Shadow Rising

“Nik!” I cried, turning to him.

He’d seen them too—it was clear from the stunned look in his black eyes.

I tightened my grip on my bow.

The screams grew louder and louder as the Vanpari barged inside the room, and began flinging kids out of their way. It was obvious they were looking for someone. Me.

The guards were nowhere in sight. But within a matter of seconds, the whole place had cleared out anyway. Even the paparazzi scurried away like the cockroaches they were.

I realized that it was just me and Nik squaring off against the Vanpari.

I bolted for the buffet table, wanting some kind of vantage over them. I leaped onto it, making a tray of mini donuts go flying. I raised my bow.

Nik was close behind me, his foot landing in a bowl of hummus, splattering it all over his jeans.

I surveyed the scene. Through thick dry ice and flashing strobe lights I counted ten Vanpari.

Ten. And just two of us.

Nik brought his hands up to chest height, his palms turned outwards, and began muttering in Latin. Blue electricity crackled across the surface of his skin. Then it shot out like lightning bolts into one of the Vanpari.

The Vanpari let out a shrill scream as Nik’s electric light visibly crackled across his whole body.

The guy beside him launched for Nik’s ankles. I stomped down on his hands then cracked my bow across the back of his head. Nik threw another bolt of voltage. It hit him right in the chest, sending him catapulting across the dance floor.

As he flew, I saw a strange flickering in his eyes. They were switching between gray and red. His skin was flickering too, changing between two colors. Then the dry ice swallowed him up.

The flying Vanpari was enough to catch the attention of two others. Four gray eyes snapped toward the buffet table. They locked on me. Teeth bared, the Vanpari began to charge.

My hands were remarkably steady as I raised my bow and grabbed an arrow from my quiver. But my heart was pounding with fear.

I fired off a shot, aiming it right between their two heads. The arrow whizzed through the air, grazing their cheeks. It was enough of a shock to make them stop running and dart behind the huge speakers of the sound system for cover.

Another Vanpari reached me and I used my bow like a shield, blocking his blows. I used it to shove him face-first into the punch bowl. Lurid-pink, sticky liquid spilled all over the place and the punch bowl rolled off the table to the floor.

Beside me, Nik was pummeling another foe. His Vanpari teeth had protruded from his gums. Was it weird I found them kind of hot?

“Theia, to your left!” he screamed, bringing an abrupt end to my distraction.

I looked over to see a Vanpari charging my way. It occurred to me that if I could see him this clearly, then he wasn’t using his Vanpari superspeed.

Nik’s blue electricity flew past inches from my face. I staggered back, knocking over a bowl of Twizzlers, and grabbed the wall to steady myself.

The bolt slammed into the Vanpari’s throat. He clutched it with both his hands, his eyes wide with pain, and staggered back.

Then it happened. His glimmer began to fail. It flickered in and out. The menacing exterior of a Vanpari faded away to reveal a frightened Ifrit Daimon boy behind it.

It all made sense. None of the attackers were Vanpari. They were kids who’d been given illegal potions to make them look Vanpari. They were just desperate kids like Kevin, Sandra, and Cal. Kids who’d been lured into Geiser’s violent world with money.

“They’re children!” I screamed at Nik.

“So?” he snapped back, strobe lights contorting his features. “They’re trying to kill us!”

There was no time to explain to him what we’d learned in the Chinese takeout in Brownsville. Another attacker had reached the buffet table. I kicked him square in the face.

He staggered back into the Ifrit boy, who was still clutching his throat. Scattered potato chips went flying up behind them as they tumbled back into dense dry ice.

My heart drummed. I looked around to see if the other Vanpari were heading this way. Nik’s blue electric zappy things and my arrows seemed to have driven them momentarily into hiding.

Just then I saw there was a clear path to the exit. But I knew the second I jumped off the buffet table, I’d lose my advantage. It would give them the perfect shot to strike. In a matter of seconds I’d be pounced upon by anyone still standing.

“We can get out,” I said to Nik. “But we need to go back to back.”

But no sooner had the words left my lips, than I felt someone slam hard into me. They’d come from nowhere.

“Nik!” I screamed as I felt myself being lifted off my feet.

Someone was trying to fly away with me.

Nik grabbed my legs, trying to heave me back down. But the person who had me locked in their arms was way stronger than Nik. He lost hold of me.

I started to panic as I was lifted higher. Then I felt a tugging on my bow. Someone had reached up from below and grabbed it. With the opposing force from the flying, my bow was wrenched clean out of my hands.

“NO!” I screamed.

I felt its absence like a torn-off limb.

I glanced up at the person who’d grabbed me. Though they appeared to be Vanpari, the warmth of their arms locked around me told me otherwise. The fact that they were flying was also a bit of a giveaway. But still, the glimmer was quite the headfuck. My brain couldn’t quite calibrate all the opposing pieces.

Disoriented, I felt myself suddenly plunge. I’d been dropped.

As I plummeted through the air, I tapped into my Elkie senses. I only had a millisecond to twist my body so I could land on my feet and have my knees take the impact. But a millisecond wasn’t quite enough.

I hit the ground with more force than I wanted. My legs buckled beneath me. Pain shot up both my shins. I stumbled and fell into a crouch.

Suddenly, I was grabbed from behind. A strong arm wrapped across my neck and began to squeeze. I gasped for air.

“Theia Foxglove,” a very familiar voice said in my ear.

My blood ran cold. It was Trevor.

I grasped forward, searching with my fingertips for anything that could be used as a weapon. My fingers collided with a triangular, crustless cream-cheese sandwich. I grabbed it and slammed it back into Trevor’s face, smooshing it into his eyes.

He roared with annoyance, but his arm only tightened across my throat.

I searched the floor again, stretching my fingers out desperately. The tips brushed against something solid and sticky. The punch bowl!

Asphyxiation stars were starting to dance in my eyes. I used every last bit of energy in my body to heave myself and the entire monstrous weight of Trevor closer to the bowl. But it was just out of reach. That little bit too far for me to grasp hold of. I was going to pass out before I made it.

“Finally I get to kill you,” Trevor sneered into my ear.

In my peripheral vision, I saw the flash of a blade. Trevor had drawn a knife. And not just any knife. The same one I’d seen flash in the light of my bedroom door. The same one I’d dodged as it lunged at me in my garden. Trevor had been the one who’d tried to kill me.

Why? He was a privileged rich kid. He had every opportunity in the world. He didn’t need Geiser’s money.

“It’ll be even better than killing Carmella,” he added.

I shuddered with revulsion as the truth overcame me. Trevor had killed Carmella Reed. Not for money, but because he got a kick out of it. And I’d thought Geiser was psycho.

Fury gave me a surge of power. A part deep inside of myself seemed to suddenly unlock. A feeling like flames raced through my body.

It was my Mage powers.

The punch bowl began to shake. It was moving! I was moving it with my mind, with my Mage power!

The bowl flew into my hands. Without wasting a second to celebrate, I heaved the heavy glass bowl up and over my head, slamming it backward with as much strength as I could muster.

A huge crash sounded. The grip around my neck loosened. Trevor’s knife went skittering across the dance floor.

Spluttering, I fell forward onto all fours. I took a huge gasp of air.

Once I’d recovered enough, I looked behind me. Trevor, in his Vanpari guise, was lying groaning on the floor. His glimmer began to flicker before my eyes. As he fell into unconsciousness, the glimmer faded. There lay Trevor in all his meathead glory, passed out. It was a pretty satisfying sight.

I heaved myself to my feet and glanced around for Nik. He was still standing on the buffet table, blasting orbs of electricity from his palms. Piles of semiconscious kids lay on the dance floor, their Vanpari glimmers flickering in and out.

“Hey, Theia!” a female voice cried. “Looking for this?”

My head snapped toward the voice. There, standing in the archway of the living room, holding my bow, was Emerald.

I barely had a chance to comprehend what she was doing, because it all happened so quickly. Emerald raised my bow over her head and brought it crashing down onto her raised knee. My weapon was no match for her strong cheerleader thigh. It snapped clean in half.

The grief hit me like a gunshot. I screamed.

My bow…

I felt numb. Winded.

Without thinking, I pounced. I grabbed Emerald by the throat and slammed her back against the wall.

Rather than looking pained, she looked thrilled. She flashed me a sneering smile of hatred.

“You’re as sick as your dad,” I growled.

“I’ll tell you what’s sick,” Emerald replied. “You. You dirty Elkie. You’re sick. I wish you’d die.”

I brought my fist up and slammed it into her nose. I felt the bone crack beneath my knuckles. Blood spurted everywhere, splashing onto my face.

Emerald screamed with pain. She grabbed her face. Blood gushed through her fingers.

“You bitch!” she screamed. “You broke my nose!”

She scurried into the foyer.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure Daddy will pay for the plastic surgery!” I shouted after her, watching her retreat through the front door.

I scooped down and grabbed the two halves of my broken bow. My whole body ached with emotion. It hurt more than any of the physical pounding I’d taken.

“Theia!” Nik screamed. “A little help!”

I looked toward the buffet table. There were only two Vanpari still standing.

They grabbed Nik by the ankles and heaved him off the table. His back slammed into the ground. I winced.

I bolted for them, so fast I practically flew. I barrel-rolled into one of them. We went tumbling across the dance floor toward the DJ decks.

As soon as we stopped rolling, I leaped to my feet and swirled on the spot, searching through the strobe lights and dry ice for the Vanpari. He loomed up in front of me and slammed me hard into the wall, winding me.

Just then, bright colors somewhere to my right caught my attention. My eyes flicked toward them and I saw Heidi in her fuchsia dress, cowering behind the DJ booth, cradling her bright-blue jay.

“Heidi, run!” I screamed.

She seemed paralyzed with fear.

When the Vanpari saw her cowering, he backed off. Which made it pretty obvious I was the intended target and Heidi wasn’t supposed to come to any harm. Even so, she didn’t need to see this. The trauma would stick around for years. Of course Geiser hadn’t factored his kid’s emotional health into the whole plan. Narcissistic psychopaths weren’t exactly known for it.

“Go!” I screamed at her again.

Heidi finally sprang up. Holding her blue jay in her hands, she darted for the archway exit.

But Nik and the Vanpari I’d left him to fight were right by it, pummeling one another, thrashing out blindly with fists and feet and teeth. Nik was using his Vanpari powers, moving like a blur, so fast it was impossible to keep track of him.

It all happened in a split second.

Nik had hold of the Vanpari’s arm and leg. He swung them, like a wrestler, in a wide arc.

The Vanpari collided with Heidi. She dropped the blue jay. Instead of flying away, the helpless newborn creature plopped to the floor. It let out one pitiful mewl of terror before the Vanpari staggered back and stomped it under his boot.

Heidi dropped like a stone.