FIFTEEN
WHEN I RETURNED to the others, it was to find Guthrie and Edward arguing. Guthrie had retrieved the silver dagger from where I’d tossed it. Unease trickled down my spine at the sight of him holding it with a determined gleam in his eye. I checked on Rans—still more dead than alive unless Nigellus returned to fix what Myrial had done to him. Meanwhile, my father was clinging to life, his human heartbeat fast and thready to my vampire hearing.
“If you would just wait a little longer, Mr. Leonides—” Edward was saying.
“Wait how long?” Guthrie shot back angrily. “Do you want me to wait until her father’s dead? Until Myrial overpowers Nigellus and leaves Rans dead, too?”
“Guys,” I said, managing through sheer will to channel something into my voice that wasn’t screaming hysteria. “What’s going on?”
Edward frowned. “Your grandfather is considering something rash, Miss. Perhaps you’d care to convince him not to proceed?”
“Not to proceed with... what, exactly?” I prompted.
Guthrie glared at the elderly man, and Edward’s mouth thinned to a flat, unhappy line.
“With staking himself again in a foolish attempt to further weaken Myrial, wherever she is,” Edward said.
My gaze flew to Guthrie, burning with vampiric light. “Oh, fuck no,” I told him, stalking up to him until I was practically in his face.
Even though I had to crane upward to glare at him, thanks to his taller frame, looking at the stubborn tilt to his jaw was uncomfortably like looking in a mirror. Distantly, I wondered how I’d managed to miss the family resemblance for so long.
“Zorah,” he said, “if I can do something to hurt that fucking demon, I’m damned well going to do it.”
I eyed him up and down. Guthrie wasn’t bad in a brawl, especially one relying on fists and boots. He was not, however, a fighter in the classical sense of the word. Not that I was a real fighter, either... at least, not yet. I had, however, been trained by someone who was.
And that was what allowed me to dart a hand out and capture Guthrie’s wrist as he held the dagger loosely at his side. Taken by surprise, he didn’t counter as I twisted the weapon out of his grip and into mine before taking a step back, out of his reach.
“Which part of ‘fuck, no’ was unclear, exactly?” I snapped. “I swear to god, Guthrie, if you somehow manage to get hold of this again and use it on yourself, I’ll yank it out of your goddamned chest and stab myself through the heart before your body has time to hit the ground. I’ll negate any advantage you think you’re gaining us, so help me.”
A tendon worked in Guthrie’s jaw. “Zorah... goddamn it, you stubborn woman—are you just going to stand here waiting for your father to bleed out? And what about Rans? He may drive me up the damned wall, but he loves you. And you love him. Not to mention the fact that we have no way of knowing whether or not you’ll keel over dead as well, if Myrial manages to take Nigellus out while we’re sitting here on our asses.”
I wasn’t in a position to emotionally deal with the fact that Rans lay motionless at our feet, dependent on a demon I didn’t trust to keep his soul attached to his body. If I let the idea sink in too far, I was afraid I’d just... shut down. So I pretended I hadn’t heard that last part, and focused on the first part instead.
“We can save my father by turning him into a vampire,” I said. “You’ve done it before, and I’ve watched it being done. It worked on me to save me, even when Rans’ blood couldn’t. Between us, I’m sure we can manage it.”
Guthrie looked at me, flummoxed.
“S-stop talking about me... like I’m... not here,” came a weak rasp from ground level.
I whirled, looking down at my father. “Dad—”
“An’ stop trying to... fix what... can’t be fixed,” he said weakly, grimacing in pain. “Don’t want to... be a vampire. I refuse. D’you hear me?”
“Dad—” I repeated more forcefully, unable to believe we were seriously going to have a fight while he was dying of a fucking bullet wound.
Edward was still supporting my father’s upper body in his lap. “I’ve called for an ambulance, Miss—though even with the barrier down, it’s going to take some time for them to find us back here in the woods. I suspect one of you will also have to mesmerize the EMTs into ignoring the other bodies.”
I swallowed hard. One of those unmoving bodies belonged to Rans. And... nope. Still not going there. Instead, I drew breath to tell Dad to stop wasting his strength by talking—only to break off and whirl around defensively as a huge crack of noise and displaced air echoed around the clearing. Two winged forms slammed into the earth about twenty feet away, with an impact so intense that Guthrie and I staggered back a couple of steps.
“Shit!” I cried, casting around for any remaining useful weapons. But my salt dagger was already buried in Myrial’s skull, while Rans’ and Guthrie’s daggers were both lost in the tall grass somewhere. The shotgun with its rock salt shells lay in two broken pieces, the Makarov was jammed, and the silver dagger I was holding might as well have been a knitting needle where demons were concerned.
Albigard had been hanging back in silence since killing Caspian earlier, but he did step between the two demons and the rest of us with his iron sword raised, bless him. I peered around him, standing shoulder to shoulder with Guthrie, whose posture was drawn tense as a bowstring.
The two demonic figures shoved away from each other, separating from the ugly tangle of limbs and wings. Nigellus reached a hand outward. His sword materialized in it, the flames sputtering like a spent candle.
Myrial flopped
