vans that didn’t get damaged!”
“Where are Rhys and Jade?”
“Rhys is chasing down two stray vamps, and I haven’t seen Jade yet. I’m supposed to stay in my tree.”
“Good!” My hair dripping, I hurry forward around the next curve. There are two vans stopped in the middle of the dark forest road. I hold up a fist to Leo. “Stay here,” I whisper. I close the distance to the vans. The first one is empty, doors gaping open like mausoleums. No hostiles, no Jade, and no Honora or Artemis.
Or at least that’s what I think, until I’m electrocuted from behind.
“She’s down,” a woman’s voice says. “There’s one in the trees. No, up in the trees, not on the ground. Another deeper in the forest with a crossbow. He should be neutralized soon.”
“Nonlethal force,” another voice says over a crackling feed, and this one hurts more than whatever they did to me that’s left me flat on the ground, blinded by pain and unable to move. Artemis. “Remember our goal. Full team converge on the castle; the Slayer is out of play.”
“The hell she is,” I say, my face against the dirt of the road.
“What?” the woman over me asks.
“Playtime is just starting.” I stand and punch her and she falls back, unconscious. Human. One of the creepy cloakers. I tear the door off the second van. Jade is in there, her head bleeding and her hands and feet bound. My favorite crossbow has been tossed in the back, so I grab that, then break the ropes. Jade groans, sitting up.
“Where is she?” Jade demands.
“Who?”
“Honora!”
“She’s mine.”
“First come, first serve!” Jade pushes past me and runs for the castle, stumbling and limping.
I’m about to follow when I remember that Cillian and Rhys were being pursued. I scream in frustration, then run into the trees around where I was doused. A vampire is halfway up the tree. I aim, but before I can pull the trigger, he poofs into dust from another crossbow bolt.
“Cillian!” Rhys’s glasses are askew, and his hair has abandoned all pretense of order. There’s a cut along one of his cheeks, and his eyes are wide with adrenaline and panic.
“I’m okay!” Cillian shouts from above me.
I turn on my heel. Rhys isn’t going to let anything happen to Cillian. “They’re at the castle!”
“Go! We’re behind you!”
“Bring Leo! Go in the back way, put him in the tower with Pelly, then converge on the great hall.”
Leo is leaning against a tree. “Athena, I want to—”
“Follow your orders!” I snap. “I can’t wait for you!”
I sprint, and Jade curses as I pass her easily. The front door is closed, still intact. They didn’t come in this way. I do a quick mental inventory. The dorm wing is the easiest point of access. The windows are lower to the ground, and half of them are missing. I race around the side of the castle. There are two vampires in the trees. I fire two bolts, and then there are none.
Leaving the crossbow on the ground, I jump up and catch my own window ledge, then break my window and fling myself into my room. In the hall, I hear the furtive, creeping sounds of several attackers.
“Doug!” I shout. “Come on, this way! Hide in my room!” Sure enough, I hear footsteps running toward the sound of my voice. I slam the door. A few seconds later, it bursts open to reveal two vampires. I’m standing in the middle of the room between my bed and Artemis’s. The fan whirls in a blur overhead.
“Oh no. Two vampires. Help. Help.” I pull out a stake.
The first vampire, her bumpy, tortured face incongruous beneath perfectly coiffed blond hair, charges at me. I stomp on the floorboard beneath me. The spring-loaded board … does nothing.
I’ve faced a lot of disappointment in my life, but this is right up there with the worst of it. I stomp once more in petulant disappointment. That does the trick, though. The spring-loaded board is tripped, and she flies in almost slow motion upward toward the fan blades. With a cut-short shriek and a showering of dust, she loses her head.
“Holy hellmouths, it worked! It actually worked!” I laugh in shock, jumping up and down. “I have to tell …” Artemis. I have to tell Artemis.
The other vampire has frozen in disbelief, staring at the remains of his companion floating lazily down toward the beds.
All my giddy triumph sours. Artemis is the reason I got to test our booby traps. I pick