Something grabbed me around the neck from behind so fast, I had no chance of hearing a thing. Derek launched himself at whoever was trying to suffocate me, but before he could take a single step, invisible magic hit him square in the chest and sent him flying all the way across the room.
I kicked behind me, thinking how stupid I’d been not to have taken my gun, but instead let myself get distracted because I’d killed a person.
I was on a mission. This was my job. Killing people who wanted to kill me was a part of it.
Too late now. A body as hard as the wall was behind me, and his arms were made of the same material, too. His fingers dug into my skin and every alarm in my head went off, urging me to move, kick, hit as fast as I could.
Until something pierced the side of my neck.
Blood rushed to it instantly, like it was being called by some ancient magic. I only had a second to realize that a vampire was behind me, and his fangs were already in my body, my blood already in his mouth. That’s why they’d drawn the blinds. That’s why the sun didn’t shine through the windows—that vampire was going to come for me all along. If I could only get to them for a second, pull them aside, let the sun burn whoever was biting me to a crisp…
All the lights went off.