I liked it, too.
And that scared me as much as anything. It was insane.
He stepped forward, so slow and sure. He’d become a cobra, and me the mouse.
Nope!
I shoved my hand into my pocket and withdrew the potion bomb. My movements were faster than my brain, and before I’d realized it, I’d chucked the bomb at his feet. The cloud of pale blue dust poofed up, enveloping him.
I ran, not even waiting to see if it had worked. Heart pounding, I sprinted for the door. It opened easily, and gratitude welled within me when I realized there were no guards.
Unable to help myself, I shot one last look into the room behind me. The Devil was frozen mid-step, looking perfect and terrifying at the same time. It made my heart thunder all the harder, and I spun.
I’m getting the hell out of here.
I ran down the hall, pursued by the demon of fear. Visions of him catching me flashed in my mind. Once, I heard people coming from an adjacent hallway, and I slowed.
I couldn’t be caught. Right now, the only thing I had on my side was stealth. No one knew that I’d frozen the Devil. With any luck, I’d get out of there before they realized it.
The bright sun outside was a siren call, and I followed it. The halls were as confusing as they had been when I’d come in. Whatever spell they’d used to mess up my mind had worked. But I kept striding confidently down the hall as I searched for the way out.
At one point, I passed two women in tight pencil skirts and black shirts. Both looked hot as hell and sharp as knives, their red lips matching their upswept hairdos that mimicked styles of the past. As they passed, they looked at me, heads tilted in confusion. I gave them a tight nod, pretending that I knew what I was doing. Somehow, I managed to keep my heart from smashing out of my chest and smacking them in the face.
They passed by, and I moved faster.
Finally, I found the nightclub part of the tower. It was early in the day and still fairly empty, and no one paid attention to me as I strode through. In the small entry chamber between the bar and the outside, the hostess stood at her podium. I stepped into the room, and she blinked at me, clearly confused.
“Thanks, it was great.” I nodded at her and strode quickly to the door.
“But the Devil—”
I didn’t hear the rest of her words because I was sprinting outside. The two guards looked at me, their sharp eyes seeing too keenly.
Did they know I was on the run?
The one on the left raised his wrist to his lips, and I remembered him speaking into a device there.
He was calling the Devil.
The other reached for my arm, and I flinched away.
He was too fast. His hand closed around my bicep.
“Hey!” I tried to jerk away, but he was too strong.
Movement flashed in front of me, everything happening so quickly that I almost couldn’t process it. A woman with short blonde hair appeared, and then came a flash of light and faint blue dust. It enveloped me, nearly blinding me. The guards froze solid, totally unmoving.
“Come on!” Mac’s voice sounded through the dust.
I blinked, trying to pull away from the guard. His grip was like iron, and it was nearly impossible to break.
Mac appeared through the mist. “You’re killing me. Come on.”
I gripped the frozen guard’s hand tight and yanked at the fingers, finally breaking free.
“This way.” Mac turned and disappeared through the blue mist.
I followed her, coughing as we ran out into the open square. The mist dissipated, and I sucked in a deep breath. “Thanks, Mac.”
“No problem.” She grinned at me.
“Was that the same freezing potion I used?”
“Yeah. Eve had an identical one, and since you’d already made yourself immune…”
“It worked.” I rubbed my forehead, heart still pounding as we exited the square and entered a narrow street. “Seriously. You saved my bacon. Thank you.”
“Anytime.” She looked over her shoulder, expression wary. “No one is coming yet.”
I looked back, still able to see the Devil’s tower across the square. It looked silent and empty, the two guards out front standing eerily still. “When will they wake up?”
“Three or four hours, maybe,” Mac said. “Give or take.”
“Same for the Devil?”
“Maybe less for him. Eve said that stronger supernaturals can break free more quickly.”
“Shit.”
“Do you need to get out of town?”
“I don’t know.” Memories flashed in my mind. “I think he wanted to…bite me.”
“Bite you?”
“He’s a vampire, right? Don’t sound so surprised.”
“Yeah, but I’ve never heard of him biting anyone. He’s pretty famous around town for not sampling the wares at his club. Or any of the blood bars, for that matter.”
I cringed. “Blood bars?”
“Not as creepy as you’d imagine. Mostly.”
“Do vampires, um…drink you to death?”
“They can. Definitely. But they don’t always.”
“So they aren’t compelled to?”
“When they’re recently turned, they might be. But not older ones.”
“Not the Devil, then.”
“No. But I’d still be wary of him.”
“Hell, yeah.”
She stopped in front of her green door. The savory scent of roasted meat wafted toward me, and I realized that Mac’s flat was right over a kebab place. How had I not noticed that?
“He didn’t try to control your mind?” she asked.
“I don’t think so. I thought my head might have felt a bit weird, but I didn’t feel like I was doing anything I didn’t want to do.”
“Hmm. You’d have felt it.”
“Maybe it doesn’t work on me.”
“Then that would make you very special, indeed.”
Special to the Devil? I wasn’t sure I liked my odds of coming out of that alive.
“Come on up,” Mac said. “We need to get off the street.”
“He could get us out here?”
“If he really wanted to.”
“Lead the way.” Next time I saw him—if there was a next time—I needed to be in complete control.
Honestly, I hoped he wasn’t the killer so I wouldn’t have to see him again.
Mac unlocked the door and hurried up to her flat. I followed, stepping into the welcoming interior behind her. It was as small and cluttered as we’d left it, but after my brush with death at the Devil’s place, it looked extra good to me.
Mac spun around. “Okay. It’s basically dinnertime, and I’m starving. We need food for this.” She went to the small window that looked out over the street and pushed it up. A cool breeze rushed in, and she glanced over her shoulder at me. “What do you like for a kebab takeaway?”
“Anything, really.”
“Doner kebab, then?”
My stomach grumbled at the mention of the roasted meat. “That’ll do.”
“Coming right up.” She grabbed a little notepad off the table next to the window and scrawled some words onto it. Then she tore it off and picked up a bucket that sat beneath the window. A rope had been tied around the bucket’s handle. She tossed the paper in the bucket, then lowered it out the window. After a few seconds, she wrapped the other end of the rope around a metal gizmo that was attached to the wall. A cleat, I thought it was called, a fixture normally found on docks.