Sulma cursed as they approached the flashing red and blue lights surrounding the mansion. A concerned neighbor must have contacted them, because everyone knew that human police were useless when it came to vampire matters. It only served to make him more agitated. Using the last of his strength, he picked up Amaa and ran through their barricades with lightning speed to avoid them. The only thing they caught was the slamming of the door, which no one really paid attention to.

“She’s gone,” Amaa announced, as soon as they stepped foot into the foyer. He could feel the violence permeating the walls. Sulma left him by the door while he went to go search for their other two brothers. While he did so, Amaa made his way slowly through the hall to the kitchen, his hand pressed tightly to the wall. They had been ambushed, just like they had on the roof.

The memory of Sam begging them not to go popped back into his head, and guilt racked through him strongly. He should have known that it was more than her fear talking, but they had pushed her worries aside as if it were nothing.

He was sitting at the breakfast nook where only a few short hours ago they had all been laughing and enjoying life, when Sulma strode in with a bloody and broken Aruum.

“Taas is conscious and sending away the police, but Aruum is down,” he said, laying him on the table. “He’s going to need blood and Sam to survive.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair as he looked wildly around the kitchen.

“Hey,” Aruum croaked, turning his head towards Sulma. “I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.” He coughed, and blood spurted through his lips. He had a gaping hole in his chest where someone had torn him out. It was a feat unheard of. Even vampires couldn’t survive without a heart. His assailant had to have used a large silver blade to do it, carving out the heart and at the same time stopping the enhanced healing of vampires.

“How is this happening?” Amaa asked, wide eyed.

Aruum gave him a wicked grin before coughing and wincing again.

“As the motherfucker broke through to grab my heart I pulled out a silver bone spike, and shot one first through his heart, then his head. He died. I didn’t.”

Amaa clapped him lightly on the shoulder, smiling exhaustedly. “Badass, brother. Bad. Ass.”

“We have to go,” Aruum said, attempting to get off the table. “Sam ran, but I’m pretty sure she didn’t get far. We have to rescue her, Sulma.”

“No shit,” he shot back, going to the Persian rug in front of the kitchen island, revealing a hidden door in the floor.

“Amaa, we have a few emergency bottles of blood disguised in the wine cellar. Get them, we’re going to need it.” He pulled up the door with the latch, and began descending down the dark staircase.

“Where are you going?” Amaa asked.

“To get authorization from the elders,” he growled, disappearing. “It’s about time we stopped this bullshit and finally killed Belal and his merry band of murderers.”

While Sulma dealt with the elders, Taas finished with the police and Amaa came back into the kitchen with four bottles of blood. He opened one for himself and one for Amaa, then went upstairs to Sam’s room, to see if he could find any clues as to where they might have taken her.

He pushed her bedroom door open as he took a deep swig of blood, and used the little bit of wytch in him to guess what happened. There had been passion in the room, and lots of it. Sam, Aruum, and Taas had all been having a delightfully sensual evening before the break-in, it appeared. Moving around the room and drinking, he stopped occasionally to touch things to see if he could get a read on them. Mostly it was normal everyday stuff, like Sam brushing her hair or picking out her clothes. But when he finally reached the windows, he felt something different. He felt her fear as she went through the balcony door, but he also felt something else. Something slimy; evil. Something- or someone- had been on her balcony before she had come out. It had been watching them, waiting for the right moment to attack. Whatever it had been had been able to get through his safeguards as if they were nothing.

When he came back downstairs, he found that Taas had been successful in sending the cops away, and was in the process of pulling the cork of his bottle out with his teeth. He spit it across the room forcefully, and was then chugging the life-giving liquid with everything he had.

Aruum, after getting through a third of his bottle, had been able to pull himself off of the table and into a sitting position on one of the chairs. Now that he was upright, Amaa noticed he had quite a few more wounds than just the one on his chest. He had a large gash in the side of his head, so deep that the he could see his friend’s brains through the cracked white of his skull. He also had multiple bites on his body and his left arm was so shredded that it dangled on his shoulder by only the smallest of his tendons. His left shin bone was also protruding from broken skin, and he had a cut running from his navel to his vocal cords. Expert silver-swordsmanship.

“How the hell are you still alive, Aruum?” Amaa asked, taking his own bottle and pouring some of its contents into Aruum’s. “Tell me these guys look worse than you do.”

Aruum lifted the replenished bottle, and poured some of its contents over the wound on his head and on his gaping shoulder, before bringing the bottle to his mouth and upending its contents. He didn’t stop until the bottle was completely empty, and when he finished he polished it off with a curse.

“Thanks,” he gasped, licking the blood from his lips and fangs. “I really needed that. And hell, yeah, they do. None of those sons of bitches walked out of here alive.”

“Damn straight,” Taas added, fist bumping his brother. “Between my Red Fyre and Aruum’s overall refusal to die, we kicked some major ass.”

“You need more,” Amaa told him, offering him the rest of his bottle. But Aruum shook his head, and pushed it away.

“Drink it,” Aruum growled, pulling himself up a little more as his arm began stringing new tendons and growing new muscles. The wound on his chest had already sealed shut, and was covered in fresh, pink skin, while the broken bits of his skull had healed together once more and new hair was starting to grow over it.

“You’re going to need it too,” Aruum told him. “When we go get her we’re going to have to come at them with everything we’ve got.” He glanced up through the windows, his brow furrowing. “And we’re going to have to do it fast too. The sun will be up in an hour.”

“You don’t think you’re going, are you?” Taas asked, stronger and healed from the blood. He stood up, cracking his knuckles as he did so.

“You’re damned straight, I am,” Aruum shot back. “There’s no way in hell I’m going to let any of them get away with this. Especially, Belal.”

“Good,” Sulma said, emerging from the basement. “We’re going to need that new talent of yours.” He pulled the door shut again before accepting the bottle from Amaa.

“What did they say?” Amaa asked as Sulma downed his bottle in long, heavy swallows. He finished with a growl, licking the blood away from his lips with a cocky grin.

“They said Belal is out of control. We have full authorization to take him and any of his followers out by whatever means necessary.”

He rose his bottle, and his brothers followed suit. “For Sam!” He cheered, and the others joined him.