After a moment, Takoma straightened, removing his arm from Spencer’s chair and leaning forward. He moved with the intent of a predator that had Spencer’s hindbrain taking immediate notice of the threat, and it took effort to shake off the desire to hide. Vampires were the monsters in the shadows humans had run from throughout the rise and fall of civilizations, and that fear was ingrained deep.
A witch several seats down from Caitlin had her hands pressed to the table, the casting circles tattooed on the back of them beginning to glow with magic in preparation for a fight. Spencer had a mageglobe conjured and ready beneath the table and out of view when Caitlin snapped out, “We are here for a dinner, not bloodshed.”
“A pity,” Takoma practically purred. “As to your request, my pet didn’t enter your supposed territory. Your anger is misplaced, and you waste my time.”
“And since you have no proof of this supposed vampire attacking your pet, you’ll drop your accusation against my Night Court or face a reckoning,” Rufus shot back.
Takoma’s lip curled, fangs glinting in the light. “Is that so?”
Whatever Rufus would’ve said to that was interrupted by the flickering of lights above. Spencer immediately tensed, looking up at the pair of chandeliers and recessed lights that sputtered the same way they had in the hotel. Before Spencer could spit out a warning, the bulbs all burst, raining glass down on the table, causing more than one person to shout in surprise.
Then a heavy force slammed into Spencer, driving the air out of his lungs as he went skidding backward. He blinked his sight sideways, nearly blinded by the poltergeist right in front of him, tendrils of power snaking around his body and shoving him backward with a supernatural strength that made his ribs ache. He couldn’t get enough air to even shout as he crashed into the window behind the table, glass shattering from the poltergeist’s power more than the impact.
Gravity hooked in his gut, pulling at him as cold wind and the sound of the city screamed past his ears. The chair fell away, toppling over into open air, and Spencer followed after it. While the Four Seasons was on the waterfront, there wasn’t any water below—just concrete and asphalt and a very messy death if he missed the adjacent building’s roof.
It was a death Fatima wouldn’t get the chance to berate him for in whatever afterlife she led him to because Takoma flung himself out the window after Spencer faster than his fall. Vampires couldn’t fly, but supernatural speed and strength were built into their making, and taking a dive off a building was nothing to them.
Spencer didn’t have time to try to save himself with magic because Takoma was already there, fingers skimming over Spencer’s arms even as the poltergeist’s power reached for the master vampire. Spencer’s sight was still sideways, Takoma a void that blocked out everything, so it was easy to see the way the poltergeist focused on Takoma and not him in that moment.
The spell he was halfway through casting abruptly twisted into something else. Spencer wrapped his magic around the void where Takoma’s soul used to reside, becoming an unbreakable wall the poltergeist couldn’t breach. It tried, but every attempt to find an anchor in Takoma was rebuffed as the two of them fell. Arms went around him, yanking him close as Takoma twisted them in midair. Spencer’s vision smeared, but he kept his magic steady even as the world spun. The fall was brutal, adrenaline and fear coursing through him, but the landing was one in a million in his book.
Takoma hit the rooftop of the adjacent building, holding Spencer tight in a bridal carry as he fell into a deep crouch to better absorb the impact. Spencer’s stomach crawled up his throat, heart beating so fast he couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the blood rushing in his ears. The poltergeist hadn’t followed them down. When Spencer looked up at the floor they’d fallen out of, he could see the otherworldly glow of it pouring out of the window before it abruptly disappeared in a flash of light.
“Are you all right?” Takoma demanded as he straightened, letting Spencer’s legs go.
Spencer got his feet underneath him, turning in Takoma’s arms and blinking his sight back to normal. “AmIall right? How did you not break your damn knees?”
Takoma didn’t respond, face turned upward, fury in his eyes and the grip of his hands on Spencer’s waist. At that moment, Fatima appeared out of nowhere beside them, yowling angrily.You were never a PJ. Stop testing if gravity works without a parachute.
“That was not my fault. The poltergeist tried to possess us,” Spencer retorted.
If anything, Takoma’s grip got tighter. “It tried to dowhat?”
Spencer patted Takoma’s chest, hunching his shoulder against the wind. He kind of missed the fur coat. “When it couldn’t get through to me, it tried going after you. I shielded you from the attempt, but that doesn’t make any goddamn sense. You vampires don’t have souls.”
Before Takoma could respond, several other vampires jumped out of the restaurant’s broken window and fell to the roof they stood on. None of them was Haitao.
“Alyona?” Takoma snapped.
“Haitao and the others have her secured,” the woman vampire said. “The Spokane Night Court fled through the restaurant while Adler and her coven stayed behind.”
“Get Spencer out of here and keep him safe.”
Spencer tensed. “Now, wait a second—”
One moment, Takoma was holding him close. The next, Spencer was grabbed around the waist by a different vampire and hauled off the roof of the building with a speed that nearly gave him whiplash. He swore, voice coming out a little high-pitched as the vampire carried him down to the sidewalk in a series of leaps that made his stomach twist.
“Next time, take the goddamn stairs,” Spencer snapped once they were on the ground.
The vampire appeared supremely unimpressed with his attitude. “We’re leaving.”
“Not without Takoma. He is fucking insane if he thinks I’m letting him anywhere near that damn poltergeist without me.”
Spencer would’ve walked off, found his way back into the hotel and whatever altercation was still going on, except a car screeched to a halt on the street before he could even take a step. Seconds later, he found himself unceremoniously thrown in the back seat by the vampire.
“Hey!” Spencer yanked at the door handle but found it locked. “Did you put the fucking child locks on?”
“Drive,” the vampire ordered the one in front.
