Free City of Whispers (City of Whispers #1) by Katherine Sorin Page B

to see
that there were at least three survivors from the basement.
    The door was open now and sunlight was shining down
the staircase. The air coming up from the basement felt much cooler than the
air already circulating through the foyer. Fortunately, the staircase ran along
the wall so we only had to worry about things coming at us from one side and
the bottom of the stairs.
    I handed Scott a flashlight. “You keep an eye on
what’s in front of you and I’ll watch the side,” I said.
    We slowly made our way down the stairs. James was
behind me. When we were about halfway down I caught a body in my flashlight
beam. I stopped, nudged Scott, and pointed my light at the body.
    It appeared to be female, and it appeared to be
breathing. I kept my flashlight on her as we continued to move down the stairs
while James, Paulo, and Seth followed, sweeping the basement with their own
lights.
    The woman didn’t budge. 
    We made it to the bottom of the stairs without
incident.
    “Let me do it,” Seth whispered. I groaned inwardly. Of
course he wanted to kill a vampire, but he wanted this chance because it was
easy.
    “You’re a fucking creeper,” James hissed. “You know
that right?”
    “Shut up both of you,” Paulo whispered. “If he wants
to do it let him do it.”
    James rolled his eyes. I shrugged. What did I care?
“Just make it quick,” Scott grumbled.
    Seth grinned and walked from the back of the line to
the front. “Watch my back,” he said, in a very official tone.
    I hoped this woman would wake up and grab him. He’d
probably piss himself.
    Seth walked up to the woman lying on the concrete
floor. I could see her better now. Her skin was pale, with dark blue, almost
black veins in stark contrast to her paper-white skin. Her nails were long, and
her breathing was slow and raspy. 
    Seth stuck his flashlight in his belt without turning
it off. The idiot stuck it so that the light shined upward casting an eerie
glow on his face. It reminded me of sitting with Mom and Daddy and Nina in a
dark room, passing the flashlight around telling ghost stories. It was a
ridiculous comparison. Back then, vampire stories were just stories, now they
were reality.
    “Keep the light on her,” Seth said. His voice was
beginning to tremble.
    “Fucking twit,” James hissed back at him while shining
his light directly at the woman’s chest. “Just get on with it.”
    Seth raised his stake, and plunged it downward with a
grunt.
    I don’t know exactly what happened. Maybe he hesitated
for a moment just before the stake hit the woman, or maybe his grunt woke her
up. Either way, he didn’t make a clean kill.
    The stake seemed to stop halfway in, and the woman
woke up shrieking.
    “Jesus Christ!” James yelled.
    Seth fell to his knees on top of the woman. She
grabbed his shoulders, still shrieking. Her eyes shone a bright yellow and the
blue black veins in her face stood out even more now that she was moving. Blood,
so dark it was nearly black, began to ooze from around the stake sticking in
her.
    Seth was yelling bloody murder, his hands on the
stake, as the vampire struggled to lift her head, to bite at Seth’s hands or
wrists or any part of him that she could get her fangs on.
    Scott was closest. He slammed his boot onto her throat
just before she got at Seth. Her shrieking turned into a gurgle, black blood
drooling from her mouth.
    “Kill her if you’re going to kill her,” Scott shouted.
    Seth grunted again and shoved the stake deeper into
the vampire. In a few seconds, the gurgling stopped.
    Seth looked relieved. Scott looked like he was about
to stake Seth. I was worried about what other creatures might have been woken
up by the screaming and shrieking. I quickly regained my composure and shone my
flashlight around the basement.
    I was too late. I had already been caught off guard.
    My light caught the reflection of two yellow-green
eyes coming toward me from around a large cylinder: the building’s hot