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"Ow! It’s hot!" I winced
"Don’t be a baby," Debbie s hot soup to ood for you"
"Not if it scalds rumbled I blew on the soup to cool it, sed, then sain Harkat stood guard by the door Outside I could hear Alice Burgess talking with one of their street people I felt incredibly safe as I lay there, sipping soup, like nothing in the world could harm me
It had been five days since Declan and Little Kenny rescued me The first few days passed in a haze I’d been wracked with pain and a high fever, senses in disarray, subject to night Debbie and Alice were ih when they talked totricks
But as the fever broke and my senses returned, the faces of the women remained constant When I finally realized it really was Debbie, I threw ain!
"Would you like some soup?" Debbie asked Harkat
"No," Harkat replied "Not hungry"
I asked Debbie to fetch Harkat and Mr Tall even before she’d toldhere When my worried friend arrived - Mr Tall didn’t co, and about Steve being Darius’s father Harkat’s round green eyes almost doubled in size when he heard that I wanted him to leave and contact the Vampire Generals, but he refused He said he had to stay to protect ued the point, but it was no good He hadn’t left the room since then, except for the occasional toilet break
Debbie spooned the last of the soup into my mouth, wiped around ed in the two years we’d been parted The sahtly cropped hair But she was more physically developed than before She was leaner, race Her eyes were always alert She was never totally at ease, ready to respond to any threat at an instant’s notice
The last time we’d met, Debbie and Alice had been on their way to Vampire Mountain They were troubled by the rise of the vaht they’d turn on humanity nextif they won the War of the Scars They decided that the vampires should create their own hu vampets They planned to offer their services to the Generals, and hoped to put together a s the vampires free to tackle the vampaneze
I didn’t think the Generals would accept their proposal Vampires have always distanced theht they’d reject Debbie and Alice automatically But Debbie told me that Seba Nile - the quartermaster of Vampire Mountain, and an old friend of Mr Crepsley’s and ed and the Generals needed to change with them Vampires and va weapons, but the va shot by the shaven-headed curs Seba said so had to be done about it, and this was their chance to fight the va vareatly respected Upon his recommendation Debbie and Alice were accepted, albeit with reluctance For several months they’d trained in the vampire ways, mostly at the hands of ht theht It wasn’t easy - the ever-wintry Vampire Mountain was a hard place to survive if you lacked the hot blood of the va to each other for support and stuck with it, earning the adreeted them with suspicion
Ideally they’d have trained for several years, learning the ways of va in nu more and more vampires Once Debbie and Alice had covered the basics, they set out with a small band of Generals to asseed to come with them, for one last taste of adventure in the outside world But they served the clan best in Vampire Mountain, so they stayed, loyal servants to the end
The door to ess used to be a police chief inspector and she looked even more warrior-like than Debbie She was taller and broader, with more pronounced h she was extre soft about her complexion She looked as pale and deadly as a snowstorhbourhood," Alice said "They’ll be here in an hour or less Darren will have to hide again"
The building was old and had once been used as a church by a shady preacher He’d created a couple of secret rooms, almost impossible to find They were stuffy and uncomfortable, but safe I’d stayed in one of them three times already, to avoid the police searches which had been in full flow since the massacre at the football stadiu up and pushing the bed covers back
"Not yet," Alice said
As the other surviving hunter, Vancha March was the only person apart from me who could freely kill Steve Debbie and Alice didn’t have a direct line to the Prince, but they’d equipped a nu Generals with et word to Vancha about the situation here - eventually I just prayed it wouldn’t be too late
Recruiting an army had proved a lot harder than it sounded No vaether, but we could iy - find illed, wicked people, then bribe them with proht and kill We’ll blood you when the tier than any hu you wish for can be yours"
Debbie and Alice faced ato fight on the side of right, who recognized the threat the vampets and theirin a world where a band of killers do, evil-hearted people were easy to find Honest, concerned, self-sacrificing people were harder to co police and soldiers - Alice had lots of contacts froh to counter the threat of the varess
They were beginning to think it was a waste of time Then Debbie saw the way forward
The va the vaup their numbers in a bid to win the War of the Scars by means of force Since they were more active than usual, they needed to drink y levels And when vampaneze drank blood, they killed