Page 5

I leaped out of bed, brain marinated in a foggy cocktail of sleep and adrenaline.

The door exploded inward, slammed into the wall, and sagged, half off its hinges.

Kara barreled through, her face tight with urgency, still in her leather corset bodysuit and fishnet stockings, a rip above one knee I hadn’t noticed before.

She caught herself and we both froze, staring at each other across the small living room. Then it hit me—I’d stripped for bed, now wearing only boxers. Her eyes widened as she took in my near-nakedness. The fire alarm’s shrill wail filled the space between us.

“Get dressed for fuck’s sake. It’s chaos out there.” She shook her head, frowning as she tagged on, “Please, Master.”

“What the hell is happening?” I shouted over the fire alarm’s wail.

Kara gave my apartment a disdainful glance, nose twitching like it smelled bad. “I don’t know. Rioting? Arson?” She moved to the living room window, looking out over the chaos below. “Looks like a full-on pitched battle.”

I stuffed my feet into my boots, hopping to get them on. “You want to go out there?”

“You want to stay and burn to death?”

“Fire alarms are usually false alarms.”

She gave me an incredulous look. “Not when the building is on fucking fire.”

Okay, fair. But in my defense, I’d been awake half a minute, my brain still catching up.

I threw on a shirt and grabbed my hoodie and jacket, then paused. “You want to borrow a sweater?”

“I’m a demon, Master. I don’t do cold.” One hand landed on her cocked hip. “Would you like to go now, or wait until the staircase is a raging inferno?”

The attitude, while perhaps justified in this instance, was a discordant juxtaposition to her frequently scattered ‘masters’. I muttered under my breath and yanked my hoodie over my head, snatched my keys, and glanced out the window.

Flames lit the night, roaring through the next apartment block, sending black smoke high into the sky. Figures ran across the ground, some scuffling with a small group of uniformed security.

Shit. That didn’t look good.

I paused at the door, taking a last look around my apartment. There wasn’t much I’d miss, save for my guitar. I was tempted to go back and grab it, but there wasn’t time—the hallway was already hazy with smoke, some apartment doors ajar.

“We need to make sure everyone’s out.”

“If they’re not already, they weren’t in,” Kara said, grabbing my arm and dragging me along. She was a hell of a lot stronger than she looked. “What did you do, Master, take a sleeping pill? I’ve been banging on your door for ages.”

I wasn’t usually a heavy sleeper, yet we seemed to be the last ones here. I was still groggy too, and that wasn’t like me either. Shrugging her hand off, I banged the stairwell door open.

“Why do you call me that?” I asked irritably, taking the stairs two at a time.

“How the hell should I know? It’s not through choice, that’s for sure.” She surged past, jumping the last few steps—panther- like tail out for balance—rebounded off the wall, and used the momentum to charge down the next flight.

Smoke drifted along the ceiling in slow, creeping tendrils. It clung to the air, thick enough to taste. Acrid, chemical and wrong. It clawed at my throat, not yet choking, but it was getting there, lending a sense of urgency. I raced after Kara, boots hammering against the concrete.

Around the next corner, the air rose several degrees, and the walls glowed a dull orange. Flames guttered and spat ahead, and something cracked—furniture, framing—I didn’t know, but it wasn’t a good sound.

How had I slept through this?

“Shit,” Kara muttered to herself. “Should’ve smashed his door in sooner.”

Down the last flight, the stairwell a gray blur. Every breath scraped going in, and I doubled over, coughing so hard it felt like something might tear.

“Come on,” she said, gripping my hoodie by the shoulder and tugging me forward. “If you don’t make it, who’ll flunk my papers?”

“Anyone who reads them,” I choked out, pulling my coat over my head, for what good it would do.

We hit the first floor, and the heat punched me in the chest. The fire had found its stride.

Orange light flickered beneath the door to the lobby.

Kara slammed it open, and a rush of fire surged forward, hungry for oxygen.

The flames roared, blasting into her face.

I dropped on instinct, feeling the heat singe my hair as it passed.

“Kara!” I cried out, then couldn’t take another breath. All the air was gone.

But she was unharmed, even though the fire had rolled right over her.

She grabbed my shoulder, yanking me forward as we rushed through the lobby.

The flames were everywhere, climbing the walls and licking at my clothes.

There was nothing to breathe, my chest tight and full of smoke.

I fought the suffocating pressure in my lungs.

My coat caught fire, and I threw it away.

The main door was just ahead, every staggering step a struggle of heat and pain.

Kara charged the door, dragging me behind her, and together we burst out into the night and clean, smoke-free air. I stumbled and nearly fell, coughing and choking down the sweetest, coldest air I’d ever breathed.

“Thought you were …” I managed, bracing myself with hands on knees as another spasm gripped me.

“Demon, right? Fireproof enough for that,” she said, standing tall, barely out of breath.

Her hair and skin were unmarked, though her corset hadn’t fared so well.

She brushed glowing embers off the singed laces and patted out the flames that had burned a hole in one side.

The remnants of her fishnets clung to her legs, reduced to little more than black scraps.

“You saved my life,” I said when I could finally find my breath. Then added, “Again.”

“Not through choice,” she muttered.

I straightened slowly, raising a singed eyebrow. She couldn’t hate me that much, right?

“You’re injured.” She grasped my wrist just below the raw, blistered skin where the flames had burned through my hoodie.

“Nothing I can’t get healed later,” I said, the whiplash of her shift from deadly apathy to genuine concern leaving me utterly bewildered. But I didn’t pull my hand away; her touch was reassuring, despite everything.

I looked around for the first time since we’d staggered out of my burning apartment block, and chaos was everywhere. Half the uni buildings were on fire. Bodies lay sprawled and broken across the green. Figures clashed, claws and teeth meeting spells that lit the night in bursts of color.

“Kara …” I breathed, stunned by the horror of it.

“What?” She looked up at my tone, and her breath caught.

Under a streetlight a hundred yards away, three campus security officers fell beneath a rabid pack of were-leopards, their stun batons sparking blue even as jaws tore into their throats.

A seven-foot demon swung a two-handed sword at a pair of elves.

One cast a spell that burst against his chest, making him roar in pain.

A delicate-looking fae held off two elementals with a shield spell that flared when struck, the outline briefly visible in a glowing sphere.

“Fuck, what’s happening?” Kara’s grip tightened on my hand. “We need to get out of here.”

“And go where?” I asked, even as we turned and ran, hand in hand, aiming for the spaces furthest from the madness surrounding us.

“The faculty must have a defense somewhere,” Kara said, looking around with wide eyes.

She was probably right, but how to find it?

“The bar,” I said, confirming the keys were still in my jean pocket. “If we can get there.”

“And if it’s not on fire,” she answered grimly.

My phone was in my pocket too, and I pulled it out, intending to call Emma. “Shit, no service.”

“Cell towers must be down.”

“We need to get Emma. She’s a norm, she can’t survive this.”

Kara winced. “It’s not safe. The priority is getting you—”

“The priority is Emma.” I said firmly. “I’m not leaving her to fend for herself.”

“Yes, Master.” Kara lowered her eyes with a demure expression that was completely at odds with her usual defiant arrogance. Any other time, I’d have found it kind of hot, but surrounded by all this senseless violence, my only focus was reaching Emma and then getting us somewhere safe.

“Let’s go,” I said, leading the way toward Emma’s apartment block. I still had Kara’s hand—or maybe she had mine—and together, we ran across the campus, veering to keep as much distance as we could between us and anyone else.

It was impossible to know who to trust in the dark and chaos.

I couldn’t believe the insanity I was witnessing. Halloween was always volatile, but this surpassed everything—apocalyptic levels of mayhem, like Ragnarok had arrived. Wherever I looked, supes fought one another, and far too many bodies lay still, unmoving on the ground.

“These can’t all be students,” Kara said as we ran, voicing the conclusion I’d already reached.

“I don’t get it,” I replied. “The veil’s thinning just boosts powers. It doesn’t cause …” I gestured around us. “… this.”

Kara said nothing, tugging me to the side as we gave a wide berth to two demons fighting each other.

One was squat, all muscle, and covered in spiked armor.

The other was a thing of darkness, armed with two swords of shadow.

They were midrange, the same level of power Conrad had shown, but they fought with a ferocity and expertise no student could ever match.

They had to have come from the city. What the hell were they doing here?

“Do you think it’s like this all over New Providence?” Kara asked.

I grunted, not knowing, but assuming it must be.

“Where the hell is SPAR?” Kara demanded as we ran past one of the few buildings untouched by fire—its main door hung open, held there by a bloody body slumped in the frame.

Supernatural Protection and Regulation was the city’s answer for when the shit hit the fan, and this most certainly qualified.