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I started to cough, choking on the vile mixture, but I noticed the smoke’s effects were a lot worse on the vamps. Several of them pulled back, racing up the stairs. Steroid Woman, however, seemed relatively unaffected, as did a few of the others.
“Oh shit, she must have some sort of immunity,” Roz muttered.
The woman laughed at him. “What on earth do you think we do around here? Leave the staff unarmed?” At that point, she backhanded Menolly, who was getting ready for another attack, and sent her flying back against me, which knocked us both to the ground.
There was a sudden screech, so loud that I covered my ears to stop the ringing. As I watched, Fraale leapt over us, landing lightly on the balls of her feet between us and the vampires. She sucked in a deep breath.
“Cover your ears,” Roz warned us. We immediately obeyed.
Fraale opened her mouth and let loose, keening louder than anything I’d ever heard. She was worse than a bean Sidhe. Standing with legs spread, hands on her hips, there was something very inhuman about her that scared me spitless. Apparently, she took the vampires for a ride, too, because they backed up as a group, eying her with a combination of hunger and—fear?
Roz grabbed my arm and pushed me toward the stairwell. “Up you go!” Menolly shoved Zach in front of her, and then Fraale spun around and raced after us. We barely made it to the door before a surge of movement told us they were on our heels again. As we sprinted toward the car, Roz yanked something out of his coat and tossed it over his shoulder right onto the hood of a black car. We’d barely made it to Camille’s Lexus when an explosion rocked the parking lot, shoving Zach and me forward to land on the hood.
“Holy crap! What—”
“Just move!” Roz dragged me around to the passenger side as Menolly opened the doors with the automatic control on the key. We leapt in. Zach, Roz, and Fraale tumbled into the back as I landed shotgun.
I glanced at the fire that was raging in what had been a brand new BMW. The vamps had pulled back, except for a couple who managed to skirt the deadly flames. The fireball sent a shower of sparks into the night air as it billowed on the updraft of wind, a roaring mushroom of flames and smoke.
Menolly started the car, and we screeched out of the parking lot at sixty miles per hour and climbing. The cops were either out on another case or were off at an all-night java joint. Although the sound of sirens echoed in the distance, growing louder, I didn’t see any prowl cars. Thank government cuts on spending, I thought. Chase was always bitching about the lack of manpower, and I knew he wasn’t kidding.
Menolly was up to seventy by the time we hit one of the main drags. Only then did she slow down a little and glance into the mirror. It was disconcerting for the others, I’m sure, to not see their driver’s reflection, but I was used to it.
“Everybody in one piece?” she asked.
“I think so,” Zach said. “One thing’s for sure.”
“What’s that?” I said, leaning back against the seat, trying to calm my fried nerves.
“You guys are going to have to beef up your wards. Somehow, I don’t think the members of the Fangtabula are going to take this lying down.”
“Zach’s right,” Roz said. “They’re mad as hell. Make no mistake; we almost didn’t make it out of there. We were ten seconds away from being trapped. And that would not have been pretty at all.”
“Especially not when Karvanak got hold of us,” Menolly said. “Fraale, you can’t go back to him. Let’s hit his hideout and scram. Tell me where to go.”
Fraale snorted. “Oh, I’m on his shit list now, all right. He’ll eat me alive if he catches me. And I’m not speaking metaphorically. I’ve seen him do it. He was so mad at one of his servants one day that he turned into a tiger and bit off her arm. And you don’t want to know what he did to her before that. She bled to death, screaming.” Her voice was so strangled, I knew she was telling the truth.
Shuddering, I grabbed my cell phone out of the glove compartment where I’d stashed it before we entered the club. I punched in Camille’s cell number, and she answered almost immediately.
“We ran into trouble, but we’re headed toward Karvanak’s hideout with Fraale. Get Morio and Smoky and meet us there—and hurry the hell up. We need you. We may have vamps on our tail, too, so don’t leave Maggie unattended. I don’t know what you’re going to do, but we have to be very careful out on our land from now on. Menolly ran into someone from the Elwing Blood Clan who wasn’t overjoyed to see her.”
“Mother of the gods, things are getting so fucked up,” she whispered. “Okay, I’ll figure out something. We’re on our way. I’ll have to put out a silent call for Smoky, but he should be able to pick it up and show up. What’s the address?”
I handed the phone over to Fraale. “Give her the address, please.”
“It’s 23585 Forsythia. Smaller greenish gray house set back a little ways. Be careful about the yard—it’s booby-trapped—so stick to the walkway.” She handed the phone back to me.
“Got it?” I asked, glanced out the window at the side mirror. So far, no sign we were being followed, but that didn’t count for shit. There were too many ways for vamps and demons to travel.
“Yeah, got it,” Camille said. “Vanzir’s here, I’m bringing him with us. We need every hand on deck for this one, and he’ll just have to take his chances that Karvanak won’t catch him. Not the best idea but I’m also . . .” Here, she dropped her voice and I knew she didn’t want to be overheard. “I’m going to order him to—if he thinks he’s about to be caught—kill himself.”
I stared at the night as it passed by. The moon was on her way to dark, and the night seemed like one long hush at the graveside. “Yeah, that’s probably best,” I said after a moment. “You think we’ll ever live a normal life again, Camille?”
She let out a strangled laugh. “Oh my Kitten, we could walk up a stairway to the stars and never find normal again. No, I’m afraid that we’re stuck in the nightmare. And you know what? That’s okay, because our lives have meaning. And in this world with so much senseless anger and violence, I think we should be proud to carry the burdens we do. We’re making an impact. At least, we have to keep telling ourselves that. Now, be careful, and we’ll be there as soon as we can.”
As the phone went dead, I looked back out into the night. As Menolly deftly swerved through the streets, driving us toward whatever disaster next awaited, the clouds parted for a moment, just long enough to let me look at the stars. They were beautiful, cold and stark against the velvet night. At least something would last forever, I thought. In this world of anger, of hatred, of insanity, at least the stars were—for all intents and purposes—eternal.
CHAPTER 26
