The vamps I passed reached for me. Slow as congealed blood. I whirled. Blocked one. Sliced diagonally upward at the other. Cut into his eyes. Blinding Tristan. The block sent the blow from Rafael to the side without damage. My leg stamped behind his knee. His own speed knocked him sideways. I blinded him too with a quick slashing strike. Beast-fast.
They raised their heads, adding their death keens to the piercing wail. Their blood fell slowly. Onto the pentagram. White light shot into the sky.
Baldy shouted, "No!" his face to the heavens. There were gunshot wounds on his bare chest and his slacks.
Derek whirled, arms out to either side. Took out Adrianna with a punching motion. A stake to the heart. Another marine staked Rafael. He fell, lifeless, as a third marine took off his head.
A heartbeat later, two more marines staked Adrianna. But I saw her face first. Lifeless. The mind-joined, ripped apart by death.
I pivoted on one toe. To Baldy. Somehow he had the bloody gem in his hand. He was leaning in. He touched it to me. Into the cut made by the branch. Into my blood. The gem was icy on my cheek. Colder than the deeps of space. Colder than a night in hell. It ripped all my warmth from me. As if I could see it happen, the warmth that was life moved to the gem in a single heartbeat.
The pain it left seared every nerve. Spasmed every muscle. I grunted. Stumbled. Baldy stood over me. And he shouted a word of power. A spell wrapped into a single syllable of might. A wyrd.
As I fell, the marines screamed. Heinous screams, as if tortured. Instantly, they started beating their own flesh. Cutting away at their limbs. Cutting at the dancing red motes of power that spiraled down and burrowed into them. Each man assailed by the motes. More flew up from the ground. Down from the sky. Stinging. Burrowing. Attacking.
I landed. Facing Angie. Frozen. Unable to breathe. The spell had frozen my will and my autonomic nervous system.
She smiled. Her mouth moved, but my ears were buzzing with the concussion of gunfire, vamp screams, and white noise and her words were lost. She reached toward Baldy, her fingers throwing, the blackness in her hands set free. I could see it move out, through the air. A shaped, pointed spear of power. Before it hit him, Baldy repeated the wyrd.
My heart . . . stopped. The world began to dim at the edges of my vision. I couldn't move. Beast couldn't move. The might of our twined souls was stilled. My hands opened. Dropped my knives. The black light hit Baldy.
Angie reached for me. Touched the river stone rune of power on my neck. I felt the ward rise around us. Around the marines and the blinded and dead vampires. But the red motes still attacked. Not me. Not the children. Not the vamps. Only the humans. I was thankful I couldn't hear the screaming, my ears deafened by the carnage.
Kits, Beast cried out, fighting the binding. Fighting the death that claimed me. Kits!
Angelina moved her hands again. This time to touch my face. The dark power that was hers to call shot into me. Like black lightning. Like dark life. My body shuddered. An epileptic spasm clenched down on me. Shattered through my brain. My heart beat, a single, hard, painful compression. And then another. I sucked in a breath. Dark power flowed through me. My eyes opened and I saw Angie Baby.
She giggled. "Go, Aunt Jane."
I took in the tableau of death even as I reached for the velvet bag and the sliver of the Blood Cross. The vamp children had been freed. Had fallen on the soldiers. Drinking hard and frenziedly. Only Derek was still upright, a knife in each hand, one cutting at Tristan, the other slicing at the throat of Renee, cutting off their heads. But Derek was dying. Bleeding from too many sites to count. The red motes were embedded in his skin. Eating at his life.
The velvet bag opened. Fell to the ground. I held the sliver of wood. It was hot in my hand. Burning hot. But I held on.
Baldy stood outside Angie's ward, legs braced wide at the north point of the pentagram. His arms out and up at the heavens, his mouth open as he spoke another wyrd. The silver and obsidian athames were in his hands pointing high.
The bloody gem was around his neck. Resting, canted, over his heart. I rolled to my feet in a single kip. Screaming my rage. From the arc of the kip, I lunged through the ward. Right hand out. Small silver of wood pointed forward. I saw the thin splinter pierce his skin. Just above the gem. In the V of the gold chain. It slid between his ribs. Pricking deep.
"A sliver of the Blood Cross," I whispered. "For your sins."