No, not necessarily, I realized a moment later. Strigoi occasionally had work-arounds. Trucks and vans with dark, completely sealed cabins. Underground entrances. Moroi wanting to casino-jump from the Witching Hour knew about secret tunnels connecting certain buildings. Dimitri would have known about all this too. If he'd been waiting for me to come outside of wards, he would have done whatever it took to get to me. I knew better than anyone else how resourceful he was.
I also knew he was trying to distract me with talking.
"And strangest of all," he continued, "you didn't come alone. You brought Moroi. You've always taken risks with your own life, but I didn't expect you to be so hasty with theirs."
Something occurred to me then. Aside from the faint hum of the casino on the other end of the hallway and the sounds of our fight, everything else was silent. We were missing an important noise. Say, like, the alarm from a fire door.
"Lissa!" I yelled. "Get the hell out of here! Get them all out of here."
She should have known better. They all should have known better. That door led to the upper floors--and outdoors. The sun was still out. It didn't matter if the alarm brought hotel security down on us. Hell, that might scare the Strigoi off. What mattered was that the Moroi fled to safety.
But a quick check of my bond told me the problem. Lissa was frozen. Stunned. She'd suddenly seen who I was fighting, and the shock of it was too much. Knowing Dimitri was a Strigoi was one thing. Seeing it--really, really seeing it--well, that was different. I knew from personal experience. Even after being prepared, his appearance still unnerved me. She was blindsided, unable to think or move.
It only took me a heartbeat to assess her feelings, but in a fight with a Strigoi, a single second could be the difference between life and death. Dimitri's chatter had worked, and although I watched him and thought I had my guard up, he got through and shoved me against the wall, hands pinning my arms so painfully that I lost my grip on the stake.
He put his face right up to mine, so close that our foreheads touched. "Roza..." he murmured. His breath was warm and sweet against my skin. It seemed like it should have smelled like death or decay, but it didn't. "Why? Why did you have to be so difficult? We could have spent eternity together..."
My heart thundered in my chest. I was afraid, terrified of the death that I knew had to be seconds away. And at the same time, I was filled with sorrow over having lost him. Seeing the features of his face, hearing that same accented voice that even now wrapped around me like velvet... I felt my heart breaking all over again. Why? Why had this happened to us? Why was the universe so cruel?
I managed to flip the switch again, once more shutting out the fact that this was Dimitri. We were predator and prey--and I was in danger of being eaten.
"Sorry," I said through gritted teeth, shoving hard--and failing--to break his grip. "My eternity doesn't involve being part of the undead mafia."
"I know," he said. I could have sworn there was sadness in his face but later convinced myself I must have imagined it. "Eternity will be lonely without you."
A piercing shriek suddenly rang in my ears. Both of us winced. Noises intended to startle humans were hell on sensitive hearing like we had. Yet I couldn't help but feel relief. The fire door. Finally, those idiots--and yes, I had no qualms about calling my friends idiots when they were acting that way--had left the building. I felt sunlight through the bond and took comfort in that as Dimitri's fangs neared the artery that would spill the life's blood from my neck.
I hoped the alarm would distract him, but he was too good. I struggled once more, hoping I could use surprise on him, but it was to no avail. What did surprise him was Eddie's stake plunging into the side of his stomach.
Dimitri snarled in pain and let go of me, turning on Eddie. Eddie's face was hard, unblinking. If seeing Dimitri fazed him, my friend didn't show it. For all I knew, Eddie wasn't even registering this as Dimitri. Probably all he saw was a Strigoi. It was the way we were trained. See monsters, not people.
Dimitri's attention was off me for the moment. He wanted to draw out my death. Eddie was simply an annoyance he needed to rid us of so that he could continue the game.
Eddie and Dimitri engaged in a dance similar to the one I'd been in with Dimitri earlier, except that Eddie didn't know Dimitri's moves like I did. So Eddie wasn't able to completely avoid Dimitri grabbing him by the shoulder and shoving him to the wall. The maneuver had been intended to crush Eddie's skull, but Eddie managed to shift enough so that it was his body that took the brunt of the impact. It still hurt, but he was alive.
All of this took place in milliseconds. And in those fleeting moments, my perspective shifted. When Dimitri had been looming over me, about to bite me, I had managed to overcome that impulse to think of him as Dimitri, the person I'd once known and loved. Continually forced into a victim position, with my life about to end, I had kept kicking myself into fight-fight-fight mode.
Now, watching someone else battle Dimitri... seeing Eddie's stake snake out at him... well, suddenly, I lost that cool objectivity. I remembered why I'd come here. I remembered what we'd just learned from Robert.
Fragile. It was still all so fragile. I'd sworn to myself that if we reached a moment where Dimitri was about to kill me and I hadn't learned more about saving Strigoi, I would do it. I would kill him. And this was my chance. Between Eddie and me, we could take Dimitri down. We could end this evil state, just as he'd once wanted.
Yet... less than a half hour ago, I'd been given a small piece of hope that a Strigoi could be saved. True, that part about a spirit user doing it was absurd, but Victor had believed. And if someone like him had believed...
I couldn't do it. Dimitri couldn't die. Not yet.
I shot out with my stake, a hard strike that raked the silver point against the back of Dimitri's head. He let out a roar of rage and managed to turn and push me off while still fending Eddie away. Dimitri was that good. But Eddie's stake was getting closer to Dimitri's heart, and my friend's gaze was unwavering, intent on his kill.
Dimitri's attention flitted between the two of us, and in one small lapse--only half a breath long--I saw Eddie get his stake in the zone, ready to take a shot at Dimitri's heart. A shot that looked like it might succeed where mine had failed.
And that was why, in one smooth motion, I struck out with my stake, swiping it across Dimitri's face and knocking Eddie's arm aside as I did. It was a beautiful face. I hated to mar it but knew Dimitri would heal. As I made that attack, I pushed past him, shoving into Eddie so that he and I stumbled toward the fire door that was still shrieking its warning. Eddie's stony face registered surprise, and for a moment we were deadlocked: me pushing him to the door and him pushing back toward Dimitri. I saw the hesitation, though. The positioning was off, and Eddie was on the verge of shoving me into a Strigoi, which his training wouldn't allow.
Dimitri was already seizing the opportunity, though. His hand reached out and grabbed my shoulder, trying to jerk me back. Eddie caught hold of my arm and pulled me forward. I cried out in surprise and pain. It felt like they were going to rip me in two. Dimitri was by far the strongest, but even stuck in the middle, my weight played a role, and I lent my force to Eddie's, which helped us gain some ground. Still, it was slow going. Like walking in honey. For each step I managed forward, Dimitri dragged me back.
But Eddie and I were making slow--and very, very painful--progress toward the wailing door. A few moments later, I heard the clatter of feet and voices. "Security," grunted Eddie, giving me a tug.
"Shit," I said.
"You can't win," Dimitri hissed. He'd managed to get both hands on my shoulders now and was overpowering us.