Page 50 of Taming the Beasts (Crooked Point #3)

Saturday

Zoey

For just a second, Kebe hesitated. Which actually made me feel better. In my head she was still a monster. More likely to hand over a curse than a cure. So hesitancy was probably a good thing in this case.

She placed the sistrum into my hand.

It felt warm in my palm. The same way the Anubis coin had. I didn’t love that. I’d thought I’d felt the goodness seeping out of the coin, but I’d been dead wrong. I stared at the sistrum. Was this the same thing? A trick by a rude Egyptian goddess?

Damn it. There was no time to debate this any longer. We really were out of time to fix this situation.

“How do you use it?” I asked.

“It’s a percussion instrument,” Kebe said. “You play it.”

“How?”

Kebe sighed like I was an idiot. “You shake it.”

“Like a rattle?”

“It’s more sophisticated than that. But...yes.”

So just like a rattle. Noted. I shook it and it made a sad metallic noise. I was sure the sound was beautiful if I knew how to properly use it, but I did not.

Kebe raised her eyebrow at me. “I don’t think anyone can hear that outside this vault. ”

“I know. I was just seeing how loud it was.” And it was quiet.

Way too quiet. “It’ll take too long to go around playing it individually for everyone.

Or even if we can get people into small groups.

We need everyone to hear it at once. And I have no idea how to use the town alert system that they use for hurricane warnings and stuff. That leaves...”

“The mics we set up for the reception speeches,” Emma said.

I nodded. “Exactly what I was thinking.” Everything was set up already. We just had to get to the mics and play the sistrum so that everyone could hear it at once.

Emma bit her lip. “But those are right next to where the ceremony was. There’s no way we’ll be able to get to the mics alive. For all we know, everyone could have turned by now.”

“We have to try,” I said. We’d barely made it out of the town square alive. It was crazy to go back out there. But what choice did we have?

Kebe nodded.

Which I was suspicious of, but this wasn’t about her right now. My boyfriends were outnumbered. They needed my help.

Emma nodded too. “Okay. You’re right. Of course we have to try.” She looked terrified and I was pretty sure I looked the same.

“Is there anything in here that we can use to defend ourselves against vampires?” I asked Kebe.

She shook her head. “Not really. They have super strength and speed. They’re the perfect creations. Usually. ”

She was always so unhelpful. I eyed the sword I’d threatened her with. It was heavy and would just slow us down. Besides, I wasn’t sure I could actually use it on someone. I wasn’t a murderer. We just needed to be sneaky and hope for the best.

I turned to the vault door. “Wait,” I said and turned back to Kebe. “Can’t you just teleport to the mic and do it?” I forced the sistrum back into her hands.

“Great thinking,” Emma said.

Kebe smiled. “I don’t know why we didn’t think of that to begin with. Wish me luck!”

I really hoped that what she said about the sistrum was true...

Kebe disappeared. Completely vanished right in front of my eyes. But the sistrum didn’t go with her. It clanged onto the floor.

“Why didn’t she take the cure with her?” Emma asked. “It’s a key part of the plan here.”

I picked it up. Luckily it was still in once piece. The plan would be ruined if we broke the one relic that could save them. “I have no idea. Did she accidentally drop it?”

Kebe reappeared.

I jumped. That was going to take some getting used to.

She sighed. “Freaking Baset. She must have put some kind of magic on the sistrum so that another goddess or god couldn’t easily steal it. Sneaky little kitty.”

I ignored her dig at cats. “So you can’t teleport with it?”

“Apparently not. It didn’t come with me. And just so you guys are prepared...it’s a total bloodbath out there.” She shuddered. “Way worse than how we left it.”

Great. But the fact that Baset had put some kind of protection spell on this relic seemed like a good thing. It was important to her. That felt like it bode well to it being the cure. “So back to the original plan?”

“Yup,” Kebe said. “Sorry about that.”

I turned back to the vault door. “Here goes nothing.”

“Slowly,” Emma whispered. “In case some of the vampires followed us to the bank.”

“Good thinking.” The door hissed open and I slowly pushed it. I waited for a moment, listening. But I didn’t hear anything. I pushed it open a little more so I could see. “I think we’re alone.”

“They did seem busy drinking their fellow guests,” Kebe said.

Yeah. I pushed the door open the rest of the way. The bank was so eerily quiet. A small piece of me thought I’d prefer it if there was a vampire lurking out here. The silence was so deafening, I swore I could hear my own heart beating.

I held the sistrum tight as I walked quietly past the counter.

But I almost dropped it when I heard a muffled scream.

We all stared out the front doors of the bank. A woman in a dress ran by, holding the side of her neck. Blood was oozing between her fingers. As soon as she disappeared from view, a vampire ran by much faster. And then there was another scream.

I swallowed hard .

“So they’ve spread out farther than the town square,” Emma said. “How far do you think the speakers for the mics will reach?”

“We’ll turn the volume all the way up,” I said. “But we’re definitely running out of time. We need to play this thing before they all spread out.”

Every part of my brain was screaming at me to stay put.

But my heart made me take a step toward the front doors of the bank.

I took a deep breath and pushed it open.

The door must have been muffling more noise than I realized.

Main Street was still pretty deserted. But there were puddles of blood on the streets and sidewalks.

And screaming could be heard from the town square at the end of the lane.

I looked both ways to make sure the coast was clear before stepping out. I hurried down the bank steps and pressed my back against the side of a parked car. I tried to ignore my body shaking as Emma ran up beside me.

Kebe kind of just casually walked down the steps and barely squatted down.

I grabbed her shoulder and pulled her lower. “We can’t be seen by them.”

“Right. Sorry. It’s hard for me to think of my babies as being poorly behaved. But these vampires are little terrors.”

They weren’t just little terrors. She’d created literal monsters. But I kept my mouth shut on my opinion. I peered around the car. “This way.” I stayed low as I ran down the sidewalk, taking time ducking behind the cars one by one to make sure no one was around.

I could see people running around the town square in the distance. It still looked packed, which was good and bad. It meant lots of vampires would hear the sistrum. But it also meant it would be hard to get to the mic.

We kept going. I avoided stepping into a puddle of blood with my bare feet. There were never any bodies near the blood. And I knew what that meant. People weren’t dying. They were just being transformed into monsters.

I stopped by the last car at the end of Main Street and stared in horror at the town square.

Bloody chairs were knocked over, the gazebo roof had caved in, and the bright colors of the fall leaves actually looked dull surrounded by all the blood red.

People were running around screaming and groaning in pain as they shifted.

A low growl made me peer around the hood of the car.

One of my werecat boyfriends could barely be seen under the pile of vampires on his back.

The low growl sounded again. The sound was haunting.

And I had this fear in my chest that he was dying.

Where were my other boyfriends? Why weren’t they helping?

I scanned the carnage and saw similar piles of vampires. Slowly killing my boyfriends.

The only one who even seemed to be fighting back now was Titan. But I could tell it was no use. They were too outnumbered.

I took a step, but Emma grabbed my arm from behind to stop me. Just as a body slammed against the windshield of the car we were crouched next to.

I threw my hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t scream as a vampire jumped on top of the woman on the windshield. I was pretty sure he’d thrown her there. I didn’t realize they liked playing with their food so much .

The woman started screaming bloody murder.

I cringed. But then I remembered I was holding the cure. I shook the sistrum.

The vampire lifted its mouth off the woman’s neck. Blood dribbled down his chin as he stared at me.

For a second, I didn’t even realize I recognized him. His face was so covered in blood. But I instantly knew the smile that spread across his face. He’d smiled at me just like that in countless private sessions.

Elias.

“Zoey. You came back.”

FUCK! I shook the sistrum harder. Why wasn’t it working?! I kept shaking it but nothing happened. Damn it, Kebe! You freaking liar!

The woman Elias had bitten was now screaming in agony as she started to change into a vampire.

Elias leapt off the hood of the car right in front of me. He took a look behind me at Emma and Kebe and his smile grew even more.

I had no doubt in my mind that he was planning on biting Emma. And maybe high fiving Kebe or something? I had no idea what a vampire mother’s relationship was with her demon spawn.

But none of that mattered. What mattered was that my boyfriends were dying.

And Elias was only here because of me. This was all my fault.

The cure obviously hadn’t worked on him.

But maybe it could work on the vampires that the coin created?

It was possible it just needed to be played louder.

It was old and rusted. The sound was probably muted a bit.

I put the sistrum behind me, trying to force it into Emma’s hands. But it was like she was avoiding it.

“What are you doing?” Emma whispered .