“Why would you let such a powerful creature hang out in your house?” I asked, watching his face for signs of lying. “Especially when you invited me over?”

“I did not foresee you would use your magic this way. I’ve never experienced it before. I wonder if Emery knows of it.”

I pointed up at the organized mass above my head. “That, you mean? Because lately, I always have that brewing, and it doesn’t seem to bother anyone else.”

Darius’s brow wrinkled as he followed my point. “I don’t know what you are pointing at, but what is happening with your magic is a recent development, and it is not standard.”

“That’s a nice way of calling me weird.” I gritted my teeth as the clicking resumed, those hungry buggers edging toward me again.

Darius glanced over his shoulder. But instead of warning them back, he offered me a slight bow and then stepped away. “I’ll leave you to it.”

As if on cue, the closest vampire broke from the pack and lunged for me.

Eat. Kill. Devour.

Fangs, claws, and sinewy muscle stretched across its bones.

That was all I could see. All that registered.

My body locked in deep, paralyzing fear. Energy pulsed and throbbed around me. Spells rolled through my head, one by one, but the only ones I could latch on to were mostly steeped in feelings. Random thoughts. An image of a sunny day, a magnifying glass, and an anthill.

“How is that helping?” I whispered, watching the creature cross the small patch of hallway between us, intent on reaching me and ripping me open.

I knew I needed to move. To do something other than stand around like a fool. Very recently, I had been better than this. I had reacted.

Why was I locking up again?

The creature’s claw came up to slash. Darius twitched, and I thought he would step in. I thought he would grab the hand.

He stepped back.

“Help,” I begged, a sad, feeble little cry that would do nobody any favors.

The vampire grinned, of all things, and the claw swung at my neck.

14

A shock of power ripped out of my middle, yanking on my ribcage and spilling heat down through my core. Heat turned to fire and filled me to bursting, tingling in my fingers, my toes, and all the way up to my hair follicles. White blasted out from my body, a blanket of white-hot power that punched through the vampire’s middle, creating a hole as big as two of my fists.

The creature didn’t have time to howl. It jerked once, its limbs thrown wide, before it fell to the ground in a pile that quickly turned into oozing black sludge.

My survival magic didn’t stop. It rocketed out again, aiming for the first one’s buddy. Its eyes widened a moment before my magic pierced its middle, the hole smaller but just as deadly.

It howled and clutched at its chest before its legs buckled.

A metallic click sounded down the hall at my back. The soft creak of hinges announced a door opening. A magical presence filled the hallway. Fight. Tear. WAR.

“Go!” Darius shoved me behind him. “Marie! Moss!”

A woman wearing a beautiful crimson evening gown glided into the space. Small and slight, she held her hands up near her chest, worrying one of her nails. Her shoulders were straight, but her bowed head put me in mind of a timid housewife from a 1950s TV show.

Kill. Kill. Kill.

No matter what she looked like, there was no denying the rush of intent filling the hallway.

Marie was by my side in a moment, her hands bracing my shoulders and her gaze rooted to the woman. Moss zoomed in next, taking up a position beside and a little behind Darius.

An ancient sort of power filled the hallway, long dormant and just waking up, like a mummy throwing off the lid of its sarcophagus and slowly sitting up. It was the magic I’d sensed before Darius’s arrival, only stronger. Active.

“I have badly underestimated what it means to be an untrained natural in a pressurized situation. Marie, get her out of here,” Darius said, his usually calm demeanor tense and voice tight. “Hurry! Moss, we must keep Ja confined to this house until she regains sense.”

“What’s—”

Marie lifted me and threw me over her shoulder before I could get another word out.

“And Marie,” Darius said, and she stopped to turn. “Bring back blood offerings.”

I could just see the woman’s hands separate and move to her sides as claws grew from her fingertips. Very little about her posture had changed, but a primal fear I could barely understand crawled through my insides. Moss braced for an attack and Darius stripped down, even now worried about preserving his expensive suit.

Logic fled. Trying to do the right spell wasn’t even a concern. Like I’d done in the warehouse and in the Guild’s compound, I instinctively wove Marie’s magic into my own. The pattern came naturally, my focus on protection and repulsion both. My goal was simply to keep the vampire away, but if push came to shove, I would unleash hell.

Marie’s body tightened under me. More of her magic pumped out, primal, aggressive, and thrilling. I wrapped it into the spell I was weaving, going with the flow.

“Get the natural out of here,” Darius yelled, startling Marie into action.

She spun, but not before I loosed the spell. It tumbled down the hallway, barely missing Darius before expanding.

Ja hissed. Her clothes ripped, and milky-white skin burst through them as she changed into her monster form.

“Oh crap,” I said, her image jiggling as Marie ran. “That one is really old.”

My magic flowered right before it got to the vampire, flashing brightly colored light, but I didn’t get to see anything more than that. Marie turned the corner into the room I’d walked through earlier, finding one last new vampire, huddled near a couch. Even upside down and bouncing around on her shoulder, I could tell it was shaking like a frightened animal.

“That old vampire is intense if she’s making the new one cower,” I said, trying to keep my breath with her shoulder cutting into my gut.

“The young one is afraid of you.” She gracefully sped down a hall and to the mouth of the stairs, so much faster than a human.

“Feel free to take these slow—” A shock wave rumbled through the house. The walls and ceiling groaned with the flux. The floor shook.

Marie put on a burst of speed, taking two stairs at a time. I felt weightless, then slammed down on her shoulder. Weightless, slammed down.

“Slower,” I tried to get out between the grunts, struggling to find a way to stop the pain.

She leapt three-quarters of the way down, holding my legs with one hand and holding the other out for balance.

“Nooooo—”

She landed, something snapped, and she guided my body to land on her shoulder again, all in one graceful, ice-skater-like movement.

I wasn’t so graceful.

The impact knocked the air from my lungs. I gasped and shoved at her, trying to get free. Trying to straighten up, or curl over, or something that might help me get more air.

She staggered to the side, and I realized it was her shoe heel that had snapped. The dip helped me escape, and I rolled off, hitting the ground painfully.

Kill. Kill. Kill.

I looked up as the corrosive magic slammed into me, trying to drag me under its hypnotic spell. Marie’s body ripped through her beautiful dress as she shifted to her monster form, taking two fast steps before crouching in front of me with her claws out, hissing.

“Go.” The scratchy, badly articulated word came from Marie’s vampire form, something I hadn’t realized was possible. “Go!”

A white, black, and red form walked in jerky steps to the top of the stairs, one of its legs crunching with each step from a wonky knee, causing the lower leg to angle off in the wrong direction. Once it reached the top of the stairs, I could make out the intense burn marks scoring its front, some of them dribbling blood. Other areas, not burned, had gaping wounds, some showing bone and others dripping blood like a faucet. One arm was out of the socket, and two fingers were missing off the other hand.

That vampire should be dead. My spell had obviously blasted through it. Charred it. Cut it. Darius and Moss, the backups, had clearly smashed and ripped at it. Had stood in its way and fought tooth and nail.

“Oh my God.” I breathed softly as realization dawned. My lower lip trembled. “Did that thing kill Darius and Moss?”