by Holly Ryan
“I guess this means I’m fired,” I choked out, dribbling more blood down my chin.
“That’s one way of looking at it, yes,” she said. Her voice was edged with razor blades, a sound I’d never heard come out of her mouth.
“Is this what I get for not coming out with you?” I blinked hard so I only saw one of her. “Because I’m here. Let’s party.”
She shook her head, the candlelight sparkling on her ruby lipstick. “All roads led to here no matter what decision you made. We saw to that. This would’ve happened no matter what.”
We. Meaning Detective Blake behind me. I blinked hard so Sylvia’s face would come back into focus and spotted the slightest hint of an inked sun’s rays creeping up over her cleavage. At work, I’d never made it a point to study her cleavage for tattoos since she always kept herself covered.
“Nice tattoo.”
“It grows bigger every day. As does my allegiance to the Necron Brotherhood and the dark unknown.” Her dark eyes grew wide, insane, and I had no idea how I could’ve missed something like that while working for her. She probably really did have the delivery man in her trunk.
“And what do you get in exchange for allegiance?” I gazed around the table at the Senate. “Besides becoming a serial killer?”
“Power, of course. Did you not see the extent of the witchcraft I did to your vampire prisoner from the back alley? I’ve been waiting for the dark unknown to come for years, ever since I found a Necron Brotherhood book at an old witch’s bookshop, so I started helping the dark unknown clear the way to the Tunnel to Nowhere before he even arrived. He was most pleased and rewarded us with a hint of the power he’ll give to us once it’s all over.”
All over as in me dead, I assumed.
“Now she’s so far past making simple witch’s ladders, it’s laughable,” Detective Blake said, moving closer to Sylvia.
I frowned. “Yet no one’s laughing.”
“Least of all you,” Sylvia snapped. “The dark unknown promised us even more power if we kill you ourselves.”
Okay, I was really getting tired of the three of us flapping our jaws in a room full of dead people. I’d dropped my stake and Night’s Fall when my face had been flattened with a metal tray, but out of the corner of my eye, it still held its symbols. Long enough to dispatch these two and get back to the cemetery before its power turned dangerous?
“He loves getting others to do his dirty work for him, doesn’t he?” I leaned against the table to prop myself up, even though my slayer healing power had already started kicking in. The seraph knife strapped to my thigh was out of sight from them, blocked by the dead Senate members on either side of me. Keeping an eye on the two Necron witches, I crept my hand closer to it.
“The dark unknown has more important things to bother with than a silly blonde slayer,” Sylvia said.
“Not so silly to remember to come to work every day though.” I kept my gaze on her and her high heels. No way she’d be able to catch me in those, so I would aim for her boy toy, the artery in his neck to be specific. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
Shifting my gaze to Detective Blake, I gripped the hilt of the seraph knife and then hurled it. Just like a stake. Just like Jacek had taught me. Its silver blade caught the glow of candlelight as it spiraled through the air. I lunged for Night’s Fall on the floor before I split toward the door, glancing over my shoulder. The knife struck home in his shoulder. Not his neck. Fuck. Fuck.
“Blake!” Sylvia shouted.
He cried out and clutched near the blooming red wound, but I was already racing out the door.
I barreled into the narrow hallway with Cleo’s bloody paw prints marking the floor. I had to go. I couldn’t look for her or the servant girl, and I couldn’t let it tear me to pieces.
The door banged open behind me. Footsteps, then a rough grip snatched at the back of my jacket, and suddenly my feet no longer touched the ground. The wall to my right came at me fast, cracking against the side of my body so hard that the wall imploded. Drywall and plaster hailed down. My lungs flushed all the air from my body on impact, but I didn’t have time to draw another breath. The grip tightened on my back, and the left wall moved into my periphery. I crumpled against it, the force of my head likely causing the biggest dent, and then I dropped. The ground smashed against me, rattling my bones so much that darkness edged around my vision.
I fought to drag in a breath, even a sliver of air. But I couldn’t. Pain wracked my body and so did a terrifying numbness in some parts, which was somehow even worse. My arms flailed out in front of my head like dying fish, grasping...grasping for Night’s Fall which lay just out of my reach.
“It’ll be my honor to bring the dark unknown your head,” Blake said from behind me.
My world was closing in on me one lung at a time. I still hadn’t hauled in a breath. My body wouldn’t behave. But I willed myself toward Night’s Fall.
“And you even let me borrow your seraph knife to do it with,” Blake said. “Where did you get this?”
I dragged myself toward the sword while blinking away the night that kept tunneling my vision. Eddie. Jacek. Sawyer. I needed to get to them. The bites all over my body buzzed with energy, an invigorating snap that pushed the darkness away. My fingertips touched the hilt of the sword, and the cool relief of it filled my lungs with enough air to clear my head slightly. I needed to grab the book. Then I needed out. I could make it. But first...
“I said, where did you get—”
I took up the sword, jack-knifed my body so I faced Blake, and brought the sword down in a wide arc. The long black blade sliced through his chest, bursting a line of red down his tuxedo shirt.
“Fucking whore,” he roared, but he was leaning at an odd angle.
Or I was.
I scrambled to get my legs underneath me, for my feet to move away, and then I shot out of the hallway and into the blood-soaked grand piano room. The keys bellowed several bassy flat notes when I collapsed against them. In the darkness, with a head that felt like it had been backed over in slow motion with sandpapered tires, I couldn’t see all that well.
So when I stumbled out into the brightly lit entryway, seconds away from the book and the front door, I didn’t immediately notice the crystal chandelier crashing toward my head. A breath away from being lit on fire and crushed with the huge contraption, I dodged. Away from the book. Away from the door. Because I fucking had to. The chandelier exploded, slicing crystal icicles through the air. Some bounced off my back, but most bit into my skin and spiked through my hair into my scalp, even when I ducked and covered my head.
“Sylvia,” Blake shouted from behind me. Footsteps crunched against broken crystals, the exact same sound as some of my bones when I moved.
I sagged against the stair banister so I could turn and see what my odds were of getting out of here alive. Then instantly regretted it. Blake held my seraph knife in one hand and was limping over the fallen chandelier toward one of the knight statues. He broke the sword free from the statue’s grip and then turned to me, a murderous gleam in his eyes.
He was bleeding terribly though. But so was I. Yet he had the advantage because he was closer to the door. Even without a chandelier to hurdle over, I doubted I’d make it past Blake in my current state before he ran me through with his sword.
Looked as though I was headed upstairs like a horror movie fail. I hauled myself up the steps, my whole body groaning, grinding, while I held Night’s Fall out for defense and kept out of Blake’s sword’s range.
He caught the direction of my gaze and grinned, though it wobbled with pain. “My sword’s bigger than yours. Five feet of hard steel.”
My next step slipped into the blood river on the steps, and I just about took a knee. “Do you measure all phallic symbols? It’s a wonder you get anything done.”
He coughed out a laugh that sounded like I’d sliced through a lung. “I have no worries in that department, believe me.”
I rose
up another couple of steps out of his range. “So you do measure it.”
“He does,” Sylvia called from above.
Blake slowed his pace and lifted his gaze. I risked a glance too. Sylvia walked along the second floor toward the top of the stairs, her fingers trailing the balcony banister. The mirrored wall caught her reflection, but it looked nothing like my former boss. Her face had melted, and her movements were jerky and unnatural, her head twitching. Inky shadows dripped from her finger behind her, eating up the floor and cracking over the glass like Paul’s nightmare reality. On the other side of the stairs, her reflection on that mirrored wall did the same thing, bringing all the shadows to the top of the stairs, right where I was headed.
My stomach rolled at the sight of her, at what she’d become or what she’d always been. If she weren’t a raging witch, maybe we could’ve been friends.
I cut my gaze to Blake, slowing my ascension up the stairs to a crawl just before I lunged. He blocked, our swords clashing together so hard it vibrated my teeth. I brought Night’s Fall down and swiped. He blocked that, too, just barely, his fancy dress shoes sliding in the blood on the stairs. Our movements were jerky and slow because we were both bleeding out heavily, but I didn’t have time for an epic sword battle. We clashed again, our swords scraping along each other, and I shoved him back as hard as I could.
“It’s okay,” I said, forcing a pained smile. “I measure my dick too.”
His question-filled gaze connected with mine an instant before I lunged once again. He was too late to block, too late to keep from tipping backward even while he flailed for something to hold on to. Night’s Fall plunged into his neck, forming a perfect crimson rose against his tattoos that grew brighter and bigger. His mouth formed an O as he crashed backward and slid down the steps to the shattered crystal floor.
Something banged against the front door.
“Belle!”
I gasped. That was Sawyer. Because I’d focused on my bites, and it had brought him here. Jacek, too, from the sound of it. They were slamming against the doors at full volume.
I started to go to them, but the stairs began to blacken and crumble with Sylvia’s touch underneath my feet, and with it, a horrible, raw pain. Not the physical kind, but the emotional kind that flickered an image of Mom right in front of me. I jerked back, a choked cry strangling my throat.
“Just let it happen, Belle.” Sylvia’s voice floated from above. “She’ll be waiting for you.”
Mom looked exactly how I remembered her, gorgeous in her yellow sundress printed with cherry blossoms and a dazzling, mischievous smile on her face. The smile didn’t waver when arms snaked around my front and brought two blades up to my throat, their sharp edges digging into my skin.
Never in a thousand years would she be smiling right now.
React. Not with my sword because she’d have all the time in the world to cut my neck out before I swung it around. My stake, then. The only one I felt for sure was the one in my boot, which seemed way too far away.
“This will be better for everyone, Belle.” Sylvia kissed me on the cheek and began to cut the blades into my neck.
But I’d already dropped my sword and was bringing both my hands up to grip her wrists tight. I yanked them down hard while ducking free from her arms, and then I did something else I’d never done before. I punched my boss in the face. She went down like a sack of lead on the blackened stairs, her whole body twitching and writhing violently. Her melted face stared up at me, no longer just a reflection. I wondered if the power Paul had given her was similar to Night’s Fall’s in that it went dangerously bad after a while, or if this was normal for her when she went to dinner parties.
“You’re making this so much harder than it needs to be,” she shouted. “Just accept it.”
“Nah.” I pulled the stake from my boot, glancing to where Mom had stood. She was gone, again, making me wince.
“You’ll never win.”
Taking a deep breath, I bracketed Sylvia’s spasming body with my legs. My mouth soured. Memories of our time together at The Bean Dream dominated my head, like our shared love of sarcasm and inhaling coffee. A lot of people probably fantasized about killing their bosses, but this was ridiculous and horrifying at the same time. I swallowed hard and brought the stake down right into her heart.
“Neither will you,” I whispered as her twitching slowed and the light in her eyes faded.
The blackened nightmare she’d brought with her smoothed out to the way everything had been, leaving her slumped on the marble stairs that were slicked with blood.
“Belle!”
Jacek and Sawyer pounded on the door. But this wasn’t my house. I couldn’t invite them in. Nobody could since everyone was dead.
Tears burned my eyes as I blinked up at the top of the stairs where the bloody smear curved to the left. I had to know who it belong to see if it was too late to save them. Blood poured from my sliced neck, so I ripped the hem off my Scooby-Doo T-shirt and tied it around to staunch the flow. Then I clambered off my dead boss and went to retrieve Night’s Fall. Its symbols were almost gone. I likely had minutes. But I dragged my way up, the dark fog inside my head wobbling my steps until I dropped to my knees into a crawl.
On the top step, I peered around the thick wooden banister and followed the bloody trail to its end with my gaze. There, inside what appeared to be a bedroom, was Cleo at the edge of a bed. A thin, pale arm dangled over the top of the blankets and touched the top of the dog’s head, who sat there with a forlorn expression on her sweet doggy face. She whined, a heartbreaking sound, and I knew that it was his friend Lolly lying in that bed, murdered.
A sob welled up from my throat, and I crushed myself to that top step while my bitter tears plinked to the bloody marble. It wasn’t fair. All these people were dying, and for what? Because someone wanted me dead. How did that even make sense? Try to take me out, not Tim, the cemetery grounds man. Not an innocent servant girl. Not even the Slayer Senate, though they were far less innocent. Still, no one deserved to be murdered like that.
And yes, I was aware of my own hypocrisy. I murdered brand new vampires for a living, but only because their bloodlust caused them to murder. It was a never-ending cycle of death and murder, and oh my god, it was driving me bonkers.
Nails clicked along the marble, and then a soft tongue licked at my ear.
I angled my head to look at Cleo, and my heart made an instant decision. “You want to come fight a war with me?”
She sat by my head and puffed up her chest like a complete badass. Damn right she was coming with me.
Chapter Eight
We started down the stairs, me and my new furry companion, and I gathered all my weapons that belonged to me. As we passed Detective Blake Friday, our feet splashed in a tinged-black pool of blood around him. The ink from his tattoos, I realized. Maybe he’d spelled them on himself with Paul’s magic to make himself look like a cool Brotherhood member or whatever.
Cleo paused at the bottom of the stairs, eyeing the sea of broken crystals with a hell-no face.
“How much do you weigh?” I asked. “Thirty, thirty-five pounds?”
She glanced up at me and then away. If she was anything like me, she was likely regretting all that apple pie. Could I even lift her? I couldn’t even stand up straight without help from the banister. But we weren’t getting out of here unless we went forward.
I bent over, wrapped my arms around her belly, and heaved. “Whoa. More than thirty-five.”
She let out a low growl, but she didn’t protest any more than that when I adjusted my grip and tried again. She dangled precariously, her hind legs skimming over the broken chandelier that surely would have hurt her paws, but good enough, because I could no longer stand up. I hunchbacked it across the crystal sea to the front door and cracked it open enough to let her out safely. Heavy footsteps pounded outside as I turned to get the book behind the potted plant.
“Slayer,” Jacek called, his voice pan
icked. “Why are you a dog now?”
I reappeared in the doorway, propping myself against the frame, book and weapons in hand. “I’m not.”
“Thank fuck.” He caught me around the middle as I tipped face-first into the porch. “Are you all right? What happened?”
“The Senate... They’re all dead.”
That truth hit me all over again, and the ramifications of that just about dropped me to my knees. I was it. The last slayer, because there was no one else to choose a new one.
“Belle!” Sawyer blurred to my other side to help keep me upright. Soot and grit painted his bronze complexion, making him look like he’d just stepped out of a warzone. Jacek too. “We have to go. We have to go right now.”
The alarm in his voice stripped me to my last nerve. Sawyer never got scared. The trapdoor had likely opened, but something else must’ve happened too. And it was then I realized who was missing.
“Where’s Eddie?” The shrillness in my voice sliced through the quiet darkness.
“Shh.”Jacek stroked my blood-slicked head. “We’ll explain, but we have to go back first.”
Panic solidified in my lungs, threatening to block everything else out. Cleo, a few steps ahead of us, trotted back to nudge her warm body between Jacek and me, then between Sawyer and me, as if she thought she could provide better comfort. All of them could. I needed all I could get.
Once we were off the porch, I raised Night’s Fall into the air as high as my rattling ribs would allow. But before I could say anything, an animalistic growl sounded from behind us. Not like Cleo at all. Footsteps snapped over broken jewels at a run.
The four of us turned as one. Detective Blake Friday flew out the front door, his long sword raised high.
Jacek dove in front of me, barring my body with his.
Sawyer jumped in front of both of us and ripped Blake from mid leap off the porch. He threw him down on the ground, and then there were not one but two sickening crunches that I didn’t keep my eyes open for.
