Page 47 of Soulbound Shadows: Part 1

“What’s wrong?” I asked, but Gabriel had already vaulted over the back of the sofa with uncanny agility and grabbed my arm, spinning me around so that my back was to him.

“Your shoulder,” he said urgently. “Something’s wrong with it.” He brushed a careful touch over the skin just below where I’d been stabbed, and I yelped in pain.

“The potion should have fixed it,” I said.

“Well it didn’t. The curse must have taken hold faster than we thought. The runes are starting to form around the wound, and they’re spreading.” He pressed the flat of his hand over my shoulder, and I winced.

“There’s still dark magic trapped inside,” he said. “It’s faint, but I can feel it.”

“I know a couple cleansing spells. Maybe I can use one of those. I’ve been cursed before. Hazard of the job. I generally recover pretty fast.”

I went over to the small mirror by my front door, craning my neck back so that I could get a semi-decent view of my shoulder in it. The knife wound, which should have already healed to a barely-there scar, was an angry gray-purple surrounded by jagged runes. I reached back, wincing as I moved my shoulder and touched the spot.

The words of the spell came easily to me. I’d used them countless times before on myself and on a whole range of people who’d ended up on the wrong end of spiteful magic. Usually, the magic felt cooling and gentle as it flowed out of my fingertips.

This time, it felt like someone was pulling barbed wire through my skin.

“Okay, something’s definitely wrong,” I managed between clenched teeth. “Like, really, really wrong.”

An old bell I kept on the bookshelf began to jingle. “Shit,” I hissed. “Someone’s coming. Chanel uses that to let me know when someone shady looking is coming up here.”

I tried to work a quick spell to strengthen the wards around the front door of the apartment, but the pain hit me again. My vision went white, and I slumped against Gabriel’s side.

“Hurts,” I hissed. “Fuck, that hurts.” Panic started to well up as the pain faded, making my heart pound, and my throat tighten. “Gabriel, I can’t use my magic.”

The bell jingled again, louder, shaking so hard that it tumbled off the shelf and landed on the floor. That was the only warning we got before the door burst open, and the vampires charged in.

16

GABRIEL

The pack of vampires charged into Evangeline’s living room, snarling and hissing. I yanked Evangeline away from the door, shoving her behind me less gently than I would have liked. She let out a surprised huff but didn’t actively insult me, so I considered it a win.

There were eight of them, mostly broad and bulky, but two of the vampires were small, wiry, and carried knives. I threw out a wave of my power, but their minds were closed to me—were they trained to stop vampiric mind control, or had they been warded? And if someone had had the foresight to ward them, did that mean they’d expected me to get involved?

Now wasn’t the time to worry about things like that. One of the smaller vampires lunged for me, and I froze. If I dodged, it would leave Evangeline right in his path, and I barely had any room to launch an attack of my own. Before I could snap out of it, a thick book flung itself out of the bookcase, catching the vampire squarely in the head. I huffed out a laugh and patted Chanel’s woodwork.

“Nice shot,” I said.

Evangeline darted out from behind me and ran into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Good. Without her magic, she would be a liability, and getting somewhere defensible was an excellent step.

It did, however, leave me on my own against more than half a dozen assailants. Snarling, I threw myself at the biggest of the vampires, hoping to take him down first. As I charged, an alarming gurgle came from Evangeline’s kitchen sink. The spray nozzle popped from its holder and began to blast boiling-hot water into the face of one of the other intruders. He hissed, scrambling to bring his hands up over his eyes.

Perhaps I wasn’t on my own, after all.

I’d never seen a house fight before. Sure, most houses in the city absorbed magic, but they used it sparingly, mostly for small domestic things. Chanel, on the other hand, fought like a wild animal separated from its young. It pulled the floorboards apart beneath the vampires’ feet, then snapped the boards back into place around their ankles, trapping them. Evangeline’s kitchen knives—she only had three, but they were all extremely sharp—flew through the air. The largest, a massive chef’s knife, went through one vampire’s eye so hard that he was pinned to the wall. A serving fork buried itself in his chest, as if to add insult to injury.

It was shockingly easy to dodge and weave around Chanel’s attacks because the house bent the space around me; where my opponents stepped on raised, vicious nails and had to fight off constricting drapery, my feet found even flooring that dipped slightly to cushion my steps, and pushed up under me to give me extra lift when I leaped forward.

If not for the pulse of worry between my ribs, it would have been quite enjoyable. It was the sort of synchronicity I rarely got to experience in a fight. But that wasn’t quite true anymore, I realized. Evangeline and I had learned to anticipate each other’s moves in much the same way.

Speaking of Evangeline… one of the smaller vampires—supernaturally agile and twitching in a way that told me that there was some sort of stimulant involved—had managed to sneak past Chanel’s defenses, and my attacks, and reached Evangeline’s bedroom door.

I let out a wordless cry of warning. Evangeline could handle herself in a magical fight, but if she slipped up and automatically made to cast a spell…

I tried to shake the image of the horrifying rictus her face had twisted into when the pain of the curse hit her earlier.

Evangeline’s door burst open, smashing the vampire in the face, and flinging her back against the wall. Two impressions hit me at once, baffling me into stillness.

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