Anger fills me. I grind my teeth and squeeze the stake in my hands. My fingertips feel hot again, and the next thing I know, the water in the glass is boiling. With wide eyes, I look at it. Everything logical says my hand should be burning too. My skin should be bubbling and blistering right now, but I feel no pain at all.
The person upstairs moves through the hall and starts to come down the rear stairs. I take a step back and wait. Halfway down, he stops and sniffs the air. The fuckers can smell me.
“She’s in—” he starts to shout but cuts off when I rush forward and throw the glass of boiling holy water in his face. His skin sizzles, melting off and falling in gooey puddles on the wooden steps. He reaches for me and stumbles down the stairs. I move over him, kick him hard in the dick, and bring the stake down on his chest.
He bares his fangs at me, eyes glowing a deep red. My fingertips hum with energy, but I can’t get the fire to ignite.
“Tell me where the book is,” I demand, digging the stake into his flesh. “Tell me or I’ll kill you.”
He pulls his lips back in a sneer, skin still bubbling. “Whatever you do to me will be merciful compared to whatshehas planned.”
Whoever she is sounds terrifying.
“What does she want?” I push the stake down harder.
“You.”
The front door rattles and someone curses, which only means one thing: another vampire is trying to get in and touched the holy-water-covered doorknob.
“I’m sorry,” I tell the vampire, looking right into his eyes. I’m not sorry for what I’m about to do. I’m sorry his life was taken and he was turned into this monster. With one hard push, I plunge the wooden stake into his heart. He lets out a scream and his head flops back, eyes going black.
Blood pools inside his mouth, dripping to the floor. The area around the stab wound starts to bubble up, just like his skin when I threw the holy water on him. His whole body begins to react next, and, in just seconds, he’s nothing but a puddle of goo.
“Fuck,” I say, covering my nose from the sulfur smell that’s a hundred times stronger now. Blinking rapidly, I tear my eyes away from the dead vampire, not letting myself fret over how the fuck I’m going to clean this mess up. Someone kicks the front door. Hard. Harder.
“Hey!” I shout, going through the living room to grab another stake. The tip on this one has been dulled, and now that it’s covered in vampire mush, I can’t be sure it has the same power. Holy water drips from the new stake. The vampire on the porch kicks the door again. “That door is original to the house. Have some fucking manners!”
I shoot back the deadbolt and throw open the door, planning on stabbing the vampire in the chest the first chance I get. But there’s not one vampire.
There are three.
Three menacing, red-eyed vampires. All have their fangs out, and all three are dark-haired men, just like the others. It’s too late to go back now. The door’s been opened, literally, and the closest one charges at me. I go to stab him and another grabs my arm. I counter by spinning my body into his and elbowing him hard in the ribs. The forward motion of my arm continues and the pointy end of the stake hits the vampire right in the throat.
Blood sprays everywhere, and the vampire screams in pain, hands flying to his neck. Steam rises from his flesh, burning from coming in contact with the holy water. The vamp that grabbed me shoves me back into the wall hard enough to knock the wind out of me.
The third vamp comes in, pushing his bleeding friend to the side. The bleeding vamp is choking on his own blood and gasping for air. Vampires survive on blood and blood alone. If they lose enough, will they die too?
I don’t have time to find out.
Desperately, I suck in air and push off the wall, slashing the stake at the third vamp. He catches my arm and twists. I cry out in pain and the stake clatters to the ground. Still holding my wrist, he knees me in the stomach and throws me on the floor. I skid back, sliding on the hardwood.
The other picks up the stake and snaps it in half.
“Oops,” he says, throwing both pieces at me.
The vampire I stabbed in the neck has stopped moving. He’s already dead…can he bleed to death?
One of the vampires crouches down over me and grabs both my wrists. He’s stronger than me. Hell, he’s stronger than any human man. I try to fight him off and I can’t.
“You’re a feisty thing, aren’t you?” He brings his face to mine, smelling my hair. Then he runs his tongue along my ear, down my neck, and over my lips. “And you taste as good as you smell.”
“Go to hell.” I thrash against him, refusing to give up.
“I’ve been to hell, sweetheart. And came out a god.”
“Get the fuck over yourself,” I spit, feeling the fire in my fingertips. I twist my hands and dig my nails into the flesh on top of his hands.
He turns to the vampire behind him. “Hold her down. I wanna taste.”
