"Breach," Ethan says. "East corridor. Multiple hostiles inside the building."
"How many?"
"Twelve. Moving fast. South wing, heading deeper into the building."
"Marcellus. East corridor junction. Nothing gets past you."
He's gone before I finish.
"Compound security to the residential wing. Donors and staff into the safe rooms. Julian, you have comms."
"Go," Julian says. He's already pulling every feed onto his screen, one eye tracking eight angles at once.
Maximus and I take the medical wing approach. Side by side. His shadows pour from beneath his skin and fill the space ahead of us, black and silent and fast, spreading across the floor and up the walls like ink dumped in water. My telekinesis is already reaching. Mapping everything within range. The fire suppression panel on the left wall. The steel door frame twenty feet ahead. The supply cart against the far side.
His shadows go left. My telekinesis goes right. The space becomes something we're running together, every angle covered, every blind spot filled. He shifts left and I know it before his foot lands.
Two hostiles come around the corner. The first one reaches for a blade.
I rip the supply cart off the wall and drive it into his chest. Metal screaming against the floor tiles. He staggers back, hits the wall, and Maximus's shadows catch the second one, wrapping his arms to his sides and pinning him while Maximus closes the distance.
The sounds are short. Final. The smell of copper fills the hallway.
Three more in the next stretch. They came through the ward breach in formation. Prepared for compound security. Prepared for vampires.
Maximus takes the left side of the junction. His shadows surge forward and pull one hostile off her feet, slamming her sideways into the wall hard enough to crack the plaster and send a spray of white dust into the air. I catch the second, pin him against the ceiling, and the pressure of keeping him there burns in my forearms like lifting dead weight. My teeth ache with it. The third swings a blade at Maximus. He catches the wrist, redirects the blade into the hostile's own chest, and lets the body drop.
The one pinned to the ceiling struggles against the telekinetic grip. His blade clatters to the floor.
Maximus finishes him.
We push deeper. The medical wing door is at the end of this hallway. Reinforced. Closed. Carson is behind it with Sullivan, Elena, and Dalton. Between us and them, two more hostiles are waiting.
They hear us coming. One of them turns and runs. Toward the medical wing. Toward Carson.
I throw everything I have. The force catches the runner in the back and drives him face-first into the floor. The tiles split under the impact. He doesn't get up.
The other one faces Maximus. His shadows wrap the hostile and there's a sound like wet stone, then nothing.
My arms are still buzzing. The crescent mark on my chest is warm, pulsing faintly against my skin.
Then, from the junction behind us. A noise I don't expect.
A thunderclap compressed into a closed space. A flash of white light that bleaches the hallway and leaves spots in my vision. The air itself smells singed, sharp and clean, like the sky after lightning strikes close.
Mira.
She's standing at the junction. Two hostiles on the ground at her feet, limbs at angles that say they didn't land voluntarily. A third pinned against the wall by something I can't see, something that shimmers in the air around her hands and ripples outward like heat coming off pavement. Her hands are shaking. Her eyes are bright. Her breathing comes fast and hard.
The hostile pinned to the wall slides down and doesn't move.
The shimmer around her hands fades. She flexes her fingers. Looks at them like she's not entirely sure they belong to her. Then she looks at me. Her jaw is tight. Her breathing hasn't slowed.
"Are there more?" she asks.
"Down the hall. Marcellus has the junction."
She nods once, turns, and runs. Three bodies lie on the floor behind her. She steps over them without looking down, and she doesn't slow, and her hands have stopped shaking.
