Page 38 of Fangs, Frost, and Folios
She hadn’t. It was evident from the slight waver in her voice.
Beatrice saw the questions whirling in her mind.
How would she get all this out of the country without being reported?
Would locking Nick and Barnes in the vault be enough?
What if someone found them before she could escape?
Elise held the crown in one hand, and the hand holding the firearm fell still.
Beatrice could see the moment that Elise decided Nick and Barnes could not be allowed to live.
And Beatrice was out of options.
The moment the gun moved from Barnes to Nick, Beatrice gripped the black backpack and lunged forward at vampire speed, using the heavy tote to knock the weapon from Elise’s hand. It clattered across the stone floor but thankfully didn’t discharge.
“Mario!”
The woman’s immortal accomplice was nearly as fast as Beatrice.
She heard a visceral snarl behind her and grabbed for a gold-tipped spear on the wall, swinging it like a sword in the cramped room and narrowly avoiding Barnes, who ducked and toppled to the floor at René’s feet. The spear collided with Mario as he sprang up toward her.
Distracted by the commotion, the vampire holding René was unprepared when the Frenchman yanked his head to the left, pulling away from the blade against his spine. The blood that the blade had stemmed poured from the gash at René’s throat, filling the room with the sweet scent of blood as René and his captor began to fight.
Beatrice flung the spear into Mario’s gut, lunged toward him, and twisted his neck before he could raise a hand in defense. He fell to the floor with a solid thud and lay still, but the sound of gunfire rang out and motion in the vault seemed to freeze. The scent of human blood filled her nostrils, and her fangs dropped again.
Elise was standing over Barnes’s prone body, her face spattered with blood and her hands shaking. Her eyes were wide when she pointed the gun at the vampire fighting René.
“Leave him.” She shifted the firearm and pulled the trigger without another word.
“No!”
René fell to the floor, blood pouring from the hollow at the base of his throat.
“Get the gold,” the woman said. “We’ll lock them in.”
Before Beatrice could stop them, the nameless vampire grabbed the backpack of gold, Elise snatched the priceless gold crown, and both of them fled from the vault, the human Bertrand following behind, dragging one of the two suitcases packed with treasure.
A fraction of a second later, the door slammed shut and Beatrice heard the combination lock spinning to secure the vault.
She turned and saw René and Barnes both on the ground bleeding while Nick and the vampire she’d been fighting lay motionless at her feet.
Beatrice looked around the vault, searching for another exit, but she saw nothing.
We’re locked in a secret vault in a castle in the middle of nowhere.
“Beatrice?”
“René!” She ran over and crouched down. “Are you okay?”
He was moving, so the bullet hadn’t hit his spine.
“It burns like fire.” He coughed up a stream of blood. “But I’ll survive. The bullet went through. It’s a flesh wound only.”
Both of them turned to Barnes.
“The old man is losing a lot of blood.” René bit into his arm and tore at his own flesh, letting a stream of vampire blood drip from his wrist. “I’m going to try to stop the bleeding, but he needs a human doctor.” He turned his eyes to her. “You’re the genius. Find a way out.”
