Elroy fallen upon him, his face twisted and angry, his hand charged with wicked, green magic. Vikram put his hands up to shield himself from the attack, but Elroy was quickly taken down by something fast, and powerful, and his magic attack struck the ceiling harmlessly. At first, I thought it was Aiden that had come in with the intercept, but it wasn’t—it was a vampire, and behind him, there were more of them, each closing in on Elroy and pinning him down to the floor.
Elroy began charging up another spell, but one of the vampires bit into his arm, and the magic in Elroy’s hand became little more than green smoke to join the dust.
No, not dust—ash.
Aiden, Liam, and Raph came rushing over to help me and Leo get up and off the ground. My body was still sore, and burned, but the burns were third degree instead of first; more like a bad case of sun burn than standing in an oven set to full. Leo dusted himself down and wiped the blood off his mouth, then walked over to where Elroy lay, his eyes glazed over, a vampire sucking on his forearm.
“Don’t kill him,” Leo said, “I need him alive.”
“Alive?” Aiden asked, “I thought we were going to cut off the head of the snake.”
“We are, but not before I find out everything this dirt bag knows.”
“How are you going to make him talk?”
“I have my ways.”
Leo reached for Elroy and pulled him up by the scruff of his neck. The vampire had let go of Elroy’s arm, but Elroy didn’t seem to be aware of his surroundings—it was like he was drugged. “You guys gonna hold onto me or what? We’re out of here.”
I nodded and hooked my hand under his arm. Liam rushed over and did the same, and once again we were pulled through the dark space between places, crossing an immense distance in the space of only a couple of seconds. Only this time, when we came back into the real world, I had no idea where we were.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
At first, I thought Leo had brought us to a ransacked ruin; a place that had been torn apart and left for the rats. There was no light, the walls had holes in them, with cracks spreading in all directions, bookshelves, sofas, and tables had been toppled over and shattered, doors had come off their hinges… then it hit me.
“Oh my God,” I said, my hand flying to my mouth. It finally hit me that we were in the Alexandria.
“Christ,” Liam said, moving toward the door and disappearing down a hall that was almost pitch black. “Liam!” I yelled, but he didn’t hear me.
“Follow him,” Leo said, “I need to make sure this fucker doesn’t escape.”
I ran after Liam, dreading to think that something had happened to anyone in the Alexandria. As I followed Liam, I started to hear voices, murmurs mainly, faint ones, but voices nonetheless. They were coming from the main lounge area, the largest room on the ground floor. There was light in there, but it was flickering slightly, like candle light.
Liam went through first, and a chorus of voices began to rise. I came in behind him thinking of Dante, and Kyle, and the other students and mentors. When I saw Dante standing in the center of the room next to Madeline, relief washed over me like a cool wave. He was safe, and there were other people here, too—students of the Alexandria. Kyle was there, sitting in the corner of the room with Caitlyn by his side, but they looked like they’d been bashed around, everybody did.
The room itself was in ruins; ceiling fixtures had come down, the TV was smashed and on the floor, and the other door leading out of the room had been cracked in half, as if someone had taken an axe—or a chainsaw—to it.
“Dante,” I said, quickly rushing up to him. “What happened here?”
Dante looked over at Madeline, his face grave, a trickle of blood running down the side of his cheek. Madeline sighed. “We were attacked,” Madeline said.
“Attacked? By who?”
“The people who took the pictures,” Dante said, “They… did something to us, something to stop us from using our powers.”
“What?”
“We don’t know how they did it, or when they knew to attack. But they came at us from all sides, maybe a hundred of them. We only fended them off because we knew the building better than they did.”
“I… I can’t believe this.”
Leo, Vik, Aiden, and Raph came into the room now, with Elroy in tow. At first Madeline almost couldn’t believe her eyes. Elroy was here, and he was hurt. But then I noticed something wash through her. It was a subtle look she had given Leo, but one that translated exactly what she was feeling without her having to say the words.
You should have been here.
“You found Elroy,” Dante said.
“We did,” Leo said, “And we know where they’re working out of, so we can shut the whole operation down.”
“Do you really think you’ll be able to shut it all down?” Elroy asked, “I’m only one man. How many others do you think there are?”
“None, because I know you, Elroy. This is your process, your secret. You’d have put a price on your knowledge, but I doubt anyone would have been able to pay the premium for the privilege. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been the one personally overseeing operations at the theatre.”
“You don’t know anything, demon. None of you do. There are forces at work here that you can’t comprehend. Ancient forces. And one of them has come down on this place tonight like a ton of bricks. They will come again, and when they do, you won’t survive. None of you will.”
Aiden clocked Elroy in the jaw hard enough to make Elroy not only shut up, but to knock him out cold.
“Thank you,” I said.
Aiden nodded.
“Capturing Elroy is all well and good,” Madeline said, “But the Alexandria is in ruins, and we don’t know if this cult will come back tonight. We need to rebuild, and we need to do it quickly. Lilith, get the women to safety in the basement. Vikram, we’ll need your magic, but we may be having to do this well into the night.”
Liam stepped forward. “Good thing we happen to have a workforce that can only work at night.”
“What do you mean?” Madeline asked.
Liam turned his head and glanced at Leo. Leo nodded, then became black mist. “Probably best if we get all of the wounded out of here before the vampires arrive… smell of blood and everything.”
“Vampires?” Madeline asked.
“It’s a long story, but they’ll get this job done before morning.”
“I don’t like the sound of that, but fine, at this point I’ll take all the help I can get. Now, let’s get these people out of here.”
People started moving around me, and I watched them shuffling around what was left of the Alexandria. We were in bad shape, but I had been to parties that had seen a place get in worse shape than the Alexandria was. There wasn’t any time to mess around. Seconds were precious. The only thing to do was to roll up your sleeves, grab a mop and a bucket, and get to fucking work.
This was our home, and we had a job to do.
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Also by Tansey Morgan
The Last Serpent
Serpent’s Touch, #1
Serpent’s Desire, #2
Serpent’s Kiss, #3
&nbs
p; Serpent’s Bite, #4
SERPENT’S HOLD
The Last Serpent
Book 5
Copyright © 2017 by Tansey Morgan & LJ Sampere
Visit: www.tanseymorgan.com
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