“Promise?”
Mimi and Oliver flew up the stairs to Mrs. Flood’s bedroom. The top-floor classrooms had been abandoned several years ago, after too many of the Red Blood students swore they had seen or heard ghosts. Silly humans, there was no such thing as ghosts! Only apparitions set off by vampires fooling around in the glom. But in order to appease the human population, the area had been sealed off by the administration. It did make for a good place to hide someone, since the distraction spell kept the area clear of humans while the vampires chalked up any strange activity as consequence to the spell. But to think that all along, Victoria had been here—just underneath their noses—was almost insulting. It was if whoever had done this was taunting them.
Mimi pressed her ear against the door. She could hear something—a terrible grunting noise and a shuffling. She pushed against the door. It was held by a massive blocking spell. Crap. Spellcasting and unmaking were not her areas of expertise, aside from that one time when she had dabbled in the Dark Arts.
“Try an exploder,” Oliver suggested.
“I am,” Mimi said, annoyed that she hadn’t thought of it earlier. She focused on the doorknob and visualized it disintegrating into nothingness, blasting open, and allowing her inside.
The doorknob shook and shivered but the door remained locked. The terrible grunting noise grew louder, accompanied by a fearful, low moaning. Victoria? What was happening behind the door? Mimi’s heart began to pump. She could feel waves of fear emanating from behind the doorway.
She tried again and shook her head. Whatever was holding it was strong. It was like ramming into a cement wall. “It’s jammed up hard,” she grunted. She looked outside the window. It was almost dark. The sky was the color of gray sand—the first hint of light on the horizon. The crescent moon would soon show its face.
“She’s in there,” Oliver urged, his shoulder pushing on the door as if that would help.
Mimi was about to answer, but before she could, from inside the room came a scream so terrible that she forgot everything she was doing. In an instant, she made her decision. There was no more time to waste. Victoria was going to burn.
She had to take the wards down. Now.
Azrael stepped into the glom, the mighty and terrible Angel of Death, a white queen wielding a dark sword flashing with the light of the heavens. Her six-foot wings stretched to their full span.
She said the words only Michael had said before her.
The wards fell, and in an instant the glom was filled with the spirits of every living vampire, and Mimi saw, through the jumble of souls, one particular girl screaming in the corner—a girl whose spirit had been, until now, hidden from the Coven—
Victoria!
In the glom, Mimi saw Sam and Ted Lennox moving toward Victoria, reaching for her—coming at her from the other side.
Then, for some inexplicable reason, the Venators looked up and turned away from Victoria and began running toward Mimi—their identical faces frozen in utter horror.
What are you doing? No . . . go back . . .Vix . . .
Mimi was so close, close enough to reach for Victoria’s hand. Their fingers brushed against each other’s in the twilight—
But before she could pull Victoria out into the real world, something hit Mimi with the magnitude of a firebomb, and it felt as though every atom in her body exploded out of existence.
TWENTYFIVE
Crescent Moon
When Mimi blinked open her eyes, she was lying on the floor, covered in sawdust. A familiar face hovered above hers. She coughed. Whatever had hit her, it hurt. She felt as if she had cracked three ribs and inhaled a wall of asbestos. She was surprised to find she was still alive—she felt as if she had been pulled apart in a million pieces only to be stitched up again. What was that? A blood spell? It had to be. What else would knock her out like that, and in the glom? But if it was a blood spell, how was she still here?
“What happened?” she choked, realizing she was now inside the attic bedroom. The door was lying open and broken on the floor next to her. She looked around—Oliver had been right: the room was plastered with the same wallpaper from the original video. The same intricate pattern. There was a chair in the middle of the room, and Venator rope was tangled at its feet. A video camera was set up right across from it. This was where Victoria had been filmed. But she wasn’t here anymore. How had they been able to move her without unmasking her glom signature?
“Where is she? Where’s Victoria?” she croaked.
In answer, Oliver shakily pointed to a flickering computer monitor on a desk in the middle of the empty room.