“Come on, lads,” he shouts, laughing, a wild grin splitting his face. “Is that the best your luck can do?”
My pulse races as something tight in my chest finally loosens.
The monsters aren’t just real.
So is the magic I was never quite brave enough to believe in.
I spin, hearing screams from behind me, and Jet is everywhere.
And nowhere.
My eyes struggle to track him, my head throbbing as his form slips in and out of reality. One second, he’s solid enough to see, the next, he’s translucent, blurred at the edges, attacks passing straight through him like he was never there at all. My pulse stutters, panic clawing up my throat while my brain fails to keep up.
This isn’t movement.
It’s absence.
Every time he solidifies, terror follows. Vampires recoil, stumbling back, confusion rippling through their ranks like a sickness. One swings wildly at where Jet was, and punches another vampire instead, the crack of bone sharp and sickening. I flinch, hands shaking as I press myself tighter into the shadows.
Then Jet is behind them.
I don’t see him move. He’s just… there.
He leans in, close enough to whisper something I can’t hear, and whatever it is, it shreds them. Both vampires scream, raw and animal, collapsing as if something inside them has been cut loose. I suck in a breath that tastes like fear and metal, my skin crawling as a cold realization sinks in.
Fire burns you.
Claws tear you apart.
Nightmares break your mind.
But Jet?Jet doesn’t fight you.
He arrives… and you already know it’s too late.
From the upper level, a sound rips through the chaos like a blade, and my body reacts before my mind can catch up. I gasp, pain detonating behind my eyes when the scream slams into me—raw, endless, painful. I tilt my head up to see Eden, but not the gentle woman I know from behind the bar at Sins & Spirits. She’s ghostly, blood dripping down her face as she screams. This isn’t a voice meant for the living. It’s anguish given form, the echo of every death she’s ever foreseen crushed into a single, devastating wail.
Windows explode outward in showers of glass. Cracks spiderweb across the walls, racing away from the sound as if trying to escape it. Vampires falter mid-attack, hands flying to their ears, faces contorting in panic. Some collapse to their knees, screaming or sobbing, their bodies folding beneath the weight of it.
I drop too.
My chest tightens painfully, breath hitching as a crushing pressure bears down on my lungs. Cold certainty seeps into my veins, heavier than fear, heavier than panic.
I know this feeling.
It isn’t a threat.
It’s a promise.
Death isn’t nearby.
It isn’t circling.
Through the chaos of Eden’s terror, my brain tries to tell me this is normal, to ensure that what I am seeing right now is one hundred percent fine. That I am not currently having a complete mental breakdown, but suddenly, a familiar warm voice, the kind that wraps around a room and makes you feel held, surges through the air. Seraphine opens her mouth, and everything changes.
Her voice rises in a combat aria, the notes sharp and commanding, weaving together into something that doesn’t just fill the air, it bends it. The sound hits me like pressure, like being pulled under water, my skin buzzing as reality itself seems to tilt.
Where she directs her song, gravity obeys.
