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“You’re the one who’s heartless,” I spit, finally finding my voice. “I killed your daughter in self-defence. If she had never come looking for me then she’d still be alive today.”
“I care nothing for your excuses,” he hisses, before shouting an order to the vampires around him. “Get her.”
Finally my magic comes to me, and I whip out a spray of sparks at Whitfield’s cronies. They jump away, cringing and hissing from the burn, but they’re not deterred for long. I panic with the knowledge that this is a dead end; we’re surrounded. There’s no getting out off of this roof.
However, just as thoughts of giving up begin to overtake me, I spot something out of the side of my eye. It’s another ladder. It’s almost the same colour as the wall so it’s slightly camouflaged. It leads up to the next building, which is substantially taller than the one we’re currently on.
Before I even have the chance to consider using it as a means of escape, Ethan has thrown me onto his back and is running up the ladder with me. And when I say running, I mean zooming. There’s just no other way to describe vampire speed. When I look behind me I see that there’s only a couple of feet between us and Whitfield, who’s hurtling after us with about five other vamps.
When we get to the next roof, Ethan keeps going. He leaps across the couple of feet gap between the building we’re on and the next one. The force of our landing shatters through me. This happens several more times, and I can’t help but look to see that Whitfield is still coming for us. Keeping one arm firmly around Ethan’s neck, I drop the other and squeeze my eyes shut, concentrating on creating a stream of sparks in our wake. It slows Whitfield down a little, but he and his crew just keep dodging them. God, that vampire doesn’t give up easily.
At one point I feel us going down another ladder and dropping onto the street. Ethan brings us across to a high-rise building, and I can just about make out a stairwell as we zoom up it. Then we’re outside again on another roof. I can’t gauge how much distance we’ve travelled, but it seems like we’ve gone a long way. It’s only when Ethan stops running that I see that’s not true. All we’ve been doing is run around in circles, because now we’re on a building directly across from the one we’d started out on.
“Why did you come back here?” I cry at Ethan.
“I didn’t have a choice,” he answers. “The streets are crawling with Whitfield’s men. There’s no escape.”
I look down and see my friends still fighting off a never ending stream of vamps as they climb up onto the two storey building. Then when I peer at the street below my heart drops. The place is full
to the brim with vampires. I can’t even see the humans anymore, and I dread to think that that’s because the vampires have killed them all. Glancing down Campion Row and out onto the Hawthorne River, all I find is more vampires coming over to this side of the city. I’ve felt hopeless many times in my life, but never more so than this. Ethan’s right, there really is no escape. That fact is further reinforced when Whitfield comes to a stop before us.
“Now, now, Cristescu, that’s bad form. I never pegged you as the tucking tail and running away type.”
Ethan pushes me behind him protectively, before addressing Whitfield. “You have penned us in. There’s no shame in running away when you are outnumbered hundreds of times over.”
Whitfield brushes off his response with a laugh. “Is that sour grapes I hear in your voice, old friend?”
“You’re no friend of mine,” Ethan fumes, “so stop referring to me as one.”
“There’s no need for such anger. I said you were free to go. It’s the human I’m after.” He stops and sucks in a savouring breath. “I’ve rarely smelled such appetising blood as hers in all my years. I will relish finally getting the chance to taste it.”
“I thought you wanted to kill me because of Eliza?” I say shakily.
Whitfield looks at me condescendingly, as though I’m an idiotic child. “Of course I will be killing you as a tribute to my daughter. Your blood is simply an added reward for my loss.”
“I’ll take you down with my bare hands before you ever get to her,” Ethan threatens.
“Go ahead and use your bare hands,” Whitfield pulls his sword out of its holster. “And I will use my sword.”
He swoops down on Ethan, who shuns his bare hands in favour of pulling out his own sword. I’d all but forgotten he had it with him. They spar against one another, and it strikes me that both of them possess sword fighting skills you don’t encounter in this day and age. Skills possessed only through the necessity of living in a time when guns were not so readily available. Not to mention their moves are lightening fast, nothing like how a human would do it.
Seeing that the other vamps are trying to get past Ethan to capture me, I begin moulding my palms together and creating balls of sparks to throw at them. This act exhausts me, and I can practically feel my magic dwindling away with the effort it takes to create them. However, right now they’re my only bet at keeping the vampires at bay.
At one point a female jumps high into the air and before I know it she has her hands on my throat and her fangs are coming down on me. As quick as I can, I pull the stake out of my pocket yet again and stick right into her heart. Her dark blood sprays in my face and her body crumples to the ground.
The victory is short lived, because my fight with her allowed the others enough time to get to me. I do my best to gain my previous momentum and start throwing sparks at them again. I glance at Ethan and Whitfield just as Ethan makes progress and slashes Whitfield’s arm. The vampire governor reels back, hissing at the strike.
Just before he has the chance to recover from the blow, strange purple smoke begins to seep out of the ground around us. It comes from everywhere, pouring eerily through the bricks and cement. It becomes so thick that it practically blinds me, and for a few brief seconds I can’t see anything. The purple clouds my vision and those around me vanish. Slowly, the smoke begins to blow away and when I can see again I rush to Ethan, affixing myself firmly to his side.
Things were bad before. There was no way of us fighting off the vampires for much longer, but now the situation is ten times worse, because standing before us are Rita and Theodore. Their black eyes are identical.
And when Rita’s land on me, she smiles.
Chapter Eighteen
The Day Has Come Where I Have Died, Only To Find I’ve Come Alive
It’s not a friendly smile, it’s the smile of a killer just before they take their knife and gut you like a fish. My entire body turns as cold as ice.
