“Second floor,” Callum ordered, leading the way.
We tromped past Jordan, who still lay twitching and moaning, and I had to turn my sympathy off as we trudged up the stairs.
A mechanical clack sounded—a net dropped from the ceiling. I jumped back, down two steps but Claude’s vampires weren’t so lucky. Neither was Evan. The net rope fell on top of them, and as soon as it touched skin, it latched there, embedding itself in their skin—melding with their hair— and they couldn’t get it to release, no matter how hard they pulled.
The net started to tighten, to coil up and shrink, as if it had been spelled to close on its own once it had touched its quarry.
Fuck. My Evan was caught in a magical net with vampires.
Callum’s vamps tripped on the steps as the net dragged their heads—the part of them it was latched to—closer and closer together until I could hear their skulls knock against one another.
In their fury, they started to morph into their monstrous forms, claws slashing.
Panic surged up my throat, nearly choking me. “Princess!”
Evan shredded his clothes as he transformed into a giant grizzly bear and smacked at the vampire closest to him, sending the newest Asian member of their group tumbling into the others.
Shit. They were sure to attack. I’d seen what their scratches could do. Not to mention their bites.
Making a split-second judgement call, I unleashed some light that set the vampires hissing and crouching, but leaning away from Evan.
“Tell them to freeze!” I screamed up at Callum, who stood on the other side of the net. I transformed my light into a laser beam and started to burn through the netting near Evan’s right arm.
Callum didn’t say anything. I only heard him growl above me and I was about to spit fire, to rage at him to control his own damn people so I could free them … but then I heard the tell-tale shink of a sword being unsheathed. My eyes glanced up to see a man in black standing on top of the stairs, sword raised just above Callum’s head as the vampire’s arm transformed into claws. Fire shot out of Callum’s clawed fingers, but the guard easily blocked it with Icefire magic from his own hand. It did nothing to stop the swing of that sword.
“Jolly!” I yelled.
My huge guy raised his hand, darting past me as the sword started its downward arc. Z followed him, though his magic had been drained already, he lifted his hand to see if he could help.
Andros reversed the guard.
And I breathed a sigh of relief.
Until there was another guard behind the first, this one swinging his sword and screaming like this was a goddamned war movie.
Andros immediately had to repeat the process.
Shit. He can’t do that endlessly.
“Run!” I screamed at Callum.
“Where? Into them? If you could see the throng up here, Princess—” Callum’s tone oozed disdain.
My heart rate doubled when I saw yet another guard and all of a sudden, everyone around me seemed to grow more wild, frantic, and louder.
“Smeckle,” I pointed up and Malcolm ran up ahead of me a few steps, lifting his hand and shooting flames, heating one of the swords until the guard dropped it with a curse.
A fourth guard appeared.
My team became locked in a battle as the vampires snarled and writhed under the net, getting tangled in their animalistic panic. Evan—in grizzly form—had to roar and slash at them in order to prevent them from attacking in their frenzied wrath. Only Callum maintained his head, shooting fireball after fireball at the guards.
But outside of Callum, the stairwell was chaos and it was nearly impossible for me to continue the laser without burning the vampires, who tried to use their inhuman speed to rush up the stairs but ended up just topping over one another.
Why were they acting so crazy?
There had to be a reason.
I turned on my infrared vision and spotted an amulet in one of the guard’s pockets. Shit. Who knew what it was, since it only showed up on infrared, but I was guessing it was some kind of adrenaline booster—something that would make the guards brave enough to rush at a horde of vampires and make the vampires wild enough to forget their magic as they panicked.
My heart raced and my hands shook. “Amulet!” I warned. “Pocket.” That was all I could get out because my body started to shake so hard.
Malcolm ran up a step or two in front of me and lobbed something small and metallic toward the second floor. Immediately after he threw it, he tossed a sheet of ice in front of Callum.
Boom.
Crrrrrrrrrkkkkkk.
It sounded as though the entire second floor was crackling, like paper rustling … or ice cracking.
Malcolm melted his shield and I could see the walls of the second floor, and everything and everyone up there, were coated in three inches of ice. The guards’ frozen expressions haunted me, but only for a moment, because I saw their hands flicker with flame. Just the tiniest flame. They’d be able to melt the ice, and escape … probably.
But in the meantime, they couldn’t attack. We could finally get out of this stairwell and reach our goals.
My hands stopped shaking and my heart slowed. I felt like I might keel over in relief.
But relief revved right back up into terror as I felt a knife slide across my throat, the tip digging in next to my windpipe. A voice in my ear growled, “Hayley Dunemark. I knew I was right about you.”
41
I went still and rigid as thick fingers tightened around my throat, cutting off my air supply and the knife point dug in a bit deeper.
“You thought you were so clever, setting me up. But now, guess what? I’ve got nothing to lose. Which means I’m going to do whatever the fuck I want to you.” He pressed hard on my windpipe as he dragged me back down the stairs, his knife dragging across my neck and opening up a wound that burned like fire.
Everyone above us was still coming down from the adrenaline high of the amulets—Callum trying to untangle his vampires. Nobody saw me.
I let go of all my shadows, flooding the entire building with light.
If the pinheads are going to show, now would be a great damn time, I thought as black flecks floated across my vision like drunken flies.
I heard Malcolm yell, “Shakespeare!”
But my eyelids are having a hard time staying open. I can hardly focus on the one thing Andros told me to do. Told me I must do if I ever got captured.
I turned my palm to face behind me and turned on my microwaves. I blasted them at full power—right at Muller’s dick.
I couldn’t even revel in his screech of terror because his hand clenched my neck even harder, wrenching it to the side … I felt my limbs go limp. I started to fall forward when I felt a whoosh.
I was on the stairs. And there was a knife at my neck. “You thought you were so clever, setting me up. But now, guess what? I’ve got nothing to lose. Which means I’m going to do whatever the fuck I want to you.”
Muller. The detective had me in a chokehold and had a knife at my neck. My mind raced as he dragged me backward down the stairs.
“Jordan!” I screeched, calling for the vampire who was still twitching and writhing on the ground.
His head flashed up.
“Fresh blood,” I gasped.
And suddenly, a vampire loomed over Muller and me, his fangs dripping poisoned blood.