“You are going to die,” the vampire said. “I want you to burn, but this one, I could make an exception for. He could take years to die with my children, a decade with me. You choose.”
Daniel was terrified, his eyes wide as his world was rearranged with a savage suddenness and he knew he was no longer the apex predator. Daniel was prey.
“Let him go,” she whispered, hand aching as she reabsorbed the freed energy. “Let him go!” she shouted when Niles hesitated, and he flung Daniel at the truck with an angry petulance.
“Daniel!” she exclaimed, lurching forward, but he hit with a thunk and fell, out cold.
One of the vampires yanked him up, bundling him into Trisk’s truck and gesturing with a macabre graciousness for her to follow.
Jaw clenched, she got in, her hands tingling from her charged aura sparking against the spilled fuel. Quen was shoved into the other side, and the door slammed shut. The handles were twisted off, locking them in.
“Shame to waste you,” Niles said as he checked his watch. “It’s going to become hard to find a way to satisfy everyone, soon. But this holds satisfaction. You burn my child, I burn you.”
“We didn’t start the fire!” Trisk exclaimed, but he turned his back on them and gestured for his men to get on with it.
Daniel slumped between them, still unconscious. It would be more merciful to let him stay that way. “We filled both tanks,” Quen said, eyes pinched in pain. The keys were gone. They couldn’t move, even when the cars blocking them backed up. “It’s going to make one hell of a bang.”
“Shit, shit, shit,” Trisk whispered as the vampire standing in front of them took a long drag on his cigarette and dropped it into a puddle. The fumes caught, and a yellow glow spread out and under her truck.
“Got any ideas?” Quen said, his nose wrinkling at the smell of half-burned fuel.
“Circle?” she said, pulling more strength into her.
Quen winced, his arm cradled in his lap. “We’d have to sit here with the truck burning around us until it was done. I don’t think we can last that long. The air is going to get hot, not to mention the fire will use up the oxygen.”
“Two circles,” she said, breathless. “Us in the center, and a larger one around the truck to contain the blast. It burns up the oxygen in one swoop. Like a backfire putting out a forest fire.”
Quen’s eyebrows rose, his attention flicking back to her from the flashing lights coming down the road. They were too far away. “I’ll take the outer circle.”
“I’ll take the outer one,” she said, imagining it in her mind. “I’ve got more practice.”
“I know how to make a circle,” Quen said dryly, dabbing at his lip.
“The size of a truck?” Trisk turned, watching the vampires run to their cars. “One strong enough to hold a demon? I take the outer circle.”
Between them, Daniel stirred, his head down. “One of you better do something,” he slurred. “I think I heard the tank just catch.”
“Septiens!” Trisk shouted, the energy streaming through her prickling as she felt Quen’s protection spring up tight around them.
And then her ears exploded as the hand of God reached down and slapped her.
Too fast to cry out, she was shoved forward. She hit twice, hardly noticing the twin bumps of first Quen’s circle, and then the hard dash, before she was flung through the front window, the harmless shards hitting her like snowflakes as she tumbled through, over the hood, and onto the hard-packed dirt.
She gasped for breath as she rolled, feeling as if she were drowning, and then she hit her own, larger bubble. It fell. Behind her, the fire whooshed up, making a second flash of heat to crisp her hair.
“Quen!” she shouted, her ears numb and her skin hot. Hip aching, she sat up, turning to look at her truck, engulfed in flames. “Daniel! Quen!” Oh God, were they thrown clear?
“Ow,” Daniel said, and her head whipped around. He was behind her, flat on his back and holding his head as he stared at the floating ash of her burnt books drifting down.
“That didn’t work as well as I thought it would,” Quen said, and she looked to see him standing over her, his hand extended to help her up.
Thank you, God. She shook her head, trying to clear it. “We’re alive, though.” His hand fitting into hers was warm and calloused, and she felt the prick of tears as he hauled her up. “How is your shoulder?”
Pain creasing his brow, he shifted it. “Slamming into your circle popped it back in place,” he said, turning to the four cop cars now racing up, lights and sirens going. “We have to go.”
“How?” She gestured at her burning truck, her long hair swinging. “We’ll just explain what happened. I’m sure they’ll understand.”
“What they’ll understand is that you’re wanted for questioning in a murder,” Quen said, but she hadn’t done it, and for some stupid reason, she thought that mattered.