“I can’t,” she said, “I just… I don’t think I can.”
Delphine was scared. No, she was terrified. Her family was gone, Jean Luc was missing, and she was alone, surrounded by strangers, and death, and blood. Her calm and collected composure had fallen away, revealing the truth behind the mask all vampires wore with consummate ease. And I understood exactly how Delphine felt. After all, hadn’t I been here before? Hadn’t I felt vulnerable, and alone, and scared in the face of danger and death?
“Alright, listen to me,” I said, “I want you to go upstairs, find a bedroom, and hide.”
“But what about Jean Luc?”
“I’ll find him. Just get out of sight and lay low.”
Delphine nodded, turned her eyes toward the stairs, and dashed to them, taking them two at a time. I then turned my attention toward the main room again and inched toward the corner where I could get a closer look.
The fighting was still going, but the vampires were getting the upper hand. I couldn’t see Nina anymore, and at least two witches were on the ground, struggling to fend off vampires trying to bite into their necks. There must have been six of them, or seven counting the one I had seen in the corridor a moment ago. It was hard to tell; they moved so fast.
Fuck it, I thought, and I strode into the main room with my hand arched above my shoulder, holding my heel ready to strike.
A vampire came at me, running full pelt with murder in his eyes. I had enough time to line up my attack before delivering the heel of my shoe right into his eye. But that didn’t stop him. The vampire grabbed the shoe and yanked it out of his eye socket, taking the bloody eye with it. He tossed the shoe aside and reached for my neck, but I managed to jump out of his reach.
Looking around wildly for anything I could use as a weapon, I saw a small table covered in plates and glasses. One by one, I pulled them from the table and threw them at the vampire, but he swatted them away as they came to him. I realized, even as I continued to throw whatever I could get my hands on at him, that all I was doing was slowing him down.
My hands settled on the silver tray I had seen floating around the room, and instead of throwing it at the vampire, I spun on my heel and swiped it around, edge first, in a close arc. The vampire put his hand out to protect himself and the silver tray dragged across his hand, but something happened then—the vampire hissed, pulled his hand back, and began to cradle the deep, smoking wound the tray had left. It seemed to have somehow bitten into his flesh and caused some real damage the vampire hadn’t been expecting to receive.
“Silver!” I yelled to anyone who could hear me, “Silver hurts them!”
But the attack hadn’t hurt him as much as I’d thought. The vampire reached for me, as I called out to my fellow witches, and grabbed me by the neck. With one strong hand, he pulled my chin up. With the other he pushed me, effortlessly, against a wall, and then he sank his fangs into my neck, introducing me to a world of pain like I had never known before.
A brilliant star field exploded in front of my eyes at the instant of impact. Almost immediately, my vision started to blacken. And while I continued to hit him with the silver tray as hard as I could, my energy was slipping away from me with every exertion I took. Until, finally, I caught him on the side of the head hard enough that the edge of the silver tray bit deep into the flesh, burning a deep, black, sizzling line into his skull.
The vampire pulled his teeth from my neck and yowled as pain filled him. He turned his eyes back on me, and he snarled at me as if this was it—he was going to kill me. I shut my eyes to brace myself for his bite, but the bite didn’t come. I heard a crunch, and when I opened my eyes, I saw the vampire’s chin was still raised, his mouth was still wide, but sticking out of the front of his neck was a thin, pointed tip, dripping with dark blood.
The sword pulled out of the neck, and the vampire’s grip on me loosened enough for me to shake him off and shove him to the ground. There, standing behind him, was Remy, his shirt and face speckled with blood, and a sword in his hand. Only, it wasn’t exactly a sword; I recognized the decorative skull on the hilt and noticed the lack of a cross guard.
“Are you alright?” he asked, stretching his hand out toward me.
I took his hand and pulled myself away from the wall as, slowly, my strength returned. “I’m fine,” I said, “But I can’t use my magick.”
“I know. Neither can I. We have to gather the witches and get—”
“Remy!”
Remy spun around, and his sword cane sliced through the air, cutting through four out of five fingers belonging to a creature of the night, severing them cleanly. The vampire screamed, and Remy thrust the sword into his neck too. It gargled, and blood spilled out of its mouth and throat before it toppled to the floor. But the victory was short-lived. Other vampires were coming, now. What witches had been able to flee had already fled, leaving Remy and me on our own… and surrounded.
“Madison,” Remy said, “Whatever happens, I want you to run. Get out of here.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I said, as three vampires closed in.
Remy put his sword up and slashed at the first vampire that got close, cutting him across the arm. But then the second vampire came and grabbed his wrist, rendering his sword arm useless. I swiped at him with the silver tray, but the third vampire plucked the silver tray out of the air and, screaming in pain, hurled it across the room where it smashed against a wall.
They all ignored me and went straight for Remy, biting him wherever they could. The one who had grabbed Remy’s wrist bit deep into the dark, exposed flesh. Remy grunted, but didn’t scream. He punched the other vampire as it came toward him, but a human fist was no match for the kind of strength these undead monsters possessed. They got him in the neck, in the arm, in the shoulder, but they weren’t drinking from him—they were just tearing at his flesh, causing hot blood to spurt in all directions.
I yelled for them to stop, I even tried to pull one off, but she was too strong. They wouldn’t stop. When Remy was too weak to stand, they pushed him into me and we both went down against a wall.