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Ethan signaled us to move . . . and the battle began.
Jonah kicked open the door, and we rounded it, swords drawn.
The door led into an enormous open space dotted by processing equipment just like we'd seen at Bryant Industries - an assembly line of gleaming silver tanks and conveyor belts, currently still but clearly ready for action.
Yelling sounded from various points around the room. The people he'd employed to guard or work at his facility had seen us. They rushed forward, wearing Clean Chicago T-shirts.
"Something's wrong," Jonah said.
He meant with the attackers. They looked like mostly humans, but their eyes were nearly white, as if they'd lost all pigment, and their features were oddly stretched, as if someone had attempted to sculpt a human from clay and hadn't quite gotten the features right.
For a moment, we stared at them.
"I presume they've been given the serum," Ethan murmured, gripping his sword and preparing to strike.
"We'll find out," Jonah said.
They screamed at us, rushing forward, the attack begun. Ethan, Jonah, and I separated, driving them apart.
Three came toward me, waving arms and legs but with no obvious weapons in hand. McKetrick wanted to build them, but maybe he hadn't believed in them enough to give them weaponry.
I dropped my sword to the ground, thinking it only fair that we fought on the same terms. The first one to make a move ran toward me, hand already fisted for a punch. I grabbed his wrist, twisted, and sent him to the ground, then used an elbow at his neck to knock him unconscious.
The next one launched, airborne and ready for a fight. I ducked to the ground, letting him sail above me and land behind. I swung around, offering him a kick to the ribs that sent him skidding across the room. He landed flat on his back.
I looked back at the third and smiled, just a little. "Ready?"
She bared her teeth and came running. I expected a strike, but she pummeled me like a linebacker, knocking me to the ground. She pulled my hair, and screamed into my ear - "Vampire whore!" - before clamping her hands around my neck.
Suddenly, I couldn't get oxygen, which made me panic.
I kicked beneath her, trying to roll and dislodge her away, but I couldn't get enough oxygen to make my limbs move.
I punched her in the stomach, then the ribs, but she ignored the pain. Was she human, but with the strength of a vampire? That, I thought, as my vision began to dim at the edges, was disturbing.
And then her weight was bodily lifted from me, and she was thrown across the room.
Before I could crawl to my feet, I was hauled upright and saw green eyes staring back at me.
I huffed for air and put a hand around my neck, feeling for the bruise I imagined had already popped up.
I saw the worry in Ethan's eyes, but his sarcasm masked it. This was a battle, after all. "Let's try to stay on our feet, shall we, Sentinel?"
I nodded weakly and got to my feet again. "Doing my best, Liege."
I glanced around, ensuring Jonah was all right. He pushed the hair from his eyes and seemed healthy; the floor was littered with minions we'd dealt with handily. But where, I wondered, was the main course?
A boom sounded in the other section of the warehouse.
"That's the sorcerers," Ethan said. "Let's go!"
I grabbed my sword. Ethan in front, me behind, we ran through the door and into an even larger space. This one held stacks and stacks of boxes. They contained syringes, if the box closest to me was any indication, and a lot of them.
A wall of blue smoke had divided the space in two. The smoke shifted, and Mallory, Catcher, and Jeff ran toward us through the smoke.
"They're behind us," they said, and we backed up.
"Make a line," Ethan said, and we did.
And when the smoke cleared, we could see the enemy. The protohumans, with their milky white eyes, had assembled into a line, probably forty strong. We stood against them, our cadre of supernaturals.
They'd corralled us together.
Jeff whistled. "He's built his own army."
"The only kind he could stomach," Jonah said. "Vampires who aren't vampires any longer."
Jeff blew out a nervous breath. "At the risk of playing Anti - Little Mary Sunshine here, there are a lot of them over there."
Nervously, I adjusted my fingers on the sword. "Remind me why you didn't appoint me House librarian?" I asked Ethan.
"Because, Sentinel, you're so very good with a sword."
McKetrick emerged from the shadows in black fatigues, his face scarred and one eye milky white.
I didn't wait for him to speak first. "What have you done to them?"
"Has it ever occurred to you that not everyone chooses to be a vampire? That some, after becoming vampires, realize they have become monsters, and they want to go back?"
"We aren't monsters," Jonah said. "And they don't look entirely human."
"The catalyst is a work in progress," McKetrick said. "All science requires experimentation, mistakes. They were willing to sacrifice for the coming revolution."
"The coming revolution?" Ethan asked.
"When humans finally tire of your antics. Your demands. Your insistence that you be treated like everyone else, when we all know exactly what you are. Genetic rejects."
"Is that what you told Brooklyn?" Jonah asked. "Did you convince her she was a genetic reject?"
"Brooklyn wanted to live a mortal life. I respected her wish and provided her with a solution."
"Your solution poisoned her," Jonah said. "She's in a hospital bed right now, a sacrifice to your 'progress.'"
McKetrick didn't look moved.
"All this because of Turkey?" I asked.
His expression steeled. "Because of Turkey? That's how you refer to the sacrifices made by men who served this country, who were some of its finest warriors? You freaks killed them, and you know what I got? A citation for letting you get away. For not bringing vampires back so you could be studied and used as weapons." He slapped a hand to his chest. "My brothers were killed because of your greed, your insatiable appetites."
"We are sorry for your loss," I said, "but we weren't there. I wasn't even a vampire when that happened. How can you blame us for something we weren't even involved in?"
"I blame you," he gritted out, "because you carry the disease. And this city will not be safe from your appetites, your treachery, until you've been swept from it, wholly and completely."
McKetrick pulled a long-bladed knife from the utility belt on his pants and tossed the knife from hand to hand.
