'They're not exactly stopped,' Owen said. He, Tristan and I stood shoulder-to-shoulder, facing the vampires encircling us. Owen held his hands out, ready to fight with magic. Tristan, always strategic, seemed to just stand there, but I knew he was calculating, planning his attack and how he would defend both of us at the same time.
'Well … at least they're distracted,' I said.
'Use your mind,' Tristan told me as the vamps came closer.
Of course. I made the thought sound confident for his benefit, but I didn't feel it. I didn't know if I could use my one major advantage in this large group of people. Especially without alerting anyone I even had the power.
'Let's do this,' Tristan growled, and faster than a blur, he'd pulled a razor-sharp disc from his belt and sent it flying at a random bloodsucker, severing its ear before even the vampires could react.
That did it. The vamps put on their speed and charged us. Tristan hit the closest ones with his power, and they dropped to the ground. He continued hitting more, and Owen and I helped with our own powers until they swarmed on top of us, and it became mano-a-mano. Well, sort of. They vastly outnumbered us.
I swung my dagger in an arc at the two leeches rushing at me, and they jumped out of reach, afraid of the silver. They separated enough to take me from both sides. I used my left hand to shoot lightning at the male vamp and used my right to wield the knife at the female. She dodged my swipes, and he tried to out-move me, but the electric current zapped him until his skin turned purple and smoke rose. He disappeared with a pop.
The female, with black hair that made her skin look whiter than white, moved fast–faster than the human eye could see–but so did I. Just one-on-one, I could focus on her mind and knew her plan before she charged me. I jumped out of her way and swung my dagger in a perfect, smooth move that sliced across her stomach. The slash wasn't deep–not deep enough to kill her–but she screeched with pain from the enchanted metal.
'You bitch,' she shrieked, flying at me again.
I jumped and cartwheeled in the air, getting another swipe across her back before I landed on my feet. Another male blurred toward my left as the female, weaker now, charged me again. Remembering everything Charlotte and Tristan taught me, I did a roundhouse on the woman, kicking her in the jaw and sending her backwards several yards. At the same time, I jabbed my dagger at the male, and it sunk three inches into his ribs. Hearing his thought about flashing, I jerked it out before he disappeared with it still in him. The female took advantage of this moment and jumped on my back. Her height and my lack of it made her feet drag, bringing us down. My dagger flew out of my hand and skidded across the ground, out of reach, as I sprawled on my stomach, the vampire on top of me.
I wiggled under her, trying to reach for my other knife on my left side. She pinned my hips down with her full weight. Her hand pushed between my shoulder blades, pressing me into the ground with all of her vampire strength. Then she grabbed my hair and yanked my head backwards so hard, I was surprised my neck didn't snap. Tristan and Owen both caught sight of my struggle, but neither could do anything, occupied with their own fights. I writhed again, but it was no use. The vampire weighed me down like a boulder on a sheet of paper.
'Vanessa and Lucas will be pissed,' she said, her voice hoarse and gravelly, 'but … oh, well. Your blood in my veins will be worth it.'
She leaned down for my throat. I reached back, grabbed her thigh with my right hand, and forced my Amadis power into her. She wailed a toe-curling scream. I gathered the power in my body and, as I had once done with Tristan, I pushed the bubble outward. She exploded off of me. I rolled, grabbed my back-up knife and sprang to my feet in time to see a silver werewolf jump at the vamp flying in the air. He knocked her to the ground and tore into her limbs. His actions signaled the other wolves to rejoin the fight.
Tristan, Owen and I had already taken out several of the Daemoni, evening our numbers. I fought with just the knife until Owen finally had a chance to toss my dagger to me. No one could beat me one-on-one. A weapon in each hand, I read my enemies' minds and danced out of their way, taking my own swipes as I spun, twirled and flipped around them. My silver blades dug mercilessly into their skin until they could stand no more and disappeared. As soon as Tristan had the chance, he swung his arm around and hit the remaining vamps with his power. They all disappeared with a resonance of pops.
Tristan and Owen instantly stood by my side, and we quickly assessed each other for injuries. Owen had a cut over his eyebrow, but that was all.
'Let's get out of here,' Tristan said, taking my hand. We headed for the bikes.
'Wait,' snarled the pack leader from behind us, his voice not quite human.
We turned and waited for him to finish transforming. Avoiding his nakedness, I averted my eyes, but all the wolves were shifting, as well. So I stared at the ground.
'Come with me,' he said, and he started for his RV.
We hesitated and then, without a word, followed the pack leader.
'The name's Trevor,' he said once we were inside. He went into the back room and came out with fresh clothes on. 'I do have somethin' for ya.'
Tristan crossed his arms over his chest.
''I don't know nothin',' Owen quoted, his voice perfectly mocking Trevor's. The Were narrowed his eyes at Owen for a moment, but then he looked at me, and they softened.
'I was ordered not to talk to ya,' Trevor said. 'Told we couldn't trust ya for nothin'. Didn't know what was goin' on, but like I said, I don't want to get in the middle of your poly-tics. But when Ms. Alexis here came out to protect us, willin' to give her life for us, I knew they was wrong. You can be trusted.'
'So you do know something?' I asked. 'About a little girl?'
'I got a message just yesterday, from another Were. He's ain't a wolf, but not from 'round here neither, and I was closest. Location-wise, you know? He said you was lookin' for a girl, and he thinks he found her. He wanted me to get the message to ya.' He knelt on a knee in front of me and dropped his head. 'I'm sorry I didn't trust ya, Ms. Alexis.'
I barely heard the apology as I tried to squelch the excitement pulsing like lightning through my veins. How did we know he was telling the truth? Or that this other Were was?
'Who is it?' Tristan demanded, also skeptical. 'How do you know you can trust this stranger?'
'I got curious and sent a couple of my wolves out. He's aw-right. Amadis, for sure.'
'And you said he's close?'
'In the Everglades. I'd go with ya, even bring some of my pack after what ya just did, but I don't need no shit from no one.'
'We understand,' I said. 'Can you tell us where, exactly, in the Everglades?'
I latched onto his thoughts and saw the location in his mind.
He pulled a paper towel off the roll sitting on the counter that separated the living room and little kitchen, and fished a pen out of a drawer. 'I'll draw ya a map.'
I almost stopped him, saying we'd figure it out ourselves because I didn't want to delay one second longer. But then I realized it could be a test–if the map he drew was the same as what I saw in his mind, we could trust him and his story. We took his map, and once again headed for the bikes. We didn't need to bring them anymore trouble.
'He's telling the truth,' I said, keeping my voice low as Tristan and Owen mounted the motorcycles. 'We're going right away, right? Now?'
Tristan shook his head. 'We need to go home first.'
'What? Why?'
'Many reasons, which I'll tell you later. Right now, we need to get out of here.' He fired up the loud engine, then stood so I could get on.
I stuffed the map into my pocket, swiped my dagger's hilt to make it disappear and swung myself onto the bike. Owen cloaked and shielded us before we took off into the darkening evening. By the time we whipped onto I-75, full night had come on, and the highway was much less crowded than it had been earlier. I didn't feel the fear at all now, so my mind kept drifting, wanting to search for the girl right away, and Owen had to keep mentally yelling at me to stay focused so he could see through my thoughts.
'Why couldn't we go right away?' I asked Tristan as soon as we stood in our own garage. After removing our cloaks, Owen had gone on home. 'We were halfway there already.'
'Because we don't know what we're going up against,' he said. 'If it's Amadis, they must have had help over
