I tapped my wrist. “Time’s a-ticking.” I flashed to the opposite side of the room and stopped behind the deranged rock star look-alike.
Like the angel of death, he indiscriminately selected his next victim, which happened to be a short-haired woman. He swung his fist in a sweeping motion, and a narrow line of blood appeared on her neck. She reached for the bleeding wound and then looked at her bloodstained hands. My heart sank, but then she suddenly grabbed the hands of the man next to her, and blue light flashed between their palms. The bleeding on her neck stopped, and while she could have blasted her attacker, she fled. Not every Mage knew how to fight.
I grinned mercilessly at the realization that Mr. Rockstar wasn’t a Mage. Had he been, he would have blasted everyone with energy or flashed after the woman. My fangs ached, but I locked up my Vampire. It was time to handle this situation like a Mage.
He slowly turned until his eyes locked on mine. The short blade of a bloody push dagger protruded between his index and middle fingers.
I sharpened my light. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”
A stream of words flew past his lips, but they sounded Latin. It was as if his mind and body had disconnected, and there was nothing coherent in the depths of his soulless eyes.
When he lunged at me, I hopped onto a coffee table and then jumped behind him. Though I could have blasted him with energy, why not make this fun? I grabbed a beer bottle and smashed it over his thick skull. He staggered for a moment before spinning around and headbutting me in the stomach like a bull. The air punched out of my lungs as I toppled over a chair and hit the ground. Staring up at the dark ceiling, I gasped as the worst kind of agony suddenly tore through my body—as if lions were feasting upon me. He forced sensory magic through my hands, and I experienced all the terror and pain of a victim being mauled and eaten by lions. Each time I closed my eyes, gory images that seemed real filled my head.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to run and blast the imaginary lions with energy.
Still muttering in Latin, he backhanded me. When he raised his right arm, the blade shimmered in his hand. I threw up my arms in a crisscross motion seconds before he swiped at my neck. Pain lanced my left forearm.
“Get the hell off me!” I angrily thrust my legs upward and then flipped him onto his back.
I bit his arm, and the blade fell out of his hand and skittered across the floor when he swiped his arm upward to get away from my choppers. Though his long hair curtained his face, I could see his eyes closing as he continued muttering Latin. This guy was in another world. Straddling him to make sure he didn’t go anywhere, I turned away from the wall to see what was going on.
Simone had teamed up with the furry customer as they circled the crazy Mage with the broken beer bottle. Gold lights showered them in an open area near a gilded cage. She threw some kick-ass punches, but these men were high on magic and difficult to control or predict.
Across the way, what remained of the crowd scattered like leaves in the wind. From a crouched position by a cluster of chairs, Claude slowly raised his head, his lips dripping with blood. He’d bitten the Mage, who was lying motionless beneath him.
Between Simone and Claude was the red sofa where Romeo was having the sex of his life. They were both nude from the waist down, and he pounded into her as if his life depended on it.
I winced when fire seared the flesh away from my skin. The pain intensified, and when I closed my eyes, I stood on a pyre, flames dancing at my feet and scorching my lungs.
The Sensor, now lucid, pushed dirty magic into me through my upper thighs. I punched him in the face and then seized his wrists, slamming his hands against the floor. When our palms locked, I juiced his energy to dangerously low levels. “How do you like that? Huh? I can make your toenails hurt.” Once he was weak enough, I blasted him so hard that I smelled burning hair. “Lights out.”
His eyelids fluttered and his chest heaved. When he finally lay