Blood Warrior (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles #4) by Jennifer Malone Wright

it. Good, they were going
to need a lot.
    Sarah closed the door to the room
after we all had a chance to peek in. Across the hall she opened
another door, inside we found two guys with an ammunition press,
making more bullets out of the shells they probably found lying
around the city. “This is John and Spike, this is pretty much what
they do all day.”
    John, a thin guy with messy brown hair
and glasses looked up from his work and offered us a wave. Spike,
was probably called Spike because of his hair cut. His blond hair
was colored with green dye on top and several sections of it had
been gelled into spikes. He merely glanced our way and went back to
what he was doing.
    Sarah cleared her throat to get their
attention, “Guys, we have here a bunch of real life Vampire
Hunters. They are going to be helping us out for a
while.”
    “ Awesome,” Spike muttered,
apparently unimpressed with our Vampire Hunting status. Probably
because in the apocalypse, everyone is a Hunter … well, unless
you’re the hunted.
    Drew stepped forward. “Have you heard
of UV bullets?”
    “ Nah,” John shook his
head. “Can’t say I have.”
    Drew pulled his gun from his holster
and dropped the clip. He extracted one bullet and held it up for
John and Spike to look at. “You know how vampires can’t come out
into the sun? Well, these rounds are made by our weapons specialist
back home. They contain UV light, which is dispensed into the
vampire’s body after penetration.”
    John took the bullet from Drew,
inspecting it as he spoke. “So these are like a vampire going out
into the sun, only it eats them from the inside out?”
    “ Exactly.” Drew
nodded.
    “ This is fantastic.” He
threw Spike a questioning glance, “You think we could do
this?”
    Spike, ever so friendly, still didn’t
look up, but answered his buddy. “Maybe, I would have to figure out
exactly how to make them and that would take some time.”
    Drew put the round back into his clip
and slid the clip back into his gun. “I can probably help you. Mind
if I come around later and explain how it’s done?”
    John bobbed his head up and down in an
enthusiastic nod, “Absolutely. Come by anytime.”
    Spike just rolled his eyes and kept
his mouth shut. Probably best he didn’t say anything since I
already wanted to punch him. I got the feeling though, that he was
distant with everyone, not just us.
    “ Let’s move on,” Sarah
beckoned us back into the hall. “There are a few other rooms where
we work, but the majority of the rooms on the upper levels of the
house are bedrooms for the people who stay here. We encourage
everyone to stay here if at all possible. The more people who come
and go from this place, the more attention is drawn to us. And that
is something we don’t need.”
    Luke furrowed his brow,
“Unfortunately, I am certain the Vampire Council knows of your
whereabouts.”
    Sarah’s lips thinned into a tight
line. “You really think we don’t know that? I know you all probably
think we are dumb as rocks for not being more secretive, but if we
had centered ourselves in a more remote location, we wouldn’t be
able to get as many people to join us as we already
have.”
    Luke kept his mouth shut and merely
nodded.
    Sarah opened yet another door. This
one led out into the courtyard where we found several people
sparring with each other or hitting heavy bags that were attached
to the galleries. The courtyard was lit with two gas torches. In
the dim light I could see two guys head to head doing pushups.
Behind those two, a woman was performing pull-ups on a makeshift
pull-up rack.
    “ This is where we do most
of the physical training,” Sarah explained.
    I rolled my shoulders. Aside from the
fighting, I hadn’t worked out for several days and my body actually
ached from the lack of training. A quick glance in Drew’s direction
and I saw the same longing look in his eyes as he stared out into
the courtyard.
    I shook it off. We didn’t have