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one hand numb on the wheel and the other in midair, and the only thing I could think of were the malaika in the cargo compartment. I popped my seat belt, grabbed the lever that would put my seat all the way back, and started scrambling for my life.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The rear hatch opened; I hopped out and my sneakers sank into mud. The rain was an immediate battering against every inch of me, and the malaika were heavy in my hands. The aspect poured over me in a wave of smooth-oil heat, fangs prickling my lower lip. I jerked the wooden swords free of the leather harness and pelted around the corner of the car.
Ash hunkered down in the rain, almost-eight feet of werwulf with huge shoulders under a mat of wiry fur. The streak on his head gleamed, rain slicking everything down and outlining muscle under his pelt. His claws dug into mud with tiny splorching sounds lost under a roll of thunder, and the vampires skidded to a stop, throwing up sheets of mudlaced water. The grass exploded like jackstraws, and they snarled.
Eight of them. All male, all burning with visible hatred under the lash of rain, hourglass-shaped pupils sending black threads out into their irises as the hunting-aura took them. It’s like the aspect, that aura, but it’s made of pure revulsion. They just loathe everything around them so much.
Or maybe it’s just the living they detest, even as they feed on them. Even though they’re, technically, living too. They’re the part of life that hates itself.
Why didn’t I sense them? The faint citrus taste sharpened, as if I was sucking on a piece of orange candy.
Danger candy, I’d called it, my warning taste. Why was it failing me now?
It didn’t matter. Eight against me and Ash were bad odds. But I’d bloomed, right? Not so bad now. Especially if my aspect held, spreading out in invisible lethal waves.
Where’s Graves? In the house? “Ash. Ash!” I had to shout over a long rattling roll of thunder. “Go find Graves! Find him now!”
Ash growled, his claws digging into mud, and I was afraid he wouldn’t listen. Time to think fast, only what could I do? If he decided not to do what I told him—
Silly, Anna’s voice whispered inside my head. Keep the Broken with you; he’s good cannon fodder. But if you really want him to obey, do this. And her ghostly, manicured fingers drummed against my skull.
The touch flexed inside my head, my will grinding down as the bloodhunger dilated in my throat. My mother’s locket burned with fierce cold, the silver stinging me.
I pulled the touch back, hurriedly, shaking my head. Water flew.
Ash let out a yelp and skipped sideways as if stung. I felt as if I’d just swallowed Anna’s blood again, and her training opened up inside me, ghostly silk-hung corridors stretching in every direction. Eight vampires, a storm that was certainly the work of a very old and powerful sucker, and the werwulf who’d saved my ass time and again whirled and pelted away with spooky blurring grace.
How did I do that?
Anna. Somehow, in drinking her blood, I’d taken more. Whether she’d intended it or it just happened because we were both svetocha was a question I’d worry about later.
If I survived this.
My grasp on the malaika firmed, became natural. The curved wooden swords whirled in circles, rain dripping down the back of my neck as my hair finished plastering itself to my head, my braid a heavy sopping rope. I should have been shivering and terrified out of my tiny little mind.
Instead, I dropped into first-guard, bent my knees, and had to control the urge to fling myself at them. They spread out, fangs bared, and the hiss-growl of pissed-off vampires turned the rain to trembling, flashing needles of ice. Which one’s the leader? Pick off the leader first. But they all feel the same age, which means—
I realized my mistake just as the rest of the vampires showed up. These eight weren’t the only ones. They were just the quickest on the scene, so to speak.
More deadly black shapes knifed out of the dark between the trees, lightning crackling as the sky overhead tore itself apart, and I braced myself. The malaika spun, and there was no more time for thinking.
I moved.
The first vampire fell, choking and clawing at his throat. The happy stuff in my blood that makes me svetocha also made me toxic to suckers now that I’d