Page 46 of Blood Magic

Maybe he saw something in my eyes. Maybe he saw me shrink with fear. For whatever reason, he came at me. Hard and fast. I didn’t have time to think, and that was a good thing. I just reacted. He drew back Jen’s fist as he flew at me, and I ducked, then came up under the blow, and slid the knife into Jen’s belly. I was off the mark, and I knew it. I would have to get her in the heart, because even though it wasn’t his heart, it was the heart that had to feel the magic. With every bit of strength that I had, I brought the knife up slicing it through bone and cartilage, and just before I reached the heart, he grabbed my wrist.

“Give me my blade,” he whispered. “Give me my blade so I can go home. Please. Little wolf. Let me go home.”

He had as much desperation as I did, and that made him strong, even though being here in my world for so long had weakened him.

I said nothing, just ground my teeth and put every bit of strength that I possessed into hanging on to that knife.

“I can tell you a secret,” he promised. “I can tell you a lot of secrets.”

“Secrets won’t do me any good in hell.”

He leaned forward. “Secrets about you, little girl.”

In the end, I won. I shoved the knife through his heart, and I could feel him in there. I could feel the end of him. The body dropped to the floor and then Remy was there, shoving the spirit trap against the dead cop’s mouth. In seconds, it turned black. It began to violently alternate between black and green, looking as though the demon was struggling. And he was.

I grabbed a tiny jar from its loop, and leaving the knife in the dead woman’s chest, I shoved the jar against the demon trap. Inside the jar was a charm. The tiny glass had been spelled by an old witch a long time ago. It suctioned the demon inside it eagerly, and red smoke splattered against its walls. I forced the cork back into the top of the jar, shoved it into my pocket, and then leaned down to pull my knife from the dead woman’s heart.

That might’ve been the end of it, but more cops ran into the building, saw me leaning over with a hand on the knife embedded in the dead cop’s chest, and they thought I was killing her. They thought I was killing her, so they shot me. At least, one of them did.

It felt like someone hit me in the back with a baseball bat, and for a few minutes, all I could do was lie on the floor and try to breathe. People were screaming once again, men were shouting, then the room was full of people.

It was chaos. Pure chaos.

I didn’t pass out, but I couldn’t move. Remy leaned over me. “Damn, Kait.”

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” I asked.

But suddenly, Bastien replaced Remy. I wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t, but the vampire picked me up and ran from the room—though ran was the wrong word. One second we were in the room, and the next we weren’t.

Somewhere in the middle of the dark field, he laid me down and undressed me, then stood back, waiting for me to shift. It was the only way I could heal myself.

And even though someone was watching, a vampire was watching, I called my wolf. She would save me, though I wasn’t sure how any of what had happened was going to be explained to the humans.

I guess I would just have to leave that up to the detective. He’d figure something out.

He always did.