“Auggghh!” I jumped back, because I could swear that the voice had come from me. And yes, for a second there I was getting Total Recall flashbacks, and that’s not something you need when you have a life as freaky as mine.
“Cassie!”
Quaid, start the reactor, I thought hysterically, and grabbed my boobs.
“Cassie!”
“Auggghh! Auggghh! Augg—”
And then the door was kicked open by a horde of monsters.
Only, thank God, these were monsters I knew.
Things got a little crazy after that, with a dozen vamps flooding into the small space, guns drawn and faces grim. And then confused. And then looking at me like I’d lost my mind.
And maybe I had, because there was no obvious threat. Just me with my tits in my hands, my hair everywhere, and pieces of used glamourie spotting my body. I looked like a zombie stripper.
I swallowed.
“What?” Marco demanded.
I swallowed again. “I—thought I heard someone’s voice.”
“Someone’s?”
“It . . . it sounded like—”
“There!” somebody shouted.
And then glass was shattering and bullets were firing—or maybe that should be the other way around, but who could tell while being knocked to the ground? And then, while reaching back up and grabbing the shooter’s arm, trying to force it down, because the idiot was firing right through the mirror. And on the other side was—
“Hold!” Marco bellowed, before I could.
Suddenly, there was silence.
My ears were ringing so badly, it actually sounded like the vamp was still firing. But although the gun was up, it was pointed at the floor, which appeared to be intact. As opposed to the wall which had held the mirror. And which now held a few shards and a lot of holes.
A lot of holes leading to the hall.
A hall that led to—
“The girls,” I breathed. And then, through the echoing in my ears, I heard cries of alarm coming from the living room.
I shoved a bunch of vamps aside and ran through the bedroom to the hall. Only to stop short at the sight of a dozen spears of light crisscrossing the darkness, where the brightness of the bathroom was leaking through the bullet holes. And highlighting floating dust motes and ruined wallpaper and a bunch of similar wounds on the other side of the hall—which also happened to form one wall of the living room.
And while no expense had been spared on the décor around here, the same couldn’t be said for the drywall. I hiked up my towel and ran across a minefield of plaster and glass, hoping that the bar on the living room side had been enough to stop what the wall hadn’t. And ran into Rhea, coming the other way. She looked as grim as I’d ever seen her, as grim as the night she’d dragged a bunch of little girls out of a house full of homicidal dark mages, while three witches and a clueless Pythia tried to hold off Armageddon.
And then she saw me.
And I don’t think I’ve ever seen more relief on a human face. For a second, I honestly thought she was going to faint. So I grabbed her on my way past. And then we were through, into the lounge and then the living room, where—
Where I sagged against the messed-up wall, feeling kind of dizzy myself, because they were okay.
They were okay.
But only by sheer luck.
I took in the sight of a couple bullet-riddled paintings, a smashed clock, and more wallpaper that was going to need replacing—again. And that was on the far wall of the room by the stairs, which now had a new pattern of lead slugs imbedded in it. Most of them were chest high on me, meaning that they’d missed the girls only because it was night and everybody had been lying down on a forest of cots. And were now sitting up, staring at me and Rhea with wide eyes.