Overwhelmed

Master Jarrod’s POV

Vampire Council HQ, 5 floors underneath Manhattan

There were only two entrances to the sub-basements that held the Council floors. The normal way down was to take the elevator; a special pass card was required, and your face was scanned, and your identity confirmed by our security before the elevator started to move. The second way was through any escape tunnel that exited into the subway system below.

We didn’t see activity at either place because they attackers didn’t use the entrances.

Louis and Daniela had been planning for the takeover of the Council for years, and their Covens had used local construction projects to hide their activities. The first sign of attack we got was when the wall on the east side of the third sub-basement exploded into the storage room. “Defense protocol, attackers on third floor east,” the announcement from our security control said.

I’d been told the Council vampire staff was normally well-prepared and drilled for attack, but we were understaffed with the defections. Whatever defensive plans we had the attackers knew just as well. I raced from my new office to the security station in the back of the fifth sub-basement. Master Lukaku was already there and watching the monitors carefully. “You should go to the safe room with Marceline,” he said.

“No, I need to fight,” I replied. I wasn’t going to hide from this. “How bad is it?”

“Twenty-eight hostiles entered through the breach before they took the cameras out,” the man said from the station. “The elevator power has been cut, and we’ve got at least six more in the subway where the emergency exit comes out. Those cameras are gone too, along with the cameras near the subway tunnel.” That wasn’t good, we only had twenty loyal vampires plus the three Masters. “The radios we use for security are jammed as well.”

“How are you coordinating the response?”

“We aren’t,” Master Lukaku said as he watched. “We had six guards on the third floor, they were overwhelmed in seconds. We’ve locked down the individual floors, that will slow them down a little.”

“Master Louis knows our defenses, he will expect that. Can you text or call cellphones?”

“Maybe, I don’t have time.”

“Use the PA system, at least you can let the defenders know the movements.” He nodded and made a broadcast as I pulled my phone out. I had nobody from my Coven here, but I did have Randall coming in tonight. I dialed his cell, he picked up quickly. “Tell him to bring you in the back way. We’re under attack.” I gave him a quick status update, finishing with the attackers covering the emergency exit I wanted him coming through.

“I’m still twenty minutes out, Jarrod. Can you hold on?”

I looked at the monitors, all we had left was the cameras in the lobby and on the floors they hadn’t reached yet. The stairway was locked down, and the thick steel blast doors between floors were as tough as a bank vault. “I think so.”

“We’ll be there soon.”

Using text messages, over the next five minutes we redeployed our people to meet the threat. “I expected to Master Louis here, but Master Chen and Master Charles too?” I asked. Master Chen’s coven was in Chinatown, while Master Charles was in Brooklyn.

“They’ve been busy,” Mistress Edith said. She had been calling the other Covens, asking for help, but none were close enough to get here quickly. “You can’t use vampire speed in New York with cameras everywhere,” she said. “They’ll get here as soon as they can.”

“Oh shit, they brought a blowtorch,” Master Lukaku said. I looked at the camera he was staring at, it was the stairwell to the third floor. The steel was starting to glow red near the handle, and a flame punching through was shooting molten steel onto the concrete floor. He contacted the men on the fourth floor, updating them and directing them to set up defenses in that area.

“How long until they are through,” I asked.

“There’s three lock points to cut through and those doors are six-inch solid steel,” he said. “Half hour, maybe?”

“I hope it’s soon enough,” I said.

Erica’s POV

Northeast Texas

“How long until we reach Sulphur River,” Anastasia asked. Now that it was past sundown, she had come out of the trunk of the Mercedes sedan I was driving.

“Thirty minutes,” I said as I looked at the navigation computer. was in the passenger seat, working on his laptop furiously. “Since the nearest Covens are in Dallas, Shreveport and Oklahoma City, we should get there first.”

“Unless they pre-positioned,” she said. We were lucky; since Eduardo and I could be out in the sunlight, we were able to drive in the afternoon. When we got the warning from Talia, Jarrod asked us to move to reinforce Sulphur River from attack. His reasoning was simple; there wasn’t time to move Anastasia by air, and he couldn’t leave her in the Coven house. It made more sense for Randall to fly during the day and for us to drive to help his Pack. “Can you check in with them?”

“Sure.” I used the hands-free capability to make the call.

“Erica?”

“Hi Dusty. Any activity there yet?” We all were worried about them, because the Pack was a likely target for the rebellious Covens. With Brent leading the Alpha Council and the changes to make peace with the Vampires, he had a big target on his back. Add in his son’s mating to Talia and the Pack’s friendship with our coven, and no Pack was a more attractive target.

“Quiet so far. We’ve got everyone except the warriors in the safe room for the night.”

“Good.” We discussed some of the things they were doing to protect their territory while I drove west. “We’ll call you when we are a few minutes away, I don’t want your guys taking shots at us.”

“It will be good to have you here, Erica. Hopefully it’s for nothing.” We could be so lucky. I heard shouting in the background. “I have to go, they’re here. Our cameras just picked up vampires crossing the border line.”

The line went dead. I put the gas pedal to the floor, pushing the sedan to over a hundred and forty miles an hour. I relied on my hybrid senses to keep me safe as I passed vehicles on the road like they were parked. I called Talia when I hit a stretch of open road. “It’s Erica. Vampires are attacking Sulphur River, they just crossed the Pack border.”

“I heard. How far out are you?”

“It could be over by the time we arrive.”

Anastasia got a phone call a few seconds later. “Malcolm, slow down!”

“The house, they set the house on fire!”

“What house?”

“The mansion. They were too fast and they threw Molotov cocktails through the windows. The fires were too hot and there were too many. We didn’t have time to save anything.”

Oh shit. “Malcom, did everyone get out?”

“I’m the only one who got out. I was cleaning downstairs and used the emergency escape. They killed the staff as they fled, gunned them down in the yard and the garden. I got out just before they breached the basement.” He was barely holding it together. “The mansion, it’s bad. They’ll never put it out in time to save it.”

Chairman Brent’s POV

Werewolf Council HQ

I sent the update over the link to Patty, both of us were feeling terrible we weren’t there to help. We had our own problems. “This means we are guaranteed to be attacked,” I said.

“What do you mean,” Talia asked.

“The rebels know that if they don’t take out all the members of the Vampire Council, we will end them. Three members are at headquarters, and two are here. It doesn’t hurt that you are here too, along with your father. They are going to try and decapitate both species.”

I could see the anger running through her until she forced it down. “What do we need to do, Dad?”

“Get ready.” I nodded; there wasn’t much more we needed to do. We had already put everyone except the warriors into the safe room in the basement. The remote detonated charges were ready, men roamed the rooftops with silver-core bullets in their rifles. We had two Vampire Masters, one badass hybrid, an Alpha and dozens of experienced werewolf enforcers at our disposal.

I almost felt sorry for them.

The radio blared from the desk in front of me. “Control, this is Jones. We have multiple helicopters inbound our location from the southeast. I can hear them, but no lights. Maybe thirty seconds out.”

I grabbed the radio. “If they are under 500 feet, assume hostile. Blow the barrels in the trees if you can.”

Ten seconds later, I heard the sound of machine guns going off, the rounds slamming into the building as the helicopters approached. Looking at the cameras, I could see three of them flying just above the treetops. Gunners were tethered and hanging out the doors, and four men were sitting on each of the skids. One of the tree-hung barrels exploded, the flames shooting fifty feet in all directions. The timing was perfect, but only one of the helicopters was in the zone. The flames shot upwards in a bright ball, licking the side of the helicopter as the rotor wash swirled it around. The five men on the right side were enveloped in the sticky gasoline mix and kept burning after the fireball was gone. The helicopter tilted hard to the left as the men dropped off into the trees.

My men opened up with everything they had, but they couldn’t compete with machine guns strafing the roof. The cameras showed one after another falling to the heavy guns as the helicopters circled the roof. “SHOOT THE TRANSMISSIONS UNDER THE MAIN ROTOR,” I yelled over the radio. It came too late.

I watched the last man get shot, his body dropping to the flat roof behind the air conditioning unit.

The helicopters dropped down, their cargo jumping to the roof and rolling to a stop. All that preparation for a ground assault was worthless, they went right over the top. “Defend the stairways on the northeast and southwest corners,” I directed. We watched as the attackers opened the doors and dropped into the stairwell.

Our men fired at them, but the vampires were lightning fast. Dropping down a level at a time, they absorbed the rounds but weren’t stopped. Talons extending from their fingers sliced through men’s necks, and fangs bit into shoulders as they stormed forward.

Nikolai looked at me. “Go to the safe room with your men,” he said. “This is our fight.”

“I can’t let you do that, Nikolai. We fight together.”

“There’s no time for this.” I saw a blur of motion to my right before I was picked up over a shoulder. I could barely see as we zipped out the door and down to the entrance to the safe room. As I flew into the opening, I could see Jacque landing next to me. I looked back to see Talia’s face just before she pushed the door closed. “NO!”

“Sorry Dad.” The door closed and automatically locked, the heavy steel mechanism locking itself in place in twelve points. The timer would prevent it from being reopened for at least an hour.

I got to my feet, looking at the camera next to the door as it showed the big room outside. Talia stood in her hybrid form; her claws were longer and straighter than a regular werewolf Alpha should be. Fur had covered her body and her face was a mix of wolf and human, her muzzle extended and filled with sharp teeth. Her canines were almost six inches long and straight like a vampire. The fangs extended over her lower jaws like the wolf version of a saber-tooth, venom dripping from the tips. She was fearsome, as were the two Vampire Masters on either side. They were standing ready, talons extended as they waited for the attackers to enter the room.