air like a fly, hitting the wrecked SUV. My vision went black for a moment, ringing erupted in my ears, and my body hurt. I was certain bones were broken. I didn’t know if I could feel my legs.
A roar came over me, and two things crashed together. I tried to stand and found someone to grab.
“Kaliya, you need to get up!” Cassius yelled desperately. “Please!”
I struggled to my feet, blinking several times. My vision came back slowly as I stumbled around, Cassius pulling me.
“What…”
“Raphael decided he was healed enough to join the fight,” Cassius whispered. “We can talk about it later.”
I turned to see the two men brawling. Sinclair and Raphael, throwing punches and grappling. Raphael still had the size advantage, his face nearly covered in black, and it was still growing down his neck. Every vein on Sinclair’s skin was black. The only difference I saw between them was that Raphael didn’t seem so mindless, so monstrous. He had some control.
Sinclair’s mind was long gone.
I wonder if this is what he wanted, or if he didn’t know it was going to happen.
“You have to help,” I said. “Help Raphael.” I tried to push Cassius back toward the fight, but he didn’t budge.
“You’re bleeding from your ears, Kaliya. I’m not leaving you.”
A chorus of roars and a large crash took our attention off each other and back to the fight. Raphael had been thrown into one of the black SUVs. Sinclair ran for him, and my heart raced.
“Go for the head!” I screamed, hoping Raphael heard me, hoping he understood. “Cassius, bind Sinclair again!”
“I’m getting weaker by the minute, and he’s breaking out in seconds,” Cassius snapped. “You know I can’t use magic for extended periods in this realm.”
“Try!” I staggered away from him to find my sword. Sinclair and Raphael were beating on each other again, and this time, when I looked at them, I was certain Sinclair was getting bigger. He’d been a fit man but not bulky, only my height. He looked like he was several inches taller now and had been hitting the gym for several hours a night.
Dark bindings tried to grab Sinclair, but Raphael accidentally tossed the vampire out of them.
“Hold him!” Cassius roared. “Hold him still!”
I ran toward the fight as Raphael heard Cassius and understood. He struggled to push Sinclair to the ground, and the dark bindings were taut, straining to hold the vampire. I rushed in, swinging my katana over my head.
I brought it down on Sinclair’s neck. It took three swings.
But eventually, Sinclair’s head rolled away, and the body sagged. Cassius ran up next and pulled a matchbook from his pocket, striking three at the same time and threw them on Sinclair’s body. Raphael jumped away and fell as the vampire’s body ignited into flames.
Realizing what needed to be done, I grabbed Sinclair’s hair and tossed it into the inferno.
“No one can know,” I said softly. I wobbled on my feet and fell on my ass, groaning in pain. I tried to continue talking, knowing I needed to say something important. “We can’t tell anyone what Raphael’s blood does to vampires. They’ll all want him.”
“Agreed,” Cassius said, panting. “Could you imagine if that was a more powerful vampire? We wouldn’t have been able to match him.”
I looked back and saw Carter’s body. Wherever his head went, I didn’t know, but there was his body.
“We weren’t able to match him,” I whispered. “We weren’t able to match him at all.”
He’s dead, and it’s all my fault.
I shoved the thought down and tried to blank out the feelings flying through me. Not now. Not yet. The moment I knew I was safe, I would let those thoughts come.
“You know what this means, right?” Cassius looked at me, then Raphael. “He said Mygi told him about your blood. They must have experimented with this already. They knew what they were getting into, telling Sinclair about it.”
“Maybe they thought they could…clean up? I don’t know,” I said, rubbing my head. “I don’t understand anything anymore.”
“I have a feeling we’re never going to really understand,” Cassius said softly, watching the blaze now. “He lost his mind. Raphael’s blood turned him into a mindless beast.”
“How not normal is that?” Raphael asked, falling onto his back. I could see his chest rise and fall with exhaustion.
“Unheard of,” I answered. “If he fed off Cassius or me, he would have just been more powerful, harder to handle but still of his mind. The power would have faded