“It’s probably some kind of electrical glitch, right?” Madeleine said softly, moving to stand a little closer to Jenna.
“Definitely,” Isaac said, though Jenna wasn’t sure if she or anyone else in the room believed him. She doubted he believed it himself.
She forced herself to take a deep breath and relax, only to tense again when the first murmur of surprise rippled up from below them. One moment, there was a babble of nervous confusion, and the next, there were shouts of pure panic and terror. Then came the screams of pain.
Jenna was out the door before she even realized what she was doing. Madeleine and Esme both called out for her to come back, but by then she was halfway down the first flight of stairs, looking over the railing at the bedlam below. Even in the heavy shadows created by the club’s eerie red emergency lights, she could see people rushing frantically for the exit.
Small figures darted through the crowd, moving so fast they were near impossible to see clearly in the chaotic darkness. But even without getting a good look at the fast-moving creatures, Jenna knew they were ghouls. How the hell they’d gotten into the club and what they were doing here was beyond her, but it was definitely them.
A flash of light along the far side of the dance floor caught her attention as she descended a few more steps. Jenna looked that way, catching sight of Davina standing in the rushing crowd like a rock in the middle of the ocean, unmoving in the face of the raging crowd. Then she swept out her hand, and a muscular ghoul was yanked out of the shadows and thrown across the room, smashing hard into the far wall.
Jenna vaguely remembered hearing Trevor talking to Connor about Davina being a witch. At the time, she hadn’t assumed he meantthatkind of witch. Obviously, he had.
Davina kept moving her hands, sending creatures flying as Jenna reached the bottom of the stairs and the crowd of frantic people. It struck her then that she had no idea what the hell she was going to do. She couldn’t do magic like Davina and wasn’t even carrying her softball bat.
But when she saw a woman tumble helplessly to the floor, Jenna found herself surging through the crowd toward her, fighting and shoving until she reached the woman’s side. She was probably literally taking her life in her hands to lean down and help the woman to her feet, but she did it anyway.
The world around Jenna blurred as she continued moving and shoving, helping people off the floor and nudging them toward the exit. From the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Madeleine,Esme, and Isaac assisting the other patrons while Davina focused on doing that thing with her hands, throwing ghouls here, there, and everywhere.
As the main dance floor area started to thin out, Jenna followed her instincts and moved through the nearest archway, heading into the next room, and then the one beyond that, looking for stragglers. A part of her knew it was dangerous and that Trevor would be furious at her for putting herself in peril like this, but she simply could not let the ghouls grab anyone else. So she got every person she came across—most of whom were scared and confused—turned around the right way, shoving them forcefully back in the direction she’d come.
She was about to head for the exit herself when she spotted an arch leading to a space not much bigger than her own living room. There was a small bar along one side as well as a few high-top tables scattered around the space. The heavy drapes on the wall gave the room an almost cozy feel. She glanced around to make sure it was empty, then headed for the door.
Then she heard the whimpering.
Stopping, Jenna whirled around, following the sound and realizing it was coming from behind the bar on the other side of the room. She crossed the room and hurried around the end of the curved piece of black granite, peeking her head carefully over the edge until she saw a woman hiding in the corner.She was wedged so tightly in the space near the fridge that Jenna barely saw her in the darkness. But the soft crying—and trembling shoulders—gave her away.
Jenna quickly walked around the bar.
“Hey,” she whispered, kneeling down beside the terrified woman. “I’m going to get you out of here, okay?”
The woman looked up at her, eyes round as saucers and tears running down her face. “Are they gone?”
Jenna considered lying, wanting to offer the poor woman at least some kind of comfort. But lying wouldn’t do the woman any good if a ghoul popped out in front of them. So the truth it was.
“I’m pretty sure they’re still here,” she said as calmly as she could. “Which is a damn good reason to get out of here. Before those things find us.”
The woman’s eyes widened even more than before. But at least she nodded and got to her feet, though she stayed low, like she wanted to hide behind the bar as long as possible. They were coming out from around the end of the bar when a ghoul suddenly dropped down from the ceiling not more than ten feet away, blocking their escape path to the door.
The woman beside Jenna screamed. Long, high, and piercing. Even the ghoul took a step back, wincing, as if the sound hurt its ears.
Jenna didn’t waste the distraction. Reaching behind her along the mirror-lined shelves in back of the bar, she grabbed the first thing she could find—a heavy bottle filled with honey-brown liquid. Grasping it around the long neck, she threw the bottle at the ghoul as hard as she could.
She wasn’t sure who was more surprised when the heavy bottle smashed into the creature’s chest—her or the ghoul. Regardless, the glass shattered into hundreds of pieces on impact, showering the ghoul with sharp splinters of glass and splatters of alcohol.
The creature took a few steps back, its face registering alarm and disgust more than pain. From the way the ghoul looked down at its wet chest, Jenna got the feeling it was bothered more by the alcohol than the glass shards sticking to it.
But all Jenna cared about was the fact that the thing had backed up after getting hit with the bottle. So she grabbed another and tossed that at the creature, too. She was reaching for a third before the one she’d tossed even had a chance to land, practically slinging it without looking. Then another after that. And another. The odor of alcohol filled the room, and she wished she had a lighter—or better yet, a torch—so she could light the thing on fire.
The woman beside her followed Jenna’s lead, picking up bottle after bottle and throwing them atthe creature. The ghoul let out a screech and backpedaled until it was pressed up against the far wall. Jenna grabbed another bottle in each hand, then tucked an extra under her left arm before she ran out from behind the bar.
“Run!” Jenna shouted, slinging the first bottle as hard as she could, putting herself squarely between the ghoul and the door. “I’ll hold it off.”
The woman didn’t even pretend to think about staying to help. She simply ran, a bottle in one hand just in case, shoes hitting the floor in a rapid tattoo as she darted away at a dead sprint.
Jenna slung the second bottle, an unbelievably heavy one of carved crystal that shattered in spectacular fashion when it hit the ghoul in the head. The creature snarled in rage and fell back another step, bouncing off the wall behind it.
She launched her last bottle, aiming for the creature’s crotch, hoping that area might be more sensitive. She didn’t wait to see if her aim was true, instead turning and racing for the door the moment the bottle left her hand. There was a grunt of pain behind her, followed by a long gasp, like all the air was being ripped out of the creature’s lungs. She had a few seconds to congratulate herself before the click of hard claws on the floor told her the bottle hadn’t damaged the ghoul as much as she’d hoped.
