Page 26 of The Wayward Sons & The Vampires of Fortune (The Wayward Sons #4)
I pressed my back against the wall with my gun up and my senses going haywire. A blast of gold flooded the darkness momentarily, inciting a wild screech to fill the space. I held my ground as I waited for whatever came next.
“C’mon, you ugly fucker,” Nash snarled somewhere in the room. “Show me your worst.”
Yeah, I wasn’t sure we wanted that to happen either.
“ Tap your earpiece, ” Riley instructed in my ear.
“Why?” I demanded. I was too damn focused on not getting my ass grabbed by a vampire while trying to figure out how to help Nash—if it was even possible.
“ Because your mask has night vision ,” he said.
Oh. That was a good reason.
I did as he ordered, and the darkness came alive in shades of greens and shadows.
“This would’ve been helpful earlier,” I snapped.
“ You’re still alive, aren’t you? ” he clipped back. Snarky fucking kid.
I ignored anything else he had to say as I caught sight of Nash facing down a single vampire. The gold of his power screwed with the night vision, making the entire scene hard to take in.
The two were trapped in hand-to-hand combat.
He was fast.
The vampire was faster.
Every punch, every kick, every hit… they all landed flat.
And every hit earned him equal treatment, sending him flying back against concrete.
“Keep goin’!” Nash shouted, his words dissolving into a grunting scream as the vampire grabbed him around the wrist and tossed him hard across the room.
I took aim, ready to help, but the vampire disappeared.
“Duck!” The shout behind me had me dropping just in time for an axe to jettison over my head. The thunk it made as it landed in the vampire's chest was deafening.
It slowed the vampire, but it didn’t stop it.
I rolled to the side as Cobalt came running. Using the moment, he slid across the floor and between the vampire’s legs, grabbing the axe handle as he did. The sheer force of his movement flipped it.
I aimed, trying to do whatever I could to help. The lack of powers given the situation was crippling. They moved too fast.
The vampire flipped. Cobalt did the same.
It grabbed the axe and yanked it free from its chest, tossing it aside like it was nothing.
With its back to me, I couldn’t take the shot. It’d be a waste of bullets. It still took everything I had not to just shoot anyway in an attempt to slow it down.
I couldn’t just… do nothing.
When the vampire lunged, Cobalt’s power flared violently. I cringed and lost sight of everything as the gold light overwhelmed my night vision.
Being blinded was up there on the list of things I didn’t fucking need.
Screaming…
Grunting…
Squelching…
I’d spent enough time hunting demons to know the sound of body parts being ripped apart. Blood. Muscle. Bone. It was undeniable.
Frantically, I tapped the earpiece to get rid of the night vision as fear gripped me tightly. I needed to see.
The room was blanketed in darkness, only brightened by Cobalt’s power. As he ripped the vampire’s head from its body. Its jaw clacked viciously, even as he dragged its spine out of its body. Blood splashed on the floor along with organs—the sight more than enough to make my stomach roll.
“ Fuck ,” he grunted, breathing hard. The vampire screeched. Its jaw continued to click as its head rotated on the flopping spine. “Gross.”
He tossed the head and spine one way while throwing the body across the building.
“It won’t stop it, but it’ll fucking slow it,” he told me.
“Slow it?” I repeated. Only slow it? “It doesn’t have a fucking head!”
“Tiny Deadpool hands,” he replied like that told me anything. “It’ll grow—”
The building shook violently with an explosion of gold light on the far end of the floor.
I braced myself on the wall and pulled back quickly as ice touched my fingers.
What the fuck? A cold front swept through the room, swirling in the air.
Ice crystals built on the wall and collected on the floor, rapidly covering everything.
With it came an intense wave of clicking. More than one vampire. That much I could tell.
“That’s our cue to leave. Now!”
“What about—”
“Trust me, and just run!” he ordered. His hand lashed out and grabbed me by the back of the neck, shoving me forward. “Don’t worry about him. She’s got him.”
I didn’t trust him, but I did run.