Dead Spots (Scarlett Bernard #1)(76)

The big guns. If he was bringing me along, he wouldn’t need the knives—Beatrice would go down with one well-placed shot. But clearly, Jared was planning for contingencies. That was not good for me.

“Ready for the field trip?” he said, grinning at me.

He pulled his coat sleeve over the stake and buttoned up the front of his shirt. Then he crouched down in front of me. For once, he was careless about being near my legs, but after a moment’s consideration, I decided against kicking him in the face. It would be satisfying, but I wasn’t escaping with my hands shackled to the floor, so it’d really only piss him off. And he was stronger than I was; if he hit me again, that would be bad.

“I have to say, you stay in pretty good shape,” he said, looking admiringly at my body again.

I tried not to shrink away. I’ve worked with vampires long enough to know that you don’t shrink away from predators.

“God, this is fun, isn’t it?” he said happily. “I’ve been waiting years for this, and now that the night is finally here, I want to celebrate.” He reached over to twine a hand in my long hair, then yanked it so I had to tilt my face toward him.

Involuntary tears pooled in my eyes.

“What do you say, little girl?” he whispered, flicking my earlobe with his tongue.

It took everything I had not to shudder away, but I had no room to move, anyway.

Without letting go of my hair, he leaned his weight on my legs and pulled out a tiny key ring, reaching for the cuffs. “You want to celebrate with me?” He was like a little kid, hyper and trying to make everyone else get worked up, too. I knew he just wanted to get a rise out of me, so I stared stubbornly at the floor.

I was in the middle of reevaluating my no-face-kicking decision when the sky fell down.

Okay, it wasn’t the actual sky, but it was a damned big piece of the floor above us. With a sudden crash, a six-foot-square chunk of linoleum landed about eight feet to the right of us, with two people riding it down. I squinted past the cloud of dust and made out Kirsten and Eli. Jared yelped and released me, darting to the other side of the room to take cover behind the tool bench. Kirsten, whose powers had vanished the second they dropped through the floor, hopped off the shattered floor section and wisely crouched down behind one of the basement’s wooden support columns, keeping it between herself and Jared.

“Hope you have insurance,” she yelled toward the tool bench. She was wearing a pretty floral shirt over a simple blue cocktail dress and looked like an angel when she smiled my way. “Hey, Scarlett.”

Eli had run straight for me, and I was so glad to see him I choked on my first three attempts at speech. “He’s...you...You came,” I stammered.

He smiled a sweet, joyful smile that I knew I would remember until my death. “Of course I came. Why wouldn’t I come?”

The first bullet hit the wall six inches from my head, and I hissed with surprise. “Keys, keys, keys,” I chanted frantically, pointing to where they’d fallen when Jared had bolted. I ducked down, making myself small, and the second shot hit right where my head had been. Jared wasn’t just shooting wildly; he was taking the time to aim, which did not bode well for Team Scarlett. Eli scrambled for the keys and then crawled back to me. I was trembling with adrenaline, and my shaking slowed down his attempt to get the key in the lock. I fought to keep still.

All the while, he ducked as silver bullets flew past us to drill into the wall. “Got it,” he said breathlessly, and I started to stand, but Eli pushed me back down just in time for the next bullet to bury itself in his back instead of my chest.

“Eli!” I screamed. I looked around frantically for a weapon. I needed to stop Jared Hess and get that bullet out, but if I moved too far from Eli, the silver poisoning would begin. All I had on my side of the basement was a ring of keys, a giant silver cage, and a bunch of stuff that was bolted into the floor. I had nothing.

And then I realized that wasn’t true.

Eli tried to push me toward Kirsten and the exit, but I shook him off easily. I gauged the distance and tugged him the other way, to the wooden column opposite her. As the two of us half crawled, half stumbled behind it, I felt the quick slide of power as the witch in the corner came free of my radius.

“Kirsten,” I yelled, “you’re up!” Then I tried to breathe calmly. The last thing we needed was for me to get all emotional and have my radius expand.

I’d never seen Kirsten work before, so I stared, awestruck, as her hair began to crackle with power and energy. She chanted in something like Latin, and suddenly, the section of ceiling above the tool bench began to rattle and shake, bits of dust and ceiling tile salting the air around where Jared was hiding. He screamed in alarm and bolted away just as a perfect four-foot square of ceiling came crashing down where he’d been crouched. He raced toward Eli and me, pulling out a new gun, but suddenly, he was cut short, bouncing backward as though he’d been swatted. I looked over at Kirsten, who was still chanting. I tried to swallow my shock. I had known that Kirsten was good, but not this good.

Hess screamed with frustration and spun on his heel, cutting his losses. He ran up the stairs, vanishing onto the first floor. As quickly as it had begun, the fight was over.

I barely noticed. Eli had collapsed on the ground, and blood poured freely from the bullet hole in his upper back. There was so much that I could hardly see the entry wound.