Хлоя Нейл - Hexbound

At the front of the group was a girl with long blond hair that fell in tight curls across her shoulders. She was the one who’d spoken.

The boy in black spoke again. “This is not your concern, Marlena.”

“Oh, but it is my concern,” Marlena replied. “You’re here, entertaining guests, in my territory.”

Oh, great. Not only were we standing in the middle of a mess of vampires, we’d walked into some kind of fangy landgrab.

The boy showed his fangs to Marlena, and my heart began to thud in my chest like a bass drum. I felt like I was standing in a room with a wild animal . . . or a pack of them.

“Your territory stops three blocks back, Nicu.”

“My territory stops where I say it stops.”

I leaned toward Scout. “Are they arguing about a couple of blocks of industrial carpeting?”

“Not just carpeting—entrances and exits to the tunnels. They control getting in and getting out from the Pedway. That means Adepts, Reapers, and anyone else who uses them. That’s why we avoid the Pedway.”

“Guess they’re a little fuzzy on the boundaries right now.”

“Sounds like it,” she agreed.

“Lily?” Jason asked, without turning around. “Can you do something if we need it?”

“Yes,” I told him, answering the unspoken question—could I use firespell to take them out? “But it’s a lot easier if they’re standing together.”

“Perhaps now is not the time to have this discussion,” Nicu said. “Not when there are Adepts in our midst.”

Marlena barked out a laugh. “I don’t care anything about Adepts, iubitu. Nor, I think, do they care for us.” She put her hands on her hips, her short red nails tapping against her skirt. “Are you scared?”

This time, the bravado came from Paul. “Hardly. But we do have things to do tonight. So if you’ll give us passage, we’ll get out of your way.”

Marlena and her crew took a step forward, their movements synchronized.

“Vampires do not give. Vampires take.”

Paul made a sarcastic noise. “You think no one will notice if you harm us here?

You think no one will care if you spill Adept blood in your hallways?”

“I think I find it amusing you believe we would spill your blood.” She ran the tip of her tongue across one of her inch-long canines. “Oh, to be young again.”

Ironic, I thought, since she looked like she was barely older than me.

“Lily?” Jason prompted.

“I’m not sure I have enough juice to take two shots,” I whispered. Even if I took out Nicu’s crew, that left another set of vampires who clearly weren’t conflicted about drinking from well-intentioned teenagers.

“No worries, Shepherd,” Scout quietly said. “I got this one. Parker, rile them up.

I’ll keep them talking. And when I give the word, lose the lights.”

Scout’s lids fell, and she began to mouth words. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but it must have been a spell. I also had no idea what she was planning, but I trusted her. She’d been an Adept longer than I’d been in high school, so I ignored the panicked roll in my stomach, sucked in a breath, and took a step to the left—

directly into their line of sight.

“Hi,” I said, waving until all eyes were on me. “So, Nicu, what were you saying earlier about this being your land? I think you said this was your territory?”

Just as I’d predicted, Marlena wasn’t thrilled by that. She let out a low, threatening growl. “Your kingdom? Such hubris from someone so undeserving of it.”

The woman who’d wrapped herself around Nicu untwined her arms and pulled out her own set of weapons—some kind of sharp, round blades that fit over her knuckles. Nothing you wanted to run into in a dark ally—or even a well-lit pedestrian walkway.

“And what have you done to deserve it, you harpy?”

“Me? I honor our memories, our traditions. You, on the other hand, are an embarrassment to the vampyr,” Marlena said. “You and yours are pitiful. And we know that you are weak.”

The vampires around Nicu began to hiss and show their fangs. He glared across at Marlena, his eyes half-hooded. “Never forget, Marlena, who made me vampire.”

“Mistakes,” she growled out, “can be remedied.”

Scout was still mouthing her spell. With each word she spoke, the vampires seemed to become more and more angry. Soon they were screaming at each other in a heavy language I didn’t understand.

I stood at the ready, hands at my sides, wiggling my fingertips as I waited for Scout to give me the signal to douse the lights.

“Three,” she finally said, “two, and one.”

I tugged on the power, and the lights went out above us. The vampires began to yelp. I wasn’t sure if they could see any better in the dark than we could, but they clearly weren’t happy about being plunged into darkness while enemies were in their midst.

On the other hand, they seemed to think their fellow vampires were the only enemies that mattered. As the groups rushed each other to wage their battle, we became irrelevant.

I felt a hand at my elbow. “Go,” Jason said, and we moved in a tight knot, staying close to the wall as we ran for the next corridor. They ignored us, but the sounds of a fight—ripping flesh, bruising strikes—erupted behind us.

We ran full out in the darkness. When we made it to the next corridor, Detroit finagled a light to lead the way. It was a glowing ball that bounced through the hallway, leading us to the end of the corridor and then to the left until we reached the gunmetal gray fire door. The stairwell was lit from within, and it cast an orange glow into the hallway. The bouncing light disappeared into the puddle of light.

Paul pushed at the long bar across the door, but it wouldn’t budge. “Locked,” he said, glancing back at us.

“There’s an access pad,” Jill said, gesturing toward the small white box that sat beside the door. “You need a card to open the door.”

Scout pointed at Detroit, before casting a nervous glance back at the hallway.

“Can you do something, or do we need to have Paulie rip the thing off its hinges?”

“I’m on it,” Detroit said. She moved to the wall and elbowed the panel. Just like in the movies, the plastic cover popped off. She whipped out a set of tiny tools from her leather jacket, and then she was working. A tiny screwdriver in each hand, she began to pick and pluck at the sensor’s insides.

“You okay?”

I looked over and found Jason behind me, worry in his eyes. “I’m good.”

He touched a fingertip to my thumb. “Good. Otherwise, I’d have to run back and take a bite out of crime, if you know what I mean.”

“Show-off.”

He winked.

“Got it,” Detroit announced. She pressed the plastic cover back into place, then waved her giant black watch over the pad.

For a moment there was silence, and then the door clicked as the mechanism unlocked.

Detroit pushed through the door.

“Nice job,” I said, passing by as she held the door open.

“It’s not firespell,” she said, “but it works for me.”

No argument there.

Detroit and Paul stayed by the door until we were done, then pulled it closed until it clicked shut again behind us. We filed down the stairs. A steel bar stretched across the final landing, probably to keep folks out of the basement and the tunnels. We hopped over it to reach the tall, metal fire door that punctuated the dank bottom of the stairwell and waited while Detroit jimmied the lock on a chain on the door.

I’ll admit it; I was impressed. Detroit had skills that made caper movies look low budget. But I wasn’t the only one pleased with our trek so far.

“Nice job back there,” Scout said, nudging me with her elbow. “I’m calling that Adepts, one. Vampires, zero.”