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Oh, right. That was me.
“Now, Giguhl!” I grunted. With a punch of the button, my seat belt spat me at the passenger’s door.
A burst of light flashed outside the van, signaling Giguhl’s arrival. Shouting and gunfire commenced on the road. I crawled into the van’s cargo area. The cooler I’d stashed earlier lay near the door. I wrenched it open and grabbed a bag of blood. My fangs made quick work of the silicone casing. For once, the chemical taste of the blood didn’t bother me as I gulped down the vampire version of a healing potion and energy drink in one.
The van’s back doors wrenched open. I tumbled out and landed at Giguhl’s hooves. He didn’t waste time asking if I was okay. Instead, he hooked his claws under my arms and lifted. When my feet hit pavement and I swayed, he steadied me. Nodding my thanks, I pulled a gun from my waistband.
I turned to survey the scene. The Mercedes was trapped between the van and the pickup, which now sported an accordion for a fender. Just beyond, Adam approached the Mercedes from the rear.
“Go,” I said to Giguhl. He moved so fast I could barely track his movement. The next thing I knew, he was crouched next to the Mercedes. I aimed my gun at the driver’s side and pulled off two rounds. Only instead of shattering the windshield, the bullets left spiderwebs on the bulletproof glass.
The Mercedes’ engine roared and the van lurched a few inches forward. The car’s wheels spun, kicking up a plume of smoke and gravel. “Adam?” I called.
“I’m on it!” The hair on the back of my neck prickled as he cast a spell over the lurching car. The engine emitted a loud death rattle before finally dying.
“Look alive, that’s probably one-way gla—”
A bullet exploded from the passenger’s side of the windshield. I ducked and rolled, coming up in a crouch near the intersection of the Mercedes and the van’s undercarriage. “Now, G!”
With a predatory smile, the demon punched a hole through the driver’s window. Crucial design flaw of bulletproof glass? It can’t keep out a determined demon. Using one massive claw, Giguhl reached in like a cat into a fish tank and pulled out the wriggling vamp from behind the wheel.
“Giguhl! Catch!” Adam yelled. He tossed an apple-wood stake at the demon, who caught it with his free claw. Two seconds later, the vamp ignited as his soul escaped and his ashes scattered to the wind.
“There’s a metal partition. I can’t get to them this way,” Giguhl yelled as he reached in for the passenger.
“Got it!” I sidestepped my way toward the back door. Adam approached the one on the other side. A couple more bullets zinged at us through the glass but went wide. That’s the problem with one-way glass. Bullets can get through from the inside, but the layered glass makes anything but point-blank range inaccurate.
At least that’s what I thought until Adam yelped and his head dropped out of sight behind the car.
“Shit! Adam?” My heart thudded in my chest like a piston. It’s one thing to shoot at me, but it was something else to hurt the mage.
“I’m okay. Just missed me.”
My pulse slowed from panicked to pissed.
More shots exploded out from the rear windows. I ducked next to a quarter panel, trusting the car’s armored walls to protect me.
“Giguhl!”
“Got my hands full,” he grunted. I looked over and saw him crouching under the busted window. Two bullets zinged over his horns. While the driver had been taken by surprise, the passenger was using Giguhl for target practice.
Time to end this shit. I banged a fist on the hood. “Come out with your hands up and no one else gets hurt.”
Two shots exploded from the back window. I cursed under my breath. Looked like we had ourselves a regular Mexican standoff until someone ran out of bullets.
“Sabina?” I barely heard Giguhl over the constant barrage of gunfire.
“What?”
“If I create a distraction, can you take this guy out?”
I nodded. “Be careful.”
His black lips spread into a grin. “Yes, ma’am.”
He held up a claw. He counted down from three with his talons. On one, he leapt up onto the roof of the car and began rocking it side to side. I jumped toward the open window. The vamp’s attention was on the ceiling of the car as he held on for dear life.
“Hey!” I yelled. His head turned, and his eyes widened a nanosecond before I delivered a bullet into the center of his forehead. His body ignited, making a mess of the Corinthian leather.
“Nice!” Giguhl said, pumping a fist as he jumped off the roof.
I wiped a hand across my brow. “Too early to start celebrating, G.”
As if to support my claim, a new volley of gunfire came from the back of the car. Giguhl and I squatted down and duckwalked toward the front bumper. I met the mage’s eyes over the hood. “Any ideas?”
“None that don’t involve one of us gaining an extra orifice.”
Toward the end, his voice sounded unnaturally loud. That’s when I realized the gunfire had ceased. The sudden silence jarred me into stillness. I narrowed my eyes and watched the back door. The car started rocking again, but this time from inside. Something was going down in the back seat.
I scooted along the side of the car toward the back, careful to stay out of sight. Muffled shouts leaked from bullet holes in the window. Two voices— one male, one female— argued with increasing volume. The car continued to shake until, suddenly, a single gunshot cut off the male’s shout. Little wisps of copper-scented smoke leaked from the holes.
“You okay, mancy?” I whisper-shouted at Adam in the unnatural silence that followed.
“All clear,” he replied. “But I wouldn’t mind someone telling me what the f**k is going on.”
That made two of us.
Two seconds later we got our answer when the door next to my head flew open. The panel knocked me on my ass. The gun slicked against my palm. My breath came out in pants as I raised my aim up the height of the door.
A mop of kinky mahogany curls cleared the top of the door. And below, a foot clad in a low-heeled black pump stepped onto the blacktop, followed by its twin. Next, a slender, milky hand with bloodied cuticles grasped the doorframe.
When the face came into view, my stomach dipped with dread. Persephone’s classically beautiful face didn’t feature a Roman nose, two beady black eyes, or a butt-cleft chin. No, only one Domina was cursed with such mannish features.
Tanith.
