hour away. Until then, we wait behind the safety of these walls,” Vambéry said.
Bram went to Matilda and wrapped his arms around her. “Do not look.”
Another scream.
This one came from Emily down the hall. Oh, why did we leave her?!? Even for a moment!
Vambéry was out the door immediately, pulling from his cane a long silver sword as he ran. Bram and I raced after him, with Matilda behind us.
We found Emily sitting up on the bed, the ropes that bound her only minutes earlier lying at her side unraveled. Behind her stood the tall man in black I had encountered Tuesday night, his face a deathly pale, his eyes burning red. He held Emily up, with one arm around her; the other holding her head to one side. My eyes jumped to the thin streams of blood oozing from the puncture wounds on her neck, both of which had been newly reopened. The man had blood on his lips, which I could see clearly in the moonlight as the red contrasted with the stark white of his unnaturally long teeth.
He hissed at the sight of us. This was the warning of an animal, not of a man, and the look upon his face reminded me of a feral dog.
“Release her!” Vambéry shouted. He swung his sword through the air, the silver blade catching the light as the tip missed the man’s face by mere inches.
With his free hand, Vambéry pulled the chain from around his neck, breaking the clasp and holding the small cross out in front of him. Again, the man hissed, an angry expulsion that catapulted bloody spittle across the bedsheets. With blinding speed, he released Emily from his hold and took a step back. Her unconscious body fell upon the bed in a limp heap.
Vambéry lunged, the tip of his sword targeting the man’s chest.
In the instant before the blade made purchase, the man burst apart—there is simply no other way to describe it. He exploded from his center mass outward in a burst of black—thousands of tiny fragments rushing outward in all directions. My arm instinctively covered my eyes as these projectiles pelted my body, bouncing off of me, painfully stinging me.
“Bees!” Bram shouted. “He’s transformed himself into bees!”
It was then that I heard the buzzing of drones, the room having gone from quiet to deafening.
As a child, I had been attacked by bees after disturbing their hive, and to this day I still recall the growing noise they made as they left the safety of their hive and pursued me—this faint buzz that grew louder until they were upon me. There was no build of that sound here—there was nothing, then in one instant it was as if I stood in the center of a hive.
I felt a razor-hot sting in my arm and swatted at the angry bee that had landed there. It then tore away, leaving behind its long stinger. Another bee stung my neck, feeling as if someone had plunged a knife into it.
I spotted the others swatting at the masses of yellow and black, Vambéry most vigorously. Somehow, the bees’ numbers seemed to be growing, each bee dividing in two, then dividing again. The swarm became so thick I could barely make out the other side of the room. Through pinched eyes, I found the bedroom door and started for it, each step more challenging than the last. Behind me, Vambéry began to shout, a prayer of some sort, his voice fighting to be heard over the cacophony:
“Almighty God, grant us grace that we may cast out the works of darkness and put upon us the armor of light now in the time of this mortal life in which Thy son, Jesus Christ, came to visit us in great humility, that in the last day—”
His voice was abruptly cut off by a shout, this time from Matilda. I think a bee had stung her hand, but I couldn’t see for sure. She was favoring her left arm while wildly waving her other.
Vambéry repeated the prayer, this time louder, and the rest of us joined in, our voices growing over the buzz. Almost as quickly as they