18. No Escape #3
He didn’t look back to check if Thaddeus was pointing in their direction.
He and Fiona fled down the hallway. She turned right into a room that looked to be for praying.
There were thick carpets on the floor. The ceiling was covered in beautiful crystals that glittered.
Not soul gems, just pretty decorations that mirrored the night sky.
But there were no windows or other doors out of there. He shut the door after them.
“Fifi, please tell me that you can get us out of here!” he hissed as the thunder of footsteps was coming down the hall.
There were shouts and Thaddeus’ voice rose up, “The scent is fresh! They are near!”
“I can–can do it. I’m still a little messed up from whatever that structure did to me,” she admitted. “And the Spire is not helping, but I can get us out of here.”
“Good, because, unless we intend to break through the wall, we’re not getting out of here otherwise,” he told her.
He adjusted Tanis’ dead weight in his arms. For a Vampire, it was easy for him to carry her in terms of weight, but she was awkward. Not exactly a nice, stiff package. He wondered if her body would die soon. Was she still breathing? Was her heart still beating? He had no idea!
“Let’s get as close to the outside wall as possible,” she said as she moved across from the door. “And let me fully touch you and Tanis. All I need to do is get us ten feet. Just ten damned feet!”
“The door! Get through that door! They’re in there!” Thaddeus cried.
“Fifi, now or never,” Charlie said as he hoped he gave her a supporting nod.
The truth was that Thaddeus was giving him the creeps.
There was something hyena-like about that Weryn Vampire.
He imagined that Thaddeus ate dead prey.
He had no idea why he thought this, but he could truly picture that lean snout digging into the soft parts of his body and ripping bloody bits off of it.
Fiona gripped him and Tanis securely. She closed her eyes and then…
Nothing.
Except it wasn’t nothing.
The door exploded inwards and flew across the room as someone thrust both their hands against it and broke it from its frame. Both of them gasped and turned their heads towards Thaddeus and Bianca who were framed in the doorway.
“There you are,” Bianca said sweetly then to Thaddeus, she said, “Get them!”
“FIFI!” Charlie squeaked.
His stomach flipped as they teleported, but they didn’t go outside the room, but back into the hallway. They were in the midst of their enemies. Everyone turned and stared.
“Shit!” Fiona hissed.
They teleported again.
They were back in the room with Thaddeus and Bianca who were just turning back to the hallway.
“Hello there. Again,” Charlie greeted them then punched Thaddeus in the face.
There was a satisfying crunch as his nose broke and blood flowed everywhere.
“God damn you!” Thaddeus hissed.
“Let’s go, Fifi!” Charlie laughed.
“I’m trying!” Fiona laughed, too.
Both of them were hysterical.
She teleported just as he felt the plucking of Ashyr’s power on them from Bianca. The smell of roses rolled over them.
“We’re outside!” he laughed.
“We’re outside!” she cried.
They both jumped up and down for a second.
“We need to go. We really need to go,” Charlie said as he changed their looks another time.
This time Fiona was a slight Asian woman with long black hair. He was a lithe black man with short cropped hair. Tanis now looked like a sword case.
“We’ll go out through the rose garden’s back–” Fiona began, but then stopped as there was a wave of people coming through the maze. “No, not that way.”
“There! They’ve just appeared! It must be them!” An Eyros Vampire cried and thrust a finger, much like Bianca had, at them.
“Back towards the square, I think,” Charlie said as they reversed course and went in the opposite direction.
They were running, but they were soon cut off by another crowd. These crowds moved as one as if they were one being, one creature, under one mind. They skidded to a halt and reversed again, but the others were still coming.
“We need to teleport again, Fifi!” he cried.
And she had as the crowds had converged upon them like two walls of water.
They did teleport, but again, only a few feet.
He shifted them into other people, but that only kept the crowd off them for a moment.
Hands reached towards them. Clawed fingers ripped at his clothing and skin.
He lost hold of Tanis. Fiona had teleported to grab her and then teleported back.
She managed to get back to him, but when she tried to teleport again, once more they went only a few feet.
“Damnit!” he heard her curse under her breath.
Which brought them to the present moment.
The Vampires were all around them. They were being dragged down. Fiona had a hold of him and then he lost her hand. He couldn’t breathe as the waves of bodies were pulling him under. He let out a strangled cry.
“FIFI!”
He hadn’t realized that the crowd was howling and shouting at them until the noises were gone. Silence fell and nothing moved. No one moved. Then people were moving away from him and Fifi and Tanis. He looked at her and she looked at him in confusion.
The crowd parted.
His head snapped over towards it.
And he saw that smiling face with the grim, amused eyes.
His heart both lifted and fell as he said, “Eyros. Oh, no, you came.”