by Holly Ryan
Fifteen feet.
Then I was hurtling toward the exit sign above a heavy-looking door. Good thing that door wasn’t made of glass. I’d have to jam it shut as soon as I closed it. My gaze snagged on the hinge attached to the top of the door as I erupted through. Bingo.
Gunfire blasted behind me, raking against the door and spraying wood shards over my arm.
Ignoring the sting, I unlatched the belt on the officer’s pants I wore, whipped it off, coiled it around the hinge, and buckled it tightly as the door snicked closed behind me.
Loud bangs echoed from the other side, and the door jumped inward, but it held. For now.
I whirled toward the final exit across a small waiting room.
Underneath another sign that marked it as such, the double glass doors of the police station slammed inward. A pair of red eyes pulled me up short. I skidded to a stop. Not just one pair of red eyes, but three, all of them raging and murderous. Their faces and bodies were warped, ugly nightmares, completely unlike my vamps.
My vamps, here to kill me. Here because I’d called for them.
The air drove from my lungs as if I’d been sucker-punched by Paul.
Their fangs glistened, even in the darkness.
Eddie stepped forward and licked what was left of his lips. “Fancy meeting you here, Sunshine.”
Chapter Seven
The exit sign blurred into nothingness as my eyes filled with tears. My legs buckled, but I propped myself up against the wall behind me.
I wasn’t dead yet. I seemed to have lost my slayer powers, I was about 68 percent sure I’d been shot in the back through the officer’s vest, and Paul really, really wanted me dead. Levelling my three vamps with a glare, I fished out one of the pencils I’d stolen and snapped it in half.
“Seriously?” Jacek grinned, the effect splitting his entire face open. “A pencil, Slayer?”
That wasn’t something he would say. He’d be proud of my resourcefulness. This was all Paul. A hallucination.
Sawyer smirked, his face twisting and writhing with shadows and loose flesh. “How has she survived this long?”
Eddie made a tsk-ing sound as he wagged his finger. “Too bad desire and sunshine goes stale so quickly. But let’s make sure, one more time, and then we can strangle her and drink her dry instead of one lick at a time.”
I needed an exit strategy, and fast. With my slayer powers dampened, I was no match against three vampires. But if they lunged at me, I would try to kill them. I had to, despite the awful things Paul was making them say and do. The thought ripped my heart open with the broken, jagged ends of a pencil. They’d become my only family, my friends, my lovers, my allies against an impossible force. A sob pulled at my throat as I gripped the pencil ends tight, tugging the torn skin across the back of my hand.
Night’s Fall. Ronick could help me if I called for him. I would make him help me while protecting Jacek at the same time. Unless I was forced to kill Jacek first. Or unless Paul was strolling through Ronick as well.
Fuck.
My vampires continued to berate me as they stalked closer. The door I’d belted shut that led to the rest of the police station juddered and bounced, barely containing those behind it. I backed away from all of it to buy myself some time, my muscles tightening, my arms clenched to my sides and brushing...
My boobs.
I sucked in a breath. The Holy Bra. I still wore it.
Raising one end of the broken pencil as a distraction, I groped down the front of my bra with my free hand and grabbed one of the holy water-filled pads. Then, while backed in a corner just two feet away from my vamps, I crushed the pad until the contents squirted out at the three of them. It splashed red streaks onto their already warped, melted faces. They howled and ripped their fingernails down their cheeks. Smoke sizzled out of the wounds, and the smell of burning flesh rolled my stomach.
I dodged around them. As I flung myself at the exit doors, I sprayed more holy water on the floor, on the door’s handle, all over the door itself.
Then I flew out into the night and palmed the cut on my wrist. “Night’s Fall.”
A white buzzing light flared underneath my fingers. Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long for Ronick to come. Hopefully, as an outsider, he wasn’t under the influence of Paul.
Like the rest of Podunk City seemed to be. Hundreds of them were crossing the street toward me. Their faces and bodies were bent unnaturally, their melting eyes blazing with murderous intent. Some of them carried baseball bats, shovels, pitchforks, and probably a whole slew of other weapons to take me out. But worst of all, most of them were human. I couldn’t kill them. A few vamps walked among them, completely oblivious to the blood source right next to them, and zeroed in on me.
Above them, thick clouds boiled over the moon and winked out much of my light source. Moving shadows swarmed the nearby lampposts. The static buzzed even louder.
Focus. Focus on your slayer sense. I concentrated as the city’s residents, alive and dead, closed in on me.
Still nothing. Not even a prickle up my scalp or the clarity to separate reality from this bent and broken hallucination fueled by the static noise. Not that it mattered since the city’s residents were coming after me no matter what their faces looked like. Their intent was very real.
So my slayer powers were gone. For good? Damn it, this was the worst timing ever.
My boss, Sylvia, melted forward, pressing in. “Murder, murder, murder,” she chanted.
When she was near enough, I pushed her back hard enough to topple her over and then winced. Killing intent aside, I didn’t want to hurt the residents of Podunk City. They were just humans caught up in my bullshit. It wasn’t their fault they were being controlled by Paul.
A man with a pitchfork leered as he closed in, his black, rotten teeth oozing from his mouth in a trail of sludge. “Gut her. Gut her just like Tim.”
I leaped to the side to avoid getting punctured, then kicked the side of the pitchfork hard enough to make him drop it. At least years of moving like a slayer hadn’t been erased, but my body felt brand new to me. Slower. Heavier. Clumsier. And now with more bullet holes. Not at all like what I’d grown used to since I was nine years old. I jabbed outward with the pitchfork, attempting to make the thickening circle around me wider.
Hurry up, Ronick.
I glanced behind me to check on my vamps, swinging the pitchfork around in a wide arc. Still inside the police station, I guessed, though I couldn’t seem them through the barrier surrounding me. I willed them to stay put and to forgive me once this was all over.
“Slayer,” a voice growled over the static.
I whirled and came face to face with Ronick inside my shrinking death circle.
He unsheathed Night’s Fall, his red eyes flashing and his black leather coat sweeping around his ankles. He looked normal, not affected by Paul in the least. Swinging his sword out, he pressed his back to mine, helping to keep everyone away. “What the hell have you gotten yourself into?”
“Something you’re going to get me out of if you want my help finding this Jacek,” I demanded, peering back at him.
His expression lethal, he looked from me to the police station as if considering.
No. Why was he looking there? I tensed, the seconds stretching to hours. I was powerless to chase after him through this crowd and stop him before he ended Jacek. It was as if Ronick could sense him in there, beyond the holy water I’d soaked the door in, because his red eyes glowed brighter as they traced over the brick exterior.
“Ronick!” I shouted. “Sometime today!”
He rubbed the scruff shadowing his chin. “Fine.”
With one arm wrapped around me, he dragged me close and then thrust Night’s Fall at the boiling black sky. Then...I didn’t know what happened. It was as if we were clinging to the night on a bird’s wings, but without any sense of movement or sight or sound. We were gone from the Killing Belle party and removed from Jacek—those were the most importa
nt things.
Ronick, whom I could no longer feel next to me in this strange state, touched his whiskered chin to my ear. I jumped but not too much because I didn’t want to fall off this nothingness I was currently riding.
“What happened to this godawful town?” he asked.
“I’ll fill you in on the all the glorious details later when we’re not floating in nothingness,” I snapped.
“And where will that be? Where am I taking you?”
Someplace safe where no one would find me. Not my apartment. Not my vamps’ house with Ronick in tow. Not anywhere Paul could send someone after me.
The mausoleum in the graveyard. That had been the only quiet place where Paul’s static noise and melted nightmare world couldn’t penetrate. He hadn’t come inside either.
“Take me to the cemetery,” I said.
Half a heartbeat later, we were there, right smack in its center. The graveyard statues swung toward me on their pedestals, their jaws sagging open to reveal mouthfuls of razor-sharp fangs. Some bent to offer me staffs I could poke through my own eye again. I screwed the wadded up T-shirt tighter into my ears and ignored them.
Jerking my head for Ronick to follow, I marched toward the Appelt mausoleum and skated my gaze over the cemetery grounds out of habit for more vampires. But beyond the surrounding gate, I spotted something far worse. A whole pack of humans headed straight to the graveyard.
I picked up the pace. Once inside the mausoleum, the static noise muted. Huffing my relief, I unplugged my ears with the T-shirt and pushed the door shut. It creaked open again and bumped against my boots. I tried again, this time with more force, and the same thing happened. Shit. We needed it shut.
Outside, voices murmured. They were getting close.
“Doors are going to be my downfall,” I growled. “Before when I was in here, I couldn’t open any of them, and now—”
Ronick came up behind me, his narrowed amber eyes the only source of light. Palms flat against it, he pushed, all the while glaring down at me. “Doors? And here I thought you were the slayer.”
Yeah, not anymore, but now was not the time to panic about that. Even with my powers gone, Paul’s city murder spree had still been directed toward me. I was still the slayer, but maybe those golden flecks of light rising off of me hadn’t been a dream. Maybe it had been my cell, peeling my powers away like paint. No more strength or speed or healing. Without my powers, I was beyond screwed.
I gave myself permission to panic later.
“How are you not dead yet?” Ronick released the door, and it opened, mocking him so much better than I ever could.
But I would sure as hell try. “And here I thought you were a big, bad vampire. If I find this Jacek character for you, you sure you have it in you to kill him?”
“Mm.” He backed off down the stairs and came back a second later with a large rock that he wedged at the base of the door to keep it closed. “Thoroughly but slowly.”
My stomach spun at the thought. So it was going to be torture, even after all that Jacek had already endured.
I followed Ronick down the stairs, thinking about all the ways I could kill him, when the door burst open behind me. The rock skipped past my feet and came to rest between Ronick’s black boots at the bottom.
His eyes snapped to mine. “Magic must be keeping it open.”
“Then the whole town can come right in,” I hissed.
The voices outside pressed closer, enough that I could hear individual words. Tear. Belle. Kill. Pieces.
Tension bunched my muscles. I might have to kill them in self-defense.
“Maybe they won’t come in if they can’t see us.” Ronick crossed the stone floor to where the coffin rested in its original spot. The last time I’d been in here, it had been halfway up the stairs. With barely any effort, he tore the lid off of it and nodded toward it. “Get in.”
I’d already been inside it once with Mr. Appelt. We’d shared a special moment just before I’d flung myself out the stained-glass window his wife had made.
“What about you? It’s almost sunrise.” I had no idea if I was right, but I couldn’t let him die yet, not without transferring the power inside Night’s Fall to me, or let him out of my sight to go find Jacek. Ronick had seemed much too interested in the police department. Uncomfortably interested.
“Fuck, you’re right.” He glanced at the trash bag flapping loose from the window above the bottom of the stairs and then at the open door. No way he could try to keep both closed at once without the sun hitting him. With a growl, he tipped over the coffin, dumped Appelt out, and then righted it once again. “Get in.”
“That is not the way to treat the dead.” Shaking my head, I clambered in.
“But staking them through the heart is?” He climbed in and pulled the lid on top of us, nearly crushing my fingers still on the ledge.
“When the dead want to suck people’s faces off, then yes. It is.” I gasped. “Wait!”
He paused the lid’s descent.
“Are you going to suck my face off?” I hissed. “I’m bleeding.”
“Not much.”
“I was shot.”
“That black vest poking from your shirt probably dented your skin. The fuck if I know. I don’t smell much blood. I just smell you, and it’s awful.”
The lid slammed down. Complete darkness crowded out everything, including the air from my lungs. I shallowed my breaths as panic set in and blared alarms through my head. Inside or outside this coffin, I was doomed if I didn’t do something fast. I ripped away the silk lining of the inside of the casket and drilled my fingers through the wood and stone for air. Without my slayer power, though, I didn’t have the strength. I shoved at the lid, jabbing my elbow into Ronick’s side.
He groaned. “Relax, Slayer. I made several air holes. Breathe easy.”
He had? When? Was this a trick to get rid of me? But no. He wasn’t under Paul’s influence. He needed my help to find Jacek.
I took a tentative breath, and then another, tasting the air before it filled my lungs to see if it was fresh. Or as fresh as it could be inside a stale coffin.
“For fuck’s sake, do you ever bathe? You reek of fear and piss.”
Not like desire and sunshine like I smelled to my vamps. My heart squeezed for them and for what I’d done. For being stuck inside a coffin with someone who wanted to kill Jacek. If I walked out of here alive, I prayed they forgave me and would be mine once again. My three beautiful vamps who cared about me. Not Paul’s vessels who wanted me dead.
Chapter Eight
Somehow, while lying inside a hot, musty coffin next to a chronically pissed-off vampire, I dozed. It was the horrific pain in my back that woke me, so intense that I ground my teeth together to keep from screaming. Whether I’d been shot or not, it hurt like a motherfucker.
Ronick lay motionless beside me, either asleep or counting bats to fall asleep. Good thing he sucked at cuddling. Between my marinated-in-pee stink, my messed-up back, our confined sleeping arrangements, and his unjust life goals, I would’ve staked him on the spot if he’d tried anything, the Senate’s location be damned.
I had no idea what time it was, but I couldn’t stay here any longer. With my palms pressed against the heavy stone lid, I shoved until my muscles shook. I’d grown too accustomed to slayer strength and hadn’t spent much time exercising my arms on purpose outside of my self-taught training. That would obviously need to change if I couldn’t get my powers back.
Another wave of panic threatened to suffocate me at the desperate situation I was in. No slayer powers while I was the target of a dark unknown—what could go wrong? But I gripped that panic in my fists and morphed it into something useful. I shoved harder against the lid until a slightly lighter shade of dark siphoned through. Stone scraped against stone as I continued sliding the lid off, so loud in the deafening quiet, but Ronick didn’t stir.
Finally, when I was able to wave my hands above me, I slipped out of the coffin. A
fter closing the lid using my whole body weight—mostly that in my ass—I looked around. Through the flapping corner of the garbage bag taped to the window, a thin strip of orange lit a navy sky. From behind the half-open door up the stairs, birds brought in the chilly November morning with a song. The normalcy of these sights and sounds almost lulled me into a sense of security, but I wasn’t fooled. Not for a second.
I crept up the stairs with two halves of my pencil at the ready and then angled my head so only one eye peered outside. Fall leaves skittered across the graves and stopped at the base of the normal-looking headstones. The statues stood upright and proper, as statues should, with no hint of melting fangs. Paul’s static noise didn’t touch the chilly air, and no one waved pitchforks while shouting death threats at me.
The day was looking up.
On quiet feet, I slipped out into the morning. My gaze glued to the house next door to the cemetery, searching for any signs of life. Or death. Naturally I wanted to hurl myself at its door to find out if my vamps were okay, but I forced myself to go slow, to take measured footsteps in case the vampire I’d left behind happened to spy where I was headed from the darkness of the mausoleum. The very last thing I wanted to do was lead him directly to Jacek, not until I was ready.
So I tore my gaze from my vamps’ house as I exited the graveyard, leaving the lock undone should anyone want to visit their dead. You’re welcome, Podunk City. Thanks for not killing me last night.
The streets were still empty and quiet at this hour, but I tiptoed along them anyway, past my vamps’ house. When I reached the end of the block, I doubled back but kept to the bushes and then slunk up onto their porch, where I kept a copy of the key they’d given me for my birthday underneath a potted planet. When I retrieved it, it cut into my palm in my tight grip.
I hadn’t seen anyone alive that entire trek. My mind flashed me possible reasons, all of them horrible. What if Paul’s magic had killed everyone when it wore off? If it had worn off. What if the magic was triggered again when someone saw me? I had no idea how his magic worked. What if my vamps weren’t even here? What if?