“And our passage?” Jason asked, getting the vampire back on track.
“I believe I mentioned the expense?”
“Name your price.” I could hear irritation rising in Jason’s voice . . . and in the new one that chimed in.
“I don’t think the price is yours to name, iubitu.”
We all turned to look behind us. At the other end of the corridor—the one we needed to get to—stood another group with the same dark hair and the same black eyes, the same young skin and very old eyes. But these vampires wore lighter colors, and their clothes were all old-fashioned. Pencil skirts, red lipstick, and short fur coats for the girls; greased-back hair and long trousers for the guys. They looked like they’d stepped right out of the 1940s.
At the front of the group was a girl with long blond hair that fell in tight curls across her shoulders. She was the one who’d spoken.
The boy in black spoke again. “This is not your concern, Marlena.”
“Oh, but it is my concern,” Marlena replied. “You’re here, entertaining guests, in my territory.”
Oh, great. Not only were we standing in the middle of a mess of vampires, we’d walked into some kind of fangy landgrab.
The boy showed his fangs to Marlena, and my heart began to thud in my chest like a bass drum. I felt like I was standing in a room with a wild animal . . . or a pack of them.
“Your territory stops three blocks back, Nicu.”
“My territory stops where I say it stops.”
I leaned toward Scout. “Are they arguing about a couple of blocks of industrial carpeting?”
“Not just carpeting—entrances and exits to the tunnels. They control getting in and getting out from the Pedway. That means Adepts, Reapers, and anyone else who uses them. That’s why we avoid the Pedway.”
“Guess they’re a little fuzzy on the boundaries right now.”
“Sounds like it,” she agreed.
“Lily?” Jason asked, without turning around. “Can you do something if we need it?”
“Yes,” I told him, answering the unspoken question—could I use firespell to take them out? “But it’s a lot easier if they’re standing together.”
“Perhaps now is not the time to have this discussion,” Nicu said. “Not when there are Adepts in our midst.”
Marlena barked out a laugh. “I don’t care anything about Adepts, iubitu. Nor, I think, do they care for us.” She put her hands on her hips, her short red nails tapping against her skirt. “Are you scared?”
This time, the bravado came from Paul. “Hardly. But we do have things to do tonight. So if you’ll give us passage, we’ll get out of your way.”
Marlena and her crew took a step forward, their movements synchronized. “Vampires do not give. Vampires take.”
Paul made a sarcastic noise. “You think no one will notice if you harm us here? You think no one will care if you spill Adept blood in your hallways?”
“I think I find it amusing you believe we would spill your blood.” She ran the tip of her tongue across one of her inch-long canines. “Oh, to be young again.”
Ironic, I thought, since she looked like she was barely older than me.
“Lily?” Jason prompted.
“I’m not sure I have enough juice to take two shots,” I whispered. Even if I took out Nicu’s crew, that left another set of vampires who clearly weren’t conflicted about drinking from well-intentioned teenagers.
“No worries, Shepherd,” Scout quietly said. “I got this one. Parker, rile them up. I’ll keep them talking. And when I give the word, lose the lights.”
Scout’s lids fell, and she began to mouth words. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but it must have been a spell. I also had no idea what she was planning, but I trusted her. She’d been an Adept longer than I’d been in high school, so I ignored the panicked roll in my stomach, sucked in a breath, and took a step to the left—directly into their line of sight.
“Hi,” I said, waving until all eyes were on me. “So, Nicu, what were you saying earlier about this being your land? I think you said this was your territory?”
Just as I’d predicted, Marlena wasn’t thrilled by that. She let out a low, threatening growl. “Your kingdom? Such hubris from someone so undeserving of it.”
The woman who’d wrapped herself around Nicu untwined her arms and pulled out her own set of weapons—some kind of sharp, round blades that fit over her knuckles. Nothing you wanted to run into in a dark ally—or even a well-lit pedestrian walkway.
“And what have you done to deserve it, you harpy?”
“Me? I honor our memories, our traditions. You, on the other hand, are an embarrassment to the vampyr,” Marlena said. “You and yours are pitiful. And we know that you are weak.”
The vampires around Nicu began to hiss and show their fangs. He glared across at Marlena, his eyes half-hooded. “Never forget, Marlena, who made me vampire.”
“Mistakes,” she growled out, “can be remedied.”
Scout was still mouthing her spell. With each word she spoke, the vampires seemed to become more and more angry. Soon they were screaming at each other in a heavy language I didn’t understand.
I stood at the ready, hands at my sides, wiggling my fingertips as I waited for Scout to give me the signal to douse the lights.
“Three,” she finally said, “two, and one.”
I tugged on the power, and the lights went out above us. The vampires began to yelp. I wasn’t sure if they could see any better in the dark than we could, but they clearly weren’t happy about being plunged into darkness while enemies were in their midst.
On the other hand, they seemed to think their fellow vampires were the only enemies that mattered. As the groups rushed each other to wage their battle, we became irrelevant.
I felt a hand at my elbow. “Go,” Jason said, and we moved in a tight knot, staying close to the wall as we ran for the next corridor. They ignored us, but the sounds of a fight—ripping flesh, bruising strikes—erupted behind us.
We ran full out in the darkness. When we made it to the next corridor, Detroit finagled a light to lead the way. It was a glowing ball that bounced through the hallway, leading us to the end of the corridor and then to the left until we reached the gunmetal gray fire door. The stairwell was lit from within, and it cast an orange glow into the hallway. The bouncing light disappeared into the puddle of light.