Chapter 92
The vampires were undeterred in their quest to get to the girl, and soon he heard Kit scream she was out of bullets. They had only made it halfway down the hallway toward the kitchen, and though the vampires were bottled up trying to flee the parlor in their pursuit, some had slipped by and were attacking Kit from behind him. She had her knife out now and was doing her best to cut them down, but Jamie heard her wince in pain and turned to see a vampire rip into the flesh of her left shoulder. He jabbed his knife into the monster he had in front of him and then twisted in one fluid motion, bringing his blade around, catching Kit’s attacker in the jugular. Putrid black smoke stung his lungs as the vein burst and the Vampire dropped to the ground in a pile of ash.
Commotion behind them coming from the kitchen caught their attention, and in a momentary pause, he caught Kit’s eyes. If the Vampires had caught onto their plan and come around the back of the building to head them off, there would be no way Jamie could get Kit out of there alive.
A loud crashing noise came from behind the kitchen door, the sound of a table or workspace laden with dishes and silverware hitting the stone floor. Whomever was coming wasn’t being graceful about it, which suggested to Jamie it was an undead army.
“Jamie!” Kit shouted as she simultaneously attempted to cut down another Vampire while bracing herself for what was about to come through that door. The pounding of footsteps grew nearer, and the door came flying open.
“Jamie!”
His eyes bulged from their sockets for a brief second before he exhaled in relief. “Margie!” he shouted. Never in his life had he been more relieved to see his sister. She was accompanied by two more of the Hunters he hadn’t paid much attention to.
“What the hell are you two doing?” Margie asked as she dispatched the Vampire Kit had been struggling against and quickly cut through too more, clearing the way to the kitchen.
“We came to help,” Kit explained, ducking under one of the other Guardian’s arms as he held the swinging kitchen door open for her.
“We retreated. Twenty minutes ago.” Margie seemed more than a little perturbed as Jamie backed through the kitchen door, following her.
“How the hell were we supposed to know that?” Jamie asked, following the rest of the team members out the back door. “We were in the basement.”
Margie didn’t get a chance to reply before an explosion rocked the front of the house. Once again, Jamie found himself on shaky ground, and as he sprinted off of the back porch, he was happy to make contact with solid terra firma again in the form of a yard that had seen better days back when its caretakers had been alive.
“What the hell was that?” Kit asked, sprinting behind the rest of the teammates toward the tree line.
“That’s Bo,” Margie explained, pulling up short and stopping about twenty yards from the house, causing the rest of them to come to a halt as well. “He decided to use one of his silver bombs.”
“Silver… what?” Jamie asked.
“It’s an explosive filled with silver—silver dust, silver shards, silver everything. He was hoping we’d all be out by the time it went off, and I guess we are. No thanks to you.”
Kit was reloading her revolver. “Won’t they just run out the back?” she asked, rushing back over to stand at Margie’s side.
There was no use in responding. In front of them, a swarm of shrieking Vampires stumbled out of the house, which was now on fire. They crawled out of every opening available, sometimes knocking out windows as they frantically clawed for freedom. They burst forth, most of them were rubbing at their eyes or holding onto various body parts, and even from here, Jamie could see that skin was beginning to slough off of most of them. He could only imagine what those who were exiting out the front, where he assumed the brunt of the explosion had impacted, must look like.
A few of them were actually on fire as well, and as a tall column of smoke filled the Southern starlit sky, many smaller pyres streamed across the yard. One monster dressed in a now tattered suit, collided with the tree line, and a row of magnolias went up in a blaze.
Jamie and the others watched in stunned silence for a long moment before they realized now was the best time to get to work. Margie moved first, which shouldn’t have been a surprise, and before long, the Hunters and Guardians were mowing through the Vampires like fodder for a herd of starving bovines. Kit made quick work of them with her revolver, now that she had a chance to reload, while Margie preferred a longsword, which she used to decapitate one after another until the ground would’ve been littered with dozens of corpses were it not for the instantaneous bursting of the bodies into clouds of ash. By the time they were finished, the two halves of the team had met back up together and were standing in front of the blazing building.
It wouldn’t take long for neighbors and other folks from the nearby towns to start heading out to investigate the structure fire. “We need to git to gittin’,” Bo suggested, and they headed for the spot about a mile away where they’d tied up their horses and left their carriages. Jamie took a glance backward, thinking he’d never forget the Gage Mansion and his first experience with silver bombs, which he sort of hoped he’d never see again.
Once they’d made their way back to the pasture where their rides awaited, Margie waved goodbye to Jamie without much of a glance over her shoulder, and he let her go, riding a black stallion off into the night. Jamie hadn’t expected to see her here, and he had no way of knowing when he might see her again. That was okay, though. He knew she needed her space and her freedom. Besides, she wasn’t the woman he was concerned with just now.
Kit had ridden in on a little trap with a single horse, and while she was readying for her departure, he noticed she seemed to be lingering. The moonlight caught her brunette ringlets, and he couldn’t help but stare at her for a moment. She noticed and turned to him, staring for a second before her face turned slightly scarlet and she looked away.
Taking a deep breath, Jamie let go of his own horse’s reins and took a few steps over, knowing the sorrel wouldn’t go anywhere. “Kit,” he said, glancing around to see if anyone was paying them any mind. They didn’t seem to be. “It was lovely seeing you tonight, even if the circumstances weren’t exactly fantastic.”
She giggled. “It was nice to see you, too, Jamie.”
She turned so that she was facing him, and he noticed a tear in the lace around her bodice and a smudge of ash on her otherwise pristine gown. It always surprised him that she insisted on dressing like a lady, even when others, like Margie, wore pants. Kit wasn’t even wearing dark colored clothing, but then she was a Hunter, not a Guardian, and they often wore other colors. He realized he’d lost his train of thought and tried to bring himself back around.
“Where are you headed now?” he asked, taking another cautious step toward her.
“Well, I’d planned to head back to Atlanta, but I thought I’d stop and spend the night somewhere and then possibly ride the rest of the way tomorrow. I wasn’t sure if anything else more interesting might come up along the way. You know me, always up for an adventure.”
Her smile was inviting, and Jamie saw a twinkle in her eyes, one he remembered from long ago, back when they’d first met, the night she’d shot him. With a chuckle, he said, “Would you allow me to buy you a very late dinner, or an early breakfast somewhere along the way, Miss Kit?”
Grinning from ear to ear, she replied, “I think I’d like that very much, Dr. Joplin.” He offered his hand, and she took hold of it so that he could help her up into the trap. Whistling for his own horse, Jamie half-climbed, half-floated into the saddle and rode alongside Kit as she headed through the pasture back toward the road. Tonight would be memorable for more reasons than just Col. Gage and his house of horrors.
