I woke up, just as the bus pulled to a stop. At first I was disoriented, but then the memory of what was happening returned. We were going for it, what was hopefully the final strike against the council, and not the end of our rebellion against it. A bag of blood was shoved into my hands, and I drank it quickly. I was impatient.

Pulling on gloves and a hooded cloak and grabbing my arsenal, I hurried out of the bus. The sun was still up, hovering above the horizon, but hidden under the garments it only made me feel uncomfortable.

Many of the other young vampires had already left, and I joined the next team that was going. By the time we arrived all the vampires who had not yet been destroyed would be awake, and I had no idea what we were heading for, besides more enemies.

I wanted to kill more of the council, and besides, she was there. I hurried forward with the others. If we won, I would come back and collect it later. If we lost, it would no longer matter.

Parts of the tunnel were tight, and it looked like someone had burrowed through to make space to pass through, perhaps Davidson's humans. Movement caught my eye beside me, and I saw two horribly familiar faces. "Jeremy, Darcy, what the hell are you doing here?" I snapped. Stupid kids!

"Well, we were going to loot, but then Vienne sent us back."

"Back here, or back home?"

Neither of them quite met my eyes. Without thinking, I barred my fangs at them and said. "Get going, it's not safe here."

They both jumped far more than they would have when I had been human, and they scurried away. I could feel my temper rising, and I held it in for my first encounter with the enemy. My blood ran surprisingly hot, considering I was so cold.

At the end of the tunnel, past piles of garbage, there were two human guards looking into space, the familiar expression of excessive compulsion on their faces. Beside them four of our people stood there, clearly holding the entryway. We rushed past, faster than I had ever run before and it was a heady rush.

We passed bodies and scattered ash as we climbed a flight of stairs and burst out into the city. The sounds of fighting in the distance told me the battle was not over yet. The sun was hidden by the high walls, so like the others, I threw my protective clothing to the side, it could be collected later, if there was a later in which it mattered.

We surged forward, through streets that were only vaguely familiar, but I still roughly knew the way both to the main council building and the main gate. Her favourites knew the way even better, how to avoid vampires and move quietly through the streets to get to help open the main gate for further reinforcements.

We encountered three human slaves, skeletal and holding weapons far inferior to our own. Jeffry leveled his gun at them, but the poor compelled men hurried forward regardless, clearly under the strains of compulsion.

I had no idea how to counter it, and I probably would not be able to counteract the compulsion of older vampires regardless if I wasted my energy trying or not. Instead, I brought the hilt of the dagger down on one of their heads, and the other two were taken out by the others in the group. I hoped they would wake up again, I could faintly hear the sounds of at least one of their hearts.

And then, from the edge of my vision, I saw movement, and turned just in time to see three vampires converge upon us. The humans had probably been used as a diversion, but I had no more time to consider it as a vampire far older than myself tried to shove a piece of metal between my ribs, the light armour I wore beneath my clothing barely protection at all from such a blow. I barely parried in time to save myself from what may have been a second more permanent death.

The bloodsucker came at me again, and I vaguely recognized him from my time in the archives. His name escaped me, and he flinched when Jeffry hit him with a bullet, although it was not enough to stop him.

A dagger was enough, though, and I shoved him down onto the floor, grabbed his own stake and stabbed it deep into his chest to ensure he would stay down before turning my attention to the other combatants.

Jeffry narrowly dodged a strike, and I got his attacker from behind with a long blade. There was no time for honour when fighting a vampire. The leech began to dissolve into ash as I had seen so many before. We gathered up the weapons from the two fallen vampire forms and from the pile of ashy clothing before moving on. We dragged the unconscious humans along with us for a few blocks—I tried to ignore the tempting scent of blood that wafted from their injuries—and dumped them in an alleyway. Although we did not have time to properly destroy the remaining two bloodsuckers right now, we did not need to leave a ready supply of blood just lying there next to them.

We reached the gates and found that it had already been breached and more of our allies were flooding inside. As a unit, we reversed course and headed towards the council building. We went fast, but kept our senses attuned to everything around us. It was hard for me to tell what was near or far, everything simply sounded too loud.

In some ways it would have been easier if I had been turned when Vienne had wanted to, because I would have had more time to get used to the way my body and senses now functioned. She would have preferred if I had not come, but she knew better than to even suggest such a thing to me.

More enemies came at us, and we took care of them, losing one of our number in the process. I kept his name in my mind, she would want to know who had fallen in this battle and as far as I was aware there was no way to identify the dust leeches crumbled into as friend or foe.

Close to the council building, we reached a wide open courtyard, and there was fighting all around. I spotted a few familiar faces including my barking rival amongst the combatants, and we threw ourselves into the fray.

Marcel swore loudly, somewhere near me. "Jeffry!"

I turned, just fast enough to see Jeffry looking down at his chest with an expression of dismay at the hilt protruding from his flesh, as if he had had no breastplate at all. I had no time to say anything, as he began to break apart before my eyes. One minute he had been there, and the next, not even a body to show that he had ever been there at all.

Only my instincts saved me from a female leech's attempt at wrenching my neck, twisting away before she could get her claws into me. She looked vaguely familiar, but so many of them did from my time looking through all the council data. Back when I had been going through it, I had no idea how many of those faces I would personally get to kill.

I missed her chest as she darted towards and me and tossed a blade in my direction and it went harmlessly past me. I wondered if she was panicking, but I had no time after that, because she ran away.

The other council leeches had also started running, and I glanced at Marcel questioningly. He shrugged.

"Where's Vienne?" I asked him instead.

"No idea, but if I had to guess, she's probably trying to get into the council building. Now that the gates are open, they're bringing in the—"

More vampires were running at us, and it took me only a moment to spot the crazed expressions on their features. Their eyes were completely consumed with red, even the pupil, and on the paler skinned bloodsuckers the flush was clearly visible in the surrounding skin as well.

They were fast and brutal, with no apparent sense of self-preservation. One feral leech got its fangs into my arm and ripped out a chunk of flesh, and I slammed my blade into its eye socket, before staking one that looked female. We killed most of them, but a few of them ran off towards a group of human fighters.

Marcel and I and a few other vampires ran after them. The humans opened fired, and Marcel swore again. "Get this thing out of me, Greg," he snapped, and they fell behind as Greg stabbed a dagger into Marcel's arm, presumably digging out the stray bullet from his flesh. Marcel swore while he did it.

I kept sprinting forward, and took out a few more of the feral bloodsuckers, this time being more careful to not put myself in the path of humans' bullets.

Once the last feral was taken down, we and the few humans who survived continued forward towards the council building, sneaking as much as we could to avoid confrontations. It was slower going, because most of us were still healing from injuries, and being cautious did not completely save us from all the fights we encountered as more and more ferals recklessly threw themselves towards us.

Still, we made steady progress. I was covered in blood, mostly of the foul black leech variety. Moving forward, the council building was in sight, surrounded by high walls and guarded by thick doors reinforced with metal.

The doors were already cracked, but had not yet given way, as the fighters at the gates were engaged in fighting with the scores of feral vampires who were fixated on them.

We pushed forward, and then an intriguing scent hit my nose, making my mouth water and my fangs ache. I turned to follow the scent, and my eyes caught on Vienne, who was crouched warily beside another form. The blond human was bleeding profusely from the stump where his forearm had once been. In between cautious glances, she was trying to stem the bleeding.

Unfortunately, I was not the only creature to have noticed the delicious metallic tang. A few of the remaining feral vampires near the gate turned their bloody faces towards Lucas and Vienne, and more snuck around, converging upon them from the back of the building.

I rushed forward, and Vienne's expression of relief appeared as I approached. "Darn it, Lucas. Are you sure I can't turn you? What about your progeny?"

He muttered something incomprehensible.

"Don't pass out!" she snapped at him, before looking at me, brow furrowed in concern, eyes blazing. "I stopped the bleeding, but he's lost so much blood, and I'm no Florence Nightingale."

I wasted no time trying to figure out what she was talking about this time as I slammed a blade into one of the ferals, unfortunately not hitting it well enough to turn it to dust in one shot. I was rewarded with a slash to my wrist as it tried to take a slobbery bite out of my arm. I reciprocated by cutting one of its limbs off before dodging the teeth of another.

Three were on me. I kicked one and sent it crashing into the ground. I stabbed another in the back as it lunged towards Vienne and Lucas, showering them in its dust. The final one bit me before I could turn back to it. It got a hold of my arm and began to jerk it as if it was trying to pull my arm off at the joint.

I spun towards it to lessen the force on my joint while I counterattacked it, but then I was released in a blustering cloud of ash.

"You're welcome. You owe me," Marcel said.

"Sure, whatever. I just saved your mistress, so don't you think we're even?"

Marcel snorted as he dispatched the one I had thrown into the wall. "Right, like you did it for me, Little Leech."

There was no time to argue. Lucas was horribly pale and Vienne looked increasingly worried. A loud crash came from the council building and I glanced at Vienne, who was also looking in that direction.

She called to two of the humans who had come along with us since we had saved them from the ferals. "Get a few others and get Lucas back to the vehicles. I've stopped his bleeding, he'll be fine as long as the feral vampires don't get him."

The humans hoisted Lucas up in their arms.

"I'd get one of you to do it, but there is quite a lot of blood," she said. "And frankly, you'll be more useful than a mere human once we get inside."

"As if I would kill Lucas." Marcel snorted, but did not argue further before running towards the shattered doors of the building.

Vienne and I followed, along with other stragglers. "All the cowards are in there," she said. "And it's time to show them how right they were to be afraid of death."