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Slightly stunned, I leapt to my feet. I could tell I’d bruised a hip, but bruises would heal within the hour. Just one of the perks of being a vampire. Nothing had been broken, nothing punctured.
Should I try again? I decided to come at the creature from another angle, and once more, found myself flying across the room. As I landed, Delilah screamed, and I pushed myself off the floor and headed in her direction, stopping cold when I saw her.
She was covered with blood. Camille had dragged her away from another one of the shadow monsters. Kneeling by Kitten’s side, she started shaking her, just as Vanzir and Smoky raced through the doors.
Smoky let out a shout, and a cold snap filled the air, sending waves of frost through the room. Instantly, the temperature plummeted a good thirty degrees but didn’t seem to affect the creeping cruds at all.
Vanzir muttered, “Oh shit,” before shouting, “They’re bathed in shadow—try light. Blast them with as much light as you can muster!”
Light? I didn’t have a light, and I didn’t think he was talking about flipping on the overheads. Camille let go of Delilah and pulled out the crystal unicorn horn. She gave me a wild-eyed look.
“You have to get out of here,” she mouthed.
I didn’t ask questions. I just booked for the entrance. The doors had barely closed behind me when a huge flash from inside the club sent me reeling and startled all the patrons who were hovering around the police car and ambulance.
There’d been no heat—she hadn’t used fire—but whatever it was would have fried me in ten seconds flat if I’d been in the room with her. Sunlight in a can. Or a horn, rather.
I raced over to the officers, who were taking statements from the dazed crowd. Marquette, an OW Fae, and Brooks, a new FBH recruit, glanced at me. “Boss need us?”
“You better wait out here. But call several more ambulances. There are quite a few casualties. Make certain we have Otherworld medics on hand; it looks like only the Fae have been hurt.”
While they radioed for help, I headed back to the building. The light had vanished, leaving no residue behind. The dance floor was almost empty, and there was no sign of the Demonkin. Camille and Chase knelt beside Delilah, while Smoky and Vanzir tended to those who had been hurt in the fight.
“What happened? Did you kill them?” I tried to ignore the smell of blood rising from Delilah’s wounds. On closer inspection, they looked superficial, though jagged. Most likely, she’d gotten in the way of one of those barbed tentacles. “You need to get those tended to, or they’ll scar.”
“Menolly’s right,” Chase said, but Delilah shook her head.
“No. Look—they’re already healing. Great Mother Bast, what the hell’s going on? I know we heal fast, but this is ridiculous.”
She was right. As we watched, the sides of the wounds quickly began to knit together. A moment later, and we couldn’t see any sign of where they’d been. Our father’s blood gave us healing powers that were far and above an FBH’s, but this was abnormal, even for us.
“What the—” I stopped as Sharah and Mallen burst through the door, equipment in hand. Behind them came several teams of medics, in training for the FH-CSI.
Sharah made her way over to us as Mallen began directing rescue efforts. “What happened? What were you fighting?” She glanced down at Delilah, who by now was getting to her feet. “Great Aeondel, are you okay? Where did all that blood come from?”
“I got sideswiped by a deranged squid,” Delilah said, resulting in a snort from Camille. “The cuts healed up immediately. I’m a little woozy, though.”
Sharah’s expression took on a vaguely skeptical look. “Deranged squid?” she asked, her voice remaining neutral.>We parked under one of the streetlights and headed into the building. Two burly armed and armored security guards were keeping watch at the doors, both Fae recently sent over from Queen Tanaquar. Y’Elestrial was slowly regrouping after the recent civil war, and our father was the new Queen’s chief advisor.
Camille leaned close and whispered, “They both wield powerful magic as well as beefcake. I can feel their energy signatures from here.”
Delilah nodded. “Me, too, and I’m no witch.”
I tried to concentrate on the men, but all I could sense was the pulse of their hearts, the sound of blood swishing through their veins. If they’d been demonic or undead, I would have sensed something. But regular magic—powerful or not—was usually beyond my ability to home in on.
As we passed through the outer entrance, the guards eyed us, but apparently we didn’t pose a danger by whatever criteria they were using, and they let us by without so much as a Who are you?
The entrance opened into a wide foyer. To the left was the station proper, through a set of bulletproof double glass doors. Straight ahead and slightly to the right was a staircase leading down. The elevators were directly in front of us. We turned to the left and pushed through the doors.
The room was bustling. Dispatch was busy. The number of officers from Otherworld had doubled in the past month alone.
Yugi, a Swedish empath, had been promoted to Chase’s second-in-command. He was leaning over the shoulder of an elf who looked barely old enough for his voice to change, but he was probably older than all of us. By the looks of things, the elf was trying to get the hang of using the computer.
Yugi glanced up, smiling when he caught sight of us. “Hey, girls. The chief is in his office. He told me to pass you through stat.” Just then the phone rang, and Yugi grabbed it, motioning for Officer Re’ael—as the elf’s name tag read—to continue fiddling with the terminal.
“Yeah? Where? Okay, let me patch you through to the chief.” Yugi punched a button on the phone as we filed through the cubicles toward the back of the building.
Delilah frowned. “I used to love coming here, but ever since Erika, I feel uncomfortable. Every time Chase’s office comes in sight, I cringe.” She’d caught Chase dipping his wick in another woman’s inkwell not all that long ago, right on his desk. The fallout hadn’t been pretty.
