Slayer's blade slit my arm and across the hall the bloodsuckers paused for a single beating of my heart. They knew the blood, knew whose power flowed through my veins. They stood still, mesmerized, paying homage to the magic, and then slashed back into their victims.
I thrust my bloody arm into the red fire. It seared me and solidified, cracking like a fractured windshield. The smile bled from Olathe's face. The carmine fire shattered. A myriad of tiny flames fell at my feet. I leaped into the circle and thrust.
Olathe made no move to counter my sword. It sliced into her stomach with a wet sucking noise. I dragged it upward, cutting through the intestines, cleaving the liver. She sagged forward on the blade, and in her eyes I saw the satisfaction of recognition. She knew my blood, too.
I jerked the blade free and let her fall. She sagged to the filthy floor and lay on her back, drawing hoarse short breaths. A dark stain blossomed on her dress above her navel and spread through the fabric. She possessed an unnatural vitality, but soon the magic that sustained her would dissipate. She expelled it from her body with every labored breath.
I watched the blood stain grow. My anger died. I was tired. My thigh hurt and my stomach felt like someone had taken a red-hot rake to it.
The bloodfire had surged anew after I had passed through it. It would burn until the last of Olathe's blood dried or decomposed, and the banquet hall shimmered red past the translucent wall of ruby flames. It was almost over.
I rolled my head back, cracking my neck, and saw why Olathe had been grinning.
The ceiling teemed with vampires.
Dozens of them, nude, twisted, wriggling obscenely against each other, packed tighter than sardines in a can. They covered the plaster completely, like a medieval painting of hell that had somehow sprung to life, and more were coming, squirming one by one through a dark hole in a corner.
How many? Forty? Fifty? A hundred? How many of them were pre-Shift, pre-magic? I tried to feel and was swamped in the wave of icy hate. At least twenty.
The undead blanket writhed. A sweet surprise Olathe probably planned to spring on us when we thought we had won. Except that in a moment she would die, releasing all of them from her control, leaving them to blood frenzy.
A horde of ravenous undead left to their own bloodlust. We would all die here. Curran, Mahon, Jennifer. Me. And death would spread, when the undead monstrosities burst into the streets after they finished us off.
Across the room Curran tore a vampire in a half, throwing the mangled pieces to the floor.
Dozens of now peacefully sleeping people would perish. They would see their children torn to pieces while they screamed.
I dropped to my knees and cleaved Olathe's chest. The flesh and cartilage parted before the blade and I pulled her rib cage open like a bear trap. She hissed at me. I reached into her chest and grasped her heart, forging a link between us. Through her blood I felt the multitude of vampire minds, drowning in their own madness.
That's the wrong way, my father's voice said from my memory. Don't give in to this.
There is no right way.
I cut my arm deeper, letting my blood mingle with Olathe's, slowly gaining control. She shuddered, her heels kicking the floor. If I let her die, turning the vampire horde loose, they would scatter before my mind could fasten on them. I lacked the proper training in piloting the undead, and my only option was to merge our power through the bloodlink, controlling the moment of her death, so when she passed on, fading from the undead's minds, they would find me already there.
She knew what I was doing. Her teeth bared in a feral grimace, but she didn't have the power to resist the bloodlink. The magic of my blood overwhelmed hers. My power spread, flooding the vampiric minds. Clenching my teeth, I squeezed, crushing her heart and her life with it. Power exploded in my fist, forcing me to my feet.
Olathe jerked. Her eyes rolled back into her skull and the full weight of the horde settled upon me.
The room shuddered. Too many. There were too many.
A fiery band enclosed my chest, engulfed my throat, my head, and compressed, crushing me. I stumbled. My knees quivered. My mouth hung open. I couldn't breathe. There wasn't enough air.
I knew I hadn't gotten them all, despite the bloodlink.
Through the hammer of their minds I could feel individual stragglers, drowning in bloodlust. I sent the horde against them. The ceiling churned with bodies tearing into each other. A chunk of plaster broke off and plummeted to the floor, breaking into dust two feet away from me. The bloodflames blocked the sound from the rest of the room.
My arms held wide, trying to balance, I looked through the eyes of the vampires and saw a long crack in the plaster. Thank you, God.
The ceiling quivered as dozens of talons ripped into it.
Dimly I saw Jennifer through the shimmering wall of the flames. My lips shaped a word.
"Go."
She stared at me, unable to hear through the bloodwall.
"Go."
Suddenly Curran was beside her. He said something, but I couldn't hear.
"Go. Now. Go."
He thrust his hand into the fire and leaped back, his fur melted, his skin red with future blisters.
Another chunk of plaster crashed to the ground outside the circle. To me it made no sound, but they heard the dull thud, jumped, and looked at the ceiling. Jennifer cringed like a whipped dog.
Curran stared at me.
"Go now. Go. Go."
He understood. His clawed hand grasped Jennifer's shoulder and pushed her back. The she-wolf hesitated for a moment and ran.
My sight faded completely. The beating of my heart filled my ears like a tolling of a great bell. I couldn't feel my body, as if it no longer existed. Blind and deaf, I remained in the middle of nothing, swaying, while above me the undead brought the ceiling down. They dug through the plaster and cement to the framework of steel support beams, holding the five stories of concrete above us. Thin arms grasped the beams and pulled with supernatural strength.
God. I haven't been very good.
The metal whined in protest.
I could have tried harder. I could've been a better person. I stand before you now as I am. I make no excuses.
The beams gave, bending.
Please, have mercy on me, Lord.
In my mind's eye I saw the enormous beams breaking. I saw tons of plaster, cement, and steel falling down, onto vampires, onto me, burying us beneath the rubble, sealing a tomb from which not even a vampire could get out.
I felt their hate-filled hungry minds vanishing one by one. Finally I could let go. I released the awful burden and the awareness left me.