This one was no different. Swinging wildly, the vampire left himself open enough for Sean to swipe his head from his shoulders.
Before the vamp’s body hit the ground, Sean spun to aid Tessa.
Even though she bore mad skills, she had little experience battling multiple foes and had yet to learn how to fight one vampire without the other two circling around behind her.
Sean dove forward and barely kept a vamp from hamstringing her. As he did, the fifth vampire slung his victim over his shoulder and took off.
“He’s getting away!” Tessa cried.
“Go,” Sean ordered. “I’ve got this.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.” Since Tessa had transformed with the blood of an elder, she would have a greater chance of catching him than Sean.
If she failed, the vampire’s victim likely wouldn’t survive the night.
Tessa zipped away in a burst of speed.
The three vampires left behind looked at each other, then started hacking frantically at Sean with their weapons. Sean jumped up, somersaulted over their heads, and landed behind them. A quick swing of a shoto sword deprived one of his head.
They rarely expected that move.
The other two—one sporting shaggy blond hair and the other sporting a dark buzz cut—fought even more savagely, neither wanting to be the next to fall. Sean struck, parried, and kept them both in front of him.
Mostly.
The faint rhythmic thuds of shoes hitting grass warned him that someone approached at a run. At first, he thought Tessa was returning. But the steps came from the wrong direction at human speeds.
He swore. The last thing he needed was for campus security or some other looky-loo to come along, see what was happening, and live stream it to the internet.
The shaggy blond vamp howled in pain when Sean nearly severed his arm.
Sean pushed forward, keeping up a barrage of strikes.
The vamp with the buzz cut darted around to his back.
The footsteps halted.
Spinning around, Sean blocked a blow that would’ve taken his head and delivered one of his own. Blood spurted from Buzz Cut’s neck when Sean’s blade opened his carotid artery. Eyes wide, the vampire dropped his weapons, gripped his neck, and stumbled back a step.
Sean turned to face his last opponent.
Thwick. Thwick.
His arm raised to strike, Shaggy jerked.
Sean dove to the side as blood sprayed from the vampire’s chest, accompanied by misshapen bullets. Judging by their placement, those lumps of lead had likely pierced the vampire’s heart and abdominal aorta, ensuring he would rapidly bleed out.
As the vamp sank to his knees, Sean searched the shadows. Relief swept through him when his gaze alighted upon a small figure half hidden by the corner of the building.
Nicole.
“You shadowed me?”
Striding forward, she kept her head on a swivel and looked stunningly fierce. “Of course I shadowed you. I told you I had a bad feeling tonight. Where’s Tessa?”
He backed away in the direction Tessa had fled. “One of the vamps took off with a victim. Tessa followed him.”
“Go.” Nicole strode past Shaggy, shot him again almost as an afterthought, and knelt beside one of the young women. “I’ll take care of this.”
Nodding, Sean sped away.
The fleeing vampire might be fast, but he couldn’t compete with Tessa. Gershom had transformed her using blood he’d siphoned from Aidan after rendering him unconscious. In recent years, Immortal Guardians had discovered that gifted ones transformed by immortals with healing abilities often matched them in speed and strength. Aidan was roughly three thousand years old and a healer. So Tessa was even stronger and faster than immortals who were hundreds of years older than her.
It made catching up to this vampire easy.
Stopping him without hurting the woman he carried, on the other hand, might not be. Instinct tempted her to tackle him. But the woman slung over his shoulder wouldn’t survive a crash to the ground at this velocity. So Tessa darted around in front of him and blocked his path.
The vampire changed course at the last second and took off in a new direction.
Tessa headed him off again. And again. The fourth time, he swore and slowed to a halt, his blue eyes glowing with frustration.
When she finally got a good look at his face, shock rippled through her.
She knew him. “Reed?”
The anger in his features morphed into confusion as he peered at her. “Tina?”
“Tessa.”
His brow cleared. “Right. I didn’t recognize you. I thought you were an Immortal Guardian.”
Cautiously, she approached him. Reed had been one of the many vampires in Gershom’s army. Tessa had seen him around the compound several times but had only hunted with him once. “I thought you were dead.”
“Why would you think that?”
“The only vampires who didn’t return from hunts were those killed by Immortal Guardians. And the last I heard, you hadn’t returned.” He had disappeared the night before Gershom had tasked her with capturing Leah, something she had thankfully failed to do.
He shook his head. “There was something I had to take care of. It took longer than I expected. And when I texted Gershom for a pickup, he didn’t come.”
Gershom had insisted that no member of his army know the location of his primary base. It’s the only way, he’d explained, to keep treacherous Immortal Guardians from plucking the information from your minds. When he had sent Tessa and the others out to hunt, he had teleported them to locations that changed nightly and then returned to teleport them back when they called for a pickup. To this day, Tessa had no idea where he’d kept them.
“I’ve tried every night since,” Reed went on, “but he isn’t answering my texts. Did the pickup number change?”
She stared at him. He thought Gershom was still in power? How could he not know? “Reed, the number didn’t change—”
“Look, I really need to talk to Gershom. Would you text him for me before—”
“Gershom’s dead,” she blurted. Well, technically, he wasn’t. But Seth had ensured that Gershom would never see the light of day again.
Reed’s eyes widened. “What?”
“The Immortal Guardians defeated him. Gershom’s gone. Has been for months.”
He staggered back a step. “That can’t be.”
“It’s true. Immortals cleared out the place we stayed in. And they destroyed a military base Gershom took control of. There’s nothing left of it. It’s another reason I thought you were dead.”
Silence fell as she gave him a minute to absorb her words.
“Are you and that guy you’re with the only ones who made it out?” He looked beyond her shoulder. “Why are you dressed like Immortal Guardians? And why did you fight us? Were you pissed because we attacked the girls or something?”
One of the vampires Gershom assigned Tessa to hunt with had once bragged about doing more than drinking from the women he bit. Sickened and horrified, Tessa had beaten the shit out of him until Reed summoned Gershom to pull her off him. When Tessa revealed what the man had done, Gershom read the vamp’s mind to confirm his foul deeds and then killed him, warning the others that they would suffer the same fate if they ever did anything so heinous.