Page 97 of How to Entice a Fiend

“Did you see that?” Marcus asks, drawing our attention back to the transport. There’s a police car in front of it and another behind it with us bringing up the rear, so we’re not as close to the transport vehicle as I wish we were.

“I don’t know. Maybe? It was really fast,” Finn says.

The first car in the lineup goes flying. It’s flung to the side as a vampire slams into it, causing it to flip, which gives the driver of the transport no option but to slam on their brakes. Even so, the transport vehicle rams into the flipped car, shoving it back as sparks fly before they both finally come to a stop. Vampires rush from the trees, moving toward the transport as Marcus stops the car so we can get out, but there are so many of them.

“This is really fucking risky. Even with the antidote…” Finn says.

“We can’t let the information get into the wrong hands,” Marcus states as he reaches for the door handle.

“Wait,” Mads says, sounding quite calm when he must be aware of what’s about to happen.

“Wait for what? We don’t have time to wait. We have to?—”

The explosion hits so hard our vehicle shakes. Debris rains down on the car, hitting the windshield and pinging off the hood. Dust and smoke cloud up in front of us a moment before I see fire cut through it.

“What the fuck just happened?” Finn asks as he slowly sits up from where he’d crouched down when a large piece of debris had struck our vehicle.

I manage to tear my eyes away from the flames and look over at Mads who comments, “I take it Soup works.”

“Soup?” I ask before remembering back in the lab when I’d asked if he was making soup after he told me he was letting it “simmer.” I look back at the destruction. “Uh… Soup really worked quite well.”

“Thank you,” Mads says.

Finn twists around in his seat. “You did that?”

Mads grimaces. “I cannot express how important it is that this drug does not get out. The explosion shouldn’t have been able to kill the vampires driving the transport vehicle. I did verify that they were all vampires before I placed the bomb so I wouldn’t kill an innocent bystander. And I set it so it’d only go off if there was enough friction and heat from the wheels because the vehicle stopped suddenly.”

“Huh,” Marcus says as he eyes the destruction. “Looks like I did dress for the occasion.”

“Looks… like you did…” Finn mutters.

“Like… do we get out?” Alexei asks.

“I think everyone’s confused about what to do,” I say as I see Abel’s vampires just… standing there. It’s apparent no human would have lived through that, so they’re not quite sure what to do since the person they came to retrieve is no longer alive. I can see many of them fading back into the trees.

Marcus pushes the SUV door open and storms out.

“Guess we’re getting out,” Finn says.

The rest of us get out as Marcus charges toward Abel’s crew. Many are not pleased to see him, and I notice a few back up, but I can’t tell whether it’s because they’ve caught sight of me or him.

“You are under arrest,” he snarls. “Get on the groundnow.”

Some run, some don’t move, and about five just drop right to the ground.

“You cannot tell us what to do,” a woman says, standing her ground as her eyes challenge Marcus.

“You are not part of the council,” Marcus counters. “You have no control here. I have the control.”

She rushes forward, like she’s going to attack, but before she can even get close to Marcus, I grab her and slam her to the ground. She lets out a growl of irritation as she tries to twist from my grip, but there’s no way she’s getting up. A man dashes forward to help her, but I keep her down with a mere foot as I grab him by the throat and throw him.

“Anyone else like to challenge my authority?” Marcus asks as Finn hurries over and snaps unbreakable handcuffs on the woman spitting profanities at me like that’ll help the situation.

“The council will hear about this,” she shrieks. “You can take us, but it solves nothing. It merely wastes our time and yours.”

Another tries to sneak up on Claude who is toward the back, but I have the man down before he can even get close. They really are idiots to even think that they’d get away with any of this. The only thing helping us is that without Grady to take, most of them aren’t even interested in the fight. They know there’s a better time and place to start this fight, and they disappear into the trees where they’d come from.

Once Alexei has the man cuffed, I head over to the burning vehicle and tear the driver’s door off before pulling the vampire out. The flames lick my arm, but I heal from it quite quickly. Idrop him far enough from the vehicle that he can heal as Mads checks the other man, but he’s gotten out and is already healing.

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