This was the opposite of good. This woman—a leggy blonde with gray eyes and no mask— had some sort of magic in her that was making the vampire in me respond. Or not respond.
She wasn’t a witch, but this wasn’t a spell. I didn’t know how I knew it, but as certain as I knew my own name, I knew this. Whoever she was, this woman was a…what were they called? Those critters that had power over the dead. Over zombies and vampires. It was going to bug me until I thought of the word. The lady I bought my house from, Ava, was one. Dang it! What was the word?
I would’ve asked Paige, but her eyes were wide with terror, too, and knowing what this broad was wouldn’t help free us from whatever bond she’d placed on us. Instead, I needed to figure out how to break the magic, how to free myself and Paige from her mind control, but the truth was, Jax had never gotten to this chapter—if there was one—in our training manual.
I turned to face the woman, but that was the most control I could exert over my body. I couldn’t even wave an arm at Ransom, who was standing at the end of the hallway. He apparently couldn’t tell that we weren’t moving of our own volition.
As soon as I was free, this chick—who and whatever she was—was going to feel some vampire power in the fingers I planned to wrap around her neck.
She shoved open the door to Luke’s office and pushed us inside. It was overkill since whatever mind control she was using could’ve directed us inside, and we were powerless to stop it, so the shove went on the list I’d started of her wrongs. Every step went on the list. And the fact I couldn’t turn around and throttle her took top spot. These were crimes for which I would punish her. At my earliest convenience and as soon as I could control myself.
She shoved again, and I ended up on the ground, which was how I saw Ransom slip in behind her. Then Nash, then Grim. Two others behind him. Oh yeah. The odds were in our favor.
Ransom moved first, ready to attack. Hands out, fangs bared. She turned him away with one pointy little finger. And he walked into the wall, face first, pressing his nose against the white paint.
Then Grim tried. Nash went next. The others as a team. As she directed and held one, another could move. I tried moving and waved my arm. Paige tried too. We looked like cheerleaders in very sparkly dresses, but we could move and that was what mattered.
She could only keep a couple of us locked in her grip at a time. The others were able to move. She shifted her focus enough to keep herself vampire free, but she was dancing like she was possessed by the spirit of ol’ blue eyes.
And it gave Kendra time to run in and throw a potion, one of her special potions that induced immediate sleep. The woman—a necromancer, that was the word!—fell and conked her head on the floor. Her magic—the necromancer’s—went away in a poof of air, and we were all free. Linda, superintendent extraordinaire, ran into the office with Luke just after her.
He groaned and shot me a look, because his office was a disaster now, but as we stared at one another, Linda pulled a gun that made Dirty Harry’s look like a cap gun.
She jerked him close and shoved the barrel of the gun against Luke’s temple.
“Whoa, now, hang on.” Luke held up his hand. “This really doesn’t have anything to do with me.”
“Shut up!” Her voice was coated in steel. “We don’t need an audience for this, now do we?”
I swallowed hard. She had my brother in her grasp, and even if I couldn’t see her with my own vampire-strong eyes, I would’ve known she had an itchy trigger finger. “Wait, please!”
“Stop right there. You move, and I’ll shoot him where he stands.” I didn’t doubt her.
She jabbed the barrel so that his head moved and honest fear glistened in his eyes. Ransom growled and moved, but he was no match for the speed of Smith & Wesson. His sudden movement spooked the hag, and she pulled the trigger.
Luke went down, shot. In the head. Shot.
A scream bubbled up in my throat.
Grim and Nash moved, because Linda had even surprised herself. Certainly, she didn’t expect that the crowd wouldn’t hear a gunshot. They took her down, but I didn’t care. My brother was on the ground, bleeding from a gunshot to the head. The skin on the left side of his head was loose, as if it’d come detached from his skull.
I knelt beside him, afraid to touch him, afraid not to, afraid to move or breathe. “Luke!”
“He isn’t dead.” Ransom breathed the words in a whisper. “He’s alive.”
I looked at Luke’s chest. It rose and fell.
Ransom used a fang and ripped his wrist open then pressed it to Luke’s mouth. But Luke was motionless, neither accepting or drinking from Ransom. “Oh, no.” He tried again, but I pulled his arm away.
“You’ll turn him.” The truth was, I didn’t know that to be true. All I knew was that if a human took in too much vampire blood it could start the process. It could also turn him into a vampire zombie of sorts.
Plus, we already had the council on our backs over my rebirth as a vampire. Luke was still human, and human medicine was going to have to save him. We had to give it a chance, at least.