CHAPTER TEN
The terrible sounds of glass shattering and people screaming sent me running toward the main room, but my head was spinning, and moving through the corridor was like running on uneven, shifting ground. I had to reach out with my hands for the wall, and use it to steady myself as I went, as fast as I could, toward the source of the sound, dreading what I might find.
Ahead of me, Jennifer came bursting out of the main room, shrieking and flailing. I was about to call to her when, from out of the main room, came a dark shape vaguely in the form of a human, moving almost like a blur. The dark figure pounced on her with enough force to bring her crashing to the ground, and when it fell on top of her, I saw it was a bald-headed man with skin as pale as snow, his head covered in black and gray gang tattoos. He turned her over and bit hard into her neck with the sharp, deadly fangs in his mouth.
I stopped moving, then, rooted to the spot by fear. My hand flew up to my mouth to stifle the gasp, but I hadn’t done a good enough job. He heard me, and when he turned around, he growled from behind clenched teeth dripping with red blood and made a move toward me. Before he could rise to his feet and charge, however, Nicky came barreling out of the main room, grunting and panting, and whacked the vampire on the back of the head with a candelabra.
Jennifer picked herself up as blood poured from her neck, staining the rose satin fabric of her dress. Screaming and crying, she made a break for the front door, clutching her bleeding neck.
“Nicky,” I yelled, “Get out of here!”
The last thing I wanted was to see him get hurt again, and by the hands of another vampire no less. He nodded and bolted out the front door. An instant later, the man Nicky had hit was back up on his feet and running out the front door after him, but I couldn’t follow them. Nicky and Jennifer were on their own because this was some kind of invasion. We were under attack, and my place was here.
Adrenaline helped me shake the fear and dizziness off all at once, and when my senses returned to me, I continued running down the corridor until I reached the door to the main room where the party had been in full swing not more than ten minutes ago. What I saw in there was like a scene out of a horror movie.
There were vampires everywhere—unknown vampires—, each of them moving as swiftly and as fluidly as the air itself and throwing themselves at witches, some of whom were trying to flee, others had taken up whatever arms they could find and chosen to fight. Many witches had bite marks on their necks, but almost all of them were bleeding from the nose like I was, and the broken bottles and trays they were using for weapons made me think they too couldn’t use their magick.
Among them, I saw Nina with her heeled shoe in her hand, swiping at the air in front of a slender looking man trying to get close. Behind her, clutching his own bleeding arm, was Harvey. He had managed to grab a fire poker from the fireplace and was holding it in front of himself like a sword, thrusting at the vampire from behind Nina’s back.
Taking a page from Nina’s book, I quickly removed both of my shoes and held one in my hand, heel out, ready to hit the next asshole who came my way. Footsteps came pounding in my direction. When I turned and raised my arm to attack, I saw it was Delphine rushing at me from inside the ballroom. She grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the corridor.
“Delphine!” I said, relief filling me, “What the hell is happening?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “It all started so fast, and now I cannot find Jean Luc or the others. They’re all gone!”
“Gone?”
“Yes, when the vampires came, I lost them in the melee that broke out, and now I don’t know where they are.”
“Okay, first thing we need to do is start some kind of fire—that’ll scare the vampires off.”
“You’re going to fight?”
“We have to fight, we have no choice! People are getting hurt here. A fire is our best bet.”
“Madison, I… I…”
I took hold of her shoulders. “Delphine, what is it?”
“I can’t,” she said, “I just… I don’t think I can.”
Delphine was scared. No, she was terrified. Her family was gone, Jean Luc was missing, and she was alone, surrounded by strangers, and death, and blood. Her calm and collected composure had fallen away, revealing the truth behind the mask all vampires wore with consummate ease. And I understood exactly how Delphine felt. After all, hadn’t I been here before? Hadn’t I felt vulnerable, and alone, and scared in the face of danger and death?
“Alright, listen to me,” I said, “I want you to go upstairs, find a bedroom, and hide.”
“But what about Jean Luc?”
“I’ll find him. Just get out of sight and lay low.”
Delphine nodded, turned her eyes toward the stairs, and dashed to them, taking them two at a time. I then turned my attention toward the main room again and inched toward the corner where I could get a closer look.
The fighting was still going, but the vampires were getting the upper hand. I couldn’t see Nina anymore, and at least two witches were on the ground, struggling to fend off vampires trying to bite into their necks. There must have been six of them, or seven counting the one I had seen in the corridor a moment ago. It was hard to tell; they moved so fast.
Fuck it, I thought, and I strode into the main room with my hand arched above my shoulder, holding my heel ready to strike.
A vampire came at me, running full pelt with murder in his eyes. I had enough time to line up my attack before delivering the heel of my shoe right into his eye. But that didn’t stop him. The vampire grabbed the shoe and yanked it out of his eye socket, taking the bloody eye with it. He tossed the shoe aside and reached for my neck, but I managed to jump out of his reach.
Looking around wildly for anything I could use as a weapon, I saw a small table covered in plates and glasses. One by one, I pulled them from the table and threw them at the vampire, but he swatted them away as they came to him. I realized, even as I continued to throw whatever I could get my hands on at him, that all I was doing was slowing him down.
My hands settled on the silver tray I had seen floating around the room, and instead of throwing it at the vampire, I spun on my heel and swiped it around, edge first, in a close arc. The vampire put his hand out to protect himself and the silver tray dragged across his hand, but something happened then—the vampire hissed, pulled his hand back, and began to cradle the deep, smoking wound the tray had left. It seemed to have somehow bitten into his flesh and caused some real damage the vampire hadn’t been expecting to receive.
“Silver!” I yelled to anyone who could hear me, “Silver hurts them!”
But the attack hadn’t hurt him as much as I’d thought. The vampire reached for me, as I called out to my fellow witches, and grabbed me by the neck. With one strong hand, he pulled my chin up. With the other he pushed me, effortlessly, against a wall, and then he sank his fangs into my neck, introducing me to a world of pain like I had never known before.
A brilliant star field exploded in front of my eyes at the instant of impact. Almost immediately, my vision started to blacken. And while I continued to hit him with the silver tray as hard as I could, my energy was slipping away from me with every exertion I took. Until, finally, I caught him on the side of the head hard enough that the edge of the silver tray bit deep into the flesh, burning a deep, black, sizzling line into his skull.
The vampire pulled his teeth from my neck and yowled as pain filled him. He turned his eyes back on me, and he snarled at me as if this was it—he was going to kill me. I shut my eyes to brace myself for his bite, but the bite didn’t come. I heard a crunch, and when I opened my eyes, I saw the vampire’s chin was still raised, his mouth was still wide, but sticking out of the front of his neck was a thin, pointed tip, dripping with dark blood.
The sword pulled out of the neck, and the vampire’s grip on me loosened enough for me to shake him off and shove him to the ground. There, standing behind him, was Remy, his shirt and face speckled with blood, and a sword in his hand. Only, it wasn’t exactly a sword; I recognized the decorative skull on the hilt and noticed the lack of a cross guard.
“Are you alright?” he asked, stretching his hand out toward me.
I took his hand and pulled myself away from the wall as, slowly, my strength returned. “I’m fine,” I said, “But I can’t use my magick.”
“I know. Neither can I. We have to gather the witches and get—”
“Remy!”
Remy spun around, and his sword cane sliced through the air, cutting through four out of five fingers belonging to a creature of the night, severing them cleanly. The vampire screamed, and Remy thrust the sword into his neck too. It gargled, and blood spilled out of its mouth and throat before it toppled to the floor. But the victory was short-lived. Other vampires were coming, now. What witches had been able to flee had already fled, leaving Remy and me on our own… and surrounded.
“Madison,” Remy said, “Whatever happens, I want you to run. Get out of here.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, as three vampires closed in.
Remy put his sword up and slashed at the first vampire that got close, cutting him across the arm. But then the second vampire came and grabbed his wrist, rendering his sword arm useless. I swiped at him with the silver tray, but the third vampire plucked the silver tray out of the air and, screaming in pain, hurled it across the room where it smashed against a wall.
They all ignored me and went straight for Remy, biting him wherever they could. The one who had grabbed Remy’s wrist bit deep into the dark, exposed flesh. Remy grunted, but didn’t scream. He punched the other vampire as it came toward him, but a human fist was no match for the kind of strength these undead monsters possessed. They got him in the neck, in the arm, in the shoulder, but they weren’t drinking from him—they were just tearing at his flesh, causing hot blood to spurt in all directions.
I yelled for them to stop, I even tried to pull one off, but she was too strong. They wouldn’t stop. When Remy was too weak to stand, they pushed him into me and we both went down against a wall.
The vampires approached again, this time with murder in their eyes. They wanted to finish this—to finish us both off. I had Remy in my arms and knew he was bleeding badly from his many wounds, but there was nothing I could do to help him. Nothing I could do to help myself. Just as I was about to resign myself to death, a roaring brightness erupted from the ground and surrounded us both. I shielded my eyes from the light, but when I dared to look, I saw it wasn’t light but fire—green fire.
They didn’t dare approach it. The fire burned bright and hot, roared like a wild animal, and lashed out at the attackers, pushing them back. From within the flames I watched a new contender enter the room—a woman who, seen through the flames, seemed to almost float and shimmer like a mirage. But she was real, and when she brought her eyes to bear on me, I almost wanted to turn away.
“This isn’t over,” she said, with a voice like death itself—cold and cruel.
“You have no right!” I yelled, “You’ve just attacked and hurt innocent people, and you’ve got no right!”
“Innocent?” she scoffed. “The man in your arms is a murderer, or have you forgotten?”
I almost tried to stand, but I knew doing so risked hurting Remy further. He was unconscious, he wasn’t breathing as much as he should have been, and his skin was turning an ashen gray. But the shifting, green flames were keeping her and the vampires at bay, at least for now, and for that I was grateful.
“Take your vermin and leave,” Jean Luc said, “This man has repented. And you? You turned him into a murderer.”
I hadn’t seen him come into the room. But when I looked on him now, he was covered in blood, his shirt and jacket had been ripped, and his long hair was caked through with blood and sticking to his face. Beside him was Jared; his eyes burned with green light as he concentrated to keep the flames alive.
The woman turned her head to look at Jean Luc, and she sneered at him, disgust evident on her face. “You’re a disappointment, Jean Luc. You always were.”
When she made as if to leave, the other vampires followed, all of them seeming to almost disappear as they ran at superhuman speeds out of the house through the side door. An instant later, the green flames Jared had conjured snuffed themselves out, leaving faint white smoke and the fleeting scent of freshly blown out candles in the air.
Remy, I thought, snapping my relief like a brittle twig. Jared came up in front of me, as did Jean Luc.
“Is he breathing?” Jared asked.
“He has a weak pulse,” Jean Luc said, presumably able to hear Remy’s heart beating even though he was standing.
“Remy,” I said, tapping his face. He opened his eyes slowly, blinking repeatedly, like a baby seeing the world for the first time.
He smiled, and when he did, blood spilled from the side of his mouth. “Hey sugar,” he said, but his voice was weak, and it rattled.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said, finding one of his hands, “It’s going to be okay.”
“It will be, kid. This place will be a whole lot better without me in it.”
Jared pulled his phone from his pocket to dial 911, but Remy stuck his hand out. “You have to let me call an ambulance, Remy,” Jared said.
“You crazy, boy?” Remy asked. “That’ll get us all into a world of trouble.”
“We need to get you some help,” I said, “You need a doctor.”
“You call an ambulance and they’ll bring the cops. Cops will ask questions, and we can’t have that.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying it’s time for me to pay for the things I did.”
“How is this even possible?” Jared asked, “Aren’t you immortal?”
Remy coughed, and blood stained his lips. “I never said I was immortal; only that I wouldn’t age.” He turned his eyes up at me, and smiled again. “I enjoyed tonight right up until this last part… but I guess it’s not so bad either.”
“Remy…” I said, but his eyes turned misty and gray before I could figure out what else to say to him.
I listened to him breathe his last breath, and then he died in my arms.