floor and prepared to swing it down onto Zylas while he was pinned.
I ran out of the hallway. As the vampire raised the sledgehammer over his head, I grabbed the end with both hands. The sudden addition of my weight tore the tool out of the vampire’s grasp. I dropped to the floor, the sledgehammer smashing the tiles between my feet.
The vampire whirled on me. I stumbled backward. My heel caught on the trim where the tile floor transitioned to the hallway carpet and I fell on my butt. The vampire stood over me, smirking hungrily.
Zylas!
He was across the room, pinned under a vampire. He’d never reach me in time—not without teleporting to my side. The vampire reached down, grabbed my jaw, and wrenched me toward its fangs.
Daimon, hesychaze! I screamed in my head.
Zylas’s body turned to crimson light and shot out from under the other vampire. The blaze flashed across the kitchen, hit the infernus on my chest, and rebounded.
Zylas reformed from the light, claws flashing as he lunged. Glowing talons sprouted off his fingers and he rammed them deep into the vampire’s chest. As the vamp fell back, Zylas tore his claws free. The other vampire was still scrambling to his feet as Zylas slashed his hand sideways. Crimson runes blazed up his arm and a blade of power flashed out. It whipped across the kitchen and hit the cabinets, shearing through the wood.
The second vampire’s severed head tumbled off its body and both fell to the floor with sickening thuds.
I panted for air, still sprawled on my butt, a dead vampire lying just beyond my toes.
Zylas’s crimson eyes swept over me. “So helpless, drādah.”
Great. A new insult. I wondered what this one meant.
“I helped,” I said stiffly. “Or didn’t you notice while that vampire was holding you down?”
His tail snapped side to side. “The female hh’ainun said vampires are not strong.”
“She did.” I winced as I pushed to my feet, fighting my squirming stomach as blood pooled across the broken tiles. “These vampires looked pretty strong.”
The stairs creaked and I whirled around, stepping sharply backward and bumping into Zylas. Amalia peered around the corner, her face white.
“Is it over?” she asked.
“Yeah. Thanks for your help.”
“Like I would’ve been of any use.” She sniffed, descending the last few steps. “Robin, did you hear what they said? They recognized you as ‘the niece.’”
“Wait, as in Uncle Jack’s niece? How do they know Uncle Jack? Unless—”
“Unless they’re also looking for my dad. There was a vampire at our house too. They’re searching for him. They beat us here and—”
I glanced at the sledgehammer. “They searched this house for clues about Uncle Jack’s location, just like we wanted to. But what would vampires want with a demon summoner?”
“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “But there’s a real good chance they might find my dad before we do.”
Perched on a stool at the Crow and Hammer’s bar, I sipped my glass of water. Why did it feel like we were further from finding Uncle Jack and the Athanas Grimoire than when we’d started?
Uncle Jack’s disappearance. My mother’s letter and the unknown danger she’d feared. Claude, who was missing as well, and his illegal demon. And now vampires.
Vampires. It didn’t make any sense.
Zylas was, in my biased opinion, nearly unstoppable. With his speed, the only opponents who presented a real threat were unbound demons like him, and even if an enemy could neutralize that advantage, Zylas had demonic strength that far outstripped any human’s.
But what happened if Zylas’s adversaries were almost as fast and almost as strong as he was?
That was a big problem, especially if they outnumbered him. As he’d shown at the townhouse, his magic could tip the scales, but he had to be very careful about using it. If anyone witnessed his magic, it would mean a death sentence for us both.
I pulled my glasses off and rubbed my face.
“Want to talk about it?”
Lowering my hands, I peeked at the bartender. I’d seen him before—a tall, thin man in his late twenties with dyed black hair that hung over one side of his face, hiding one dark-lined eye. He smiled in a friendly way as he set a bowl of limes beside his station.
“I’m Ramsey,” he added.
I blushed as I slid my glasses back on. “Sorry. I couldn’t remember.”
“I figured,” he replied good-naturedly. He picked up a knife and sliced a lime in half. “Don’t worry about it. You have lots of new names to learn.”
“Are you the bartender?” I