Hero Rising by H.T. Night Page A

while I stepped into the room holding the suitcases and duffle bag. I stood there staring at the four individuals in the room. There was a reasonably attractive vampire that was to the left. She must have been the one they called Ice. She was wearing a glove on her right hand, which meant she had some sort of silver weapon in her possession. Then there was Frenchie; he was on the right. Right smack in the middle was their leader, Nevil. He looked as if he was in really good shape. Things could get interesting in a tussle.
    In the far corner of the room, an Asian gentleman had a big, heavy crossbow pointed at me.
    “Why does the kid have a weapon pointed at me?”
    “That kid is two hundred years old,” Nevil said.
    “No, he’s not. He’s not one of us,” I said, looking in his direction. “If he was two hundred, he wouldn’t need that goofy crossbow.”
    Nevil knew I was right. “Is that the money?” Nevil asked.
    “No, it’s my luggage. What do you think?” I said sarcastically. “I brought the money. Now release Hector.” I knew it wasn’t going to be that easy, but a superhero had to try, right?
    The Asian guy looked at me and I decided to blow a kiss in his direction. It’s rather unsettling having someone point a crossbow at your head for five minutes.
    “If you’re going to point it at me, you might as well fire it.”
    “Why would he do that?” Nevil asked. “You do have the money in those bags?”
    I walked over and placed the suitcase and duffle bag right outside the door. I saw Tommy waiting. I gave him a wink and whispered, “Transition. Now.”
    I stepped back in with Tommy behind me in his gray werewolf form. I knew we needed to act superfast. Hector’s life depended on it. The jig was up. Hector was in another room and we needed to stampede through these guys to get to Hector.
    The man holding the crossbow was preparing to shoot an arrow in my direction, but I was quick enough to hurl one of the suitcases at him
    When the suitcase hit him, he lost his aim and the crossbow released the arrow. Instead of me, he hit the girl, Ice, who was to my right. She got drilled right through the neck by her own man. She wasn’t pierced fully through the neck, but it brought her down in a rage I had seen from few women. She cried out in pain and fury. Before she collapsed, she attacked the man who’d accidentally shot her by running across the room and stabbing him in the stomach with a silver spike before she hit the floor—a silver spike that had likely been intended for me.
    The two of them were lying in a bloody mess.
    Tommy and I didn’t even have to do anything and we had two men down. Or in this case, one man, one woman down. I was glad to see these frenemies do each other in. I hated hitting a woman. Most of the time, I just couldn’t even go there. I’d have to be very ticked off or caught by surprise to throw my fists out there for a woman. And definitely, she had to hit me first in a life-or-death battle.
    Now the insanity was in high effect. People were bleeding, and others were knocked out. This would get messy very fast if we didn’t start moving quickly along. We needed to push forward and find Hector, who was obviously in another room being held captive.
    Jacques foolishly pounced on Tommy. They were on the ground, wrestling. I could tell Tommy was just toying with him. He was play-snarling, the way he did with me, not that they knew that.
    “Tommy, we don’t have time to mess around,” I said out loud.
    Jacques looked at me with fear in his eyes. Then he looked back at Tommy. Suddenly, Jacques flipped up in the air and flew straight toward Tommy, with the intent of killing him.
    When Tommy suddenly sank his extra-long, silver-sheathed fangs into Jacques’ puny neck, he screamed in surprise and extreme pain. I could see the life drain out of him. I wanted the same fate for Nevil and I called to Tommy silently.\
    I faced off with Nevil. “So, are you the ass-bite I have had