I enter the bathroom and shut the door behind me. Leaning over the sink, I wipe off as much of the red slush as I can, along with some of my makeup. The mascara is waterproof, so at least I won’t look like some sort of weeping clown when I emerge.
I’m picking bits of melting ice out of my hair when I spot something moving by the wall under the sink. My heart jumps, and I startle, but I don’t scream.
It’s a rat. Which is gross but nothing I can’t handle. Of course I don’t want the thingonme, but as a vampire, I have nothing to fear from any diseases its bite could communicate. Besides, it seems to be minding its own business, nosing along the edge of a broken tile.
Another shadow moves at the corner of my vision. This time, it’s a slender black cat, stalking soundlessly from beneath one of the damaged stalls. Pursuing the rat, maybe.
Then, without warning, a scaly tubular thing rears up from the sink drain and writhes in midair. I muffle a startled cry with my hand as I stagger back against the wall.
The snake continues to emerge, coil after coil issuing from the drain until it’s draped over the sink in striped loops. I’m no snake expert, but it looks like a death adder.
With a shudder and a burst of dark smoke, the snake transformsinto a naked woman with tawny skin. The sink cracks free of the wall under her weight, and water begins dribbling from a pipe at the back. She hops down and stands before me.
Two more puffs of smoke, and the cat and the rat transform as well. The cat becomes an ebony-skinned man with a bald head, and the rat takes on the form of a huge, muscular man with freckled arms and a red face.
These three must be shifters from Philippa’s pack. No use asking why they’re here—it can’t be for any good reason.
“Nice of you to make this easy for us.” The woman speaks with a strong Australian accent.
I smile, letting my fangs slip from their sheaths as my claws emerge from my fingertips. “Who said anything about easy?”
When I swipe at her throat, she leaps back, and the two men charge me.
The only time I’ve had to fight was in the alley against those would-be rapists, and they were both inebriated and human. These people are shifters, and they are unexpectedly strong. My snarls and slashes don’t seem to faze them at all. One of them strikes me skillfully with the side of his hand, once in the kidney and once on the neck, rendering me temporarily immobile with pain.
The two men grip my arms, pinning me against the wall, and the big man collars my throat with his huge hand so I can’t bite or breathe.
The snake shifter darts in, grinning with daggerlike teeth. “You’re not the only one with fangs, honey,” she hisses.
She bites my shoulder so deeply that her teeth scrape bone. I choke out a strangled groan.
Instantly, a feeling like liquid cold spreads from the bite. Ice travels along my veins, locking up my muscles and joints. I try to struggle,but I can’t move, not even when the two men release me. I drop to the floor, stiff and motionless.
“She’s a vampire, so the paralytic venom won’t last long,” the snake shifter tells her companions. “Be ready.” Stepping over to the bathroom door, she opens it a crack and calls to the security guard. “Can you come over here? Miss Daaé just collapsed. I think she’s really sick.”
When the guard rushes in, the cat shifter darts forward, wraps a lean arm around the guard’s throat, and throttles him into unconsciousness. The big guy, whose build and skin tone resemble the guard’s, strips off the victim’s uniform and puts it on himself.
“I’ll carry her to the side door,” he says. “Meet me there.” He picks me up, and the snake shifter flicks my eyelids shut with her finger.
I can’t open my eyes. Can’t move a muscle.
The death adder shifter said that her venom won’t last long for a vampire. How long? A few minutes? An hour? What will have happened to me by then? Where are they taking me, and where is Raoul?
Though I try desperately to speak, my lips feel too thick and heavy to move. I can feel myself being carried out of the bathroom, through the backstage area, and then down a hall.
“Oh my god, is she okay?” It’s Meg’s voice, and right on the heels of her exclamation, I hear Gabriella exclaim, “What happened?”
Fuck, if only I could send them some kind of signal that I’m in trouble…
“She hit her head,” says the shifter carrying me. “There’s an ambulance on the way to check her out.”
“Should you have moved her?” Gabriella sounds doubtful, her tone bordering on rebuke.
“They told me to take her out into the fresh air,” replies the man.
“We’ll come with you,” Meg says. “If she needs to go to the hospital, we’ll go along. And I’ll text her…um…her boyfriend…boyfriends?”
I don’t blame her for hesitating. Raoul, Erik, and I decided not to formally announce our relationship, since it might bring up questions that would distract from the musical. But I know rumors have been circulating through the cast and crew—some more favorable or accurate than others.
