Carefully, cautiously, I approached the door to try and make better sense of what had happened. Maybe I had imagined it, a side effect of the pain, but it sounded like chaos erupted on the other side of the bathroom door. People were screaming, glass was shattering, and footsteps were pounding on the floor as if a stampede of wildebeests was passing right outside.
I dashed at the door now and threw my fists at it, banging frantically for anyone on the other side to hear me and open it, but there was too much noise—too many people screaming and fleeing from whatever was going on.
“Nicole!” I yelled, “Jared! Can anyone hear me!” But my voice wasn’t being heard. It was one splash in a turbulent river, drowned out by the rushing rapids. It was up to me to get out of here on my own.
I pressed my palm against the door and tried with all my willpower to bring magick surging out of me, magick strong enough to crush the door to splinters, but that only made the pain in my brain worse, forcing me to let go of the door, panting and clutching my head. Magick wouldn’t work, that much was clear.
When I felt like I could open my eyes again, I scanned the bathroom for another way out and saw a high window on the other side of the room. I rushed toward it, but I had to get on the tips of my toes just to reach the ledge. Even if I did reach it, the window was tiny. Getting through it would be difficult, and the risk of getting stuck was high. But what choice did I have? The only other way out was through the bathroom door, and I would have to break it down—or maybe just break the lock.
I made a dash for the toilet and lifted the tank cover. The heavy, ceramic plate felt good in my hands—felt like freedom—and I brought it up and over my shoulder as I went over to the bathroom door. Carefully, though my heart hammered inside my chest, I lined the swing as best I could and brought the tank cover down on the handle as hard as I could.
The force of the blow rattled my teeth, and the impact had taken a chip out of the ceramic, but the door handle remained. I tried again, grunting this time as the cover came down on the handle, but I missed and hit the door instead, cracking the wood but not enough that I thought I would be able to beat my way through it to the other side.
Again, I lined up my attack, this time turning the tank cover around so its underside faced the handle. I gripped the cover with both hands, screamed, and brought it crashing down on the brass handle. The crash vibrated through me at the moment of impact, and the other end of the tank cover smashed to pieces, but the door handle had come clean off.
I set the tank cover down, rushed toward the door, and charged through it with my shoulder. The broken lock gave, and the door opened, letting me spill into the corridor where the sounds of screams, and struggling, and suffering, hit me in full force.
CHAPTER TEN
The terrible sounds of glass shattering and people screaming sent me running toward the main room, but my head was spinning, and moving through the corridor was like running on uneven, shifting ground. I had to reach out with my hands for the wall, and use it to steady myself as I went, as fast as I could, toward the source of the sound, dreading what I might find.
Ahead of me, Jennifer came bursting out of the main room, shrieking and flailing. I was about to call to her when, from out of the main room, came a dark shape vaguely in the form of a human, moving almost like a blur. The dark figure pounced on her with enough force to bring her crashing to the ground, and when it fell on top of her, I saw it was a bald-headed man with skin as pale as snow, his head covered in black and gray gang tattoos. He turned her over and bit hard into her neck with the sharp, deadly fangs in his mouth.
I stopped moving, then, rooted to the spot by fear. My hand flew up to my mouth to stifle the gasp, but I hadn’t done a good enough job. He heard me, and when he turned around, he growled from behind clenched teeth dripping with red blood and made a move toward me. Before he could rise to his feet and charge, however, Nicky came barreling out of the main room, grunting and panting, and whacked the vampire on the back of the head with a candelabra.
Jennifer picked herself up as blood poured from her neck, staining the rose satin fabric of her dress. Screaming and crying, she made a break for the front door, clutching her bleeding neck.
“Nicky,” I yelled, “Get out of here!”
The last thing I wanted was to see him get hurt again, and by the hands of another vampire no less. He nodded and bolted out the front door. An instant later, the man Nicky had hit was back up on his feet and running out the front door after him, but I couldn’t follow them. Nicky and Jennifer were on their own because this was some kind of invasion. We were under attack, and my place was here.
Adrenaline helped me shake the fear and dizziness off all at once, and when my senses returned to me, I continued running down the corridor until I reached the door to the main room where the party had been in full swing not more than ten minutes ago. What I saw in there was like a scene out of a horror movie.
There were vampires everywhere—unknown vampires—, each of them moving as swiftly and as fluidly as the air itself and throwing themselves at witches, some of whom were trying to flee, others had taken up whatever arms they could find and chosen to fight. Many witches had bite marks on their necks, but almost all of them were bleeding from the nose like I was, and the broken bottles and trays they were using for weapons made me think they too couldn’t use their magick.
Among them, I saw Nina with her heeled shoe in her hand, swiping at the air in front of a slender looking man trying to get close. Behind her, clutching his own bleeding arm, was Harvey. He had managed to grab a fire poker from the fireplace and was holding it in front of himself like a sword, thrusting at the vampire from behind Nina’s back.
Taking a page from Nina’s book, I quickly removed both of my shoes and held one in my hand, heel out, ready to hit the next asshole who came my way. Footsteps came pounding in my direction. When I turned and raised my arm to attack, I saw it was Delphine rushing at me from inside the ballroom. She grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the corridor.
“Delphine!” I said, relief filling me, “What the hell is happening?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “It all started so fast, and now I cannot find Jean Luc or the others. They’re all gone!”
“Gone?”
“Yes, when the vampires came, I lost them in the melee that broke out, and now I don’t know where they are.”
“Okay, first thing we need to do is start some kind of fire—that’ll scare the vampires off.”
“You’re going to fight?”
“We have to fight, we have no choice! People are getting hurt here. A fire is our best bet.”
“Madison, I… I…”
I took hold of her shoulders. “Delphine, what is it?”