Page 151 of Taming the Beasts

“I’m sorry. Do you think the portrait artist captured all that?”

“No, I don’t think the portrait artist captured any of that! He’s either dead or a vampire himself. Oh my God, we’re never going to be able to leave this vault, are we? Crooked Point has fallen.”

I stopped laughing. “It’s like a freaking apocalypse. What happens now? Do they spread out and take over the whole United States?”

“And then get on planes and infect the whole world? Zoey, this is so bad. There won’t be any humans left.”

I wished I was still laughing. But my brain had started working again and Emma was right. This was catastrophic. There were only five werecats out there and there might be close to 200 vampires. Why had I invited the whole town to the wedding?

“What are we going to do?” Emma asked.

I tried to focus as I looked around at all the relics. “Do you think there’s something in here that could help?”

“Even if there was, I wouldn’t know which artifact.”

I picked up one of the swords from the wall. I knew I wasn’t supposed to touch anything in here. But it was kind of an emergency. “Maybe this can somehow cut through vampires?”

“No,” said someone who wasn’t Emma.

Emma screamed at the top of her lungs.

I dropped the golden sword and spun around.

Kebe was standing in the middle of the vault. Her face was splattered with blood and the bottom of her dress was torn.

I blinked, but she was still there. How was Kebe standing there?! We’d locked her out and the vault door was still closed.

Emma screamed again.

“Stop screaming,” Kebe said. “I’m trying to concentrate.”

I picked up the sword I’d dropped. “Don’t move or...or...I’ll slice your throat, Satan.”

“Satan?” She gave me a funny look. “Not even close to being correct.”

I think I was very, very close with my assessment. My scared ass had forgotten that the bitch could teleport. Clearly she hadn’t needed some random artifact to do it. She just teleported all willy nilly like a demon.

“Get the hell out of here!” I yelled and waved the sword around. “Disappear to wherever you came from! Be gone, demon!”

Kebe held up her hands. “Look, I’m on your side.”

“Bullshit.”

“I am! Maybe I wasn’t a half an hour ago. But that did not go at all the way I planned. And I’m freaking out just as much as you are! You saw me running down the sidewalk. That shit was terrifying.”

I held out the sword. “But youplannedthat terrifying shit. You clearly knew the whole time the coin was evil. Why the heck should we believe anything you say now?”

“I didn’t think the coin was evil.”

“Then what did you know about it?” Emma asked.

Kebe sighed. “I knew it would create vampires very easily and I believed that vampires were wonderful andperfect creatures and that there aren’t nearly enough of them in this modern world. And I also knew that there was a bit of a nasty, thieving little werecat population in Crooked Point and vampires kill werecats, and I was just trying to fix the problem like Daddy wanted me to.”

I had so many questions. But first... “My boyfriends aren’t nasty! Stop saying stuff like that about them. And vampires don’t kill werecats. It’s the other way around.” That’s what Bennett had said.

Kebe shook her head. “No, not really. Vampires are stronger and faster. Your boyfriends don’t stand a chance out there.”

My heart sunk. Kebe was a dirty liar, but she sounded truthful right now. I felt tears welling in my eyes.