MISSED EXCERPT

Seems I forgot to add the 2nd half of yesterday's excerpt! I'll put it here for simplicity's sake. Sorry about that!

Turned out, being a POW in a war camp was only slightly more boring than being a soldier in a war camp. Lots of sitting around doing nothing, waiting for someone with more authority to give you orders or food. In Patrick’s case, food. The Allied prisoners got some of the Germans’ rations, though they had to eat their beans and meat cold, straight out of the can, rather than heated in a skillet.

Patrick, on the other hand, was given a different sort of meal. When he peeled back the metal in his can, he frowned, confused at the brown mush that greeted him. When he looked to the vampire guards for an explanation, he saw both sets of fangs out in a toothy grin. “Dog gets dog food.”

“How original,” Patrick muttered, considering his options. Not that there was much to consider. He was hungry, and disgusting and humiliating as this was, dog food was still edible. It wasn’t even moldy, which was more than could be said for some of the rations his family had gotten on the reservation.

“Got a spoon?” he asked.

One of the vampires laughed while the other produced the utensil. Patrick ignored the laughter, the stares, and pitying looks with practiced ease.

In between two spoonfuls, his ears caught Perez whispering to Blue: “Can you make yourself look like a German?”

Patrick choked. Luckily, he could pass it off as the dog food. It tasted surprisingly fine, like the inside of a raw hot dog. It was the slimy texture that was getting to him. He shook his head, willing back the full-body shudder, and focused on Blue and Perez. They spoke quietly enough that he doubted even their human guards heard them from three feet away. Vampire hearing wasn’t as sharp as wolves’, even when his ears were round.

“I don’t speak German,” Blue protested.

“Doesn’t matter. No one wants to look an officer in the eyes. If you look like you belong, then you will.”

“…I don’t want to leave you all here.”

“Someone has to tell command about this. I know Janine’s already on it, but we don’t know if she’ll make it. And you can send a rescue party our way.”

Blue still hesitated. Patrick swallowed another mouthful of brown slime. Do it, kid. Get the hell out.

Sean was the dealbreaker: “Sergeant’s right. Someone needs to get out.”

“I can try to glamour one of you…” Blue tried.

“You know you can’t hold it for long distance.”

“Together, then.”

“That’s more of a strain on you. Besides, one person has a higher chance of escape than two.” Sean bumped his shoulder. “We’ll be all right.”

Blue’s breath was shaky. “Wish I’d figured out how to turn into an animal. My guardian can do that, but I haven’t been able to…”

“A Hun works just as well,” Perez said. “Better, even.”

“I’ll need a distraction.”

“I think we can do that.”

Patrick subtly waved, catching their eye. He glanced at his vampire guards, their backs to him.

Perez held up a finger, then tapped it on his knee. Patrick waited for it to turn into a fist.

Tap.

He finished his dog food, setting the can aside.

Tap.

Gessell wiped water from his rough beard, muttering about needing a shave.

Tap.

Coehlo rocked back and forth, whispering something in a language Patrick didn’t know. Arabic? No, Hebrew, that was it. He was praying.

Tap.

A bird landed on a nearby jeep, whistling. Sean whistled back, surprisingly good, and took something from Blue that the fairy slipped in his hand.

Fist.

Everyone moved at once.

Patrick lunged at his vampire guards, ignoring the barbed wire wrapping around his legs and shredding his green uniform. He caught the first off-guard and shoved the handle of the spoon into his eye. The vampire screamed, alerting the entire camp and spreading the alarm. Pink goop and blood drooled down his cheek and over Patrick’s fingers.

The second vampire—the commander’s son—went to grab Patrick’s arm, to help his friend. Patrick kicked him in the chest, sending him flying ten feet. That would’ve shattered every rib in a human’s body, but Patrick knew he’d be lucky if he had cracked a couple.

He threw the half-blind vampire to the ground and rushed to his unit’s cage. They’d been busy. Sean had use a knife to stab a guard in the leg. Perez had his fist in a German’s hair and was dragging him through the barbed wire. A couple of Germans pointed rifles at them; Coehlo and Gessell grabbed them, struggling to keep them pointed away from non-bulletproof Allies. Blue threw half a dozen throwing knives with lethal accuracy. Had he always had them, or had he managed to glamor the dirt or rocks into weapons?

More Germans with more guns were coming, and bullets would fly in seconds.

Patrick grabbed one of the wooden posts wrapped in barbed wire and yanked.

Like a weed’s roots, half of the makeshift cell tore away, wires snapping under the sudden strain. Sean rolled under the new opening, popping up next to Patrick and stabbing the rifleman that Gessell had been grappling with.

Before Patrick could do anything useful with his new, barby weapon, two vampires with three eyes between them tackled him to the ground. He grunted as his face hit the dirt, trying to throw them off. Gunshots went off above and behind him, and he couldn’t see anything. All he could smell was blood and mud.

Then he heard the vampire commander’s voice, snapping everyone to attention.

His two guards dragged him to his feet, allowing him a proper look at the carnage. The two cages were eviscerated—they’d have to set up entirely new ones. Coehlo and Perez had their hands up, pistols and rifles pointed at their chests. Gessell was on the ground, bleeding from a hole in his forehead.

The vampire commander held Sean up by the neck, nails digging into freckled skin. He was unbothered by the knife in the soldier’s hand, bent and twisted from when Sean had already tried to stab him.

The commander’s eyes scanned them, then narrowed. “Where is the young one?”

Please don’t let Blue see this, Patrick prayed. Don’t let him see it, don’t let him hear it, let him already be on the other side of the camp and on his way out.

“Well?” the commander prompted. “Where is he?”

One of the Germans kicked Gessell’s body over, revealing the bullet’s exit wound. It had taken half of his skull and brains. Patrick grimaced at the sight. Gessell had been an asshole, but he’d been their asshole. He deserved to go back to his wife.

Nobody said anything.

The commander shrugged. He re-adjusted Sean, and before Patrick could realize what was happening and shout a warning, looked right into the American’s eyes.

The effect was immediate. Sean’s shoulders relaxed, and the bent knife slipped from his fingers.

“Where is your friend?” the commander asked.

“Sean, don’t—” Patrick was cut off by a sharp hit to the head. Not enough to knock him out, but enough that his brain rattled in his skull.

“He went to get help,” Sean said, his voice airy and distant.

“How?”

“He’s a fairy. He’s glamored to look like one of you.”

Patrick cringed.

The commander raised his blond eyebrows. “A fairy. A werewolf. Who else among you is not human?”

“No one.”

Patrick breathed out. Janine’s still safe.

“Are there any other escape plans?” the commander asked.

Sean shook his head.

The vampire’s fangs elongated, and he ripped into Sean’s neck.

So many movies, plays, and books had a character scream when they were pained by something like a stabbing or bite. That always bothered Patrick. Usually, the pain was so fierce, so sudden, that it punched all the air out of the lungs, and it took a second to get the air back for a proper scream.

That’s what happened to Sean. The gasp was almost a groan, and maybe he would’ve been able to scream a second later, but the commander ripped a mouthful of flesh straight from his neck.

Patrick lurched forward, trying to help, trying to catch him before he hit the ground. The vampires held firm.

“For fuck’s sake, man!” Perez snapped, needing to be held back by his own guards. “You just killed a subdued POW?”

“And?” The commander pulled a kerchief from his pocket and wiped his mouth. He glanced down at Sean, who was weakly putting his hands to his neck. “Hm. Still alive. We see how long that lasts.”

He pointed to Patrick and ordered something in German. The vampires dragged him away, leaving Sean and Gessell in the mud.