Page 55 of The Vampire and the Case of the Perilous Poltergeist

The remaining MIB group ignored me, except Thorsen who sent me a couple of anxious glances. If my hands had been free, I’d totally have finger waved to get more under his skin.

I was trying to get a plan together that didn’t involve setting myself on fire as well as them until I heard a squeaky little meow. My heart stopped.Shadow?Another wave of fear hit me and I felt nauseous. Had Fischer’s men got him too, or had he slunk down here all alone to create carnage?

There were no shouts or comments about a damned cat, so the chances were good that Shadow was down here of his own volition. How the hell had he gotten out of the truck? Suddenly I realised: the back window. I’d opened it to speak to the others and I’d forgotten to close it when we’d left the truck with the lynx kitten sleeping inside the cab.

No one noticed my little guy; with his smoky fur, he merged into the shadows whose name he bore. Even so, fear juddered through me. He was my little fur baby, not a highly trained police dog or a valuable supernat. To these guys, he’d be avarmint, something to shoot at. Plus Shadow must have used up his strength earlier so I doubted he could defend himself with his freaky shadow powers. He’d be limited to teeth and claws, and he was still only half grown.

I couldn’t signal him to tell him to go away in case the men saw me – and anyway, Shadow was acatso he’d probably ignore me.I looked at my friends but they were still unconscious, and Fluffy was tied up elsewhere. There was only me, an army of one.

I needed to melt the cuffs that were binding me. I thought about my mum’s comment that really powerful witches could make small flames, while mid-range fire witches could only make big ones. Well, if Mum could do it, so could I. The only problem was that I’d never learned how to do something that precise.

Shadow walked into the room and made a beeline for me. I glanced around desperately to see if anyone had noticed but he’d gone under the pipes and no one had reacted. I had to work fast.

I let the frustration and anger build the heat that lived in my centre then forced the fire down my arms. The trick was to stop it at my wrists and temper it from an inferno to a small, butane-torch level. Probably. I pictured a small, high-temperature flame in my head, so hot it was blue, and directed it at a spot on my wrist.

Heat poured out of me. Sweat ran down my face, dripped into my eyes, pooled in the small of my back. It was already warm in the basement and I’d raised the temperature of the room by several degrees more. I glanced up to see if the men had noticed. One of them was absent-mindedly wiping away a bead of sweat from his brow but none of them were looking at me. More fool them.

I concentrated:small flame, small flame,I thought.

I had no idea if it was working until suddenly the nylon cuffs melted and hot liquid dripped on my skin. The burn was excruciating but I muffled my gasp before it could escape. I couldn’t let them have any warning before I attacked. My chances were already slim and the best I could hope for was the element of surprise.

It was time to go out swinging.

Chapter 40

My hands snapped free. Almost at the same time, Shadow strolled out from beneath the pipes and slow-blinked at me. He sat down and yawned, showing his very white, very sharp teeth, then he looked around and saw Connor, who’d been tossed like a sack against the wall.

Shadow strolled over and jumped onto his stomach. Connor stirred and Shadow laid down and started to purr. Loudly. My heart gave two hard beats. To my sharp supernat hearing, the sound was virtually roaring around the confines of the room.Please don’t let them hear,I begged the universe.

The soldiers kept on talking and ignored us.

Connor’s head slowly rotated towards me and he blinked several times in surprise. Yes! Whatever Shadow had done by jumping on him and purring had freed him from the somnum. I’d heard that cats’ purrs could be healing but Shadow’s must have been off the scale. Was that another power he had?Or didn’t the blue drug work for long on vamps? That was something to think about later. Whatever had helped Connor, I didn’t care; the universe wastotallyon our side.

Now I had to get close enough to him to burn away his bonds, but I couldn’t do that without seeing what I was doing or I’d burn him instead. Regardless, Hope was wiping her nose and getting back up yet again – God, I loved her. She was the grittiest of bitches; no matter how many times she got stamped down, she kept getting back up.

My burns were itching so at least they were healing, maybe not completely until I drank some blood but enough that the pain wasn’t crippling. I licked my lips and focused. If the two of us were free, we could overpower the five humans. My heart was in my throat as I inched closer to Connor, praying that the bad guys wouldn’t look my way.

He locked eyes with me and I showed him that my hands were free. He nodded and rolled onto his side to give me access to his cuffs. That upset Shadow, who hopped down and batted at him with a soft paw.Now is not the time, Shadow buddy!

I locked my fingers around the furthest bit of cuff from Connor’s skin then, keeping my flame small, melted away the restraints. Connor smiled, reached up and caressed my face, then he gazed over at the men and mouthed, ‘On three.’

He held up three fingers and counted down. In a move as smooth as silk, he leapt to his feet. I was a second behind him and we rushed the group together, vamp speed. Thorsen was facing us and his eyes flew open wide. The lieutenant had the quickest reaction: he pulled out a high-tech looking gun and aimed it at Connor.

I recognised it instantly. ‘Taser!’ I yelled. My voice was back! A gun could kill us if it was a direct heart or head shot, and a taser shooting 1500 volts would disrupt a vamp’s nervous system the same as a human’s. I knew that from experience…

But it turned out that summoning Aoife had worked. She’d been biding her time but now she materialised in front of Fischer – and shescreamed.

The human men fell like dominoes at the might of an angry banshee wail. Connor and I didn’t waste a second of the time she was giving us. Even as our own ears started to bleed, we grabbed flex cuffs from the prostate men and cuffed them. Man, that was satisfying.

Blood was dripping from their ears; clearly they couldn’t hear a damned thing and they were in agony. That gave me a grim sense of pleasure: they had stolen my voice so we had stolen their hearing. Tit for tat. Of course Aoife’s scream had rendered my ears silent, but that was nothing a little blood wouldn’t fix.

Connor had clearly had the same thought. He bit down on the other toady, who might as well have been wearing a red shirt for all his chances of survival, and drank until his ears were working again. He shoved the man at me and mouthed, ‘Drink.’

Ack – I hated drinking from the source because the one time I’d done it I’d nearly lost myself. Connor shoved the man at me again and instinct made my fangs slide down. I was buried in the guy’s neck before I could blink and hot blood was bubbling into my mouth, warm blood wassomuch better than the cold shit I’d been ingesting! I swallowed it until my hearing came back with a pop.

I must have paused or given some other sign I was okay because Connor pulled the toady off me and shoved him back to the floor. Mealtime was over. The urge to keep on drinking was so strong that I had to take some deep breaths. I guessed vampirism was a little like Pringles: once you popped, you couldn’t stop.

‘Okay?’ Connor asked, concerned. I gave him a thumbs up because I knew he’d detect the lie in my voice if I said I was fine.

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