was dead and there was nothing she could do about it. Right now, she needed to catch the vampire with Justin. Her jaw hurt and Elyssa realized she was clenching her teeth so tight, they felt as though they would crack.
The vampire with Justin vanished around a corner in the distance. Elyssa and Bella blurred after her, whipping past buildings and fleeing pedestrians. They rounded the corner and smacked into a crowd of waiting vampires. Bella tumbled through them, losing the grip on her staff. Elyssa converted her forward momentum into a jump kick, catching one attacker on the chin.
Bella punched one guy in the crotch from her position on the ground. He screamed and went down. She rolled away from a vampire's foot as he tried to stomp her. Elyssa dodged a clumsy lunge by an attacker and, grabbing his shoulders, vaulted over him. Her foot lashed out in a backward kick and sent him stumbling against a brick wall. Bella's staff lay only feet away.
Elyssa swatted aside a punch from a woman dressed in a skintight, leather suit who obviously thought becoming a vampire meant she could live out her Catwoman fantasy.
The woman hissed in Spanish and clawed at Elyssa's eyes. Elyssa gripped the other woman's wrists. Twisted them out and away from each other. Kneed the vampire in the stomach, and finished her with a roundhouse to the face. Catwoman went down in a ragdoll heap.
Bella yelped as one of the vampires landed a punch on her face. She wobbled but managed to keep her feet. Elyssa snatched the staff from the ground. Whirling it, she cleared a path back to Bella, clubbing vampires on the head with it. Though she'd trained with a bo staff, it wasn't her specialty. True, she had the katana Bella had given her, but even as mad as she was, Elyssa couldn't bring herself to start slaughtering these stupid sheep Maximus called followers. They were brainwashed. Not evil.
Bella dodged a furious uppercut from the vampire. Elyssa came up behind the man and swung the staff up hard, nailing him in the crotch with the knobbed end of it. She pushed the staff forward. Bella grabbed the rod. Twirled it. Crushed the man in the balls with a fierce thrust. The vampire howled and fell to the ground, clutching at his injured manhood.
The two women exchanged fierce grins, and dashed past the fallen attackers.
The street dead-ended in two narrow alleys. Elyssa cursed. "Check the left, and I'll check the right," she said over her shoulder as she ran across the road. She reached the end of the alley and looked both ways down a long, deserted street. Bella emerged on the same street on the opposite side of a tall red-brick building.
"No!" Elyssa froze with indecision. Could the woman with Justin have already gotten away? She ran back into the alley and looked up the walls. It was at least three stories to the top and too wide for her to brace against. Elyssa ran up the left wall. About six feet up, she jumped the gap to the other wall. The moment her foot touched the rough brick, she reversed momentum and leapt back across. Within seconds, she reached the lip of the roof and pulled herself up.
The view here was better, but the crowded buildings and snarled alleys hid too much. The only movements she saw were still-fleeing pedestrians and the occasional car or truck in the distance. Police had formed a blockade on one end of the road, but not the other. The vampire with Justin must be headed away from the blockade, but there were too many narrow passageways and side streets for her to lose herself in. For all Elyssa knew, a waiting vehicle had already picked her up and Justin was gone.
"She went that way," Bella shouted from the ground, pointing toward a glowing green line wending down an alley.
"You used a spell?"
The other woman nodded. "We have to hurry. The trail will fade."
It'd take too long to get back down, Elyssa realized. Reversing her ascent wasn't as easy as jumping down the walls. She'd end up breaking her leg or worse, and the time required to recover would be all the time the abductor needed to get away. She looked at the street below. At the trail leading down the alley. She backed up to the opposite edge of the roof. Sprinted toward the ledge. Jumped.
Bella shouted something unladylike from below. Elyssa swung her arms