Chapter 106
Wallachia, Romania, 1894
After having collected his medical bag from his tent, Jamie caught up with Van, Claude, a tiny waif of a woman named Vanessa whom he learned was the runner of the group, and the rest of Van’s team. Each of them looked vicious or hardened in a different way and he felt oddly out of place. Luckily, Van had made it very clear he was only there to Heal, not to fight.
The castle loomed in front of them, and within about a hundred yards of the towering structure, they paused to observe. Moonlight glinted off of stone as six or seven turrets reached into the sky. The iron gate, joining two imposing lengths of stone wall nearly twenty feet high, would be no problem for any of them; it was what lie beyond the barrier that had Jamie feeling more frightened than he could remember being for years. While he was still fairly certain there was nothing on the other side of that fortress wall that could kill him, pain was always a deterrent. And he also thought it was quite possible a Hunter, distracted in the heat of battle, might accidentally take out a Guardian or two. He hoped not to be among the numbers. The thought of being hit by a Hunter was always in the back of his mind.
He hadn’t seen a lot of revolvers. Most of those assembled here preferred old school weapons; stakes, crossbows, even Holy Water. Jamie was armed with a silver tipped blade, but he didn’t think he’d need it. More important to his role this night was the medical bag he carried with him.
“Are we ready?” Van asked, not turning to look behind her for an answer as she pressed on, up the steepest part of the incline to the iron gates.
Once they reached them, she gestured with her hand and Claude tore them asunder, leaving them wide open. “That was easy,” Jamie muttered, though he hoped no one heard him. Vanessa, who had been standing nearby, gave a spritely giggle, and he thought she didn’t seem to fit the rest of her group. She was lithe and wiry, dressed in a tight fitting black outfit that left little to the imagination, but he assumed it was because she wouldn’t want anything slowing her down.
They’d passed through the ranks of those who would hold the position on the mountain, forming the perimeter, should Dracula get past the attacking forces. Behind them, Jamie could hear the rest of the troops getting into place. Once the advanced guard had penetrated the lair, Vanessa would give the signal for the rest of the teams to attack. They all knew there would be no element of surprise. Dracula and his band of ghouls certainly knew they were coming.
Jamie remembered the attack in Georgia and wished he had some of Bo’s silver bombs, though he didn’t know if they would do any good. They seemed like better options than the team of seven who were moving into position now, despite the fact that they all looked foreboding, all except for Vanessa, and of course, he looked like a surgeon of medium-height with no real skills other than putting people back together again. Vlad would take one look out his window and laugh if he focused on the Healer’s frame coming to attack him.
Van gave some hand signals Jamie wasn’t familiar with, but he decided to stay with Vanessa as she seemed like the one most like him, so they ducked to the left as Claude and their leader approached the castle door. As they moved in position to attempt to knock it down, the door was lowered by chain, as if there used to be a mote here, and the raven-haired warrior and her second-hand man jumped out of the way just in time to keep from being crushed beneath it.
At first, it appeared as if they were being invited in by an unknown host; nothing stirred within the castle, though Jamie did inhale a lung full of the stench of dead. He wondered how many human bodies might lie within the castle walls, but since they’d been told thousands of villagers had disappeared from the surrounding area over the last few decades, he couldn’t imagine anything less than a pile of bones high enough to reach the cellar ceiling.
Once again, Van took hesitant steps forward, and a she reached the edge of the doorway, a shriek filled the air. What looked to be nearly a dozen Vampires came flying out of the interior, pouring into the courtyard, all of them taking flight, something Jamie had never seen before, again causing the Hunters and Guardians to duck out of the way. Men and women, old and young alike, with fangs visible as they arched low in the sky began their own assault on those who would breech their fortress.
The Vampires didn’t seem to get the memo that he wasn’t there to fight, and an older woman in a dress his own grandmother might’ve worn at the turn of the last century came straight for him. Jamie didn’t hesitate to pull his knife from his jacket pocket and swing it in her general direction. She screeched again and then began to cackle, but she persisted. With his left hand, he grabbed ahold of her upper arm as she reached with talon like claws for his face. Dodging out of the way, he jabbed with his knife, connecting to the soft tissue just above her left breast. He knew he’d hit the intended spot when she gave one last scream and burst into ash, temporarily blinding him.
Unlike the others, Jamie could clear his own vision pretty quickly as part of his Healing skills. He surveyed the yard and saw the others making quick work of the flying Vampires. Van drew her crossbow and brought down two more easily, and Claude took one out just as those razor-sharp claws tore into the arm of one of the Hunters. When the assailants were all taken care of, Jamie rushed toward the bleeding woman. “No, I’m okay,” she insisted. “Save it for someone else.”
“At least let me bandage it,” he insisted. “I’ll put on gloves.”
She was a tall red-headed woman with muscles he found himself envious of, but he could tell she was in pain. She nodded and he dropped his bag on the ground, digging through it to find gloves, which he slid on before ripping open what was left of her sleeve and applying a quick bandage. Once he was satisfied that she wouldn’t lose any more blood, he nodded at Van, and she led them toward the castle.
