We didn’t have long to wonder how Mage would react. “What have you done to this building?” her crisp voice called out. I turned to see the delicate vampiress gliding toward me, her movements smooth and controlled. She dabbed a blood-stained cloth against her mouth. More dark red stains covered her shirt—a gray button-down meant for Fiona. A mutant accompanied her on her right, the only surviving mutant. To her left, at a distance but clearly intent on hearing the conversation, Rachel slinked.
A flood of Ratheus vampires trailed the three of them through the doors into the atrium, their angry crimson eyes settling on me. I counted twenty-eight now. The rest were no doubt lying on the cold tile within the Merth’s border, waiting for someone to drag them to safety. But twenty-eight could still prove difficult to control, that fact driven home as I caught whispers of “witch” and “torture.” I glanced from Mage back to them, and to Viggo and Mortimer. I’m surrounded by angry, desperate vampires. This couldn’t end well. “What do you mean?” I asked, my voice intentionally airy.
Mage paused for a moment to regard me, a knowing smirk touching her lips, her eyes narrowing slightly. She turned to a tall, willowy blonde standing near the security door beside the iron garage gate. “Tanith? Please demonstrate.” The blonde vampire hesitated. “Go and open that door,” Mage pressed gently, her voice a soothing song.
Tanith stalked toward the metal door. She reached out slowly, her face pinched, her long fingers approaching the metal handle as if anticipating pain. Like a cobra, her hand shot forward the last few inches to graze the handle and pull back.
Her eyes lit up in pleasant surprise; what she had expected hadn’t happened. She glanced over at Mage as her hand clamped over the door handle. She gave it a yank. It did little more than creak. I had expected as much, given it was triple-reinforced with titanium deadbolts and a system of iron rods tunneling ten feet into the brick surrounding it. Even Viggo with all his strength couldn’t open that door without exerting significant strength.
With a sigh, Mage floated over to the door. She reached out to grasp the handle with her dainty hand as Tanith had before her. She pulled. A hair-raising metal screech echoed through the atrium as Mage ripped the security door out of its frame as if it were nothing more than a sheet of paper, sending concrete and brick flying in every direction. I had never seen a display of strength like that before. It was all I could do to keep my mouth from hanging open. In my peripheral vision, I spied Viggo’s jaw drop for a split second before he schooled his expression and clamped his mouth shut. Mage was no longer his competition. She had just proven herself to be vastly superior.
Now, with a gaping hole in the wall, the Ratheus vampires—Caden and friends falling in at the rear—bolted. They poured through the opening into the tunnel, heading toward the exterior door, the final barrier between them and the streets of Manhattan . . . and the blood they’d been craving for seven hundred years.
I wasn’t worried about them escaping. Instead I stood frozen, watching as Mage tossed the heap of metal aside and calmly approached me. I have no magic and I’m facing off against the vampire queen that I’ve single-handedly trapped in this building. I wondered how long I would survive. The mutant lingered beside her, his eyes shifting furtively to the gaping hole, no doubt wondering if he could pass.
Shrieks of pain echoed from the tunnel.
Mage crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s what I’m referring to.”
“Oh, that.” I was going for aloof but it came out sounding like a petulant child. “Well . . . ” I paused, evaluating my options. What should I tell her? They already knew I was a sorceress. Should I play dumb? Could I pretend I was as much a victim of some witch’s trap as she was, that I couldn’t get out either? Or could I blame Evangeline’s spell, say that this was a consequence? Various webs began spinning at warp speed in my mind. It was all I did lately—lie. Lie to Viggo and Mortimer to protect Evangeline; lie to Evangeline to protect her. Heck, I even lied to myself to ease my guilt over the choices I’d made.
I regarded Mage’s shrewd, hawkish eyes and some instinct cautioned me against lying this time. The truth it is. A rarity. “We can’t have blood-crazed vampires tearing through the streets of our city, especially ones who’ve already had a hand in the extinction of one world’s humans. So, I’ve laced the building with Merth. None of you will get out until I release the spell.” Go ahead and kill me, Mage. You’ll never taste warm human blood again.