“Get out of my way, you giant Viking,” I said, disentangling myself from him in order to run around the corner. I hesitated for a second, unsure which way to go. I was in a reception area, a flight of stairs on my left, while the space to my right was taken up with an empty curved desk, and the typical setup of chairs and small occasional tables bearing what looked like informational pamphlets. Across the wall on the far side of the room was a banner that proclaimed, THE BROTHERHOOD AND YOU! FIVE SIGNS THAT YOU MIGHT BE HAUNTED.
“Wait for us; we’re coming, too,” Magda said as I hurried up the stairs.
“You need me. I go with you,” Mattias told me.
“No! Stay with the reapers, all of you! They could be up to something, and Andreas is alone with them!”
Rowan, who had been about to follow, nodded and disappeared back into the hallway. Magda and Raymond continued on, determined looks on their faces.
“We’re your posse,” Magda declared as we reached the top. I was a bit breathless, but didn’t pause, just charged down the corridor that resembled the one behind us. “You need us.”
“My dear, really, posse?” Raymond asked somewhat wheezily as I opened door after door, searching for the man whose life was woven into mine. “You don’t think that’s a bit dated?”
“I love you!” declared Mattias as he followed them. “I want to be your posse, too!”
“Do you have a better word for it?” Magda asked Raymond somewhat snappishly.
“Well . . . associates.”
“Dammit, Kristoff, where are you?” I muttered, flinging open the door next to me, giving the room a quick once-over, and running to the next one. “Don’t do this to me!”
“I love Kristoff, too.”
“Compatriots,” Raymond suggested.
“That’s just being pedantic,” Magda told him, following me. “‘Compatriot’ is much more dated than ‘posse.’”
“Supporters, then,” he offered.
“We’re her friends, not garter belts!”
The last door opened to reveal an empty room. I stepped inside it, looking around in bewilderment, defeat bowing my shoulders before I realized what that meant.
“Roof!” I shouted, shoving Mattias and Magda out of the way as they both tried to come into the room at the same time.
“Good God, a rooftop fight? I hope I have enough film left for this,” Raymond muttered as we ran en group up the last flight of stairs.
The sunlight was blinding when we emerged from the relative dimness of the offices, the heat already kicking into high gear. The roof held a tiny little garden on one side, with all the big cooling units and communication equipment on the other side. In the center of the small swath of green grass, two men lunged at each other, both clad in coats and hats, the blades of their swords flashing silver in the sun.
“Kristoff!” I yelled, shoving aside a lawn chair as I dashed forward.
“Stay back, Beloved,” he yelled, glancing over his shoulder at me.
Alec lunged, his blade coming away dulled and wet.
“Watch out!” I bellowed, picking up the chair with the intention of throwing it at Alec.
“Perhaps I should be fighting Pia rather than you,” Alec taunted him. I threw the chair, but he moved aside easily.
Kristoff snarled an invective that had Alec laughing.
“Then you would know what it’s like to watch your Beloved die before your eyes.”
“You what ?” I asked, setting down the second chair I had just hefted.
Alec laughed again, dancing around Kristoff, his blade moving so fast it was just a blur. I had no idea how Kristoff parried those jabs, but he did, moving as easily as if he’d been born to it.
“Let’s jump him,” Magda said, prodding Raymond forward a couple of steps. “You have the Taser. Go zap Alec.”
“Haven’t told her yet, have you?” Alec asked Kristoff.
“Told me that you made him a vampire? Oh, yes, he told me that,” I said, anger causing the light to gather in my palms.
Raymond watched the intricate dance as the two men fought, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t dare. They’re moving too fast.”
I agreed. And they were moving fast, inhumanly fast, their faces and hands turning red as they fought. I released the light, shaking my hands free of it, looking around for something else I could use to disarm Alec.
“You’d think vampires would have had the sense to fight somewhere they couldn’t get sunburned,” I said, eyeing a large potted plant.