Beast pushed at the sparkling energies around us and they parted, leaving me/us lying on the cold floor of the weapons room at vamp central. The night air blowing in through the broken front entry was warm and humid, smelling of the river nearby mixed with blood and death.
I pushed to my hands and knees and caught one horrible, painful breath. It sounded like I was breathing glue, thick and sick-sounding. And I was afraid, for a too-long moment, that I was going to both throw up and lose my bowels at the same time, which would have been horribly humiliating. But then they settled and I was able to breathe.
I chuffed and looked at myself. My hands had the long-fingered, big-knuckled, bony look of my half-Beast form; my knees were stretching the denim of my jeans; my hips were narrow, jeans hanging low; my shoulders were broad and stretching the tee. My lower face was all bone and teeth. I clacked my jaws together, feeling the strength in my bite.
I looked at Eli, who had his emotionless fighting face back on. I chuffed. Power ran through me like a live wire, the sensation heady and potent. “Take ‘Rrrrasssler. Go.” To Wrassler, I said, “Live. Or I beat your butt.” It came out “heat your hut,” but he seemed to understand because the ghost of a smile crossed his face.
“You can try, Li’l Janie.” He used his good hand to pull at a pocket. “More rounds for the Judge. Put a hurtin’ on ’em for me.”
I chuffed in agreement, bent, and took the rounds from his pocket, five more, and tucked them into my own pocket. Hoisted Wrassler up and over Eli’s shoulder. How the big man managed not to scream was beyond me. I picked up the Judge. And covered the two as Eli trotted from HQ and into the night, the wolf at his side.
Clacking my oversized teeth together, I said to Bethany, “Go. I follow.”
Bethany moved like the wind in the night, swirling around corners, gusting down steps, the air popping as she moved. Vamp speed. I kept up with her. Somehow. And suddenly we were in unknown and unexplored parts of the interior of the old building—unknown and unexplored by me, though Bethany had no problem making her way through them. Narrow, dank, damp corridors raced by, walls constructed of old brick on one side, newer concrete block on the other, the rare, rotting stud and bracing beam between the walls, clay and pooled water beneath our feet. Black mold on the walls. Bethany, like me, ran barefoot, splashing through puddles. There was only the sound of my breathing, the splash of water, our feet drumming on clay. Dark, darker than the underside of midnight. Even Beast’s eyes failed me, and I followed by sound and feel.
We raced down a flight of old concrete stairs, slippery with mildew and water. Made a left through a brick passageway. I stumbled over something in the dark and felt dry, rotting wood beneath my paws and my thick fingertips when I righted myself.
Ahead I saw a faint light, an outline of a doorway. I stopped when Bethany did, in front of the door. I was breathing hard, my heart pounding. She wasn’t even breathing. No heartbeat. So weird. I chuffed at the differences between us.
“We are on the records floor. There is a way down into the darkness,” she said. “Down into the prison, the dungeon, the place where, long ago, Amaury kept his scions safe and his enemies chained. Where Leo imprisoned my gift to him.” She was talking about Amaury Pellissier, Leo’s uncle and the previous MOC. And she was talking about the dark scion lair, not sub-four, where I thought we were going, but sub-five. Her lips stretched into a smile, which looked so wrong with her eyes vamping out, shining with madness.
“We must move as silent and fast as moonlight. And must leave Grégoire where he lies. No pity for the fallen. No surcease for their pain. Do you understand?”
“We sssurprizzz,” I said through the teeth and fangs that mangled my jaw.
“Yes. First we must stop Batildis. Then you will engage the Devil. She will not tire. She will not be slowed. I will ride the arcenciel.”
My mouth wouldn’t say what I needed it to. It came out, “D’rrreeenhious?”
“Peregrinus will be otherwise engaged.”
Which meant nothing to me, except that we were two against the Devil, two vamps, a dragon who could skate through time, and no help from the hostages. No help from anywhere.
Just me and a dance with the Devil. We were supposed to have help.
“Where humanzzz?”
“They are close, but slow and broken. We may not tarry.”
It felt like part of a lie, that last part where help was nearby but not in time. But really, what choice did I have?