I walk hurriedly with Rebecca over to the door. “Don’t follow us, if you do you’ll regret it,” I say and flick several sparks in their direction as a final warning before I disappear from sight.
Sweat trickles down my forehead as I take Rebecca’s hand and lead her to the stairwell I’d come up. We rush down the steps, only the sounds of our feet slapping against the floor can be heard echoing all around us. I silently pray that Whitfield doesn’t decide to take his chances and come after us.
And what about Ethan? He is so difficult to read. I can’t tell whether or not he’s relieved I managed to get away. He was definitely shocked to see me throw sparks from the palm of my hand.
As we rush down the stairs, I ask Rebecca, “Did any of them ever bite you?”
She shakes her head. “No, but the scary man back there, he said he was going to.”
I nod and we continue our flight. I relax slightly in the knowledge that none of the vampires have drank from her yet. But why haven’t they? In no time at all we reach the ground floor, but when we get to the end of the corridor just before the ballroom we are stopped in our tracks. Delilah is just leaving the bathroom. She clocks us and glances back and forth between myself and Rebecca as though we both have two heads.
She gestures to Rebecca, and whispers, “Is that who I think it is?”
All I can do is gulp and nod. Delilah’s bright green eyes widen substantially.
“Okay,” she says, and she seems to be making some sort of internal decision. A moment that seems like an eternity passes, then she just steps out of the way to let us pass. I thank her with my eyes and hurry forward. We only get a few steps ahead when Delilah cries out, “Wait!”
I stop and turn around, staring at her questioningly.
Delilah visibly swallows, then pleads, “Take me with you.”
I don’t have too much time to think about what she’s asking of me. All I know is that with Whitfield in power, Delilah getting away from the vampires is probably a good idea.
“Okay,” I answer, and she sags with relief before joining us as we scurry to get out of the building. Unfortunately, getting out isn’t going to be as easy as that, because when we reach the foyer we come to a screeching halt. A massacre is taking place before our eyes. Slayers and vampires are battling it out in Whitfield’s cold, sterile entrance room. It strikes a fierce contrast with the empty, museum like space it had been when I’d first entered the house.
Finn clearly gave up on waiting around to hear from me as to Pamphrock’s whereabouts. I notice the slayer himself amid the crowd, and he’s got his bow and arrow with him. It’s a magnificent looking weapon, all black and silver metal. He shoots an arrow and it pierces the heart of the vampire who had been coming at him.
Then my eyes lock on Pamphrock, he looks like death warmed over wearing a torn white shirt that has blood and dirt all over it. There’s also a gaping wound on his forehead. Still, he’s fighting with everything he’s got. My memory rings with Ethan’s words from long ago, when he’d spoken of the dhamphirs being the best at killing vampires because they possess all of their strengths and none of their weaknesses, such as the sensitivity to sunlight.
Pamphrock displays vampire speed as he latches onto an assailant, and quick like lightening he plunges a stake into him before tossing his lifeless body to the floor.
“Daddy!” Rebecca squeals and makes to run to him, but I grab her and hold her back.
“You can’t go to him yet,” I tell her, “it’s too dangerous.”
The room looks like some kind of bizarre battlefield, and I recognise the young slayer called Danny who’d been at Finn’s house that time he got shot. I gape in horror at him as he carries out a scuffle with none other than Lucas. The vampire clearly has the upper hand as he punches the slayer right in the face and then moves in for the kill. No! I shove Rebecca into Delilah’s arms and run towards them.
My hands move of their own accord, gesturing manically all around me. The movements are familiar, like a skill I lost years ago that is now coming back to me. Eliza was right, I am a witch, just not a normal one. My hands finish with a flourish, spanning out in Lucas’ direction. The movement pushes him away from the slayer he’d been about to kill. He flies back onto the floor, like an invisible gust of wind had swept him up.
He looks around him, trying to figure out what just happened. Then he sees me run to the slayer and help him to his feet. “What do you think you’re playing at, Tegan?” he asks, his jaw tight with fury.
“Preventing you from ruining another innocent life,” I spit.
“What – how did you do that?” his eyes are clouded with confusion now, as he realises it was me who pushed him away from the slayer, without laying a single finger on him.
He doesn’t get the chance to wait for my answer because two slayers come at him at once, and he hops to his feet to fight them off. With my arm linked through the slayer’s, whose nose is bloodied and broken, I help him over to where Delilah is standing holding tightly onto Rebecca’s hand.
Shouts and cries of pain fill the huge room, as the fighting continues. Paintings and sculptures crash to the floor, unwitting casualties of the struggle. The slayer I saved from Lucas is leaning back against the wall, holding his sleeve to his bleeding nose. Delilah is holding onto one of Rebecca’s hands and I am holding onto the other. We make eye contact, and we both know that we need to get out of here now before it’s too late.
There’s too much fighting going on close to the main doorway that leads out of the mansion, so there’s no chance of us making it past there unscathed. Then my eyes lock on a side exit, nestled over on the far side of the room. I look back to Delilah and she seems to have the same idea, because she nods at me and we begin our hurried journey over to the exit.
We only get about halfway across the room when a young looking female vampire grabs onto Delilah, effectively pulling her away from us.
“Finally,” says the woman, “I get the chance to kill Cristescu’s little pe
t sister.”
Delilah winces at the woman’s words. This is clearly one of the many vamps who have been giving her a hard time because she’s a dhamphir and doesn’t belong with them.