Sunlight (Blood Magic 4)

“Time to pick another,” Theodore said. “You’ve only got eight minutes left before it’s stake bomb time.”

Vampires all around extended their fangs at Theodore and hissed, but they were powerless to do anything other than that small show of aggression. Ethan successfully pinpointed another vampire, and the guy instantly dropped to the floor when he shot him. I had to keep reminding myself that he would heal. Bullets weren’t fatal to vampires. Humans, however …

No, I refused to think about that.

Minutes passed, and Ethan shot another two vampires. Hope seized me as I started to see light at the end of the tunnel. He only had to guess the final vampire and my friends were safe. Unfortunately, my hope vanished when he aimed the gun at Amanda. Thanks to Rita preventing me from moving or speaking, I was powerless to stop him from making the wrong choice.

Seconds later, he pulled the trigger, and I could practically see the bullet whizzing through the air towards Amanda’s head. My heart pounded, but then Lucas appeared out of nowhere, diving in front of her and taking a bullet in the chest. He fell to the floor, bent over in pain.

“No, no, no that’s cheating. That’s not how you play the game!” Theodore cried.

His expression contorted into that of a madman as he glanced up at the clock on the ceiling. There were only sixty seconds left before the bombs ignited.

Instead of deactivating them like he said he would, Theodore disappeared into his trademark cloud of purple smoke with Rita by his side. The witches and warlocks who’d been guarding the exits vanished, too. Absolute mayhem broke out as vampires fled in every direction. I ran straight to my friends, yanking the bags off their heads and hurrying to get them out of the building before the bombs went off.

I couldn’t see Ethan anywhere, but I knew even if he got stuck inside the club he’d survive. If the myths about my blood were true, then he was pretty much indestructible.

The exits were crowded, and a sense of dread consumed me. There wasn’t enough time. We weren’t going to get out of there. I looked at Finn, Gabriel, Amanda, Alvie, and finally at Alora. I hadn’t had the chance to get to know her properly yet, but having seen the way Finn lit up in her presence, I felt just as much affection for her as I did for the others. An odd sense of acceptance swept over me.

If I was going down, I was going to go down with my friends.

But not before I did everything in my power to get us out of there first.

I took hold of Alvie’s hand and then Amanda’s as Theodore’s pre-recorded voice filled the club speakers, an eerie countdown from ten.

Ten, nine, eight …

We were still moving as fast as we could towards the exit, but there were just too many people trying to get out all at once.

Seven, six, five …

My pulse raced, the realisation that we were all about to die taking over, and all I could think about was how I never got the chance to save Rita.

12.

Finn

The moment I saw Rita looking at me through the window, I knew something bad was going to happen. Her hands began to move in a spell, and before I could stop myself, I was opening the window against my will and allowing her and Theodore to come inside. It felt a lot like when some vamp managed to pull me under their compulsion, only stronger.

The two of them rounded us all up and told us to put on black overalls and bags over our heads. Being under some kind of magical thrall, we did it all without protest. Don’t get me wrong, inside my head I was protesting something fierce, but I was powerless to do anything with my actual body. We were then loaded up into a van, and I couldn’t figure out where we were until the van stopped and we were brought inside a building.

When I heard Theodore talking to Cristescu I knew we were at Crimson. I heard what Theodore proposed, some twisted version of Russian Roulette, and there was no denying the sick game he was playing. The whole time Cristescu took those shots I was praying he got them right. I was also praying that he cared enough to shoot only vampires and not us humans.

Since we were all still alive and kicking, I guessed that he did.

I was saying a prayer to God and thanking my lucky stars I’d avoided a bullet in the head when life went and threw another spanner in the works. Theodore decided to disappear without deactivating his bombs.

What an absolute wanker.

Everybody was pushing and shoving to get out, and Tegan was looking at us all like this was the last time she’d ever lay her eyes on us. Well, fuck that for a game of soldiers. I was getting all of us out of there come hell or high water.