Holy crap. I’d been right.
There was a split second of silence before the wooden railing in front exploded into a torrent of splinters and wood dust, and the whole room fell into chaos. Security rushed the dais, tripping over the council members who were trying to dodge flying bits of wood and waves of magic. Next to me, Jake cursed, shoved me to the floor, and threw himself on top. I landed on my right shoulder and my head hit something hard.
“DJ, you okay?” Alex leaned down to where my head was wedged under a chair, then didn’t give me time to answer. “Yeah, you’re okay. Jake, perimeter left. I’ll take right.”
“Gotcha.”
Just like that, they were gone. I stayed low and hazarded a quick look over the top of the chair in front of me, trying to figure out what had happened. Jean had leapt over the council table, blade drawn, prowling toward the prisoners. Their magical shackles appeared to have been broken, and the Axeman lumbered toward the back room, preventing Etienne from getting around him.
Jean wasn’t officially my assignment yet, so if he chose the present time to take revenge on Etienne, it was none of my business.
I finally saw the source of the flying splinters. Hoffman, half hidden behind his seat on the dais, flung Red Congress magic like errant bolts of lightning, exploding furniture, lighting, and whatever else he happened to hit—all to keep Zrakovi and Elder Sato away from him. He flung a curse I thought was aimed at me, but it hit Jonas Adamson square in the chest. His body stiffened and toppled like a felled tree. At least, unlike Lily, he went quickly.
The room plunged into darkness when one of Hoffman’s bursts of magic knocked out the last of the fluorescent lights. Everything quieted for a few seconds before a brilliant yellow glow lit the room from the direction of the dais.
The blond representative from Faery stood atop the council table, cupping his hands in front of him. Above them floated a ball of swirling light so bright it hurt to look at it directly.
The room had been stunned to silence, everyone mesmerized by the floating orb. Everyone except Etienne and Melnick, whom I saw disappearing through the door behind the dais. They were making a run for it. The Axeman had already disappeared, and I didn’t see Adrian. Behind the vampires slinked Geoffrey Hoffman, a gleam from the faery light bouncing off the back of his bald skull. I’d lost track of Jean.
Damn it, either that back room was getting awfully crowded or they’d set up an escape transport in case everything went south.
I fumbled with my bag and pulled out Charlie. “Time to go to work, my friend,” I muttered, scuttling like a cockroach between the row of chairs to the far wall, then hugging the edge until I reached the door.
Things slowly came back to life. Zrakovi wrenched his gaze from the faery light and scanned the room, stopping when he reached me. I pointed at the door and held up the staff, but didn’t wait for his go-ahead. In my experience, when it came to the Elders, better to act and ask for forgiveness later than to ask for permission beforehand and wait for them to weigh all the political pros and cons.
I slipped through the door and spotted the interlocking circle and triangle of a magical transport just as Jean Lafitte lunged into it, joining Melnick, Etienne, and First Elder Hoffman. The Axeman had already disappeared.
He was the least of my concerns. The vampires and Hoffman weren’t getting away that easily, and I didn’t like Jean’s chances against all three of them.
As Melnick uttered the words “Realm of Vampyre” and they began to dematerialize, I threw myself into the transport with them. Time for a field trip.
CHAPTER 6
Usually, the experience of transporting is unpleasant but benign. One gets squeezed through some kind of magical vise and then pops up in a new place or time.
Then again, one usually isn’t in the middle of a fight while transporting, so I couldn’t say for sure whether Garrett Melnick sank his fangs into the skin above my collarbone before we left the magical fourth floor of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Building or as we landed on a grassy field, presumably in the Realm of Vampyre. Or somewhere in the ether, in between space and time.
All I knew for sure was that it felt as if lit gasoline raced through every vein and my blood burned like hellfire itself. I hit the ground on my back and he followed me down, pulling at my neck with his fangs. Then he raised his head and spat out a mouthful of blood on the ground beside me. His brown eyes glowed a little in the dim lights that surrounded whatever type of clearing we’d landed in. It had the look of a bizarre amphitheater.
He spat again, and used his right hand to scrub the blood off his lips. “You taste utterly vile.”