I started across the field, dust kicking slow-moving eddies around my boots. I was still sweating, but the fear had eased off enough I could hear myself think. It didn’t make sense that there had been no other vamps in the house.
Had Variance and Hatcher drawn them all away? Had they killed them, or injured them enough, they couldn’t come to Dominick’s aid?
“How far?” Lu asked, words slurring.
“Not far.” It was a lie. The meeting point at the car was at least a mile away.
Even with the ring that gave me greater speed, carrying Lu and picking my way between scrub and over broken ground was slowing our progress.
Lu stiffened and tapped my shoulder. I stopped. “Vamps,” she whispered, her lips so near my ear, I felt the word more than heard it.
I released my hold. She slid off my back and pulled her dagger. I drew the vamp knife. “How many?”
She didn’t have time to reply. Dozens and dozens of figures melted out of the darkness, surrounding us.
There wasn’t time to plan. There wasn’t time to strategize. There wasn’t time to call for help or find an escape. The vampires were viper-fast, attacking with teeth and blades, too many, too fast.
Lula fought like wildfire, her blade flashing with moonlight and blood as she parried strike after strike.
I slashed and blocked, stabbing eyes, open mouths, necks, using my bulk and reach to guard her as best I could.
If a vampire fell, another was instantly in its place. We would not win this fight. There were still too many, there had always been too many.
A body slammed into me, carrying me down. I hit the ground, air whooshing out of my lungs, my head bouncing off a stone.
The world swam, and I wanted to puke. My reactions slowed to a snail’s crawl.
The vampire above me was darkness and pain, I lifted one arm to block the bite…and then…then it collapsed on top of me and was still.
Good: I hadn’t been bitten. Bad: I couldn’t move.
I needed to find Lula. I could hear her still fighting but couldn’t see her. I blinked and almost fell deep into that soothing darkness before forcing my eyes open.
The moon was huge, filling the sky. It burned my eyes, bright and brighter, blotting out my vision, so bright it could almost have been the sun.
Then, impossibly, the moon shone even brighter.
The vampires screamed.
“I see you.” A voice—Abbi’s voice—carried the power of her magic. “Beneath my light, you are ash, you are dust. My magic isacid on your skin, it is poison in your veins. I am brighter than the sun. You will not thrive in my light. You will not live.”
She said something else, a stream of syllables I couldn’t understand, and the night grew even more painfully bright, as if a bomb had just gone off.
The screams grew louder.
Then there was silence.
Then there was darkness.
“Lu?” I whispered. The weight holding me down was gone, but I still couldn’t move. I tried lifting my hand, a finger.
Nothing.
A hand cupped the side of my face. Lula. I knew her touch, would always know her touch. Her fingers drifted across my lips.
The lips were the last part of the body that could feel sensation before a person died. I’d read that somewhere. I wondered if it was true.
“I can’t see,” I said.
