The woman in the shadows vanished, then reappeared off to the left, as if she had glitched over a few feet. When she reappeared, she spoke, but her voice was quiet, muffled, as if she held her hand over her mouth.
“Sorry, didn’t catch that last part,” I said.
With a little more clarity, the woman said, “You need to know something, Joseph Hunter.”
“Then spit it out. I have a hot date with a barstool and a bottle of tequila, and I can’t be late.”
“As with Callie, so with Melanie,” she said, speaking my daughter’s name. “If you wish to see them, though, lay down your arms and surrender.”
Well, that sealed the deal. Like lightning flashing across a stormy sky, I dropped my hunting knife to the ground and drew the Glock from its holster, firing a shot shot that registered like thunder. The bullet passed through the woman’s forehead as if through mist, slamming into a cement pillar and throwing shards of concrete across the parking garage.
She disappeared into the darkness.
I had a brief second to cough out a nervous laugh before the Ravens screeched. Pivoting from the woman, I fixed the Glock on the center Raven and fired again. The silver-filled hollow point bored through the Raven’s head. The creature didn’t die, but the silver must have burned, for it screamed and tore at his face with its talons, shredding flesh from bone as it tried to dig out the poison I had planted into it.
Xander’s voice echoed through the parking garage.
The Ravens—like most sentient beings—didn’t care for what he had to say. They continued their advance on me. I fired four more times, a head shot reserved for each Cursed. They spasmed with agony, repeating the first Raven’s disturbing method for removing the silver. I doubted they could get it all out unless they tore off their entire faces.
Mentally calculating, I figured I had four shots left in Xander’s ten-round, dumbass, useless magazine. Holstering the gun for now, I grinned with bloody glee and bent over to retrieve the hunting knife. Walking over, I drove the silver blade across the nearest Raven’s neck and sawed off its head, relieving it of its searing pain. Magic burned through my body, waiting impatiently for me to call upon it.
A shot spoke like God’s voice, and a Raven’s face exploded. The gore splashed onto the ground and over my shoes. Another shot boomed, and another Raven fell, sans its head.
“Wait,” the woman said, her voice frigid in her sudden return.
The remaining three Ravens stilled, despite their agony.
“Joseph,” Xander said, stepping into the illuminated area of my phone’s light. His eyes were wide with terror, and that scared me more than any monster. He was a soldier, steeped in fighting nightmares. These pathetic Ravens didn’t scare him, and neither did the woman in the shadows. Which meant something had happened. Something terrible. “Joseph,” he said again, panting.
Behind me, the woman cackled. It began low and methodic, then worked its way up to a high-pitched, chaotic peal.
“It wasn’t just a trap,” Xander said. He had his two celestial guns——forged from the legendary sword, Ascalon—drawn and glowing and aimed at the three remaining Ravens. “It was a distraction.”
My heart hammered in my chest. A cold sweat broke out over my body and beaded on my face. “A distraction from what?” I asked, voice trembling. But he didn’t need to answer. As soon as I’d had asked, I knew. The woman in the shadows had told me. Without hesitation or thought, I whirled around to face her. I replaced the hunting knife for the Glock once again.
“Mel,” Xander responded, though I barely heard him speak my daughter’s name.
I emptied the remaining magazine into the woman, but the darkness had swallowed her again. I hit nothing but pillars, creating cement chips and gray clouds. Peeling my fury from where she stood, I faced the remaining Ravens.
Xander fired again, striking one creature in the back. It lurched forward, and a plume of smoke rose from its shoulders from the radiant blast. A second later, it collapsed onto the ground in a steaming mess.
“Fuck them,” I said, sprinting toward the remaining two Ravens. I didn’t plan to fight, but to flee the scene and get to Derek’s house. To get to my daughter.
One of them stepped in front of me, arms spread wide, talons long and gleaming, fangs bared. Xander pulled off another shot. Like the other Raven, it burst into melting steam before crumpling to the ground. Xander dropped one of his guns back into the chest holster he wore, then dug into his pocket and tossed me a set of keys.
“Go,” he said. “I’ll deal with this last one.”
I didn’t even hesitate.
In the grand scheme of things, vampires weren’t as powerful as legend made them out. They worked in two ways. If they had a steady diet of blood and could remain in their human form, they attacked from darkness, usually preying on unsuspecting women or children. If they hadn’t fed in a while, and their demon broke free—as with the five Ravens in the garage—then they acted more like zombies, primitive and controlled by their desires, rather than thoughtful and strategic. With only one remaining in the basement, I didn’t doubt Xander’s ability to dispatch of it quickly. We had fared far worse odds overseas, and we had always made it out alive.
I sprinted up the ramp. For a terrible second, I had to stop and reorient myself in the darkness. Where had I entered? Noticing a sliver of moonlight beaming through a propped-open side door, I ran to it and swung it open.
The misty rain had grown to a shower, coating the night in
