My head snapped up, and through my blood-blurred vision, I saw a sneering vamp swinging a hatchet straight at me. In a streak ofauburn hair, Serenity tackled him from the side, ramming her shoulder into his ribs and sinking her steak knife in his gut. Another vamp with a metal pipe—the one who must have walloped me—lunged for me, but I had Serenity’s name screaming through my head.
I leg swept him onto his back and jumped astride him, punching him in the throat until his eyes glazed over. I didn’t look twice at his twitching corpse as I retrieved my gun, stood, and yanked Serenity back from the groping hand of the hatchet man and fired two in his chest. It would’ve been three, but the gunclicked. Empty.
Serenity hugged my middle, body flinching with every boom of Dagger’s gun. His bullets raged rapid and true, dropping coven members like swatted wasps as he reloaded effortlessly. Problem was, they were just trampled underfoot by countless more gangsters, all heaving and swinging weapons as their eyes roamed toward me. Toward Serenity.
Dagger’s piece soon emptied like mine, and the Marchands were still spilling up the steps. It was time for fist and claw.
Whoosh! Blue fire raged in a hose pipe flow from behind Dagger’s profile. Bryce stepped toward the railing with his arm outstretched, blasting the frosted flames at the thugs’ frontline.
A dusting of white crystals coated the vamps’ skin, and their limbs began to slow as their lips turned blue. Their sluggish movement left them to be smashed down by the charging horde behind, whose screams tore through the restaurant as Bryce hit them with a wall of burning orange fire. The engulfed vamps ran shrieking in all directions, skin bubbling.
I beat back one of them with the stolen hatchet and pipe before his flailing could ignite me or Serenity.
Panting, I looked over to see Dagger snap a neck like a twig with a punch of his tat-hand, then drop another gangster with his claws. Together, he and Bryce were keeping the bulk of enemies from reaching our floor, but still the Marchand Coven advancedin a relentless stream. Some started to leap bodily over the rails to avoid the treacherous channel of the stairs.
A roar erupted from near our booth, shaking the cutlery throughout the dining area. Weapons still raised and ready to swing, I looked behind to see Hunter had shifted fully. Into the kind of creature you only read about in fairy tales…
Taller than a Clydesdale horse, the rosette-patterned mega-cat had fangs like giant ice picks and paws big as manhole covers that sprouted spiked claws as long and honed as machetes. Even the random snaps of its tail against the reinforced windows spiderwebbed cracks through the glass like sniper fire.
Bellowing, it pounced over the railing and into the heart of the mob.
It tore through the ranks with wild arcs of its claws, eviscerating and decapitating, crunching down on skulls and flinging bodies like ragdolls. Shrieks of fright and agony broke up the vamps’ onslaught. Those on the far side of the lobby slowed, wide eyed, unwilling to break for the stairs if it meant passing that monstrosity.
I could see Conrad among the melee, with his spooky armor and hell-blade, ducking and weaving. He sliced broad crimson stripes across the jaguar colossus’ pelt, the blade releasing some sort of magical fire too, and I smelled singed fur. But the behemoth’s size was easily outshining the Fae blade’s strange power. Conrad lunged hard at its face, and the jaguar dodged, raking its claws across his abdomen. A broad chunk of the shimmering armor ripped free in jagged pieces that evaporated in puffs and crackles.
The tables had turned. The adrenaline was still pumping, we weren’t out of this yet, but Hunter’s jaguar had given the rest of us room to breathe.
We might actually make it home.
“Dagger, his armor’s failing,” Bryce shouted, his body a pillar of two-toned flame racing down the steps. “Let’s finish this here and now.”
Any coven member near Bryce had their joints frozen stiff just long enough for their flesh to go up in flame. Holding out both palms and opening his mouth wide, he exhaled that icy blue anti-fire until Conrad was fogged in it. The armor was flickering, sparking, the broken edges fraying away, and an icy dust flecked his upper torso. He tried to go for Bryce, but he turned slowly, and Hunter’s jaguar bore down on him, trampling coven members underfoot.
“Seb, we almost got this.” Dagger pointed toward the high-backed booth. “Hold the fort there. Keep her safe!” He charged down the steps and began lancing his claws through throats, chests, and eyeballs, hammering faces into pulp with his ever-glowing jaguar tat on the warpath to Conrad.
Serenity and I ran to the booth. I deposited her under the table, kissed her forehead, and then got on my knees in the booth, peering over the back to watch the turmoil for approaching danger.
“I’m gonna finish you off this time, you slimy fuck!” Dagger sucker punched the coven leader in the back of the head, crunching another armor part that wisped away like a haze of golden sparkles. Conrad swung around wildly at Dagger, catching him with a nasty slice across his upper arm and chest.
Then Conrad turned invisible like the coward he was, leaving Dagger to flail his fists blindly.
Without a champion to look to, the scattered coven survivors started to hobble toward the elevators and exit stairs.
We were going to fucking win!
“Hello, handsome,” a voice snarked right beside me. I whirled with my hatchet raised, ready to protect Serenity, but there was nothing to hit.
The unseen, searing blow to my gut threatened to collapse my organs. I buckled over double, unable to breathe. The hatchet and pipe fell out of my hands and clattered off the booth to the floor.
I tried to scream for Serenity to run, but a spray of crimson came out instead. I looked down in horror as a samurai swordflickered into existence, the blade crammed straight through my guts. The vamp who’d done it blinked into view too, wearing a smug grin. He’d been invisible… like Conrad.
“Armand, you fucking bastard!” Serenity lunged at his neck with her steak knife and managed to gouge a bloody gash in his upper arm, but he twisted her wrist, disarming her, and then gripped her throat. “That really hurt, you little cunt. But not as much as you’re going to.”
He patted my cheek. “You can keep the sword, squirt. I’ll take this little bitch instead.”
I tried to garble a warning to Dagger and Bryce as Armand wrenched Serenity up by her hair, put an arm up behind her back, and marched her out of view, but the racket was too fierce, my lungs too weak.
Seb! Seb, stay with me!
