Page 2 of The Vampire Oracle

Hands grabbed me from behind, making me twist and reel back to punch the person.

“Whoa!” Kier dodged my punch, though barely. He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me to him as he pulled out a gun from his holster and began blasting vampires in the head.

Pressing my palms into his strong chest, I pushed back from him. “Father Nero is outside in the courtyard!” I told him over the loud bangs.

“Take her and get as many people as you can evacuate,” Kier said, pushing me into Beck.

“We should all leave,” I snapped.

Kier blasted one more corpse collector in the head for the fifth time with his shotgun. Finally, it killed him, body sliding across the slick floor. The corpse collectors were the dog-like fuckers that were fast on all fours.

“Leave!” Kier snapped, and Beck tried to pull me away.

“But—”

“Are you refusing to listen to a superior?” Kier snapped. “Leave, Psalm!”

Again with this fucking bullshit? But who was I to stop stupid men from making stupid choices? If they wanted to die, then so be it. My jaw tightened as I looked at the others. They were so quick to leave everyone, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to save everyone. But what was I going to be able to do? I couldn’t save Kennedy.

“He’ll be okay,” Briar told me. “Let’s go.”

Pushing my messy hair back, I nodded. My eyes moved to Kier. I was almost scared to leave him. He was in his father’s outfit, skirt to the floor, covering his boots and long sleeves with a white collar. Belts were around him, clinging to the massive muscles he had. He was taller and wider than Nero. Swallowing, I pried my eyes away and followed the rest of the bishops. Osiris took charge and began ordering people out of the building using the back exit.

“Are you hurt?” Briar asked me, looking at the spit burnt hole in my shirt, but the flesh was okay. We met eyes, but he said nothing further.

“What happened?” Abel asked.

I looked up at him. I thought he would still be pissed at me, but he wasn’t. At least not right now.

“Kennedy exploded the same way as those two druggies. She blasted open the front gate.”

Briar wrapped his chains around a rogue Corpse Collector’s head and slammed him into the ground as his brother put bullets into his head until he stopped moving. “Did the vampire plan this?” Beck muttered after the echoing of the gunshots.

“Yes. Kennedy wasn’t herself. She just kept going, and I couldn’t stop her.”

Cain, Abel’s brother, shook his head. “You would have blown up if you had, like Briar did.”

Briar looked up from the nightwalker he killed, wondering why his name was being thrown around.

Cain was right, but one dead versus the hundreds dying now seemed better.

Everyone pushed out the back door and rushed to the back exit of the academy.

But an army of vampires stood in the way of the gates, stopping us from leaving. Bishops fired their weapons, but something seemed to stop them—like an invisible shield. This was not vampire work. They don’t have powers and magic like we do.

“Cease!” A female voice shouted, and the attack on us stopped. The vampire dogs snapped their jaws in the air, waiting for her command. Was this the voice of the one in charge? Then the female vampire appeared, floating in the air. Again, vampires shouldn’t have magic.

Her face… I knew it. My heart stopped, staring at her as my world spun. I grabbed Abel’s hand unable to process what the fuck was going on. Then my heart pounded at the rage rushing in my chest.

“Hand over Spectre, if you all want to live,” she shouted to all of us.

The odds of being out here were not good. At least twenty to thirty of each vampire were lined up in front of us, and more were filling in behind us. There were at least two hundred kids filled in the back courtyard, all inexperienced with maybe twenty bishops.

“We don’t know him!” a bishop shouted, and with the flick of her hand, his neck was snapped. A scream filled the air.

“Vampires don’t have magic like this,” Osiris muttered to us.

“One by one then. You will be killed until the little vigilante reveals himself. He’s all we want.”

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