I couldn’t think, couldn’t finish the thought, because I was losing consciousness. And that meant end and that meant fail and that meant death, and whatever I was going to do, I had to do it, I had to—
Act.
And then I was stumbling backward, dizzy and disoriented and sick, but not as sick as when I caught sight of my body. Tiny and pale and helpless, it lay huddled against the wall, hair smushed around distorted features, face bleached bone white out of fear. The same fear that had one hand locked, white-knuckled, on the edge of a door, a door it couldn’t go through.
But I could, and I didn’t waste any time, diving past the mage and my own almost corpse and into the blessed darkness of the hall.
I called for Billy, desperately, because if anyone knew about these kinds of things, it was him. But either he was out for the count or he’d gone off somewhere, because I didn’t even get a blip in response. This time, it looked like I was on my own.
That was true even when I finally found my bodyguards hanging out in a spare bedroom, playing poker. And weren’t they just looking relaxed. Ties were loosened, collars were popped and a bucket of ice sat on the floor with a dozen frosty longnecks poking out of the top. I guess so they wouldn’t have to make the huge trek all the way to the kitchen.
Where, you know, they might have seen someone trying to kill me.
“Comfy?” I asked harshly, but of course nobody heard.
I watched them play cards for a second, happy and carefree and unconcerned about the knife-wielding mage prowling the apartment or my trip to la-la land or anything but their stupid, stupid game, which I sent flying with a sudden swipe of my hand. Bills fluttered, chips flew, and cards reshuffled themselves all over the floor. And that was before I tipped over their damn card table.
Of course, I knew this wasn’t how it was supposed to work. The name of the game for ghosts was to preserve energy. To guard every tiny scrap carefully, jealously, spending it in little dribs and drabs and only when absolutely necessary. Because to run out was to die.
But I was about to die anyway, and I didn’t give a crap about the rules. I wasn’t trying to conserve energy; I was spending it all in one last, crazy spree. At least I’ll go out with a bang, I thought, laughing hysterically. And then I grabbed a beer and threw it at the nearest vamp’s head.
I missed, but it made a satisfying thump when it hit the wall, so I did it again. And again and again as the vamps stumbled back, knocking over chairs and staring around wildly. Several pulled guns, but they had nothing to shoot.
“Why do I have bodyguards, huh?” I yelled, throwing a bottle against the dresser, which exploded with a satisfying crash.
“What is the freaking point?” Another hit the mirror, leaving a big web of cracks radiating out from the center.
“We have to watch you sleep, Cassie!” Thud.
“And eat, Cassie!” Bang.
“And paint your freaking toenails, Cassie!” Smash.
“And dog your every step, Cassie!” Splinter.
“But when someone is actually trying to kill me, what the hell are you doing?” A bottle took out the overhead fixture, shattering the decorative shell and raining sparks down onto the already freaked-out vampires.
And then I stopped, not because I’d run out of things to say, but because one of the vamps had caught sight of the mysteriously floating beer bottle. And it seemed to piss him off. “I have had enough of this shit,” he announced viciously, lining up a shot.
I didn’t bother moving; I just waggled the bottle provocatively. “Want it, motherfucker? Want it? Then come get it!” And then I ran like hell.
A bullet smashed into the wall beside me, another shattered a hallway light and a third tore through a pretty little painting, drilling the girl on the swing straight between the eyes. I didn’t care; I was more concerned about the girl on the wall, who was looking pretty damn blue and pretty damn dead. I stopped for a split second, staring in horror at my slack features and my lifeless face, and then I was merging with my poor abused body and—
Nothing.
Blackness.
Cold.
So cold.
Silence.
Until someone started screaming. “Don’t you die, don’t you die, don’t you fucking die on me—”
And someone was pounding my chest and someone else was forcing smoke-flavored breath down my throat, and he really needed to gargle because that was just gross, and then I was choking and gasping and flailing weakly and Marco was dragging me against his huge, rapidly moving chest. “Are you all right? Are you fucking all right?” he yelled right in my face.
“Urp,” I said brilliantly. And then I threw up on him.
Chapter Twenty
I thought there was a good chance the fridge was possessed.
It was subtle about it, but I had its number. I knew its ways. Oh yes.
“How the hell did nobody hear him?” someone demanded harshly. I couldn’t see who it was because he was outside the kitchen. But it sounded sort of like Marco. Or like Marco might sound if he wanted to bite someone’s head off their body.
One of the vamps must have thought so, too, because he was awfully tentative when he answered. “He . . . apparently, the mage threw a silence spell over the lounge. We couldn’t hear any—”
“I’m more interested in why you couldn’t see. All of you congregated in one place, with not a single fucking one watching your fucking charge—”
“The apartment was supposed to be empty!” Another, slightly less cowed voice said. “And she hates it when we hover—”
“Then you play pool, you play cards, you watch without making it obvious. But you fucking well watch!” Something crashed into a wall.
Nobody said anything that time. Or maybe I just wasn’t listening. After all, someone had to keep an eye on the fridge.
There were slash marks in the front, spaced evenly like evil eyes, glowing with yellow light from the inside. And that couldn’t be the usual fridge light, could it? Wasn’t that supposed to go out when the door was closed? I thought I saw something move behind one of the slashes, but then I blinked and it was gone.
Oh yes. I knew.
Pritkin came in and knelt by my chair. “You can’t go to sleep yet, Cassie,” he told me, handing me a heart murmur in a mug. It smelled good, but not good enough to wake up for. I mumbled something and turned over, burying my face in the nice, warm shoulder someone had thoughtfully provided.
Only to be hauled up again.
So I sighed and snuggled into a nice, warm chest instead.
“Drink.” My hands were wrapped around the mug.
I pushed it away. “Don’ wanna. Wanna sleep.”
“Not yet.”
“Then why am I in bed?”
He sighed and pulled me to a sitting position, putting the mug firmly in my hands. “A healer is coming and he wants you to stay awake until he arrives, all right?”
I drank some too-hot coffee and scowled at him, annoyed although I couldn’t remember why. The light from the lounge was leaking in, highlighting his spiky blond hair. I decided that must be it.
“You really hate my hair, don’t you?” he asked, a smile flickering over his lips so fast I might have imagined it.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
I reached out to touch it, and was surprised as always to find it mostly soft. Just a little stiff in places from whatever product he used on it. It felt weird, imagining Pritkin having anything in his hair but sweat. But he must have; nobody’s did that all on its own.
“It’s like . . . angry hair,” I said, trying to pat it down and failing miserably.
He caught my wrist. “Most people would say that suits me.”
“I’m not most people.”
“I know.”
I went back to watching the fridge. I could see the door over Pritkin’s shoulder, and it wasn’t closed after all. It was very slightly open, like a panting mouth. And some kind of multicolored mucus was dripping out the bottom.