Page 43 of Your Final Resting Place

“Should I pull it out?” I reached out and winced as the broom bobbed in the air with her every buck. It looked painful, although she was thrashing so much, did she even feel it?

“No! Leave it!” Victor strained, having trouble holding her.

“What do we do?!”

Don’t panic, don’t panic. This wasn’t our fault. “Uh, Daisy? About the broom? That was a total accident. You kicked me, and I fell back, and Zee was just protecting me, and the broom well . . . the broom . . .” Had very clearly ended up inside her.

Daisy seethed and snapped her teeth like a rabid dog straining at its leash. “I am going to rip off your every appendage, Adam Vex, and then hand you over to that sorcerer in pieces!”

Zee poofed back into the closet in a second dramatic wave of purple sparks. Those same sparks danced along Shareen—his sword. In the confines of the closet, there wasn’t much room to move, or avoid what happened next.

Victor shoved Daisy forward. Zee had the sword held at shoulder height, or if you’re a twelve-year-old vampire . . . neck height.

Whether Daisy accidentally cut her own head off, or Zee sliced it off . . . who’s to know? The result was the same.

Daisy’s head plopped to the floor. A comical spray of blood fountained from her neck, painting all of us in a crimson shower, then cut off, as her body hadn’t yet got the message it was missing its head and attempted to heal the devastating and abrupt end to her neck.

Her thrashing ceased.

On the floor, Daisy’s head wobbled, and her mouth guppied like a dead fish, but after a few seconds, even that stopped.

The whole world went quiet.

The wards hadn’t activated so . . . it really had been an accident?

“Holy shizzle on a fuckstick!” Zee hugged Shareen to his chest. “What the fuck just happened?”

Victor blinked blood-splattered eyes and dropped Daisy’s headless corpse in a heap on the floor, the ineffectual broom handle still sticking out of her chest.

Right.

Okay.

“New plan.” I tasted blood, and grimaced.

We were back to where we’d been a few minutes ago, only now we had two bits of body to dispose of and a whole lot of blood spray to clean up.

“I told you staking doesn’t work,” Victor grumbled, attempting to wipe blood off his shirt but smearing it instead.

“It was my tail!” He lowered the sword, grasped his tail in his free hand and waved it. “My fuckin’ tail. I told you it does things.”

“Your tail murdered the queen?” Victor wiped his face, smearing all the blood splatters in a gory mask. “Is that what you’re suggesting happened, when it is quite clear your sword left an obvious mark!”

“Nobody did it,” I said. “The wards didn’t kick in for anyone. It really was an accident.”

Panting, Zee eyed his sword, then the dead Daisy. “Adam’s right. It really was an accident.” He blinked and looked up. “You missed a bit of blood there, Victor,” Zee said, flashing a grin.

“You are equally blood-soaked, Zodiac,” Victor agreed.

I sighed and blinked at Daisy. “Okay . . . She’s super dead this time. Let’s shove her in the portal and hope for the best.” It was our only option.

“Right. Fuck. Yes.” Zee grabbed her head, opened the cabinet, and tossed it into the pulsating hole. “Enjoy your trip, Your Highness!”

Victor neatly collected Daisy’s body and shoved that through the hole too.

Zee shut the cabinet door, brushed his hands together, and huffed. “Okay. Let’s recap. We’re still alive, and there’s one less vampire in the world. Yay for us. Now, so I don’t get fuckin’ nightmares for the rest of my life, I need the three Fs—food, then we’re gonna fuck, and some mac and cheese after.”

“That’s two Fs,” Victor said.