Page 139 of Inception

“He had his own agenda. I didn’t know—”

“And this one?” interrupted Engel, ticking his head at me (or what he could see of me as I cowered behind Dominic). “Why is she still alive?”

“We need her.”

“She no longer holds the Amulet therefore no longer serves a purpose. You were told to dispose of her.”

The massive knot in my stomach tightened as Engel moved in closer to me, his long fangs visible from behind his grimace.

“Don’t come near me...” I meant for it to come off as a threat, a warning, but it came out like a pathetic plea.

He reached over and yanked me away from Dominic as though I were nothing more than an insignificant commodity.

“Ah, the blood of a Slayer,” he said, sniffing the air around me like a rabid hound. “Truly an exhilarating aroma, though sadly, yours is quite faint.”

I tried to pull away from him, writhing as best as I could, but it was no use. The frail looking little hobbit was shockingly strong. “Let me go you sick—”

His sharp teeth pierced through my neck before I could finish the words. I let out a faint scream though it quickly died in the back of my throat.

In an instant, his otherworldly venom was coursing through my veins, working hard to subdue me, to turn me into a useless bag of bones. Even in my mounting haze, I knew he wouldn’t let me survive this. I knew I was on my own again, and I’d have to save myself. I just didn’t know how I was going to do that.

Engel’s men murmured in the background, their voices scrambled and distant. I tried to focus on what they were saying, tried to hear if they were planning on contributing to the dissolution of my existence, and then everything went quiet. Nothing but the deafening silence of a grave.

Is this it? Am I dead?

My pulse responded, pounding loud in my ears as my heart stopped and started in my chest. My eyes circled the room and found stillness. They were all standing motionless like wax figures; frozen in time—exactly like my first night at All Saints. Whatever had happened that night was happening again. Only this time, I didn’t stop to question it.

In a fog of thinly veiled awareness, I twisted my body into Engel’s, bringing myself as close to his paralyzed body as I could get. I tightened my grip on the stake and brought it to my side just as the room surged back to life. It took every drop of strength I had to trudge forward, to fight the mounting urge to succumb to the sweet poison and surrender all hope. He growled loud and ravenous as though I had offered myself up, and I responded by lifting the stake from my side and plunging it into the center of his cold undead heart.

Engel stumbled back several steps, clutching at the stake in his chest as everyone in the room gasped in disbelief.

I waited for him to immobilize, to drop to the ground and cease to exist. But it never happened.

The seconds ticked by like molasses and with each one that passed, he remained very much moving and very much alive. All of which were not supposed to happen. It was painfully clear that something had gone horribly wrong.

“Boss?” asked a slender man from behind him.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” said Engel, eyes wide with amazement. “How peculiar.”

Dammit, angel. “Only you would stake an ancient Rev and miss his heart,” muttered Dominic as he stealthily pulled me back a step.

“Ah, but it appears she did not miss,” replied Engel, looking down at his chest, stunned. “I can feel the wood burrowed in my heart, fiery and aching, yet here I stand.”

“That isn’t possible,” scoffed Dominic.

“Indeed,” agreed Engel as he wrapped both hands around the stake and pulled it out of his heart. “Yet here we are.”

Audible gasps broke out behind him.

“Get her!” yelled one of his men.

Engel held his hand up, halting his herd of undead. A morbid curiosity filled his expression as he took me in. “Veni foras, genus.”

“Huh?”

“What exactly are you, child?”

“I'm a g-girl…a Slayer,” I stuttered.

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