2

Crap, he was a father of a kid in this school? No wonder he was nearby. “Jeez, Harris. I didn’t know.”

He shook his head as I yanked my hand back once more. “That’s why I was here instead of at work. I was supposed to take her for testing.” He shook his head, as if to clear it. “We don’t know what this thing is going to do. If we don’t keep it in this room, there’s no telling what’ll happen. Willow might have to go through life with only one parent, but she’ll be alive. If it has to be a choice, I choose her.”

I did my best to blink back the tears that formed in my eyes. “Willow’s a pretty name. What grade?”

“First,” he said, sounding distracted. “She wants to be a ballerina when she grows up. Now shut up. I have to concentrate if I’m going to pull this off. You just keep your hands to yourself and away from that freaking bomb.”

Touch it … now!

My whole body jerked with the command and I had to struggle with everything I had left not to obey. I didn’t know if the caster of this particular spell was listening and realizing what we were doing or if it was just a timed command for whoever was in the room to count down to the event. But either way, the new order was more urgent and my skin was twitching in earnest now, my fingers stretching while my arm shook with the strain of keeping from reaching those last few inches. I still had command of my feet, and as long as I kept them pointed toward the door, anatomical limits would keep me in check.

Relax … let your mind drift.

Oh, crap. While the caster might not be in the room, this new command made me realize she knew Harris and I were here. She was reacting to my plan. Oh, crap. I felt tension seep out of my body, the same way the magic had crept in. If my leg muscles relaxed, I’d fall right over onto the bomb. My heart was beating like a jackhammer even as my eyelids were drooping, like I was trying to stay awake when I’d been driving too long. “You need to speed it up, Harris. The voice is trying to make me go to sleep, so I fall over and set off the bomb.”

“I’m hurrying. I’m hurrying. Just hang on for a few more seconds and I’ll wrap the spell all the way around you.”

I yawned, then shook my head, wanting nothing more than to curl up and rest, like a cat in a sunbeam.

Wait. A sunbeam. That’s exactly what I needed. Moments before, a tree’s shadow had lain across the basement window, casting the room into darkness. Now the sun had moved on and bright sunlight streamed into the room. The sunbeams flowed through the spell with only a slight change of color before hitting the wall right next to me.

Sunlight was no longer my friend. But the enemy of mine enemy was acceptable today.

I leaned sideways as far as I could, letting my relaxed muscles work in my favor. I kept my hand on the doorknob to limit the swing of my body, but soon my face was square in the warm sun.

Imagine being in a tanning bed set on high or standing in front of a blast furnace with your eyes wide open. The heat was intense and immediate and made me hiss in pain. That was good because it awakened the vampire inside. Normally, the supernatural part of me isn’t an issue except near sunset. But I wanted that part of me to feel the burn right now. The witch was playing games, trying to beat down a weak, human foe. But I’m not human, and she wasn’t going to win against me.

I hissed again and then roared from the pain. Reflexes snapped my neck around, taking me out of the sun. I turned toward Harris, seeing him with the most extreme version of vampire hypervision—that registered people only as colored auras that smelled of … food. Thankfully, I’d had a nutrition shake before coming to the school, so I wasn’t particularly hungry. But I had no doubt that I was glowing lightly, and my eyes were probably red, because Nathan, the hired wand, straightened abruptly and started to kick away from me. His eyes were wide and the pulse in his exposed neck was racing, the thundering of his pulse making me aware of his fear.

Relax … touch it.

I turned and snarled at the bomb, “Go to hell, bitch.”

Harris didn’t seem worried, but mostly I think that was because he wasn’t really looking at me. He was concentrating on the runes he was drawing on the tile with his wand. They shone gold as he wrote, as if the wand was a glow-in-the-dark marker. “Keep your head together, Graves. Think about the kids.”

While I needed the predator’s strength of purpose, I also needed my humanity and compassion. That balance was something I worked on daily; I always want to know that I could bring myself back from the brink in a crisis. “I’m okay. Just keep working.” My voice was low and snarls lurked at the edges of my words. They made Harris look at me for the first time.

“Aah!” He jerked back and half-crawled away from me, smudging one of the runes in the process. “Jeez, Graves. They weren’t kidding about you down at the station house.”

I’d opened my mouth for a scathing reply when the colors surrounding the bomb began to flicker. I didn’t know what it meant, but I was betting it wasn’t good. “Can you see that?”

He nodded. “I’m on it. I just need to mark down this last rune.” He held the wand like an artist’s brush and stared at the circle of glowing symbols, preparing to write the final rune. The weird thing was that even though I didn’t recognize more than three of the sigils, the ones I did know didn’t have any business being in the same spell. Harris was either doing something really creative or making things worse … intentionally.

Wasn’t he sitting on his hands earlier? What changed?

A specialized charm slid into my right hand almost without thought and I used that hand to motion to the floor. “Seems like shaping the blast to channel up is sort of counterproductive to keeping it in the room, don’t you think?”

Harris froze, his wand hovering over the tiles. “What?” His voice was a throaty whisper that sounded more alto than baritone. It was just what I was afraid of. It had gotten too easy to move in the past few seconds. The witch’s attention was somewhere else, and now I knew where. She’d gotten inside Harris’s head and was about to make him do her dirty work. If he survived, he’d at least lose his job for failure to shield and might go to jail as an accessory.

I threw the charm in my hand hard against the floor. The “boomer” is all light and sound, without the energy that might set off the bomb. Still, it packs a wallop to the senses. I was expecting it, so I closed my eyes and accepted going immediately deaf. Harris and Nathan took the effect full on and were stunned into unconsciousness. I only had a few moments if the flashing of the magic shield around the bomb was any indication. As fast as I could I hauled Nathan up in a fireman’s carry and yanked Harris to his feet by hauling up on his wand arm. I swiped my foot across his runes as I passed, just to make sure whatever he’d written wouldn’t make things worse.

It wasn’t a solution, but it was the best I could do. I was out of the room like a shot, running smack into a band of six officers. Five were in riot gear, two of them with the words BOMB SQUAD in big white block letters on their chests. The sixth didn’t need the lettering. He was in full protective gear, and the runes and sigils that had been drawn on his suit glowed like magnesium in the dim light of the basement hallway.

I startled them, which was bad enough. Far worse, I was a scary vampire-looking creature dragging a mage officer and carrying another “victim.” It was quite possibly the worst first impression I could make and all guns turned my way and pointed at my chest in a flash.

My best defense was a good offense. “I’m Celia Graves; I’m a professional bodyguard.” I dropped Nathan to the floor and raised my hands. “The bomb’s in there and it’s about to blow! We need to get the hell out of here!” With the door open, everyone could see the fast-flickering magic and it certainly looked like Harris wasn’t able to walk without help.

All heads turned to the two officers with BOMB SQUAD printed on their flak jackets. The man on my left nodded, one sharp movement of his head. Or, actually, her head, because the voice was female. Grabbing the transmission button on her radio, she called, “All personnel, clear the area. Now!”

I heard the thunder of footfalls overhead, and muted shouting in various languages. The cops grabbed Harris and Nathan away from me and hurried toward the stairs at the end of the hall.

I followed but wound up in the lead going upstairs. They were burdened; I wasn’t. Logically I should have carried the others, but I wasn’t about to protest.

I called over my shoulder as I reached the landing. “Are all the kids out?”

The nearest cop cocked his head and stared at me for a long second. Then he nodded and responded in a light tenor, “We think so. The firefighters unlocked the emergency doors in all the classrooms, so it’s going faster.”

Thank God. Seriously. I’m not particularly religious, not a true believer like my gran, but at moments like this? Oh yeah. I pounded up the last of the stairs, into the main hallway. It was illuminated by sunlight. The power had been cut, but every door in the place was open. I started to sprint for the main exit when I saw a flash of movement, a bit of color coming out of a doorway on my right.

A kid. Small and dark skinned, with ribboned pigtails and huge dark eyes. What in the hell was she still doing here?

I’d done enough running this morning that the bottoms of my hose were trashed, but I still skidded a little when I slowed to scoop her up. I didn’t even think about being in full vamp mode.

She totally freaked out.

“Vampire!” she shrieked, kicking and hitting at me. She was tiny, but she was fierce, fighting me for all she was worth. It made it hard to hold on to her without hurting her. I swore as sharp little teeth dug into my forearm. “Let me go! What have you done to my daddy?”

“Willow?” Harris’s voice behind me sounded stunned, a little groggy, but at least he was talking. The cops dragged him, arm extended backward as if to touch his daughter, past the room at a run, expecting that I would follow.