I waited a few seconds for the pain in my back to heal, then raised my bow at eyelevel and tried to focus on something, but everyone was moving too fast. Screams were coming from below, probably in a basement.
Just then, my bow was knocked from my hands. At the same time, a fist that felt more like a rock smashed into the side of my head. I collapsed to the ground, my vision swimming within a dark pool that was more red than black. Someone cold and heavy was pressing down on me, clawing his or her way toward my neck. I tried to fight it, pushing and shoving, but I was no match for the vampire.
I smelled its breath, a mixture of basement mold and rusted iron pipes, before I felt its tongue lap at my forehead just above my right eye. But then the vampire’s body stiffened. He lifted up off me as if it wanted to get a better look at my face. The light from my crossbow caught the male vampire’s expression. It wasn’t hunger like I expected, but fear.
“What are you?” he asked, his milky-blue eyes wide.
I reached for the crossbow, but before I could grab it, the vampire was scurrying away from me and out the back door. One of the Deific’s men bolted after him.
“Help me,” a voice grunted.
I picked up the crossbow, rolled onto my stomach, and pointed it toward the hallway. Kelley was just inside, trying to fight off a vampire who had her pinned to the ground. My vision was still blurry, but I fired anyway, aiming just above Kelley. The arrow pierced the vampire in his shoulder. The blow wasn’t enough to kill him, but it did give Kelley enough time to grab her gun and restore peace. His body burst into ashes and sprayed through the air. Kelley ran past the cloud, disappearing into the hallway and leaving me alone in the room.
I pulled myself into a sitting position, my back against the wall. Not far from me, the light from my crossbow shined on a body in a black jump suit lying on the floor face down in a growing puddle of blood. I instantly thought of Harriet, and my heart sunk into my gut. This was all my fault.
I attempted to move to help the woman, hoping she was still alive, but my vision continued to blur until the whole world went black.
Chapter 33
“Wake up! Open your eyes!”
I heard the distorted voice, but I couldn’t open my eyes.
“How bad is the wound?” the same voice asked.
There was a pause, then, from someone else, “What wound? There’s nothing here. Maybe it was someone else’s blood?”
“I don’t think so,” the first voice said. This time I recognized it. Charlie. He touched my head. “Perhaps you’re right. Go ahead and go to the car. I’ll try to revive her.”
There was movement near my face, then a whisper. “Eve, I know you can hear me. I sense it. Open your eyes.”
I focused hard on my eyelids until they fluttered open. Charlie’s face hovered just over mine. There was a scratch on his cheek and blood near his hairline.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I scooted away from him, remembering the woman who had been laying near me face down in blood. She wasn’t there now. My back pressed against the wall of the dirty, rundown home. No one else was around, but there were voices outside.
“The woman?” I asked.
Charlie glanced to the same spot on the floor I was staring at. “She’ll be okay. She’s getting stitches now.” His head swiveled back to me. “What are you doing here?”
My gaze slowly met his. “I came to help.”
“And you passing out, was that you helping?”
“I didn’t mean to.”
Charlie stood and held his hand out to me. “Like I said before, you’re not ready for any of this. Finish your training with Dr. Skinner and the children. “
I accepted his hand and let him pull me to my feet. “But I need to do something, like now. I need to feel that I’m finally making things right.”
“You dying an early death isn’t going to help that,” he said.
I opened my mouth to tell him that I couldn’t die, not easily anyway, but a figure appeared in the doorway.
“We’re ready,” said one of the men who’d been wearing the night goggles earlier.
“Good. We’ll be right there.”
When he was gone, I asked, “Did you find who you were looking for?”
Charlie shook his head. “There were only five vamps here, and we dusted all but one. It’s my understanding that this last one had contact with you right before he bolted. And he said something to you?”
I shivered, remembering how the vampire had licked my forehead. “He asked me what I was.”
He frowned and headed toward the front door. “As in, he sensed you are a witch? I didn’t think that was possible.”
I should’ve said something then about being an immortal, but Charlie was already out the door, seeming to ponder the vampire’s interaction with me. Had he known the truth about me, he probably would’ve guessed that there must be something in my blood, something the vampire tasted, that made him fear me. I needed to figure out what that was and soon.
***