Almost Midnight (Shadow Falls: After Dark #3.5)(81)

“Find Tabitha,” she yelled at him.

“Can’t see shit,” she heard him say.

She glanced down. The menacing-looking fog continued to rise from the floor and drew closer like fingers trying to pull them in.

Perry flapped his wings. “I got you. Relax.”

Her breath caught when he swooped down, down into the thick white cloud, and she was again blinded by the dense mist. Blinking, she saw what looked like a tunnel of light ahead.

A second glance and she realized it was the entrance to the auditorium. The doors were open. Perry swooped down lower to clear the exit and she could hear people scurrying out like rats. Her feet hit a few heads of the escaping crowd. “Sorry. Sorry.”

She pulled her knees up. Moving like the wind, with her in tow, Perry shot through the exit, his talons holding her tight, but not too tight. Perry would never hurt her.

Seconds after clearing the door, her breath caught as Perry took her up. All the way up, higher than the top of the auditorium. She saw him cocking his head one way and then the other as if searching for a place to land.

Then with the dark sky glaring down at them, and distant thunder roaring, he began his descent to the roof’s edge, just a few feet from an evil-looking gargoyle. “Not here,” she said, but he obviously didn’t hear her.

“You okay?” His beak moved. Then his gaze shifted toward the streets below. “Damn.”

“What?” she asked.

“Stay here,” Perry ordered.

Like she could leave! Then his wings widened as if …

“No,” she screamed, feeling as if the statue stared at her. “Don’t leave me.”

He leapt off the ledge. Air from his wings flapping stirred her hair.

He got only a few feet away when she saw electric bubbles exploding around him and he turned into a small black crow. Where the hell was he going? Why was he leaving her … here?

She was ten stories up, and sharing a space with a huge, nasty-looking concrete beast. Wasn’t this just like her childhood nightmares?

Then she remembered Tabitha.

“Come back,” she screamed. Her mouth hung open as she pulled in big gulps of oxygen and watched the crow grow smaller, abandoning her once again.

A strike of lightning hit the roof, shaking the building and sending another wave of panic over her. Glancing down at the people below, she considered screaming, but sensed her voice would go unheard. Heart racing, realizing she still clutched her phone, she went to finish dialing Burnett. She lacked one number to complete the call when a scary-sounding chuckle sounded and the cold wet air hitched in her lungs.

Her gaze shot to the gargoyle. She shook her head, forcing herself to breathe. “You aren’t real,” she said.

“Yes, I am.”

Chills whispered down her back, the only thing that kept her from taking a dive off the ledge was that the voice hadn’t come from the beast. Slowly turning her head, she came face-to-face with a rogue vampire—a rogue vampire smelling way too pungently of dog poop.

“Oh, damn!” Before Miranda could react, or even think of a spell, the vamp charged. Her phone fell to the roof with a clatter. He caught her around her waist, pulled her back against his front, and leapt off the building.

Free-falling, the ground rushing up to her, her thoughts went to dying. Was she ready? No. So much she wanted to do. Why did it have to end?

Then the vamp started flying, the wind slapping her hair into her face, stinging her cheeks. His arm cut into her middle, making it almost impossible to feed her lungs air. But she welcomed the pain in lieu of death.

“Wiggle that little finger or even think about using your stupid magic on me again, and I will rip out your jugular and paint Paris red with your blood.”

To make his point, he pressed his sharp canines to the curve of her throat.

*

Miranda hadn’t dared move her pinky, but she spent the few very long seconds in flight coming up with spells that she would throw at the foul-smelling bloodsucker as soon as they landed.

Her heart clutched when her abductor started descending. He swooped down into a castle’s courtyard and through some concrete arches. She prepared herself to fight, but her feet had barely hit the concrete when a heavy door opened and she was tossed into a pit of darkness. A darkness so black, so thick, that it brought on instant isolation.

Before she even hit the bottom, a clanking sound echoed behind her, telling her she was locked in.

Landing on her knees, her hands scraped into the rocky ground. She moaned as the sharp gravel cut into the fleshy part of her palms. Tears stung her eyes. The coppery smell of blood singed her senses.

Fear tasted like metal on her tongue and the dank smell of wet earth filled her nose. Where was she?

Crawling to her feet, she held her hands out to feel her way in the blackness. She went to twitch her pinky to bring light, but nothing happened. She did it again. The same results slapped her in the face. Why wasn’t her magic working?

Beneath the smell of aged dirt, she caught the scent of sage, burning bark, and then something really foul—the scent of death. Decay.

Tears filled her eyes as horror turned her stomach rock hard. At first she considered she was locked up with a corpse, but then logic intervened. She’d smelled the combination of scents before, a black spell, a curse to prevent any other magic from working.

She slid her feet, an inch at a time, in hopes of not falling again. The sound of her breathing seemed too loud. Then she heard it, a slight moan. She wasn’t alone. Someone was in here with her. But was he/she friend or foe?