Vlad laughed, surprised. "I'm not sure."
"We don't have any argument with you, per se," she said. "But I owe Satine, don't you think?"
"You would let me leave?" The vampire leaned against the wall. "How very amusing."
"We both know I can't take you down, so we're not talking overwhelming generosity on my part. Sure, leave. I've got nothing against you personally. But I'm very afraid the others will be coming soon, and if you don't want a fight you should go. I'm sure they could take you apart, working together."
Vlad gave her a look she couldn't interpret. "I can see that you need to do something with all that energy amassing in your body. You are vibrating with it."
Rose knew it. It felt almost impossible to keep her skin on, so to speak. She lifted her chin. "Well, either go or stay. I've got a vampire to kill."
She turned to the rubble in front of her and started to pull chunks of wallboard out of the mass.
Rose heard a sigh behind her. "You could have been my perfect distraction. I am quite sure you would have captivated me for at least a couple of centuries. Alas, the demon has first claim on you." He gave a weary chuckle. "And you are heart-deep there, as well. I would give you one piece of advice," he added, as his voice grew more distant.
"And that would be?" Rose asked, her mind only partly on Vlad. If she became fire, could she find a way between the floors…?
"Take care to not be alone with me again. I won't promise not to take you for myself. You are…most unusual." The advice floated in the air around her, menacing.
Rose whirled about, but the hallway was empty. "Okay. Consider me warned," she said, before turning back to the pile of debris where the vampire scent was the strongest. Without thinking, she dove into the debris, her body splintering into bits of fire as she went.
* * *
Maggie completed her protection of Gabriel and Kellan. "Okay, let's round up and go in."
Justin came running down the alley from his last minute discussion with Danny. He looked around at their group. "Where's Rose?"
Gabriel grew cold with fear. "Damn it, not again." He twisted around to look for her.
Justin turned back to him, frustration etched on his face. "I can't find her. After Maggie did her mojo on me, I turned to look for her but she was gone. So I went to talk to the weres, thinking maybe she'd walked around the corner, but – nothing. She's not there with them. She's not with us. She's just gone."
Gabriel paled. "Gone?"
"I checked with Danny—he hadn't seen anything. They won't go in until we do. He said he'd know when we did." Justin shrugged. "He didn't say anything about Rose."
"How long are we talking?"
"Five minutes? Maybe ten?" Justin shook his head. "I'm not sure."
"She's gone in." Gabriel's despair hung in the air.
Maggie let out a cry. "No!"
"Yes. She had a dream this afternoon—said that she'd gone in alone, and vampires covered her. Killed her." On the last word, Gabriel jumped the fence in front of him, leaving the others cursing behind.
He was already halfway to the opening when the others made the jump, his demon strides even longer than his human ones. His tail twitched in the night, and his growl filled the air.
Gabriel inhaled deeply, catching Rose's scent, the ocean mingled with woodsmoke. As he followed it through the destroyed building, another scent overlaid the first.
"Vampire," he rumbled, and with a leap and a grasp, he caught Vlad by the throat and shoved him against the wall.
The building shook with the force of the hit. He looked into the vampire's bloodred eyes and snarled. "What have you done to her?"
The vampire grinned, sending a cold finger of fear down Gabriel's spine. "Wouldn't you like to know?" he taunted.
Gabriel slammed him against the wall again. Plaster rained down.
"This is a good way to bury her, though. Carry on. You and I will get through this just fine, but will your precious Rose? Once the demon in her has worn her completely out, drained her of her energy and the water in her body, will she be able to claw her way to the surface?"
Gabriel's fingers bit deeper into the rock of Vlad's neck. "What did you do to her?"
"Absolutely nothing. Scout's honor," smirked Vlad. "She let me go, if I promised to let her attack Satine. Ah, that got your heart rate going, didn't it?" Vlad licked his lips. "I wonder if your blood is as sweet in demon form as it is in human form."
Gabriel roared and punched him in the nose, the crunch under his hand extremely satisfying. Vlad's head flew back and hit the wall. More plaster tumbled down on them.
Vlad grinned, his teeth glistening in the dark. "Oh yes. Do spend more time with me while your cute little fire demon grapples with Satine."
With a roar, Gabriel threw the vampire down the hallway and away from Rose's scent. Seeing his brothers in the shadows, he turned away, the vampire forgotten, and raced to find Rose.
His heart stuttered when he got to the pile of debris, the place where the building had shrugged in on itself.
"Rose!"
His heartbroken roar echoed throughout the ruins. Justin and Kellan looked at each other in despair. "Go," urged Justin. He felt Maggie behind them. "We'll take care of this," he added, gesturing to the vampire chuckling at their feet.
"Oh, no you won't," he said, gasping with glee. "Nothing will help her now. She's got to finish it on her own. That's just how quests are made. Didn't you know?"
With a roar of his own, Justin lunged at him, but the vamp wasn't there.
Vlad stopped at the opening to the building, a hundred feet away. "This will be one for the history books," he mused. "Satine. It's time to wake up," he murmured. "Enjoy, young Rose," he said with mild regret. "Expect burns when you play with fire."
Justin turned to follow, but the vampire was gone. He turned back to Maggie, who stood, her hand over her nose and her eyes streaming. "You okay?"
She shook her head and raced out of the building. Torn, Justin looked from her to where his brothers had disappeared and, cursing, followed the witch, leaving his brothers to deal with what was inside.
* * *
Kellan followed the scent of his brother, his body lithe and strong in its demon form. He was used to it, had made the shift more often than his brothers and so moved with ease through the human-sized corridor.
He dropped through a hole in the floor and landed hard enough to make the building tremble.
Kellan stopped abruptly at the sight of Gabriel on his knees in front of a pile of rubble. The whole hallway seemed to shrink in on itself, making standing upright impossible. He bent to Gabriel, putting his hand on his shoulder.
"Gabriel."
"She's down there. She's there." Dread and panic hung in the air.
Kellan shook his head in regret. "I'm so sorry, dude."
Gabriel turned on his brother with a roar. "I'm not letting her die. Not after—not now. I love her, damn it. She's
mine
."
Kellan backed off, his hands up. "Okay. Okay." He looked at their surroundings before he moved to kneel beside his brother. "Let's start digging." With his huge hands, he shoveled aside debris. After a moment, Gabriel helped. Dust rose with their movement, and the ceiling seemed to come closer to their heads as they worked.
Every effort brought more rumbling toward them from beneath and above. They kept at it, though, blinking their demon eyes and breathing as little as possible. Minutes passed without any obvious success.
Finally Kellan pulled back, as they were showered again with plaster and ceiling tile. "Okay. This isn't working." As if underscoring that, the building groaned around them.
Gabriel didn't seem to notice. He kept shoveling out the sheet rock and plaster, his lips moving in a frantic chant.
Kellan tapped his brother's shoulder to get his attention, but Gabriel didn't budge, just kept muttering and shoveling. Finally Kellan grabbed him around the waist and dragged him back just as more of the building came down in that corner.
Gabriel snarled and threw a punch that didn't land. Kellan, his demonic muscles bunching, kept his arms around him and dragged him out of the hallway into a bigger room that didn't show much physical damage.
"No! I need her, I need to get to her," shouted Gabriel.
Kellan let him go and swung him around to punch him in the jaw. Gabriel ducked and would have gone by him but Kellan was too fast. "You can't. Damn it Gabriel. You can't go in there. The place is about to fall apart on us."
Gabriel turned anguished eyes toward his brother. "I can't let her die."
"No. Of course not." Kellan could see the blue and purple mate-threads glimmering softly in the night, leading away to the pile of rubble they'd left behind. If she died, it would be almost impossible to keep Gabriel alive. He hauled in a breath and thought fast.
"We can't go in physically. But can you reach her mind? Can you keep an eye on her that way, help her out mentally?"
Hope trickled into Gabriel's whirling green eyes. "Let's try." Abruptly he sat down in the middle of the scorched room and closed his eyes. "Rose," he whispered. "Where are you?"
He searched, but found only the hiss and crackle of fire gone out of control. His voice rose in a roar of denial and despair.
Kellan turned at a sound. "Gabriel. We've got company, and they're looking hungry."
Gabriel turned unseeing eyes toward Kellan, who motioned to the doorway. Vampires stood there with more of them filling up the spaces.
“Let’s clear the place. Make it safer for Rose. Let’s fight, Gabriel.”
Gabriel took a breath. "I can get behind that." He got to his feet and sent a cold grin to their visitors.
"Show time," and Kellan grinned as the first one charged, its eyes whirling scarlet with bloodlust.
* * *
Justin strode into the darkness, looking for Maggie. This was not the time for the witch to go solo and, obscurely, he felt obligated to help. The lights of the parking lot had died and the moon hid behind the clouds. But he found her, heaving into the dirt next to the building.
He took in the situation as he strode her way. Kneeling beside her, he put one hand on her forehead, helping to support her, and kept a knee to her back for the same reason.
Maggie retched a couple more times but nothing came up. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she gabbled, and swiped her wrist across her mouth. "I'm so sorry."
"It's okay. Maggie, look at me." Justin was kind, but firm. Maggie turned to look at him, misery in her brown eyes. "Is it the smell?"
"Vampire and smoke and demon all mingled up and gods!" She turned and heaved again, with no visible result. "No one in their right mind could survive that."
Justin's lips twitched. "Are you scared?"
"Hell no," she fired back. "I just don't want the smell of ashtray and moldy socks in my nose for the next decade."
He laughed at that. "You're right, that is what it smells like. So do me a favor, and let me help you. I can put a block on your sense of smell so that you won't notice it."
Maggie looked up at him with suspicion. "Why would you?"
"Because you're one of the strongest women I've ever met, and if I left you out here hiding from a smell, you'd regret it tomorrow. The fighting has begun, Maggie. Our side is down two." He nodded to the building beside them, reverberating with battle cries. "We're needed."