissue instead of the splinter.
Emeline suddenly comprehended that Vadim was aware she was in Dragomir's mind and he was punishing her through Amelia--that her presence had added to the horrors he visited on the teenager. She slipped further away, into the back of Dragomir's mind, hoping to ease the girl's suffering, although her lifemate could have told her it was too late. Vadim was going to hurt the child as much as possible in hopes of hurting the woman who cared for her.
Dragomir stayed distant from all of it. He had one job, and that was to destroy the splinter Vadim had placed in the girl. It couldn't escape. He'd burned half of it but as long as there was anything left, it could cause harm. He followed that wiggling little thread relentlessly. Each time his light passed, white-hot and bright, over it more smoke and blisters arose. He could hear Vadim's screams as the master vampire felt the death of that tiny piece of him. He would be diminished in power. The loss of that part of him was critical. Dragomir had already taken a piece of his heart. Now, this loss would further weaken him.
Dragomir reached for the vampire, using the common link between Carpathians. Your brother will be the one everyone must look to. You are defeated by a teenage human child. With the loss of this splinter, you lose power and all those following you will be aware of your diminished capacity.
He was poking the tiger, but he wanted the other vampires and especially Sergey Malinov to know Vadim wasn't invincible. In the past, vampires were too vain and selfish to stick together. The Malinov brothers had been the ones to accomplish what no one had ever done--they'd formed their own army of vampires. Even other master vampires were talked into joining with the Malinovs. That was unheard-of and boded ill for the world.