One after the other, the streetlights popped, shattering glass over the sidewalk in frosty shards. Laughter echoed down the empty road, bouncing off the abandoned buildings.
‘Come and get it,’ she whispered into the moonlit night.
Oily fringe-shaped stains leaked out of the shadows and closed in. A tall fringe, his hair a spiky mess, jumped onto the hood of the closest car, denting its hood. His attitude announced him as leader. He planted his hands on his hips and smiled at her. ‘Well, well. Dinner has come to us tonight.’
A female fringe emerged from the shadows and leaned against the car. She glanced at him, then grinned at Chrysabelle. ‘This one smells sweet, Frankie, like candy.’ She strolled toward Chrysabelle, winding a strand of screaming-red hair around one finger. ‘I like candy.’
The rest of the crew surrounded Chrysabelle, posturing in their worn leathers and hard-edged grins. At least fifteen of them altogether. Not quite the odds she’d been anticipating, but she’d done nothing but train lately. She was ready for this. Sweat dampened the back of her tunic where the sacre sheaths crossed her spine.
These were fringe. Not nobles. They were weaker, younger, most definitely less powerful, but that didn’t stop her from sending up a quick prayer. Holy mother, give me strength. Guide my weapons.
An eerie sense of calm replaced her fear with a boldness that came from years spent in the sparring halls of the Primoris Domus. She’d felt it before when she’d killed the fringe in the Pits and when she’d fought with Tatiana. Comarré training was like a bad habit, only harder to break. Anger coiled in her belly, a live wire snapping and sizzling.
‘Wait up, Ruby.’ Frankie jumped off the car and landed beside the female fringe. With their arms slung across each other’s shoulders, the pair approached Chrysabelle. ‘Maybe we’ll keep her as a pet.’ He squeezed Ruby. ‘What do you say, love? Isn’t she pretty the way she glows? Like a sweet, bloody lightning bug.’
Ruby and the rest of them laughed. The crew tightened the circle around her.
Fools.
In a single motion, Chrysabelle lunged her left leg out and reached back to snag the hilts of her blades. They sang out a high, metallic hiss as she freed them from the leather. She straightened her arms and sliced the swords inward, beheading the fringe on either side of her with the sharp sizzle only a hot blade could produce.
Frankie and Ruby jumped back as the heads of two of their crew thumped wet and solid to the ground, their bodies following right after.
Frankie snarled, fangs bared. ‘Get her.’
Hands grabbed at her and fingers wrapped around her upper arms. She jerked one arm free and broke a nose with her elbow. A hand tried to push her head to the side. Teeth grazed her arm. She ducked and flipped the other fringe over the top of her, staking him with her sacre as he tumbled past.
Ash floated through the air like dirty snow.
Three down, twelve to go.
Several of that dozen now brandished weapons of their own. Short blades, mostly. Ruby flipped a butterfly knife through her fingers, opening and closing the weapon with a staccato click-clack, click-clack.
From behind Chrysabelle, the shush of metal cutting through the air warned her to duck. She did, but the dagger sliced through her tunic just above her elbow and opened a long cut as it sailed past. The gash stung, and as if her body just realized that wasn’t her only wound, the cut on her palm began to burn anew.
She spun, sacres flying, but the fringe moved out of reach. The element of surprise was gone. Time to get close and personal.
‘Give up, comarré?’ Frankie motioned to those behind her.
‘Get staked, fringe.’
Frankie scowled. ‘Been doing a lot of that, have you? Your vampire killing days are over, sweetheart.’
‘Really? Because I feel like they’ve just begun.’ Sweet sunlight, she really wanted to take Frankie’s head off next.
‘Kill her!’ he yelled. Several vamps jumped her, knocking her down. She dropped her sacres and twisted as she fell, throwing one off, but a large male leaped on top of her. He hissed, spraying saliva, and reared back to strike.
She palmed one of her bone daggers as something flew overhead and thunked into the female fringe standing over her. The crew member had a half second to glance down at the steel spike protruding out of her chest before she turned into ash. Three more bolts followed, neatly taking down three more surrounding fringe.
A broad shadow muted the moonlight, and the fringe on top of Chrysabelle got yanked off and tossed aside like a sack of bones. She flipped to her feet. The man who’d pulled the fringe off her leveled his crossbow and took out another retreating vamp.
Frankie and Ruby were nowhere to be seen. If the man had taken them out, too, she hadn’t seen it. Maybe they’d split at the first sign of trouble.
Miffed her fun had come to an end so quickly, she brandished her Golgotha dagger at the intruder. The man might be human, but his bronzed skin made her wonder. She’d never seen fae that color, but the feral way he stared back, his icy blue eyes unblinking, reeked of fae bravado. Tiny silver hoops winked from his ears and a short black Mohawk ran down the middle of his shaved skull. His knuckles bore the words HOLD and FAST, and more crudely rendered ink decorated his arms. A harder man she couldn’t imagine. Except maybe Mal.
‘Are you fae?’ she asked. His dirty jeans, soot-black T-shirt, and black leather vest clung to a heavily muscled form. She pulled her gaze back to his face. What human had that kind of aim? That kind of weaponry?