Even with the ring’s speed and the cloaking bracelet, there was no chance in hell I could get close enough to stab the vampire and do any damage.
I reached into my pocket for the spool of thread. I needed to call Abbi, needed her to help me help Lu.
But there was no thread in my pocket because I’d tied it to Rhianna.
There was, however, a single crow feather.
Raven’s feather.
I pulled it out of my pocket and held it up.
“Raven,” I said, breathless, “get your ass over here. If she dies, I’ll kick your shit to hell and back.” I waited, my heart pounding.
Nothing.
“Fuck.”
Dominick and Lula were on this side of the room now, about forty feet away from me.
The vampire backed Lula up until the thorny wall pricked through her shirt.
She was breathing hard, sweat plastering the hair that had come loose from her braid to her face. The cuts on her cheek, forehead, neck, arms, flowed with slow, dark blood.
Dominick had two wounds I could see: a slash down the side of his face that ended just short of his jugular, and a wide gash across his stomach. Neither of the cuts bled freely, even though the wounds were deep.
Vampires were hard to kill. A couple cuts wouldn’t do it. The only reliable way to end them was a stake through the heart or beheading.
“Enough,” Dominick said, the command thick with disappointment, scorn. “You bore me,thrawan.”
Lula bared her teeth, gripping her blood-covered blade. It was not a blade that could kill the vampire.
I had that blade in my hand. I balanced it between my shaking fingers, holding it like a dart. This was a foolish idea. It was stupid to throw a weapon, to bet it all on one wild chance.
The blade was heavy, not meant to be thrown this way.
I was a good shot, but hitting a vampire who could move faster than the eye could see? Those odds were south of nothing.
Dominick shifted his grip and drew back to plunge his knife into Lula’s heart.
I threw the dagger with everything I had.
“Hey!” I yelled, dropping the bracelet so I was visible.
Dominick pivoted, Lula twisted…
…and the dagger I’d thrown stuck, center of the vampire’s chest.
Dominick roared and scrabbled at the dagger, his knife dropping from his fingers.
He turned on Lula, but she had put distance between them, limping out of his reach with her good arm across her stomach, her eyes shocky and wide.
He got his hand on the hilt of the knife in his chest, trying to pull it free. He roared again…
…and hundreds and hundreds of crows filled the room.
The birds dove through the holes in the ceiling, winged in from the hall, from doors that burst open, from cracks in the floor.
Cawing, shrieking, diving with sharp claws, tearing with wicked beaks, the crows surrounded him, a melee of talons and sound, tearing into him as if he had stolen and eaten their young, wanting him shredded and dead.
