If I were honest, I was also feeling more than a little guilty. I’d been crazy about Inigo for ages. We’d never done anything about it, but maybe that was my fault. I’d been so busy obsessing about his age and the fact he was Kabita’s cousin, I hadn’t let anything happen. And now I’d gone and made out with Jack.
I sighed. I really needed to get my head on straight. If I were honest, hormones were the least of my problems when it came to men.
The porch light was out again. I really needed to do something about that. If I kept burning through light bulbs at this rate, I’d have to start investing in General Electric stock.
I fumbled around for a minute trying to get the damn key in the lock while cussing under my breath. OK, not exactly under my breath. It was more like a conversational tone, if the person on the other end of the conversation was halfway across the street.
That’s when I felt it, that prickle that started somewhere at the back of my mind and spread until my spine was crawling with it. I closed my eyes, fingers still fumbling with the lock, and breathed in the night, sending my senses out across my property. I couldn’t tell the exact number, but several vampires were closing in from the left where my backyard lay in shadows and another two or three coming from the street.
I took another deep breath, Darkness seeping into my soul. That should have scared the crap out of me, the Darkness. Darkness wasn’t supposed to creep up and take residence in a person’s soul, even temporarily. Fortunately, I didn’t really have time to think about it.
They came at me in a rush, one from each side, the others hanging back. The first one to reach me got a silver tipped blade in the heart for his troubles. He was newly turned and stupid enough to think he was the top of the food chain. I showed him just how wrong he was. Unfortunately, it kind of went downhill from there.
The next vamp was female and at least a century old. Instead of heading straight at me, she feinted and ducked to my other side. She was a lot faster than the baby vamp, smarter, too. She grabbed me by the nape of the neck and swung me at the door. It probably would have broken my nose, but I managed to turn in time so my right shoulder took most of the force. I was so going to have a bruise in the morning.
She snarled at me, flashing fangs, going for my face with her nails. I managed to grab her left wrist and keep her from ripping my eyes out, despite the fact that my arm had gone nearly numb. I rammed my stiletto knife home and she vaporized, but not before I noticed her eyes were the same eerie glowing red as the other vamps I’d been dusting lately. Something seriously hinky was going on.
The Darkness gathered into me faster and faster; the night took a sharper edge. I could feel them out there, all of them rushing at me. And I could feel him, Kaldan, the oldest one of all; his dim outline flickered on the edge of my vision, mimicking life. He was out there watching and waiting in the darkness. Except tonight, the Darkness was mine.
They hit me like a ton of bricks and I went down. Hard. One of them dove for my throat, only I caught his first. I breathed in the Darkness. Breathed out and tightened my fist until I felt his windpipe crush under my fingers. It wouldn’t stop him. Vampires don’t need to breath. It would put him down for a minute though, and it’d hurt like hell. He fell back, wheezing and scrabbling at his throat.
Another one went for my throat, but hit my arm instead as I blocked him. In some far off part of my brain I could feel the searing pain, but it didn’t touch me. I was filled with the Darkness and Darkness didn’t feel pain. Instead, I calmly slipped the silver tipped knife between his ribs and closed my eyes while he turned to dust. Ashes to ashes and all that.
There was no time to gloat. In one smooth spring, I was on my feet with my sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. I’d drawn it so fast even I barely registered the movement. How very Buffy of me. I desperately tried to ignore just how weirded out I was by this whole thing. Too many vamps to kill, too little time.
They were on me, those strange red eyes filled with something very like glee, ripping and tearing at my clothes and skin, trying to shred muscle and open veins. They wanted the good stuff, and damned if I was going to let them. I slashed out with my sword followed quickly by the knife. Another vamp vaporized.
As yet another pair of fangs sank into my shoulder, the world went fuzzy around the edges, just like it had the night I’d dusted Blondie. The first night the Darkness took me. Just like before, I didn’t fight it. I welcomed it, that soft, warm Darkness. Probably I should’ve worried about that.
I didn’t. I let the Darkness take me and it laughed with joy as it filled every corner. Things got a little hazy after that.