Come to me, Seamus ordered.
Eh, fuck you. Zack grabbed Katie’s hand and began to run for the stairs. Motion coming down the hallway made him stop until he realized it was Takashi. With a laugh, he caught him in a hug and held him tight. “How did you get out?”
“Key in the pocket,” Takashi replied. “Roger’s launched an attack on the house. He means to humiliate Seamus by taking down the mansion.”
Zack’s first thought was about the library and the loss of knowledge that would happen if it was turned to rubble.
What was that?Seamus demanded.
Row, row, row your boat, right up your fucking ass, Zack replied.
This is not the time for childish games.
“We need to get moving.” Zack nodded down the hall and started to sprint.Oh, it’s exactly the time for them.
Enough of this.
A weight dropped onto Zack’s mind, and he staggered as it felt like something was crawling inside his head. Snakes, slithering, seeking, pressing down his joy, his relief at seeing Takashi, his want for Roger in his arms, his longing to see his dad. All of it being crushed until there was one want remaining.
The urge to kill.
Without anything else, not even fears, to use his energy, the urge plumped and grew into a consuming cloud over his mind. He held on to the wall and tried to force Seamus from his mind, but the slithering snakes were too many and too heavy.
Sliding his dagger into the girl’s chest would be simple. Refreshing, even. Blood belonged on his hands, in his mouth.
No. No, that was Katie. Zack put a hand to his temple and screamed.
“Zack?” Takashi said.
Takashi blurred from a familiar lover to a stranger whose only merit would be death. Groaning, Zack pushed away the thought of murdering even a stranger who wasn’t a stranger. He knew Takashi. Loved him.
Do as you’re told. Kill everyone, a voice in his head commanded.
A pulse went through him, starting at his heart and reaching his fingers and toes. Everything else was falling away.
One fear remained, strangled as it was. He cared about … about someone near him. The girl? The man?
Didn’t matter. All he had strength for was one word. “Run!”
CHAPTER 56
The third kick to the front doors finally broke them open. Roger strode through the mansion doors with a level of confidence he had never dared show in this place before. Behind him, Bastian, the not-cat Lee, Lacey, another two hunters, and five vampires poured in, quickly spreading out in the foyer. A team of guards swept in and were immediately riddled with arrows from Lacey and two of the vampires.
“Seamus!” Roger shouted at the top of his voice. He sent a silver dagger toward the heart of a guard who came from a different hallway and then pulled another so he still had one in each hand. “I’d like a word!”
“Aword,” Seamus said, the word dripping with hate and annoyance so thick that the other vampires took a step back toward the door. Seamus walked out onto the landing at the top of the sweeping staircase and gripped the handrail as he glared down at them.
His eyes were pitch-black with red stars burning in their centers. As Roger watched, his fingers stretched and grew talon-like nails, his torso—already covered in blood—became emaciated, and his ears lengthened into long points. Severalpairs of fangs sharpened his smile. That grin promised the end of Roger in a long, excruciating death.
Roger’s knees began to buckle. He ought to beg mercy. To fall down and prostrate himself. Perhaps he would be welcome back. He wanted that. He wanted to know the sweet embrace of the vampire who had made him, who he had known for centuries, who he had been with in so many ways.
No. There were snakes in his mind, teasing out his desires and fears and thickening them in unwanted ways. Seamus was trying to twist him.
“What word would you like?” Seamus said with his smug, toothy smile.
“Die,” Roger snapped. Then he flung a blade at Seamus’s heart.
Seamus vaulted over the railing and plucked Roger’s dagger from the air. Before he hit the first floor, he sent it back out, nailing one of the vampires in the heart. The vampire cried out, but before she could yank the dagger out, a puff of red mist exploded out from her. She collapsed to the floor.
