Page 35 of Slayer

A smart person would.

But when I passed the glass cabinet filled with some kind of trophy weapons, I couldn’t help what I did next.

I picked up a chair that sat next to the cabinet and slammed it into the glass, shattering it.

I grasped two ornate golden stakes that looked about two hundred years old and stashed them in my waistband. Next, I grabbed a harpoon gun thing with arrows and a badass-looking sword.

Students were going to die tonight; some already had by the looks of their unresponsive forms on the floor. I wasn’t going to have a clean conscience if I didn’t at least try to help.

I heard footsteps down the hall behind me and spun, stake in hand.

It was Harper and Luna, with…Jane.

“School’s closed for summer still, the vamps cut the landlines to the phones, and the cell towers are down. We found Jane though.” Harper sounded hopeful.

Crap. If the vamps cut the landlines and brought down the towers, it was because they wanted to inflict maximum damage without anyone coming to the rescue.

Sourdough Jane looked half terrified, half excited. “Harpoon gun please.” She held out her hand to me.

I gave it to her.

“Sword,” Luna said.

I handed her the long sword.

“Stake.” Harper took one of the two stakes from me.

“Let’s show these bastards what happens when they come on our property,” Jane growled.

Go Jane.

She led the charge, and without a word, they were suddenly bursting into the room, a small contingent of people who were not okay sitting around and doing nothing, feet pounding against the floor as they ran. I was about to step into the room after them when I saw the fire alarm on the wall beside the doorway.

I pulled it, letting the shrill sirens ring out throughout the entire building and lights flash at the tops of all the doors, the noise instantly overwhelming.

Maybe someone would see from other surrounding buildings and come to help.

Harper and Luna didn’t even flinch when the alarm went off. They held their weapons lightly and stalked the room, eyes sharp, looking for their prey. Whatever shock they’d had earlier had worn off. They looked ready to kill as many of these bloodsuckers as possible.

When I scanned the room, my stomach sank.

There were dead bodies. Mostly vampire. But some were students.

And more vamps kept coming. They slid through the shadows like they were an open door, bodies peeling out of darkness in pairs and trios.

Dozens of them were on us in what felt like a never-ending wave.

Professor Walters snapped his head in our direction, and I saw both fear and relief there, his chest heaving.

“V formation!” he called out and rushed to the center of the room with Asher and half a dozen other students who had found weapons and stayed behind to fight.

Jane, Harper, and Luna ran to be with them as well, so I followed suit, weaving between overturned chairs and fallen bodies.

They fanned out with military precision in the shape of a V that was reminiscent of flying geese.

Professor Walters was at the very front, cutting down vampires left and right with Asher beside him, blades flashing in fast brutal arcs. Haper, Luna, Jane, and I were at the back ends of the V, and we broke through the oncoming vampires like a bowling ball, bodies colliding and stumbling away from us.

“Nate?” the professor called, and a lanky boy with blood running down his neck in a slow stream answered him, eyes wide but focused. “I need wafers, son. I’ll bet you they somehow broke through the runes on the building. Can you get to my classroom? Top drawer?”