"I can't," I told him slowly. "I can't risk your life...."
"Rose. You know what we could do. I can see it in your face. It's worth risking one Moroi life - and, well, yours - to take out a bunch of Strigoi."
Putting a Moroi in danger. Taking him out to fight Strigoi. It pretty much went against everything I'd been taught. All of a sudden, I remembered that brief moment of clarity I'd just had, the wonderful joy of being alive. I could save so many others. I had to save them. I would fight as hard as I could.
"Don't use your full power on them," I finally said. "You don't need to incinerate them in ten seconds like that. Just light them up enough to distract them, and then I'll finish them. You can save your power."
A grin lit his face. "We're going hunting?"
Oh man. I was going to get in so much trouble. But the idea was too appealing, too exciting. I wanted to fight back. I wanted to protect the people I loved. What I really wanted was to go to Lissa's dorm and protect her. That wasn't the most efficient idea, though. Lissa had my classmates on hand. Others weren't so lucky. I thought about those students, students like Jill.
"Let's go to the elementary campus," I said.
We set off at a light run, taking a route we hoped would keep us away from other Strigoi. I still had no idea how many we were dealing with here, and that was driving me crazy. When we were almost to the other campus, I felt the weird nausea hit me. I called a warning to Christian, just as a Strigoi grabbed him. But Christian was fast. Flames wreathed the Strigoi's head. He screamed and released Christian, trying frantically to put the flames out. The Strigoi never saw me coming with the stake. The whole thing took under a minute. Christian and I exchanged looks.
Yeah. We were badasses.
The elementary campus proved to be a center of activity. Strigoi and guardians were actively fighting around the entrances to one of the dorms. For a moment, I froze. There were almost twenty Strigoi and half as many guardians. So many Strigoi together...Until recently, we'd never heard of them banding together in such large numbers. We'd thought we'd disbanded a large group of them by killing Isaiah, but apparently that wasn't true. I allowed myself only a moment more of shock, and then we jumped into the fray.
Emil was near a side entrance, fending off three Strigoi. He was battered and bruised, and the body of a fourth Strigoi lay at his feet. I lunged for one of the three. She didn't see me coming, and I managed to stake her with almost no resistance. I was lucky. Christian meanwhile set flames to the others. Emil's face reflected surprise, but that didn't stop him from staking another of the Strigoi. I got the other.
"You shouldn't have brought him here," Emil said as we moved to help another guardian. "Moroi aren't supposed to get involved with this."
"Moroi should have been involved with this a long time ago," said Christian through gritted teeth.
We spoke little after that. The rest was a blur. Christian and I moved from fight to fight, combining his magic and my stake. Not all of our kills were as fast and easy as our early ones had been. Some fights were long and drawn out. Emil stuck with us, and I honestly lost count of how many Strigoi we took down.
"I know you."
The words startled me. In all this bloodshed, none of us, friend or foe, did much talking. The speaker was a Strigoi who looked to be my own age but was probably at least ten times older. He had shoulder-length blond hair and eyes whose color I couldn't make out. They were ringed in red, which was all that mattered.
My only answer was to swing out with my stake, but he dodged that. Christian was setting a couple of other Strigoi on fire, so I was handling this one on my own.
"There's something strange about you now, but I still remember. I saw you years ago, before I was awakened." Okay, not ten times my age, not if he'd seen me when he was a Moroi. I hoped his talking would distract him. He was actually pretty fast for a young Strigoi. "You were always with that Dragomir girl, the blonde." My foot hit him, and I jerked my kick back before he could grab me. He barely budged. "Her parents wanted you to be her guardian, right? Before they were all killed?"
"I am her guardian," I grunted. My stake swiped dangerously close to him.
"She's still alive, then...There were rumors that she'd died last year..." There was a sense of wonder in his voice, which mixed weirdly with the malice. "You have no idea what kind of reward I'd get to take down the last living Drag - Ahh!"
He'd dodged my stake from hitting his chest again, but this time I managed an upward strike that dragged the stake's tip across his face. It wouldn't kill him there, but the touch of a stake - so filled with life - would feel like acid to the undead. He screamed, but it didn't slow his defenses.
"I'll come back for you after I finish her," he snarled.