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Now if only it had been a sharpened stake able to puncture his chest.
Sun seemed content to slap the vampire around. He was grinning, like this was fun. I just stared and wondered where he’d come from and why he thought beating up an evil vampire—rather than staking him—was a good idea. Did he even know Roman was a vampire? And how the hell was he able to beat him up in the first place? Roman dodged the blows from the staff, but he wasn’t able to get to his feet, much less get in a strike of his own.
Their speed seemed impossible. Sun’s next blow came even as Roman dodged the last. Though Sun never stopped moving, striking, none of the subsequent hits landed. They were two perfect warriors.
Meanwhile, something had happened to the room—the candles flared brighter, and the chalk lines on the floor had taken on some of their own light.
“Cormac?” I asked.
“I see it,” he said. He was holding his side and wiping his bloody face on his sleeve.
Sun seemed to have a strategy that may not have involved destroying Roman. Instead, he was leading Roman away from the door—giving us an escape route. I grabbed Ben to get his attention. Together we helped Cormac to his feet. Cormac moved sluggishly. He was fine, I told myself, heart racing. He’d be fine.
The candles were sparking now, hissing with fire. I had to squint my eyes against them.
“Wait a minute,” Cormac said, his fingers digging into my arm as he tried to wrench out of my grip, to turn back. “His spell, it’s reacting—the pearl, it’s here, it’s here!”
We stopped. Roman heard him, too, because he looked at us.
“What are you talking about?” I hissed, because it didn’t make any sense. The pearl hadn’t been here when we got here, I didn’t see anything that looked like a pearl now—what had changed?
Sun. Sun had arrived.
The young man had backed off. Planting his staff on the floor, he leaned on it and regarded us with a big goofy grin, as if he’d just delivered the punch line of a really awful joke. His breathing wasn’t labored, though sweat gleamed on his hairline.
He hooked a thumb around the strap of the bag he wore over his shoulder and said, “You want this? I don’t think so.”
Roman turned to him with a look of such hunger and determination, his craggy face had gone slack. Sun smiled like it was a game.
“Sun, get out of here!” I called, my voice thick with desperation, despair.
“You get out,” he said. “I’ve got it covered.”
Roman lunged for him.
“Ben,” I said, clinging to him.
“I don’t know why he doesn’t just run,” Ben said.
“He’s got something in his hand,” Cormac said.
“Who, Sun? Or—”
No. Roman had pulled something from his pocket and threw it in the space behind Sun. The powder hit the flares along the ring of candles and exploded, knocking Sun off his stance. He hit the floor, rolled—didn’t drop his staff, but ended up on his back, with the vampire looming over him.
I lunged forward. “We have to help, we have to stop—”
Again they were too fast, and I was too slow. Sun swung to block Roman. Roman ducked and slashed with the knife he held in his other hand, slicing through the strap of the bag.
The vampire grabbed it, strode away, and came face to face with me. Ben was at my shoulder. I sure hoped Cormac was conjuring some spell to counter him.
From under my shirt I pulled out the cross Cormac had given me, back at the beginning of the night, eons ago. I held it up to him, sure that it wouldn’t do any good, but needing to try.
Sure enough, Roman’s lip curled, mocking me. “You know I can destroy you.”
“You can’t have it,” I said, nodding at the cloth sack in his hand. Something heavy inside it bulged.
“Yes, I can.”
