I sighed and sat back, hearing my own chair creak. Probably not a good sign. Probably should lay off the creams, not that there were any left.
I scrubbed my face with my palms, feeling a little light-headed from all the sugar. Maybe ordering some real food might be smart, after all. The phone was on the counter, all of five feet away, but it seemed really far for some reason. I sighed again and followed Marco’s example, putting my hands on the table to lever myself up—
And went in the other direction instead.
The room spun wildly, my legs collapsed underneath me and I dropped like a stone. Something shot overhead as I hit the tile, and a loud crack reverberated around the kitchen. I looked up, dizzy and confused and wondering why there was a knife bisecting the back of my chair.
I stared for a split second at the shiny, shiny blade, which was still quiverin
g, slinging little shards of light around the room. And then I shifted.
Or I tried. But the woozy feeling that had sent me to the floor made it hard to concentrate, and when I finally did feel the familiar swoop catching me, it stuttered and jerked and wobbled and fractured. And the next thing I knew, I was kneeling by the fridge, staring at a familiar pair of glossy black shoes.
The vamps should have told him, I thought vaguely; they were totally the wrong color for the season.
And then one of them kicked me in the head.
It hurt like a bitch, despite the fact that I’d dodged at the last second and it only clipped my ear. I grabbed the fridge door and swung it open, hard, just as three more enchanted knives ripped through the flimsy material. Stainless steel, my ass.
I’d have been dead, but I was on my knees and the knives burst through overhead, shattering plastic and breaking condiments, before slamming into something behind me. I couldn’t see—literally—because I’d just gotten a face full of pickle juice. I blinked it away to find that the knives had also exploded some hot sauce, forever ruining my blouse, which concerned me less than the eyes peering at me through the lacerated fridge door.
They had been my would-be date’s best feature, a soft, melting, cornflower blue that had looked a little girlie for a war mage. That wasn’t so much a problem now. I stared into something cold and black and boiling, and then I threw the rest of the hot sauce at them and scrambled away on all fours.
The mage screamed and it was nothing human, but a high-pitched, keening cry of pure rage. The eyes had been a big clue, but that sealed it. Whatever had possessed me before must have hitched a ride in a new body, obviously with the idea of finishing what it had started.
Awesome.
I scrambled for cover behind the table, eyes burning, head spinning and fingers fumbling for the little pouch Pritkin had made for me—only to remember that I didn’t have it anymore. Goddamned Niall! If I lived, I was going to send him back to the desert—this time the freaking Gobi.
I jerked open a cabinet door and crawled inside.
It wasn’t as crazy as it sounds. I had to find something made of iron and I had to do it quick. It was either that or use the only weapon I had on me, and while I’d killed when I had no other choice, it had never been some poor schmuck who nobody had bothered to tell that dating me was a hazardous occupation.
I really didn’t want to send him back to Jonas in a body bag. I really, really didn’t. Even when knives started slamming through the cabinets and ricocheting back and forth in the small space like BBs in a jar. They also let in slivers of light that glinted off pots and pans and colanders and bowls, all nice, modern, worthless stainless without an iron skillet in the bunch.
And then a knife bisected a water line under the sink, spewing me in the face.
I was only blinded for a second, but it was long enough for a hand to reach in and jerk me out—by the hair. It hurt bad enough to bring tears to my eyes, but it also left me with an opportunity. Fucking Sahara, I thought viciously, and then I grabbed a knife out of a block and slashed—my own curls.
The sudden loss of his handhold caused the mage to stumble. And then my foot in his ass caused him to sprawl on the floor. And then I stepped on his shoulders and heard his face smack against the tile as I ran full out for the hall, screaming for Billy and my useless, useless bodyguards—
I didn’t make it.
Halfway there, a blast picked me up and sent me hurtling toward the far wall of the lounge. My feet left the floor, my head hit the wall and pain lanced through my skull. But that wasn’t the main problem. That would be the film of what felt like hard plastic flattening me against the dark red wallpaper like a bug under cellophane.
Make that shrink-wrapped cellophane, because in another second it had molded to every inch of my body, including my nose and mouth and eyes. I struggled furiously, feeling the possessed mage approach, even though I couldn’t turn my head to see him. I also couldn’t twitch a finger or contract my throat to swallow or blink my drying eyes or—
Or anything.
Suddenly, it was like being in the bathtub all over again, unable to move or breathe or even to cry out for help. And isn’t that just the wrong analogy? I thought, as stark terror hit me like a fist. My heart sped out of control, my palms started sweating, and my stomach twisted violently, until I was sure I was going to be sick right here.
In desperation, I tried to shift, because I needed to go only a foot or so. But this time, nothing happened. I could close my eyes and see the bright, familiar energy, like an ocean of power sparkling in the sunlight. But I couldn’t reach it. It was trapped by the weird, cottony feeling in my head, just like the bracelet that formed my only weapon lay locked tight and useless between me and the wall.
And then the mage came up alongside.
The pleasant-looking face didn’t look so pleasant anymore, distorted by the thick, wavy barrier like an image in a fun house mirror. But I could see him pretty well anyway, because he bent close, close, so very close. Like he wanted to see my expression at the end.
Only the end didn’t come.