Page 12 of The Shade of Things
4
The ballroom waselectric with Ohrist magic, snarling shifters, and fast-moving vamps. Apparently the Carpe Demon gang had a way to protect themselves from compulsions because they didn’t just lie down and invite the undead to feast on tasty veins.
I ran for my ex, covering my head from the plaster dust raining down. Delilah was already hacking at the vamp holding Eli’s left arm with the shadow scythe. Two more swipes and the vamp disintegrated. That shadow of mine followed psychic orders like a dream.
Nav stabbed the other vamp who’d seized Eli right through the heart with his staff made of light. “You chose Miri to play Buffy with?”
“No offense,” I added, mocking Nav’s posh British accent.
“Oh, I meant the offense.” He winked.
Now free, Eli rose onto tiptoe, scanning the room, presumably for Ian. “It was work, not play.”
“Hey.” I tossed my hair. “Working with me is as fun as play and you both know it.”
“Fuck! He’s gone. You, come with me,” Eli commanded Rodrigo, pushing into the crowd without a look back to see if he had been obeyed.
Nav’s eyes gleamed at the hard-assed Detective Chu voice combined with his alpha prowl forward.
Ew! Was that what I’d looked like when Eli had used that voice on me in the bedroom? Not the thing to focus on, Miriam. I glanced at the Undertaker.
Rodrigo was not known for being meek. He answered to Zev, the head vamp of Vancouver. He wasn’t going to let some random nonmagical cop tell him what to do. He’d probably destroy Eli, not—
He strolled docilely after my ex.
My mouth fell open.
Nav made a run-along motion at me.
Grr. Men! I stomped off.
“Yo!” Leaping over a random severed hand, I pointed at Nav’s goth colleague, Clea, who grappled with Celeste. “You owe me a huge apology for locking me in a room last time we met.”
Clea threw me a flat stare and then walloped the vamp in the jaw with her superstrength.
Celeste hit the ground like a stone.
“If only you were still locked up,” Clea said.
“That wasn’t half as growly as usual. Awww, I’m growing on you. That’s apology enough.” I held up my hand for a high five.
Tough as Clea looked with her metal barbell piercing in one eyebrow, a ring through her septum, and studs in the Cupid’s bow dip of her full purple lips, I’d swear she smiled, even though she left me hanging. Okay, one of the studs in her cheek where her dimples would be sort of quivered, but I knew what it was.
Since Celeste remained down, Clea spun away to fight another foe. None of the operatives were out of commission yet, and I prayed it stayed that way.
A donor flew past me, bowling over some of his tunic-clad friends. One of them stood up but was yanked back down, narrowly missing being impaled by a series of spikes made of bone. The group crawled toward the glass doors, headed for the other donors who’d bolted outside at the first signs of trouble.
The female operative who’d fired the projectiles at a vampire ran a hand over her forearm, releasing another volley of bone weapons, which whistled through the air.
I ran after Eli using bobbing and weaving skills honed as a chubby kid forced to play dodgeball. Like that child long ago, I was a mass of bruises by the time I caught up to him.
He’d made it to the ballroom doors unscathed thanks to Rodrigo’s hulking presence at his back.
“You could have protected me too,” I said.
“I could have,” the Undertaker agreed.
I’d have roasted him with the beautiful retort I’m sure would have come to mind, but the ground rumbled, low at first, then with the intensity of a hungry bear. It was followed by a jolting lurch that shook the whole house.
