The thrill of the fight—the flood of adrenaline—rushed through me, dampening doubt and sharpening my movements, my focus.
I knocked one man to the floor, but another followed him, as if emerging from the house’s crevices like a scuttling insect. He’d grabbed his own pool cue, and swung it at me like a hitter who’d pointed to left field.
I brought up my cue to strike, and he shattered it with enough force that it reverberated down my spine. With a thunderous crack, my cue splintered in half, and I instinctively turned from the sound and shards of flying wood that I really, really hoped weren’t aspen—the only wood that could reduce me to ash if well aimed.
The man cursed with victory, reset for another swing, this one higher—and aimed at my head.
I didn’t wait for it to land. I dropped the broken cue, pivoted into a kick that nailed him in the side, and jerked the cue from his hands.
“Bitch,” he said, and I flipped the cue into the air, caught it backward, and nailed him between the eyes with the blunt end.
He teetered backward, fell atop a table, and both of them crashed to the floor. We hadn’t killed any that I could see, but we’d incapacitated some of them, at least for a little while. Maguire was still maniacally clawing at the disc. For all his ferocity, he didn’t handle his own injuries very well.
“Damn,” Morgan said, chest heaving beside me. “You’ve gotten better.”
“Yeah, I have.” I tossed the cue to the floor, gestured toward the stairs. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
* * *
We went out the way we’d come in, running back down the passageway and into the house, then out the front door again.
“Ethan,” I said into the earbud, “if you can hear me, we need an evac, like, yesterday.”
Between bouts of static, I caught the intermittent words “mechanical” and “delay.”
“I didn’t catch that. Repeat: We need an evac right now.”
I caught “helicopter” and “broken.” The rest of the response was only garbled static.
“You are fucking kidding me,” Morgan said.
I didn’t think so.
“We’re gonna have to find another way off the island,” I said as gunshots echoed behind us. I looked right, left, found a path that led away from the concrete pad down toward the shore.
“There,” I said as voices began to sound behind us. I ran toward the path, began to half jog, half hop down the dirt- and rock-covered path, Morgan’s footsteps behind me.
The trail, narrow and rutted, ran up and down through a forested area, with switchbacks as tight as bobby pins. The forest was silent around us, whatever animals might have scampered in the dark smart enough to stay still while the predators roamed around them.
The path opened up almost instantaneously, shooting us onto a rocky, sandy shoreline where water lapped in the dark. There was an ancient picnic table, the remains of a circular fire pit surrounded by rocks. Maguire and his cronies—or Capone and his—had enjoyed a picnic or two on the Lake Michigan shoreline. Unfortunately, there was absolutely no sign of a boat.
“Shit,” Morgan said, propelling out of the trees behind me, grabbing my body for balance as he nearly ran straight into me. We fumbled, separated, looked around, saw nothing but trees and water.
“There has to be a way off this godforsaken island,” I said, scanning left and right, but the shoreline was dark.
We couldn’t outrun these guys forever. They knew the island better than we did, and the sun would be up soon enough.
The darkness seemed to suddenly contract, to close in around me, as if I’d been shoved into a room without doors, a room with a barred window. Like a man with a key to unlock my head were standing beside me, and his words were in my ears again. Our business is not done.
No, I thought, trying to stem the rising panic, the memory of Balthasar that seemed right on the edge of swamping me. There was always a solution. I just had to think, had to slow down and think.
Crap, I thought as my vision began to spark around the edges. Panic attack.
I grabbed Morgan’s arm as my heart began to thud. The air was chilly, but a cold sweat broke out, peppering my skin with clamminess.
“What the hell are—oh, shit, are you okay?”
My throat felt snug as a straw, my head beginning to spin from lack of oxygen.
“Hey, breathe. Breathe, Merit. In, out. In, out.” He mimed the motion, then walked me to the picnic table. “Sit,” he said, but cast a nervous glance around him, waiting to hear humans running through the trees.
But why should they be in a hurry? This was their island. We were the interlopers here, and apparently with no exit.
“This isn’t a big deal,” Morgan said, squeezing my hand. “No need to panic. This is just a minor setback. There’s another way out of here, and we’ll find it.”
I followed his breathing, caught the rhythm of it, forced myself to breathe on counts. In, one, two. Out, one, two. Over and over again, until my heart began to slow its frantic pace.
“You can’t be afraid of the dark, you know. That’s not a thing a vampire can even have.”
He was trying to make me laugh, and I chuckled in spite of myself and my racing heartbeat. “Not afraid. Just—a memory. A bad one.”
“Then you need to replace it with a new one,” Morgan said, looking down, up, around as if he might find a replacement on a nearby shelf.
I knocked one man to the floor, but another followed him, as if emerging from the house’s crevices like a scuttling insect. He’d grabbed his own pool cue, and swung it at me like a hitter who’d pointed to left field.
I brought up my cue to strike, and he shattered it with enough force that it reverberated down my spine. With a thunderous crack, my cue splintered in half, and I instinctively turned from the sound and shards of flying wood that I really, really hoped weren’t aspen—the only wood that could reduce me to ash if well aimed.
The man cursed with victory, reset for another swing, this one higher—and aimed at my head.
I didn’t wait for it to land. I dropped the broken cue, pivoted into a kick that nailed him in the side, and jerked the cue from his hands.
“Bitch,” he said, and I flipped the cue into the air, caught it backward, and nailed him between the eyes with the blunt end.
He teetered backward, fell atop a table, and both of them crashed to the floor. We hadn’t killed any that I could see, but we’d incapacitated some of them, at least for a little while. Maguire was still maniacally clawing at the disc. For all his ferocity, he didn’t handle his own injuries very well.
“Damn,” Morgan said, chest heaving beside me. “You’ve gotten better.”
“Yeah, I have.” I tossed the cue to the floor, gestured toward the stairs. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
* * *
We went out the way we’d come in, running back down the passageway and into the house, then out the front door again.
“Ethan,” I said into the earbud, “if you can hear me, we need an evac, like, yesterday.”
Between bouts of static, I caught the intermittent words “mechanical” and “delay.”
“I didn’t catch that. Repeat: We need an evac right now.”
I caught “helicopter” and “broken.” The rest of the response was only garbled static.
“You are fucking kidding me,” Morgan said.
I didn’t think so.
“We’re gonna have to find another way off the island,” I said as gunshots echoed behind us. I looked right, left, found a path that led away from the concrete pad down toward the shore.
“There,” I said as voices began to sound behind us. I ran toward the path, began to half jog, half hop down the dirt- and rock-covered path, Morgan’s footsteps behind me.
The trail, narrow and rutted, ran up and down through a forested area, with switchbacks as tight as bobby pins. The forest was silent around us, whatever animals might have scampered in the dark smart enough to stay still while the predators roamed around them.
The path opened up almost instantaneously, shooting us onto a rocky, sandy shoreline where water lapped in the dark. There was an ancient picnic table, the remains of a circular fire pit surrounded by rocks. Maguire and his cronies—or Capone and his—had enjoyed a picnic or two on the Lake Michigan shoreline. Unfortunately, there was absolutely no sign of a boat.
“Shit,” Morgan said, propelling out of the trees behind me, grabbing my body for balance as he nearly ran straight into me. We fumbled, separated, looked around, saw nothing but trees and water.
“There has to be a way off this godforsaken island,” I said, scanning left and right, but the shoreline was dark.
We couldn’t outrun these guys forever. They knew the island better than we did, and the sun would be up soon enough.
The darkness seemed to suddenly contract, to close in around me, as if I’d been shoved into a room without doors, a room with a barred window. Like a man with a key to unlock my head were standing beside me, and his words were in my ears again. Our business is not done.
No, I thought, trying to stem the rising panic, the memory of Balthasar that seemed right on the edge of swamping me. There was always a solution. I just had to think, had to slow down and think.
Crap, I thought as my vision began to spark around the edges. Panic attack.
I grabbed Morgan’s arm as my heart began to thud. The air was chilly, but a cold sweat broke out, peppering my skin with clamminess.
“What the hell are—oh, shit, are you okay?”
My throat felt snug as a straw, my head beginning to spin from lack of oxygen.
“Hey, breathe. Breathe, Merit. In, out. In, out.” He mimed the motion, then walked me to the picnic table. “Sit,” he said, but cast a nervous glance around him, waiting to hear humans running through the trees.
But why should they be in a hurry? This was their island. We were the interlopers here, and apparently with no exit.
“This isn’t a big deal,” Morgan said, squeezing my hand. “No need to panic. This is just a minor setback. There’s another way out of here, and we’ll find it.”
I followed his breathing, caught the rhythm of it, forced myself to breathe on counts. In, one, two. Out, one, two. Over and over again, until my heart began to slow its frantic pace.
“You can’t be afraid of the dark, you know. That’s not a thing a vampire can even have.”
He was trying to make me laugh, and I chuckled in spite of myself and my racing heartbeat. “Not afraid. Just—a memory. A bad one.”
“Then you need to replace it with a new one,” Morgan said, looking down, up, around as if he might find a replacement on a nearby shelf.
