Everyone else was.
One by one, the vampires around me started turning in circles and screaming. In moments, they flopped their hands, patting areas of their body, hopping around like frogs. Their servants soon did the same, consumed by orange licks of flame, flailing their arms, wailing in horror, pain, and confusion. Disco said burn, they were on fire...except not. Even his own family wasn’t immune, screaming in agony and rotating in circles.
“Run, Rhiannon.” Disco’s voice sounded like a lion’s roar in my head. “I don’t know how long I can sustain the illusion. There are too many of them.”
I was a guppy: a pet fish tossed out of her bowl. Taken from safe waters and thrown into the fire. Oh, and it was fire. That much I did understand.
I just couldn’t believe it.
Disco was controlling the minds of all the vampires and their servants. Over forty people. Making them see and feel what he wanted them to. If the image he’d given me was one of peace, the one he shared with them was hell. They didn’t stop screaming, as though their skin was blistering and peeling from their bodies. So much pain for something that wasn’t even happening.
If he could make them believe fire was real, what else was he capable of?
The thought frightened me more than it should have.
I wobbled as I attempted to stand. The energy he was using to maintain the illusion was massive, so much so I felt him weakening. I tried to run but only managed to take a few steps, my breathing becoming heavy.
“You have to hurry.” I could hear the drain in him, the sapping of his strength. “I...can’t...hold...them.”
“I’m trying,” I thought back, wanting to do as he said.
My legs refused to work, the muscles exhausted from the strain of the mark between us. I knew why he kept it open, that he was calling on my reserves to buy me more time, but it had the opposite result.
I couldn’t run if I couldn’t walk.
In an instant, the mark was broken, and I nearly sobbed with the loss. Disco had severed it, to give me one last chance to escape. Scrambling, I tried to force myself upright, to gain my balance. The shock of having the connection wide open and then having it slammed closed was disorienting. The screams continued, stinging my ears like needles, as did the noises from the fight taking place.
I made it a few feet, ready to run, when the room went quiet.
One moment Disco was fighting, using his power, controlling the vampires in the room. The next he was trapped on the ground, beneath Revenald, and the vampires had stopped their maddened yelling, perplexed as they gazed at each other. A few moved to block my path, preventing me from leaving. I turned and saw Paine pinned against a wall, Anton’s hand around his throat.
“Remain silent.” Disco’s mental order was abrasive and abrupt. “Do not bring any attention to yourself.”
“Silver manacles!” Revenald demanded, no longer refined but barbaric, ready to chop us all to bits. I noticed Disco wasn’t fighting at all now, harmless beneath him. “I will no longer tolerate this nonsense. This ends now.”
“Sire, please,” Marius said and took a hesitant step forward, standing before the family whose apprehensive faces conveyed their fear. “He was protecting his servant who did only as you instructed. He wouldn’t have used his power if he didn’t feel her life was threatened.”
“Enough!” Revenald thundered. “I would have torn Victoria apart limb from limb if she broke the rules set this night. Yet even if she had, a servant is a servant. Nothing more. Your progeny—both of them—have forgotten that. They reacted without respect for the power I hold. Emotion has ruled my home for too long. This is not the example I have set. No more.”