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“Don’t even think about it,” she said, suddenly sounding like a drill sergeant on a bad day.
She didn’t look like one. She looked like a soccer mom out on the town, in a sparkly top that went well with her short gray-brown hair and big blue eyes. She even had a drink in her hand: Crown Royal with ginger ale, judging by the smell, garnished with two maraschino cherries.
I’d been about to turn around and see where all the talking, grunting, and subdued moaning was coming from, but stopped on command. Mainly because my body didn’t seem to be talking to me anyway. And if it had been, it would have been cursing.
She belted back her drink, made a face, and tossed the glass over her shoulder. “Okay,” she told me, looking determined. “I’m going to get this thing off you, and then we’ll see.”
I had no idea what she was talking about. She looked to be around fifty—the fluffy, comfortable sort of fifty, not the runs-marathons-in-her-spare-time fifty, and even if she’d been the latter she couldn’t possibly lift—
I hadn’t even finished the thought when the huge, heavy, multifaceted chandelier was chiming its way into the air, and I was noticing the wand in her other hand.
“There,” she said, sounding satisfied and proud and faintly relieved as the massive crystal monster floated away . . . through a mostly missing wall. And across a sidewalk. And into the street.
The sound of a car swerving and hitting brakes at the same time drifted to us through the gap, along with some inventive cussing, and—
What the fuck?
“Uh, can somebody get that?” she asked hopefully.
Somebody went to get that.
She turned back to me. “Okay. Now, isn’t that better?”
And then she noticed the blood spurting from a couple dozen holes in my body, which I guess the dug-in crystals had been keeping inside.
“Well, shit.”
* * *
* * *
The remains of the incinerated vampire blew on the wind coming through a destroyed window. I saw the powerful one notice, the one my twin liked. He jerked his head around in disbelief, while snapping the neck of the mage in his hands.
And then he disappeared.
For a moment, I didn’t believe my eyes. One second he was there, and the next he was not, and not because he moved. But as though he’d simply—
Veiled.
I took the word from my twin’s mind.
Not going invisible, then, so much as phasing to another plane of existence. It was . . . interesting . . . one of the more useful vampire gifts I’d seen. But the fact remained: he’d had to use a master’s power against a handful of mages, in order to save his life.
And it had. A trio of spells exploded where he’d just been standing, destroying a wall and setting several rooms beyond on fire. But they didn’t hit him, because he was no longer there.
But the mage he’d attacked was.
He was lying where he’d fallen, still twitching, but his eyes were already glazing over. So they could be killed, then. You just had to make sure they never touched you, never came close. For even a glancing blow from one of those overpowered spells could be deadly.
Understood, I thought, and surged to my feet.
* * *
* * *
Crown Royal was yelling at me.
“Get back here!”
