Eternal Night

(III) Chapter 27: Unleashed

Frankie didn't even have a chance to brace herself for the impact as the force of the blast sent her flying across the room into the nearest wall. Her ears rang, vision blurring as she struggled to expedite her own healing, desperate to assess the damage.

The entire north-facing wall of the war room was gone, the small closet where Jake had kept the private servers blown to smithereens. A thick vapor of smoke flooded the room, the stench strangely acidic, and then she realized....

"Poison!" she called out, the inhale of breath sending her into a coughing fit as whatever gas they had saturated the air with scraped up the inside of her throat and lungs like tiny shards of glass. Each cough made the pain worse and she stumbled toward the door that would lead into the back hall.

Many of the others were already pouring out of the war room in a tangle of confusion, the dull sound of pounding on the rear and front entrances a clear enough sign that Augustine's men were trying to get inside and block their other exits.

We're surrounded, she heard Vlad say in her mind.

Frankie gripped the frame of the door as she reached for her friends and allies that were still in the room, trying to motion for them to escape into the hall. Shots began to fire into what remained of the war room from the street. She braced herself for impact, but then a brilliant green light flooded the space, blocking the barrage of bullets.

She turned to find her brother-in-law, on his knees with his hands outstretched toward the sky, a wall of pure power shielding the fleeing alliance members from the onslaught.

"Jake! We need to move," she managed to cough out.

Go, his voice shouted in her mind. I can hold them off.

She opened her mouth to argue, but more poison slipped in, slashing up her throat even more.

A cool breeze suddenly shifted around her, trailing on a glowing red light, pushing away the noxious smoke. The reprieve allowed Frankie's insides to finally heal and with watering eyes she turned to find Lyra a few feet behind Jacob, her hands held out as well.

Get them to the basement, the redhead insisted through their sire-bond, sending a mental image of the secret tunnel that ran beneath the building and into lycan territory. She immediately relayed the order to Vlad who in turned passed it down to the Dracul Sânge – a vast mental network that lit up like a Christmas tree.

Before she could move, there was the sound of a crash coming from the front room, punctuated with a scream from Vesper. Frankie was immediately on the move, still coughing. The metallic taste of blood was on her tongue as she pushed through the mass of bodies clogging up the hall, everyone struggling to get down to the basement before they could be overrun entirely.

She felt more than saw Vlad at her back, following after her as she bounded into the main area of the first floor just as a stream of soldiers poured in through the front door.

With nothing but bare hands and the surrounding furniture at their disposal, they began to assault the intruders, struggling to push them back before too many could enter the building.

With a furious roar, Frankie threw herself into the fray, hungry for blood.

"Ezekiel! Niklaus!" Vlad shouted amidst the fighting. "Hold the back entrance! Nothing gets in! Support Jacob and Lyra where you can. Jack and Louise, up here with me. Tempest, get everyone else out of here."

"Fuck that, I'm staying!" Rémy shouted over the chaos, chair in hand as he lifted the bit of furniture into the air before using it like a baseball bat against one of the soldiers that had gotten past his sister.