Chapter 17

The concrete floor rushed up to meet my face—and I jarred to a painful stop, the crown of my head inches from cracking open like a dropped melon. As pieces of the broken panel rained down, my infernus hit the floor and bounced away.

Zylas clutched my ankles. He hung upside down out of the ceiling, his knees hooked over the steel grid.

A surprised exclamation. Three vampires, spread throughout the room, had frozen in the midst of their search. Dread cut through me and I slapped my palms against the floor so Zylas could release my legs. I toppled over. He dropped headfirst out of the ceiling, landed on his hands, and flipped onto his feet. I clambered up with far less grace, head throbbing from my impact with the ceiling panel, and scoured the area for my infernus.

Hungry grins spread across the vampires' faces as they closed in on us.

Zylas grabbed my sleeve, swung me behind him, and curled his fingers. Crimson power swept across his arms and solidified into six-inch talons. The vampires didn't so much as blink at the sight of his forbidden magic. If anything, their ravenous expressions intensified.

Their dark eyes—black sclera, white pupils, and thin red rings—ran over him. I backed away, pulse drumming in my throat. The vampires prowled closer, surrounding Zylas, and his tail lashed as he sized up his enemies.

He had to kill them quickly. I didn't know how far the other vampires had wandered in their search for intruders, but considering the noise I'd made falling through the ceiling, they would return soon. Zylas sank lower into his defensive stance.

The first vampire sprang—and his movements were a rushing blur.

Zylas darted aside, scarcely evading the man's grasping hands. Another vampire jumped onto his back. The demon whirled, his powerful motion throwing the vampire off. He cut open the vamp's shoulder, but the creature didn't even stumble. Zylas dove away, and his three opponents moved with him, attacking from every side.

And they were fast. Faster than the pair of vampires Zylas had fought in Claude's townhouse. So fast they matched the demon's speed.

He broke free of their ensnaring circle, only to be surrounded again an instant later. Crimson light burst off his hand. A female vampire flew backward and he thrust his talons toward the chest of another one. The vampire grabbed his wrist, halting the attack with the demon's talons scraping his sternum. Blood drenched his shirt.

Zylas pushed into the vampire, and the vampire pushed back. Zylas slid across the concrete, overpowered, then slashed his other hand out, talons ripping across the vampire's throat and snapping his neck. The vamp collapsed, but the other two charged him.

A door slammed open. A new vampire sprinted across the room and tackled Zylas from behind. His greaves hit the concrete with an earsplitting bang.

With their numbers returned to three, the vampires piled on him. Red power flared, then exploded off Zylas, throwing the vampires back. He sprang up, hands extended, crimson runes flashing over his arms as he prepared a spell.

A vampire kneeling on the floor caught Zylas's outstretched wrist. Mouth gaping, the vamp wrenched the demon's arm down and sank curved fangs into his hand.

Zylas's magic sputtered out. He whipped around, fist swinging, and smashed his knuckles into the vamp's face. The vampire lurched back, fangs tearing free. Zylas sprang away—and landed with an unsteady stagger.

Darren's words from last night flashed through my head: A bite will put you down like a shot of horse tranquilizer.

But Zylas was a demon. Surely he wasn't susceptible to—

His knees buckled.

The vampires were on him before he could fall. One grabbed his arm and bit down on his bicep. Another caught his hand, tore his sleeve out of the way, and latched onto his wrist. The third stepped behind him, a hand gripping his jaw, and pulled Zylas's head back.

Crazed thirst burning on his face, the vampire licked Zylas's throat, savoring the moment, then bit into the demon's smooth skin. Zylas hung in their hold, his legs twitching weakly as he fought to move. His wide eyes stared, breath rushing from his lungs.

Horror rooted me to the spot, then I tore free of my paralysis. Daimon, hesychaze!

Nothing happened. The vampires clung to Zylas, mouths fixed on him, throats working as they swallowed with frenetic intensity. The red rings in their white-and-black eyes glowed brightly.

The infernus—I needed the infernus! It was too far from me for the command to work! I spun in an unsteady circle, but I couldn't see it among the litter of construction supplies. Finding a small pendant in this mess would be impossible.

I snatched a piece of rebar from an untidy pile of scrap metal. Turning on the vampires, I swung it into the female clamped onto Zylas's wrist. It smacked her skull with a dull thud and bounced off. Her gaze, clouded with greed and ecstasy, focused on me.

As I lifted the bar again, she flung her arm out. The blow hit my chest and hurled me off my feet. A whoosh of air, then I slammed into a wall. Pain burst through my ribs and spine. I slid limply to the floor, unable to breathe.

Vaguely, I remembered these vampires were monstrously strong… and I was a feeble, breakable human.

Slumped against the wall, my vision blurring in and out, I tried to bring the room into focus. Zylas hung limply, spasms no longer moving his limbs. His unseeing stare had gone dark, the glowing crimson dimmed to flat, lifeless black. The vampires continued to feed with frenzied gluttony. They were killing him.

"Control yourselves, children." The dry voice was quiet but its commanding power seared the air. "Even a demon will succumb to death if you drain it."

The vampire drinking from Zylas's throat lifted his head, a trickle of dark blood running down his chin. The other two reluctantly pulled their mouths away.

"My lord," the female breathed, licking her lips clean. "Does the demon need to live?"

The newly arrived vampire glided across the room and stopped, unhurriedly assessing Zylas. Tall, pale, dark hair. Wearing a charcoal sweater and black jeans, he could've walked in off the street, but despite the dim light, a pair of curved sunglasses hid his eyes, the lenses reflecting the room. Four more vampires were arranged behind him, all staring hungrily at Zylas.

"Our own source of demon blood," the man, who could only be Lord Vasilii, said in that emotionless voice, "will benefit us far more than a single indulgent meal."

The female vampire pouted as she dropped Zylas's wrist. The other male let go of his arm, and the final vampire pulled the limp demon against his chest, holding him possessively close.

Vasilii stepped closer. With a pale hand, he lifted Zylas's arm. Inhaling over the bite wound on the demon's wrist, the man ran his tongue across a trickle of blood.

"Exquisite," he whispered.

The other vampires stirred restlessly, fixated on Zylas like starving hounds on a slab of meat.

"My lord." The woman rotated on the spot until she faced me. "If we can't have the demon, can we drink from the girl?"

"No, Bethany. If the girl perishes, her demon will be released from this world." Vasilii frowned slightly. "She seems familiar."

"She's Jack Harper's niece," another vampire supplied. "I recognize her from the photos."

Photos? What photos?

"Ah." Vasilii looked across the room, then back to me. "Why are you here, niece of Jack Harper?"

I stared up at him, too terrified to make a sound.

"Is she injured?" His mouth shifted with irritation. "Did you wound her, Bethany?"

"I only struck her once."

"Hmm. Bring them."

As he walked away, the vampire holding Zylas followed. The woman leered at me, then grabbed a handful of my hair. Pain tore through my scalp, and I whimpered, clutching her wrist as she dragged me across the floor.

The vampire lord stopped at the makeshift table. Bethany flung me down, and a moment later, Zylas landed beside me, his head striking the concrete with a horrific thud.

After studying the empty table, Vasilii ordered one of his minions, "Watch over them. I will return shortly to question the female. If the demon stirs, bite him again—but do not feed on him."

My panicked breath whistled through my clenched teeth. I dragged my aching body to Zylas's side. He was sprawled on his back, blood streaking his neck, and his half-open eyes were black as pitch and empty. How much of his blood had the vampires drained—and how much tranquilizing saliva had they pumped into his body?

I wrapped my fingers around his upper arm. His skin was cool. Zylas? Can you hear me?

He didn't react. Not even a flicker of awareness in his dark eyes.

"Can you smell it?" Bethany breathed. "His blood… the power in it."

Another vampire licked his lips. "We will all get to drink."

"Why can't we have him now?" another whispered.

"The demon could die. We have to be careful. Lord Vasilii will make sure the demon keeps feeding us."

My stomach turned over. They intended to keep Zylas as their personal blood bank? My hands tightened around his arm. Zylas, return to the infernus.

I waited for crimson light to overtake his body. Was the infernus too far away for him as well, or had the tranquilizing vampire saliva and blood loss anesthetized him? His comatose state, so much worse than when I'd been bitten, terrified me.

"Zylas," I whispered, pressing against his side, my lips against his ear. "Go back to the infernus. Quickly."

A shadow moved across me. Bethany grabbed my hair and hauled me away from Zylas. She threw me down and I hit a bucket, knocking it over. Discarded papers spilled across the floor and fluttered toward the abandoned air compressor and red jerry cans.

"Stay there and be quiet, girl," she ordered.

I lay on my stomach, pain burrowing deep in my muscles from my earlier impact with the wall. A foot from my nose, a glossy photo lay amidst the scattered papers: my face, smiling back at me. A square graduate cap sat on my head and matching robes draped my small frame, while my parents beamed with pride on either side of me.

My throat closed. My high school graduation two years ago. How had the vampires gotten that photo?

"The demon smells so good," a man groaned longingly.

Half under the photo was a lined sheet torn from a notebook, the cream paper filled with handwritten blue ink.

"Control yourself. Lord Vasilii doesn't allow disobedience."

My fingers closed around the paper, and as I squinted at that familiar loopy handwriting, I slid the page closer. Something small clattered softly against the concrete—a ballpoint pen. A pen. Sucking in a wild breath, I stuffed the paper down the front of my sweater and took hold of the pen.

"Lord Vasilii has promised we'll get all the demon blood we want," Bethany crooned delightedly. "Can you imagine?"

I flipped the photo over and drew across the back in a single, swift stroke.

"Mythics won't dare hunt us then. We'll be as powerful as they are."

"Even more powerful! Only we can bring demons down with a single bite."

Pressing the pen into another scrap, I drew a different rune across the paper's full span.

"Demons are even more susceptible to our bites than humans. We're the ultimate demon hunters, and mythics have no idea."

The vampires laughed, voices coated in eager hunger. I crawled forward, belly sliding across the rejected papers they'd stolen from Claude, from Uncle Jack… from my parents.

"Do you think Lord Vasilii would notice if we took one more sip from the demon?"

Eyes fixed on the air compressor and the row of jerry cans beside it, I pushed myself across the floor.

"He ordered us not to feed again…"

"Just a little taste?"

I glanced back and my lungs constricted. The three vampires were crouched around Zylas's prone form. Bethany held his wrist, staring at the punctures in his hand from the bite that had brought him down.

"I need more." Drool spilled out of the corner of her mouth. "I need it."

"Bethany…" another vampire began sternly.

Her mouth opened wide, fangs gleaming, and she pulled his hand to her mouth.

I shoved off the floor and jumped toward the air compressor and its collection of jerry cans. A vampire shouted in warning. I flung my arm into the air, clutching the photo with a rune scrawled over the back. "Luce!"

Light as bright as the sun flared, and the vampires cried out in pain. I grabbed the nearest jerry can and stuffed my second paper into the nozzle.

"Ig—"

An arm clamped around my neck, cutting off my air. The vampire dragged me backward and the can slipped from my grasp, landing on its side. Gasoline spilled out. With beastly strength, my captor hauled me over to the other vampires. They surrounded me, black-and-white eyes glaring down, the red rings brighter than I'd ever seen before.

The arm around my neck loosened enough that I could breathe. Focusing as hard as I could on the slip of paper I'd shoved into the jerry can, I gasped, "Igniaris!"

The paper burst into flames—and the gasoline fumes exploded. A fireball ruptured the can and whooshed out in a blaze of light and heat. It caught the other cans and they burst, flinging flaming liquid across the room. Fire roared, engulfing the exposed drywall. The papers all over the floor caught and the flames leaped higher, smoke boiling toward the ceiling and heat scorching the air.

Yelling in alarm, the vampires jerked back from the spreading inferno. I tore free from their restraining arms and leaped toward the dark shape on the floor.

Zylas!

Chill air tingled across my skin, then arctic cold swept over the room, sucking away the fire's heat. The flames shrank. Frost webbed across the floor in spreading fractals as the temperature plunged past freezing and kept dropping.

Darkness swept through the room, drowning out the firelight—but within the darkness, crimson eyes glowed.

I tripped over something and crashed down, half on top of Zylas. A warm hand pressed against my cheek. Power buzzed against my skin, then the heat rushed out of my body and flowed into the demon. As suffocating cold plunged over me, his eyes blazed.

Power erupted over his hands in twisting veins. It raced up his arms, his shoulders, his neck, and leaked across his cheeks like creeping scarlet vines. Light bled around his eyes, which burned even brighter.

His hand was still pressed to my face as he raised the other, muscles trembling with weakness but spread fingers steady.

Inside my head, a ruby-colored array appeared: a radiant tangle of lines and jagged runes that crisscrossed and overlapped with wild complexity. Like sorcery but different. Not human magic but demon magic.

It seared deep in my mind like a laser etching the pattern inside my skull.

Power flared over Zylas's hand. Magic erupted all around us, shapes and runes forming in the air. The magic I could see in my head took form in front of my eyes, the tangled shape arching over us. Power built in the runes, pulsing through every line. The air went colder, the fires snuffing out, the darkness pressing in.

Evashvā vīsh.

The spell curving over us blasted outward like a detonating bomb, ripping through steel and concrete. A cacophony of shrieking, banging, and crashing shattered my eardrums. The explosion tore the ceiling away, obliterating everything in its path.

Zylas pulled my face into his shoulder and wrapped his arms over my head. Debris plummeted down on us, painful thuds and stinging cuts. The clamor died away, my ears ringing in the new quiet, broken only by the patter and crunch of falling rubble. Darkness lay over everything.

A flicker of light. Somewhere among the wreckage, flames had reignited among the burst jerry cans and smoldering paper. I lifted my head, pulling free of Zylas's arms.

The room was… not really there anymore. A massive hole gaped above us, the ceiling little more than twisted steel.

Zylas's hand tightened around my wrist. His skin was chill, almost icy, and his eyes were dark again, his power expended.

"Run, drādah."

Crimson power flared over him. His body dissolved and the light streaked toward a tangle of debris. I leaped after it and shoved aside smoldering drywall. The infernus lay on the floor, glowing with Zylas's returning spirit. I snatched it up, and then I was running toward a dark threshold, the door torn off its hinges by the detonation.

As I flew through the doorway, a voice shouted. The vampires weren't dead. Some had survived that demonic unleashing. They were coming for me.

I sprinted down the hallway, the dancing firelight fading the farther I ran. Dropping the infernus chain over my head, I wheeled around a corner and darkness engulfed me. My fingers tightened on the photo I still clutched. "Luce!"

The cantrip flared, lighting my way, but it wouldn't last long before the rune had to recharge. I raced down the corridor, trying vainly to remember the route Zylas had followed on our way in.

As the cantrip's light faded, I glimpsed an unlit exit sign above the next door. I shoved through it and into the inky stairwell. Reaching out with fumbling hands, I found the railing. I flew down the steps, rounded a bend in the staircase, and descended farther. When the stairway curved again, I stretched my hands out, blindly searching. A concrete wall… a door! I slid my hands down, found the handle, and shoved it open.

Light bloomed, the lobby bathed in the orange glow of streetlamps.

A bang echoed through the stairwell behind me. I flung the door shut, sprinted across the lobby, and slammed full force into the front door. It didn't budge. Locked. I grabbed a heavy bucket of joint compound and threw it into the nearest window. The glass shattered.

I was outside an instant later and clambering over a barricade. Then I ran as fast as my exhausted legs would carry me, one panicked thought in my head: get away from the vampires.

Lights flashed and a horn blared. I stumbled to a halt as a car swerved around me, its brakes squealing. Another horn went off and a pickup truck roared past.

I was in the middle of a road.

The first car, stopped in its lane, gave another beep. The window rolled down and a middle-aged woman leaned out. "I almost ran you over! Are you all right?"

My gaze darted to the building. Shadowy figures appeared in the dark interior, gathering around the window I'd broken.

"Will you drive me home?" I blurted. "Please? I don't live far from here."

As another car beeped angrily and pulled around us, the woman scanned me worriedly. "Maybe I should take you to the police station. Or a hospital?"

"No, just—please. Please take me home."

She grimaced, then jerked her head toward the passenger side of the vehicle. "Okay. Get in."

I rushed around the car and yanked the door open. The moment I closed it, she accelerated, more beeping from the inconvenienced traffic accompanying us.

"Where to?" the woman asked. "Hon?… Hon, you okay?"

Tears streamed down my face. I slumped back in my seat, the infernus safely tucked under my sweater. The tower and its vampire nest disappeared behind us.

"Thank you," I whispered, pressing a hand over my eyes. "Thank you for helping me."

The woman patted my leg. "You're safe, sweetie. Just tell me where to take you."

I mumbled my address, then belatedly buckled my seatbelt. As the woman changed lanes to head east, I looked down. Crumpled in my fist was the photo. I stared at my parents' smiles, and for a moment, just a moment, I allowed myself to pretend that the helpful stranger in the seat beside me was my mom… and we were going home.