Unknown - Scorched

“Leave her,” she heard Bran order. “She’s nothing. We got what we came for.”

Nothing. The word stung as if Bran had finally gotten a slice of her flesh. She had to act. Get help. Anything but crouch there.

How am I going to defeat four guardsmen? Bran, no less? It didn’t matter. She just had to. They couldn’t take Sylvius a second time, especially now that Reynard was overthrown. There was no one to keep them in check.

She didn’t really know how to fight men with swords. She would have to improvise and hope for the best.

Smoke from the spell clung to the floor, tickling her nose. She turned her head, looking under the sofa for their feet to see how close the guardsmen were. Holy Saint Bridget! One man wore modern lace-up sneakers—traded, no doubt, for one of Lore’s captive hounds. She sucked in her breath. It was one thing to be a prison guard. It was quite another to sell your charges for comfortable shoes. I’ll kick his backside clear to Kilkenny.

She gave up on her hunt for a shield and started working her way forward, crawling on elbows and knees, picking her exit point. She wanted enough room to get to her feet before she had to defend herself.

They moved away, the clank of their armor a soft percussion under the rumble of their voices. She couldn’t hear Sylvius. That silence was worse than a cry of pain. Bloody hell.

Now that they’d moved, there was more space to maneuver. Crawling from behind the far end of the sofa, she kept low to the ground and out of sight. Frantically, she tried to make a plan. If she whistled for Viktor, would he come? Could she attack Bran from behind? Surprise him with a single swift snap of the neck?

She gathered herself and peered over the arm of the sofa at an empty room.

They were gone.

Sylvius was gone. She was too late. Her throat burned with the urge to scream. How could this happen? I let them get away!

She clutched the arm of the sofa like it was the last solid thing in her world. She cursed herself for letting Sylvius stay in the Castle. I should have made him go. It doesn’t matter what he thinks will happen if he leaves this place. To hell with it.

The doorway gaped like an empty eye socket. The room was a shambles. Her room. The place where she and Mac had made love.

A horrible thought hit her.

She sprang to her feet, half flying to the bed. It was largely untouched, but her heart thumped wildly, fright ened into life, until she reached beneath the mattress and found her secret treasure. The key.

It was safe. She’d not had the courage to use it before. She’d not had the courage to face the world outside the Castle door by herself. She was going to have to do it now.

A plan flowed together in seconds. Mac was meeting with the council. They needed to know what had just happened. She needed to convince them to help. She needed to bring back enough people to defeat the immortal Castle guards.

But that meant she would have to search for Mac on the streets of Fairview, alone with her hunger. The very idea of it filled her with nauseated terror, but fear was something she could overpower. Now she had faced her vampire side. She knew what to expect, and it wouldn’t trip her up again. She would be stronger this time.

Brave thoughts didn’t stop her hands from shaking. Panic felt like a beast clawing her from the inside, but she squashed it. She was the fiercer beast now. She was a true vampire.

Constance rose, grabbed the stack of magazines Mac had brought her, and shuffled through them until she found the one she wanted. It was filled with news and sporting events and was the one he said he had delivered to his home. She ripped the address label from the cover.

October 10, 1:00 a.m. 101.5 FM

“This is Oscar Ottwell, your daytime host filling in tonight for the incomparable Errata. We’re at 101.5 FM at the beautiful University of Fairview campus. For the next hour I’ll be talking communities. I know many of the listeners out there live and work in the area some call Spookytown. Is it a business district, a ghetto, or a neighborhood? Can it be a community with so many different species in so small a space?

“To put it another way, what makes a few square blocks more than a place on a map? The cafe that remembers you like your tea with lemon? The grandma down the street who lets the kids climb her tree? Or is it the guy down the street who always gives your car a push when the battery goes dead?

“Folks, our lines are open. Call and tell me what makes a neighborhood a community.”

October 10, 1:30 a.m.

CSUP boardroom, University of Fairview campus

“That’s not the answer!” retorted George de Winter, tossing back his dark mane of overstyled hair. “Fairview is not a homeless shelter. We can’t open the door to an unlimited flood of refugee trash who can’t even feed themselves.”

Mac glared across the scuffed table at the representative for the Clan Albion vampires. The crappy overhead lights in the CSUP boardroom were giving him a demon-sized headache. “Look, dickhead, we can’t just wall the Castle up and forget about everyone inside. We have to do something.”

“The Castle has survived for who knows how many thousands of years.”

“So?”

“Perhaps it’s meant to self-destruct. It’s a prison filled with the dregs of supernatural civilization.”

“Which you don’t want in your backyard.”

“Of course not. And I don’t like your tone.”

Am I allowed to stake the stakeholders?

Once upon a time, he’d sat as police liaison on assorted committees and actually enjoyed it—but somewhere between chowing down souls and turning into Mac the Barbarian, he’d lost all patience for idiots. Fancy that.

He took a deep breath, refilling his water glass from the pitcher on the table. The others in the room exchanged glances. Mac knew he was there on sufferance, only there because he was Caravelli’s guest. Keep a lid on the sarcasm.

He tried for a conciliatory tone. “I appreciate your concerns and every effort will be made to minimize the impact on Fairview as a whole.”

De Winter gave an eye roll. “I don’t see how that’s possible. Let the rabble out of the Castle and the humans will quickly find out there’s a supernatural prison on their doorstep. Right when we’re pushing for equal rights and trying to convince them we’re good little law-abiding monsters. Good thinking.”

Mac cast a sideways glance at Holly. She was doodling on a legal pad, drawing a bat with a cartoon bubble over its head. The bubble said, “blah, blah, blah.” She caught Mac smirking and moved her hand over the drawing to hide it.

“Oh c’mon, George,” said Errata, the werecougar radio host. She was in full kitty Goth regalia, somehow managing to make stretchy faux snakeskin—black, of course—look tasteful. “Sooner or later someone’s going to start talking to city hall. Right now they think it’s an urban myth, but what are they going to say about us when they find out we’re abusing our own people? The council risks a lot more exposure by standing by and pretending this isn’t a train wreck.”

“And when someone blows the whistle, you’ll be right there to break the story,” de Winter shot back. “The biggest one since the coming out in Y2K. Forget it. Keep your scoops in the litter box, young lady.”

A hostile silence followed. Mac glanced around the table. Most looked like they agreed with the radio host. Others looked worried or about to fall asleep. The room was stuffy, plain, and ugly, one of the light ballasts humming hypnotically overhead.