No one approached.
The world bled away and sound evaporated. Each cry of pain and effort became a dying gasp, as though muffled beneath a pillow. I tilted my head to the side. Charles and Adrian battled three Cruor. The earth elementals seemed to materialize from nowhere. Thalia fought the Liettes, and the children watched, everyone at war around them as if they weren’t even there.
Pain came to my body in sharp stabs, and the electric dome around me quivered and then disappeared. A Cruor to my right started to pull her way across the soil. Blood dampened her pale blonde hair. Half of her left leg was missing. She crawled over to me, a mindless minion to the very end, and I staked her though her back, into her heart. The dome flickered on again, but just as quickly, it was gone, and I couldn’t recreate it. My powers were on autopilot, and I still had no idea how to control them.
As Callista stalked toward me again, my vision funneled onto her. The power I emitted slowed her, but my energy was fading. I hefted myself up on a nearby gravestone, pain shuddering through my left ankle. My swollen eye threw off my depth perception.
I limped toward a heap of sooty clothes I’d seen Marcus wearing earlier. The scent of burnt Cruor flesh hit my nose, and I gagged as I sifted through the items with trembling hands. The matches had to be in one of his pockets.
Ice spread in my stomach. Something was wrong.
Thalia approached. Blood soaked her face and streaked her hair. Ashes clung to her clothing and dusted her cheeks and chest. Her eyes sparkled in a way that sent chills up my spine. Behind her, beside Henry’s remains, lay Valeria’s dead body. Her neck was severed three-quarters through.
A scream roared in my mind. Rage engulfed me, filling me with an unfamiliar darkness. I couldn’t allow the pain to surface, couldn’t accept what I’d seen.
Fumbling through another one of Marcus’ pockets, I found the box of matches.
Callista closed in, but my intentions remained fastened on Thalia. I struck a match, tossed it toward her, and held the fire suspended in the air between us. Thalia’s lips curled into a smile as she continued her approach. I encouraged the fire’s growth, the oxygen around us feeding the flame like gasoline to create a fiery sheet.
A strange sensation gripped me, as though I was an echo of myself, trapped in a tunnel of mirrors, reflecting my image back and forth for eternity. On my command, the sheet of fire swept forward, leaving piles of ash in its wake.
My strength gathered, and I tossed my hands upward. The flames extinguished into a mist.
When I turned to scour for more Cruor, Thalia and Callista were headed toward the mausoleum.
Shit. I’d missed.
Thalia tossed back a cursory glance, a shadow of alarm on her face.
Our location had shifted throughout the course of the fight, and a cemetery wall had come into view. The pressure of battle suppressed my ability to orient myself.
Get away. That was the only thing that mattered. No one from the Maltorim would risk exposure by following us to the city. Not now. Not like this.
I spotted Charles and bolted toward him. “We need to go.”
Hurt etched his features—not a wincing pain, but the weighted expression of loss.
“I’m sorry,” I barely managed to whisper, so quiet I wasn’t sure I’d really said anything at all. My heart longed to console him, but there was no time.
I grabbed the hands of the children and ran. Charles hastened after, helping Adrian limp away, their injuries slowing them to a human pace. We reached the cemetery’s wall with a new team of Cruor not far behind.
“Go, Sophia,” Charles implored.
Blood flowed from a wound on his shoulder, beaded on his chest hair, and dripped down his stomach. More blood drenched his pants. So much blood—it couldn’t all be his. Please don’t let all this blood be his.
“I’m not going without you,” I said. No way was he going to underestimate how stubborn I was right now.
“I can’t—” He leaned against the wall and slid to the ground, pressing his hand over the gash on his shoulder. “Go!”
I dropped to my knees beside him. He and Adrian were slipping. I scanned the ground. Something sharp, something sharp. Anything. A broken bottle someone must have tossed over the cemetery wall in passing caught my eye, and I used it to cut my forearms. As much as I wanted to save Adrian, I wasn’t about to let him bite me and turn me into a Cruor. Having him feed this way would be safer for both of us.
Positioning myself between them, I held the wounds to their mouths. “Drink.”
Blood trickled onto their lips, but they made no movement.
“Drink, damn it!”
Thin red rivers trickled down my arms and dripped from my elbows.
The Cruor behind us were closing in, trapping us against the stone wall.