But it didn’t look like it to me. I had a split second to see a pair of firelit eyes, to hear Adra’s voice booming “Assist,” and to take the last breath I was ever going to if I didn’t do something right fucking now.
And then a stake was splintering to pieces on the concrete where I’d just been, as I shifted behind the bar.
And almost threw up.
The room swirled sickeningly around me as I grabbed the table for support. Because my spell had unraveled halfway through, depositing me here instead of in the main hall above as I’d intended. And I wasn’t going to be trying again, not for a while, which was a problem because she was still coming.
And it was a she. A she with a gleaming cap of dark hair, who I got a glimpse of as she stared around, hunting for me. A beautiful, golden-eyed she who looked really familiar somehow and—
“You have got to be kidding,” I whispered, realizing that I was about to be killed by my boyfriend’s lover.
At least I was until I upended the table, just as she caught sight of me, too. Glasses crashed; bottles spilled and shattered; a river of booze ran everywhere. And the small candelabra that had been decorating one end of the table fell into the middle of it all, with a bonus I hadn’t expected. I’d just been trying to give her some glass to have to run across, because for some reason she was as barefoot as me.
But this works, too, I thought, stumbling back as the whole center of the room went up in flames.
And immediately thereafter exploded in screams and panicked, scrambling vampires.
Who became even more panicked when they realized that somebody, probably after their last escape attempt, had raised the wards.
The two humans who had been tending bar ran straight out the door, disappearing down the hallway. But the vamps who tried to follow slammed into something invisible, like birds hitting a plate-glass window. And then hitting it again and again, pounding against it as their fellow vamps piled up behind them, able to see freedom but not to touch it.
Kind of like me. I was human, so the ward should have let me pass, but I couldn’t reach it. Not with all the bodies in the way, and not after the fire spread from a tablecloth to the kindling the vamps had made out of a section of old, dry bleachers. They went up, and a full-on panic set in.
The vamps in front were clawing at the ward now, their fingers bloody, while the ones in back turned around and stampeded back this way, trampling me and then the senate in their desperation to avoid the flames.
And the woman calmly walking through the middle of them.
No, I thought, staring in spite of everything, because vampires didn’t do that. Vampires had the flammability of gasoline. Even masters ran at the sight of uncontrolled flames.
Except for this one, apparently.
And then she was on me.
I had a split second to see eyes like gold coins, fangs denting carmine lips, a bloody stake being raised in slow motion, either Mircea’s doing or because my freaked-out brain was playing tricks on me—
And then I blinked and she was gone.
I staggered back and abruptly sat down, hair in my face, staring around blindly. And trying to figure out what had just happened. Which would have been easier if the crowd hadn’t surged all around me.
But not to help me back up.
They were trying to get away from the battle I could hear but couldn’t see, the ring of steel on steel echoing clearly over screaming vamps and cursing masters, and the feet trampling me as I tried to get up—
And ended up crawling under the second table instead, out of self-preservation. Nobody else was down here, maybe because it fronted the fire. Giving me a view past the askew white tablecloth and running people and crackling flames, at a fight. One almost faster than my eyes could track, between the crazy, dark-haired woman—
And the baby.
I actually rubbed my eyes, I was so convinced I was seeing things. He was dead; he had to be. Even if she’d somehow missed the heart—and she hadn’t missed the heart—there was still the stake she’d driven straight through his neck.
And damn it, I hadn’t imagined it! I could see it: a dark red gash that had threatened to take off his head. Like the bloody stab wound in his chest, which had flooded the entire front of his light blue dress shirt with a dark purplish red.
But despite all that, he looked fine—no, better than fine. Better than he had a few minutes ago, when he was stumbling around the bleachers with the coordination of a two-year-old. Because it had to be five a.m. by now, and five a.m. was far too late for baby vampires.
But you’d never know it.
Suddenly, he had the grace of a master or a ballet star. Suddenly, he was freaking Baryshnikov in his prime, ducking and whirling and dancing out of the way of a blistering attack, liquid in motion and blinding in savagery, from the woman. I just stared, having never seen anything like it, and not seeing all that much of it now, because it was so fast.
But I was seeing enough.
I was seeing her jump up, maybe twelve feet in the air, and grab one of the hanging chandeliers, sending it crashing down onto the vamp’s head. I was seeing him throw it off, a huge cast-iron piece, and start it rolling down the length of the room, shedding sparks and candles everywhere and causing vamps to jump backward out of the way. I was seeing the two of them race up and down the bleachers, the sword sounds coming from sections of the metal supports for the same, which they had ripped off and repurposed.
Until the baby grabbed hers out of her hand and turned it against her, suddenly ending up with two “swords,” which he would have used to break her legs except she jumped over them and back-flipped. And didn’t miss a beat. The woman, who was apparently Teflon coated, landed in the fire, grabbed a piece of flaming wood, and slashed it at his head.
It was a good move—it was a damn good move—using the instinctive fear of fire to make him drop his guard and rear back, then searing his retinas. And that sort of thing doesn’t heal so easily. It’s yet another reason vamps hate fire: burns are a bitch to repair. That move would have left most, even most masters, blind for at least a few beats.
And as fast as she was, blind equaled dead.
Only not this time.
But not because she missed. A rash of blisters appeared across the baby’s face, a swath running from ear to ear, cutting him right across the eyes. Ugly, red, and excruciating-looking, they bubbled up and then broke, leaving me biting my lip in sympathy.
For a second. Because the next time I blinked, the burns were gone. Not better, not improved, not scarred over. Gone, wiped clean as he healed virtually instantaneously.
And suddenly, the room was silent.
Suddenly, the only sounds were my labored breathing and the crackling of the flames.
Suddenly, even the senate, which had been cursing and throwing young vampires off themselves, froze, a few with the offending vamps still in hand, in order to stare.