Worse, the door behind Nero and Klaud had opened, legions more of neophyte vampires spilling down the stairs.
The nerve-sizzling adrenaline I’d experienced evaporated as quickly as it had come, and I felt the familiar grip of cold, pure dread.
Abernathy tumbled out of the casket, landing in a heap at my feet.
I could see the intensity gathering on his face as he tried to transform, tried to become the version of himself both dangerous and deadly. Instead, he only managed to sprout strange patches of fur on the backs of his hands and an exceptionally unfortunate mustache.
“Give me a weapon,” he growled, dragging himself to a standing position against the coffin.
To his credit, Morrison reached into his belt and handed over a stake and the deadliest of the wickedly curved hunting knives in his arsenal.
Abernathy took them, anchoring the knife in his belt and clutching the stake in his palm. The other hand, he offered to Morrison, who blinked at it as the horde began to close in.
“If we die,” Abernathy said. “We die standing.”
Morrison closed his hand over Abernathy’s and for a moment, I thought my heart might just swell up and explode in my chest, killing me before any vampire would have time to reach me.
“We die standing,” Morrison repeated.
When the deafening pop sounded, I thought for the briefest of seconds that Morrison had punctuated this statement by resuming his shooting.
“How about we don’t die at all?”
I spun around to find Crixus leaning against the coffin Abernathy had recently vacated.
Several of the vampires glanced nervously at each other, as if perplexed by this unexpected development in the program.
“Cwixus!” Nero screamed in rage. “You are bound to Kwaud by a souw debt. If you betway him, you wiww suffer etewnaw towment!”
Echoes of Crixus’s gladiator past collided with his present as he squared his shoulders, turning to Nero and Klaud as if seeking the thumbs up or down that would save or damn the life of his opponent.
“Only if he survives,” Crixus said.
The same door Morrison and I had so tentatively entered burst open precisely at that moment. In one of the most surreal moments of my life—definitely saying something, given the day I’d had—Wallis the unicorn came thundering in, pausing on the landing to rear up on his hind legs and whinny a screaming war cry that dropped the entire room into silence.
Which he promptly ruined by opening his mouth.
“Who’s ready to get shanked, you undead motherfuckers?” he asked, brandishing his horn at the vampires nearest him.
Crixus gave us a “what you gonna do?” shrug and the action resumed.
Wallis, mowing his way through the crowd, all rainbow mane and golden hooves and “yeah, you like that bitch?” as he skewered hapless vampires with his golden horn.
Morrison, unloading clip after clip, aiming for the necks.
Crixus, broadsword in hand, lopping off head after head.
Abernathy, still unable to transform but slitting throat after throat and tossing the bodies aside like discarded husks.
And me, with my handle-stake, cracking skulls the other four had missed.
I was sweating, panting, more exhausted and exhilarated than I’d been in my life when I saw that someone else had joined Klaud and Nero, bending close to the emperor’s ear. A smile that could peel paint curled across Nero’s face. He nodded to his guest, who disappeared back through the door. Klaud gave his bell a short, sharp ring, then followed.
The vampires froze in place, fangs bared, hands like claws still reaching for our necks.
“As entewtaining as this wittle show has been…” Nero trailed a stubby finger along the railing. “I have a new offew to make you, Hanna.”
Abernathy, Morrison, Wallis and Crixus, gore be-smattered and breathless, all looked at me.
Wiping a spatter of something off my cheek with the shoulder of my shirt, I pushed a stray clump of matted red hair out of my eyes. “I’m about tired of your games,” I said.
Nero stepped aside dramatically to reveal Klaud, pushing someone through the door before him. With one hand fisted in his captive’s hair, and the other holding a blade to his throat, he pushed him into the spotlight.
Time hung frozen, horror collapsing my throat.
It was Steven Franke.
Chapter 26
One of Steve’s eyes was swollen shut, his cheek purple and puffed with a bruise. Crusted blood ran from the corner of his mouth and stained the Ramones t-shirt he had changed into for his and Shayla’s official exit from the reception. His hands were bound behind him, his ankles wrapped in a silvery chain.
“Steve!” I could scarcely squeeze his