Camden nodded and pulled out his own phone, and sure enough, there was no signal and the wi-fi was dead.
“They’re through!” Darrell shouted a second before there was an almighty crash and the doors crumpled inwards, glass flying everywhere.
Nicolo
He shieldedhis eyes from the flying glass with his free arm and felt more than saw the approach of one of the robbers, frigid air currents spilling into the shop as the doors fully collapsed inwards.
Darrell fired his gun, three shots, and two of the robbers climbing over the debris shouted and fell back, and Nicolo had no idea how effective his shots were before he was face to face with a robber wielding a massive sledgehammer.
With a shout of effort the robber lifted the hammer high and charged at Nicolo, glass crunching under his boots like ice. This was the vampire from the other night—Nicolo recognizedhis scent. He waited for the other vampire to draw close, the sledgehammer starting to swing down for his head, and he blurred just a single stride to the side. The hammer hit the floor where he had been standing, the floor cracking and dust flying. The vampire’s strike embedded the head of the hammer in the tile and subflooring—if it had made contact with Nicolo’s head, he would’ve been reduced to red mush.
Nicolo struck, a long cutting motion with the sword in a blur of silver and steel, and the other vampire howled in pain and fury as Nicolo neatly lopped off one of his arms just above the elbow. The blade cut through dense muscle and bone and thick winter clothing like a burning red-hot coal through virgin snow, black blood spraying in a thick arc from the stump. Nicolo spun out of the way of the blood and neatly skewered the vampire through the neck, turning the blade in a swift counterclockwise motion that destroyed the spine before pulling it back out.
The vampire gurgled, then fell to the floor, bleeding from severed arm and neck, twitching. Not enough to kill a vampire, but he was incapacitated for a while.
Nicolo took in the chaos for a split second, marking each robber and deciding where to go next. Camden was safe, hands up and pouring energy into the emerald green shield, eyes wide as he took in the violence around him.
Achilles was fighting, light seafoam-green and blue energy swirling around his hands, and swift bolts of light and power spun out from his hands to hit the robbers, driving them back toward the doors as they tried to advance on him. Achilles was powerful and skilled—he was several thousand years old and had fought before, his experience apparent in his speed and accuracy.
It was a mixed crew of supernatural and human, these robbers—one of the men Darrell shot was still on the ground by the doors, groaning in agony, and the other was on his feet,unaffected, sledgehammer in hand as he tried to pulverize the security guard.
Darrell needed help. He was facing two robbers, both of them armed with sledgehammers, and he dodged the massive hammers, firing at close range before his gun clicked, empty. He’d hit one of his attackers but missed the other, too busy dodging to reload the gun. He pulled out a handful of charms and tossed them at his attackers, but they bounced off, not strong enough to combat whatever magic they were using, the charms dying on impact in a flash of silver light.
Nicolo blurred into the fight, smashing his elbow into the jaw of one of the robbers. He thrust his sword forward into the attacker’s abdomen, point gliding through clothing and flesh with equal ease. The sword was amazing, and it met no resistance as Nicolo pulled back at an angle, widening the injury. Red blood fell in a shower to the floor, and his opponent dropped the sledgehammer with a resounding crash. He curled in on himself and fell into a fetal position, groaning.
Nicolo immediately engaged the second robber, slicing wrists and elbows, forcing the robber to drop their sledgehammer, leaving an opening for Darrell to slip in close and lay out the robber with a vicious right hook.
Nicolo wasted no time, speeding through the wave of robbers as they tried to corner Achilles. He slashed and thrust, bodies falling to the floor with thuds, and when he was fighting a mortal, he made sure to incapacitate with non-lethal strikes, though he spared no one the touch of his blade.
One robber tried to make a run for it, but Achilles shot a bolt of energy out quicker than Nicolo could blur, smacking into the back of the robber’s head and dropping him like a stone. Achilles’s magic was far stronger than the charms that failed to have any effect on the robbers.
There was a brief moment of quiet, broken by groans of pain, and then the truck that had destroyed the doors revved hard, rocking as the driver tried to free the vehicle.
“Ain’t happening!” Darrell shouted, and ran through the rubble to the driver’s door. Darrell busted the window with his gun, then reached inside and literally dragged the driver out of the truck to the ice-cold sidewalk. He threw the driver down and pulled out handcuffs, slapping them on the driver in seconds.
Darrell dragged the driver into the building, dropping him beside his defeated compatriots, and Nicolo saluted him with the sword, grinning.
“Is that all of them?” Achilles asked, hands on his hips, hair slightly messy from the fight.
“You got them all,” Camden said, a bit shaky, and Nicolo promptly went to Camden, pressing a hand to the surface of the shield.
“You’re safe, tesoro,” Nicolo said, meeting Camden’s eyes. Camden was pale and shaking a bit, eyes wide and breathing a bit fast. “Camden? Do you need to sit down?”
Camden sucked in a deep breath. “I think I might pass out? Maybe.”
“Drop the shield, love,” Nicolo urged him gently.
“Yeah, okay. Good idea.” Camden took another breath and then the shield was gone, and Nicolo pulled him into a tight hug, careful of the bloody sword, holding it away from their bodies. He pressed his face into Camden’s soft hair and breathed in his scent, relishing the way Camden hugged him back, hard and tight, holding onto him with a fierce grip.
Chapter
Six
Camden
Achilles shut off the jammer he found in the truck, allowing them to call the police, who came with sirens wailing, beating their expected response time by a whole minute. Ambulances were dispatched as well, and first responder vehicles flooded the street.
As none of the robbers were in any shape to escape or resist the police, their arrival was a bit anticlimactic.
