Page 71 of A Steeping of Blood (Blood and Tea #2)
FLICK
Flick wanted to be strong. She was strong, but fear ricocheted through her like an errant bullet the moment she stepped through the bunker door ahead of the others.
The air was different from when she’d first arrived.
Outside, it thrummed with excitement at the festivities.
In here, it was frantic and anxious. Even the Ram’s men were afraid.
Understandably, Flick supposed, seeing how swiftly the Ram disposed of them. She wished she could sit them down and ask what the Ram had in store, but something told her not even they were fully aware.
Flick paused at the corner with Jin. Laith and Sidharth’s vampires followed close, Matteo taking up the rear and still unhappy to have the high captain along.
Flick peered around the corner, half expecting to see the Ram on the other side, blue eyes waiting.
She wasn’t there. Her men, by contrast, were everywhere, clothed in black, armed to the teeth.
Many wielded machetes. Others marched with knives strapped across their chests.
“This way,” she said.
“The Ram might still be in the room with Arthie and the others,” Laith murmured. He was dressed in dusky dark-blue robes that she didn’t know where he’d found.
“Let’s hope not,” Jin replied as they crept along the shadows. He tilted his chin. “Two men ahead.”
Laith nodded and sprinted forward, dropping one with a blade through his throat and another with an arm around his neck.
Flick held her breath tight and opened the door to a storeroom beside her.
Sidharth’s vampires dragged the two men inside, but not before Laith dug through their pockets, rising with a smug smile and a ring of keys.
“Oi!”
Footsteps pounded toward them, and a knife arced toward one of Sidharth’s men, tearing through his coat, the blade sinking down to its hilt.
Flick covered her mouth against a scream, but the vampire only stared at the torn fabric and growled, grabbing his assailant with both hands and throwing him into the storeroom too, where he hit his head against the wall and fell without another twitch.
That was one way to do it.
The amount of blood and carnage Flick had seen since leaving the Linden estate was a comical contrast to the occasional papercut she’d dealt with before. She focused on putting one foot in front of the other. For Arthie. For the girls and boys locked in that cage. For taking down the Ram.
“Which way?” Jin asked.
“Straight ahead,” Flick said as Matteo pulled the storeroom door closed behind them. The five of them moved with a fluidity Arthie would appreciate, quick and soundless, outside of Flick’s hem whispering with her every step.
Flick led them through corridors and shadowed walkways until they reached a large hall, the one where she’d seen that calendar, and felt her heart drop.
It was not empty.
“The cage is in the room just on the other side,” she whispered.
“Past an awful lot of men,” Jin murmured.
“We can handle them,” Laith said.
“Give me the keys,” Flick said. “I’ll get to Arthie and the others.”
Jin glanced at her, concern etched into his features.
He clearly wanted to do nothing of the sort, at war with not wanting to treat her any differently.
She saw Matteo’s discreet nudge, his nod, and then Jin reluctantly handed her the keys.
He met her eyes, and though he said nothing, she heard his words: Be careful. Stay safe.
Flick didn’t know if she imagined more than that in the heat of his gaze.
He adjusted his grip on his umbrella, pulling a knife from his coat and turning to the hall full of the Ram’s forces. “Wait until they’re distracted.”
With a nod, Laith moved first, tearing like a whip into the room, felling four in one smooth dance before he was noticed.
Shouts rang out. Black-clad figures leaped to attention, weapons drawn, but Jin and the others were faster.
They rushed in, the Athereum vampires using their size to their advantage while Matteo clawed his way through.
Jin threw up his umbrella as a shield—and a guide—drawing men to his knife as Laith did the same with his gauntlet blades.
Men fell. Knives clashed. Somehow, Matteo kept his shirt clean.
Flick wasted no time. She raced across the hall, breath held to listen for any sign of the Ram on the other side. She heard nothing but muffled cries and sobs. The girls and boys. Were they still human or had they been turned?
It took three tries before Flick found the right key in the heavy ring Laith had pilfered, doing her best to ignore the pain still throbbing through her arms, weighing her muscles with infuriating fatigue.
With one last look down the hall, Flick turned the handle, and the door creaked as if in warning. It took several seconds before Flick made sense of the sight in front of her.
Her heart halted, stuttered, and despite her every attempt to remain quiet, she could not. She screamed.