Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Izzy
“I never should have left them,” Beth mutters in the car as we fly back to the academy. “They’re the ones I don’t trust…”
“You’d be the only one who feels that way,” I say, and I can’t keep the bitterness from my voice.
She gives me a hard look, and it surprises me. “Are you done feeling sorry for yourself?”
“Probably not,” I say, “given that we’re trying to save the godslayers and yet everyone thinks they need to kill us.”
“Mr. Time trusts you and so do many others,” she says. “You’ve been steadily proving yourselves, fits of teenage angst aside.”
“Except when we blow up half the campus,” Wilder says, and I can tell from the look on his face that it still weighs on him.
She rolls her eyes. “How many vamps, how many shifters, how many witches do you think accidentally hurt people while they’re mastering their gifts?”
Silence reins in the car as we all take that in.
“More power, more pain,” she adds. “But also more potential to protect us all.”
“Is that really what you see when you look at us?” Van glances at her, and there’s tension in the lines of his face, a darkness in his eyes, that makes me ache. Then his lips arch up in that usual Van smirk. “Or are you just trying to pep-talk us because the whining is so annoying?”
When she glances at Van, there’s something in her smile that mirrors his, like Van has met his sarcastic match. “Is there an all of the above option?”
Their glib exchange does nothing to ease the tension I feel. We have to get back to the academy and help Jessica and the others.
Beth barely hesitates as she drives toward the academy gates. The guards open them just in time, and she high tails it to the house.
“Can you tell Mr. Time what’s going on?” I ask her, afraid that the vamps have set us up and we’ll never get the chance to tell anyone our side. Too many people want to see us as evil. Plus, Mr. Time can help us stop them.
She hesitates, then nods. When the six of us all get out of the car, she sprints for the dean’s office.
The five of us look up at the house as we head toward it. The windows are dark. The house seems quiet.
The guys’ weapons shimmer into existence as they reach for them. I don’t have a weapon.
But I don’t need one. I’m Loki. My imagination--and my chaos--are all I need. I raise my hand, blooming magic across my palm, swirling around my fingers.
Together, the five of us move up into the house.
It’s dark when the door swing opens into the empty common area, our living room. I raise my hand, sparking light, and the room gets bright enough to see.
Jessica, Finn, Clancy, Tuck, and Trevor are bound on the floor. Somehow, our vamps must have gotten the jump on the godslayers here at the academy. They’re all gagged. Jessica’s eyes are wide, and she makes frantic, muffled sounds.
I spin just as the first vampire attacks. He jumps for me, his fangs wide open as he lunges at my throat.
I side-step him, grabbing his throat and slamming him down to the floor. Suddenly, he’s a red-eyed rat, scuttling across the floor frantically. One of the godslayers on the floor jerks away as if he’s afraid of the mouse, muttering a “Shit!” despite being muscle-bound and generally terrifying.
Too bad I don’t have time to laugh at him. I’m already whirling to face my next opponent. The five of us fight together as the vamps seem to drop from the ceiling and emerge from the shadows.
There are so many of them.
“We could use some help,” I say, forming my magic into a blade in my hand to cut the godslayers’ bonds loose.
But just before I reach Jessica, I sense a vamp right behind me.
Reid grabs him and snaps his neck, dropping the vamp to his feet as I turn.
“Thank you,” I tell him.
Movement at the door catches my eye, and I look up to realize that some of the students from the academy have just crowded into the doorway.
Too late, I realize they’ve seen the flashing of my magic lighting up the room, they’ve heard the fighting as bodies are thrown across the room.
Thunder booms outside and through the open door, I catch a flash of lightning.
Vamps leap at them, and I rush to try to help. The students fight back, but a vamp tears away at one student’s throat before I manage to grab the vamp and turn him into a rat too.
I’m too late for the student, though. He drops to his knees, his eyes wide, blood pouring down his throat, and the rat runs between his feet and toward the door.
Wilder steps forward in one smooth motion and punts the rat across the room--there’s the star quarterback I’ve always known--right before he turns and kills another vamp.
“Get out of here!” I yell at one of the students as I grab the vamp who just attacked her, pulling him away just as his fangs barely graze her skin. She gives me a terrified look, but shouts, “I’ll go for help!”
The truth is, we don’t need help.
We just need mortals and shifters alike to stay out of our way while we end these vampires.
It’s the godslayers bound in the room that keep our powers reined in. We have to protect them. Our power is too dangerous, too great, and so we fight hand-to-hand.
There aren’t many vampires left. One of them manages to get his fangs on my shoulder, his impossibly powerful arms wrapping around my waist. I should turn him into something, but anger washes through me at the pain from my shoulder.
I grab his face with both hands and suddenly he just melts between my hands as my palms slap together.
I look down in horror to see what looks like a vampire-sized amount of strawberry ice cream melting in a pool across my floor.
Well, that used to be my favorite flavor.
Trevor, the big, blond godslayer, stares at me, he was just behind the vampire who attacked me. He gives me an incredulous look. “I was just about to rescue you.”
He got loose of his bonds somehow, but Jessica is still tied up, and her eyes beg me to help her. I move toward her, but the big, bond godslayer stops me with a hand on my arm. I give him a look that I hope makes him realize I have no problem turning him into a sad popsicle too.
“Too bad we were too late to stop your war with the vamps before anyone got hurt,” the big, blond godslayer says.
The one next to him looks distraught, raking his hand through his hair. “And we were too late to stop you from attacking the very godslayers who tried to help you.”
He grins just as he pulls out a knife and dives toward Jessica.