Page 62 of Queen of Darkness
“Aaron?” I said. “You know Madrigal the best. Get us out of here.”
“We don’t have a choice,” he growled. “We have to go through them. Nothing else is close.”
“Weapons free?” Jaxton asked.
I frowned, looking at him. There was something in the way he asked the question.
“Yes,” Aaron said.
Jaxton said something in a language I didn’t know, but a curse is a curse in any language. He nodded at the others. They rushed to the edge, and a moment later, a flurry of flat discs went over the edge, pulled from their equipment harnesses.
“Plug your ears and open your mouth,” Aaron warned, crouching down.
I hurriedly did the same, just as the alley below us blew up. Fire and flame rushed skyward, an expanding ball of heat washing over me, forcing my head to turn around.
“Well,” I shouted over the ringing in my ears. “If they didn’t know we were here before, they do now.”
“Go!” Aaron shouted, pointing at the edge of the roof.
I swallowed. I didn’t want to go down there. I didn’t want to see the carnage the modern weapons had wreaked on an unsuspecting populace.
Most of whom were probably innocent, only following their queen because they didn’t know any better. Now, they’re dead. We killed them.
“Their blood is onherhands,” Aaron snarled as we headed for the lip, where the burnt remains of the ropes smoldered on the roof. “She forced our hand. Remember that.”
“Maybe,” I said, unconvinced.
There was a very loudcrack, and the building shivered.
“Uh,” Jaxton said, from where he stood on the lip itself, ready to go over the edge.
Then, he was gone as the building crumbled out from below him. It spread out. We turned to run, but the building collapsed faster than we could react, tossing us to the ground as it tumbled into ruin.
Mortar dust filled the air as we landed amid the debris. I cried out as something slammed onto my leg, slicing it open. More debris washed over my head, and something decently sized clunked me in the temple, leaving me dizzy. That was the worst of it, though.
Coughing violently on the dust that I’d inhaled, I pulled my shirt up over my mouth, trying to filter the debris as best I could.
“Get up!” I shouted. “Come on. We don’t have time! Let’s go!”
The sound of coughing reached my ears. At least someone else was alive. I stumbled forward through the dust, trying to find them. The footing was uneven, and I had to keep one hand to my face to hold my shirt over my mouth, which made climbing through the rubble difficult. I finally saw a shadow and reached for them, hoping it was Aaron.
I lunged closer and came up short as I saw a face I didn’t recognize staring back at me. Brown eyes, long brown hair, and, worst of all, a wicked sword in his right hand.
It was one of the Nacht Bringers. And he wasn’t surprised to see me. The sword came up and around.
Shrieking, I fell backward, narrowly avoiding the razor-sharp blade as it went for my throat. Falling to the ground, I closed my hands around the first thing I could find. A chunk of steel. Growling in anger, I wrenched at it, yanking it free from the rubble. I was no swordsman, but the simple strike the Nacht Bringer came at me with was easy enough to parry.
I hadn’t processed what to do next as the two pieces of metalclangedagainst one another mightily, but as it turned out, I didn’t have to. Two holes suddenly appeared in the vampire's head, and he crumpled backward.
“Come on,” Alexi said, emerging from the rubble. “We must go.”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” I said. “Thanks for the assist.”
“Don’t mention it.”
We stumbled through the debris until we reached a strangely empty area. The building had fallen around the doorway back to Earth, but on the one side, it had gonethroughthe opening. The rest of the team was assembled there. Dave held Pieter, who’d clearly broken a leg. The vampire’s face was white, and he had a fixed grimace, but he didn’t say anything.
“Got her,” Alexi said as Aaron sagged with relief at the sight of me.
