Chapter Thirty-Four - Teagan
Kai immediately darts in front of me, his purple fire bursting from his palms like he’s been hiding a blowtorch.
“Everyone, get back!” Kate orders.
The police scramble away, Kate standing in front of them with her baton out.
Beside me, Golden sucks in a lungful of sharp air, then whispers… “Oh my fucking god. That’s Jace.”
Startled, I look to the zombie dragging his broken leg towards us.
Golden’s right. I see it in his half-rotting, crushed face.
Jace, Golden’s big brother—a guy I stayed far away from—helped Emma create a fight club full of people no one cared about, then turned them into blood mages.
I knew some of the people Jace turned, saw them in the streets or tagging walls, saw their ‘missing persons’ posts online that barely got three likes. And I see them now, eyes vacant and moaning. Bone exposed and burnt skin decaying.
“You didn’t think I’d let good meat go to waste, did you?” Emma asks, sweet as sugar.
Apollo doesn’t give her a chance to say anything else—he lunges. But Emma smirks as she flings a whip of blood at him. He dodges, which is when more zombies begin to shamble towards us. Groaning, hands outstretched, open flesh exposing the grey bone beneath.
Kate swings her baton, which snaps the officers behind her into action, and they start fighting back.
Grabbing hold of the ugly blue chair, I jab it at the zombies, using all my strength to force them back as Kai shoots purple flames. None of the undead cry in agony as they’re set on fire or hit; they simply collapse, twitching and smouldering.
“Teagan!” Kai shouts. “Get behind me, for fuck’s sake!”
I give a zombie a swift kick. Her stomach sinks in, and when I stumble back, the indent of my foot remains, like when I’ve pressed a thumb into clay. “Like hell!”
Distracted, I don’t see zombie Jace until he’s almost on top of me. I let out a surprised yell as I try to swing my chair around to hit him. But the legs are tangled in the reaching zombie arms.
A blue chair swings into zombie Jace’s head, and he goes down without much of a fight.
“Ugly then, ugly now,” Golden spits, then helps me push back more of the zombies.
Purple fire bursts beside me, and the smell of cooking flesh and rot turns my stomach, bile rising in my throat.
Then, somewhere within the chaos, comes Apollo’s manic laughter as he fights Emma.
I just hope he’s winning.
“Aim for the head!” Kate orders the other police, her baton crushing in a zombie’s skull.
But it isn’t enough; we’re being forced into a corner. Kate and her fellow officers are pushed further back.
Kai is flagging, sweat on his forehead, his flames not as bright or as hot. My muscles ache, and Golden cries out with every swing of his makeshift weapon.
There’s a pained cry, and I look just in time to see Emma wrap her fist around Apollo’s neck. He’s a wreck; open cuts all over his face that aren’t healing. His eye is black and swollen to the size of a golf ball; one arm hangs limp at his side.
“Apollo!” I shout, gritting my teeth. My arms scream as I try to push the zombies back so I can get to him. But it’s no use; no matter how hard I shove, the zombies shove harder, and my sweaty grip on the chair begins to loosen.
“I might not need your heart—” Emma pulls her hand back, and the blood on Apollo’s face is sucked towards her bloodied nails, turning each tip into deadly sharp points. “But I won’t pass up a vampire’s heart.”
Apollo wheezes as he sucks in each laboured breath. Shaking, he brings up his hand to flip Emma off with a smirk that’s barely holding, and through red fangs, he spits, “F…fuck you, bitch.”
“EMMA PLEASE, NO!” Kai screams, high and pleading. There’s a burst of his purple flame, but it dies as quickly as it came.
“APOLLO!” Golden cries out as he’s overwhelmed by a swarm of zombies and forced to the floor.
I try to say something, but my words are stuck as I watch in unbelieving horror as Emma shoots her pointed tips at Apollo’s chest.
And the world slows down.
I scream, louder than I ever have. I push harder at the zombies, but they aren’t tiring like we are.
The sound Apollo makes when his chest is pierced cuts into me. Apollo shouldn’t make that sound; it isn’t funny or stupid or sarcastic. He’s in agony.
He’s dying.
Then, at the entrance, zombies suddenly fall or are tossed away like garbage, before a man with blonde hair and clear blue eyes appears at impossible speeds behind Emma.
“Get your filthy fucking hands off him, asshole!” he roars with a slight Russian accent, clapping his large hands on either side of her head.
Emma screeches, dropping Apollo. She tries to fight back by swinging her arms around. But our new arrival doesn’t give her a chance.
The blood mage’s neck twists with a CRACK so loud I feel it in my bones. Her face is fixed in an expression of shock as she topples to the floor with a thud.
The zombies collapse with her.
The silence that follows is filled with our heavy breathing as we wait for Emma to get up. But she never does.
“Rurik…you.” Apollo is on his knees, covered in wounds. His one eye that isn’t swollen shut is full of something too big to articulate. I doubt even my paint could capture it. “You’re here.”
The man—Rurik—crouches to gently cup Apollo’s face.
I’ve never seen anyone look at Apollo that way. To Rurik, he isn’t a menace or ridiculous; he looks at Apollo like there is no one on this earth more precious. “You needed me.”
Something shifts behind me. I jump, expecting to find the zombies moving again, but it’s just Kai helping Golden up.
Kai checks Golden over for damage. “You alright, mate?”
“Yeah,” Golden releases a drained exhale, having to hang onto my brother for support. “You, dude?”
Kai nods. “Teagan.” He motions for me. “Over here.”
I drop my chair to stumble to my brother so he can wrap an arm around me.
“It’s okay. We’re okay,” he whispers, which is when I notice I’m still shaking.
“I kinda wish I had that helmet Dad got me,” I half-joke.
“What the fuck!” Jerome shouts.
“Is everyone alright?” Kate asks, though it sounds like an order.
“Are we alright?!” Ryan shouts back sarcastically. “Are you serious?! We were just attacked by…by—”
Tired, Kate turns to us. “Are you guys holding up okay?”
I step away from Kai, but stay close, and run my hands through my hair. Having to swallow back vomit when I pull away a flap of grey skin. “I think so.”
“Kate!” Ryan shouts. “You better tell us what is happening, right now!”
More of the officers shout, object, panic. Kate tries to calm them, but that doesn’t work; if anything, they grow louder, angrier, and now we’re boxed in by another crowd.
“Nothing.” Golden’s compulsion waves out of him.
It’s soft, kind, a lie when you need it most, and all the officers, bar Kate, zone in on him. Hooked, captivated.
It’s shocking to be on the other side, to see a strange beauty roll out of Golden that enthrals the police, who stare at him as if he’s some ethereal supernatural creature.
But then again, I guess he is.
“You’re going to lock yourself behind that metal door. You won’t remember what happened. But when you’re free, you’ll delete all video footage. Because nothing happened.”
They nod as one, adoring Golden as they follow his orders, lumbering behind a metal door and swinging it shut with a metallic clang.
After a beat, Golden’s shoulders slump. “Holy shit, that worked.”
Apollo staggers toward us, one hand pressed over his wounded chest. “Lads, we gotta get outta here.”
“Shouldn’t you be healing…?” I whisper.
Apollo shoots me a wry smile, but the effort is lost when he winces. “Don’t worry about me.”
I worry anyway.
“And go where, exactly?” Kate throws her arms up at the scene. “If they don’t care about your rules against exposure, then Summer could pop up anywhere. In more populated areas to cause more danger.”
“You’ve been working on compulsion, Golden?” Rurik comes closer, and I notice Apollo purposefully move further away from him, brow drawn like he’s having to stop himself from looking at the Russian vampire. “Talented to compel that many people.”
“No, I…” Golden shakes his head, looking stunned himself. “Apollo’s right, we gotta go.”
Kai slumps against the wall.
“You okay, big bro?”
He nods, his smile strained. “I’ll text Vidar what happened.” Kai takes his phone out—freezes in place, his phone clattering to the ground.
I try to frown, but my face isn’t moving. I’m not moving.
I can’t.
Panicked, I dart my gaze to Emma to see if she somehow survived.
She doesn’t budge.
Her shadow does.
I watch, my pulse hammering against my neck, as her shadow darkens, lengthens, stretches wide like a hungry mouth and then Summer steps out. The First Blood Mage Tome at her side, and a ball of darker-than-normal blood swirling in her hand. Her eyes are an eclipse ringed in glowing red.
“Found you.”
I struggle against her spell, but I can’t even twitch a finger. None of us can.
“I tried, you know.” Summer shakes her head as if genuinely disappointed.
“I tried to get an ancient vampire’s heart.
But once we arrived at the mansion, I knew it didn’t matter how many numbers I had.
We were always outmatched.” I rage against her.
They weren’t numbers. They were her fucking family!
“But I realised something in that moment.”
Summer’s rings oscillate as light is sucked towards them. Then I feel myself begin to sink. Frantically, my gaze darts down, and with horror, I see I’m falling into my own shadow.
I look around, find that Kai, Golden, Apollo and Rurik are falling too. Kate makes a strangled noise, but she’s frozen, and left behind as we dip into a pure, suffocating darkness.
It’s like blinking—one moment we’re in the police station, and the next we’re in the basement of King’s tattoo studio, facing the twisted demon door that Summer once tried to open with our blood, creating the tether between us.
“I realised…” Summer says as she moves to the door to lay her hand at its centre. “I just need someone who drinks ancient blood regularly. Someone whose heart courses with it.”
Summer turns sympathetic eyes in Kai’s direction.
Inwardly, I’m thrashing against Summer’s spell. Outwardly, I’m a statue, and I have to watch Summer step towards my brother. Looming over him.
“I realised,” Summer says as she gently lays her palm over Kai’s heart.
A single tear rolls down his frozen cheek. I’ve never wanted to hurt another person more. I want to rip her to pieces, use my nails, teeth—anything to get her away from Kai.
“I can just take their heart, instead.”