h worse. Mayhew tongued the tip of his demonic incisors and leered at us.
Demonic. Yes, the thought nagging at the back of my head had formed itself into a full-on understanding. Mayhew was a demon. And not just any earth-born half-demon either. They were mischief-makers and wannabe hell-raisers at best. This guy was the real deal. An honest-to-God full-blooded demon was standing in front of me demanding I give him something.
And I had said no.
“Why do you want to know my name?” he asked almost pleasantly.
“So I can send you back to Hell.”
Chapter Thirty
I should have known better than to use a snappy one-liner on a demon.
Mayhew sneered and hit me. Or at least I think he hit me. One minute I was looking at myself, the next I was flat on my back staring at the array of mold spores decorating the ceiling. Spots of light swam around me like fireflies.
Pretty.
Oh, right. Seeing dancing lights wasn’t a good thing.
Groaning, I managed to move into a sitting position. The little lights now seemed like angry wasps, and my body was insisting I lay back down. But in the few seconds since I’d been laid out, Holden and Mayhew had gotten into a knockdown drag-out fight over the fate of Lucy Renard. Miraculously, Lucy was still out cold. Even more of a miracle was the fact Holden was holding his own against Mayhew while clinging to the girl.
My vampire was a hell of a guy.
Too bad it was obvious Mayhew wasn’t putting his all into the fight. I don’t know if he was worried about damaging his supposed property, or if he thought fighting a vampire was beneath his demonic strength, but he was holding back.
“Give me the girl,” Mayhew demanded.
“No.” Holden swung and missed. Mayhew danced from one foot to the other, bobbing away from the vampire’s faster-than-light punches.
I tried to move, but the elephant parked on my chest had different ideas. Since I obviously couldn’t sass talk the demon into submission, I was going to have to do something else to distract him and give Holden a chance to escape with Lucy.
Something that didn’t involve any advanced form of locomotion.
On the bottom shelf within arm’s reach was a row of dark brown bottles with a thick layer of dust on them and labels so faded I didn’t think an archaeologist would be able to decipher them. Given that everything in the room seemed to be expired chemistry department supplies, I figured there was a good chance it might be dangerous.
Or, at the very least, irritating.
I picked up the bottle and chucked it at Mayhew. Instead of shattering dramatically, the bottle bounced off his head with a thwock sound and fell to the floor undamaged.
Well, shit.
As it turns out, bashing a demon in the head with a glass bottle accomplishes two things. First, it gets their attention long enough for a vampire to land one hell of a right hook. Second, it really pisses them off.
“Vile creatures,” Mayhew hollered. Holden’s punch had caused the demon to stagger backwards into the door, cracking the weak wood frame. We were breaking an awful lot of doors at Columbia tonight. Mayhew touched his mouth, and his fingers came away bloody. “This won’t be forgotten.” He looked to me, and his red eyes glowed like lava, hot and angry. “I hope you said fond farewells to your loved ones, halfling. Tonight they all die.”
My lips parted, but I never got a chance to find out what marvelous wordsmithery was about to tumble out. Mayhew grabbed the door handle, twisting the knob into a gob of brass chewing gum, and the door buckled in half before he was able to get it open.
Then he was gone, still wearing my face.
Desmond’s phone went straight to voicemail, as did Lucas’s. I tried to sum up the problem quickly, knowing I had a dozen other calls to make before everyone I cared about was safe from…well, safe from me.
“Hey,” I told Desmond’s message. “I have an evil demon twin. He…she…it will kill you without question, and may try to sleep with you first. I’m sort of fuzzy on the plan. Unless I say…” I looked around for a code word to distinguish myself as the real Secret and the first thing I saw was Holden, “…Dracula, it’s not me. And you better run.”
I snapped my phone shut and ignored Holden’s disgusted expression. “You’re making excellent strides at butchering all the classics of British literature tonight.”
“The vamps ruined Stoker long before I got to him.” Vampires had a nasty habit of calling those who had been too corrupted by the thrall Renfields. Ick.
Holden had draped his coat over Lucy, and we had managed to get her back to her dorm room without much fuss. It was too cold and too late for most students to be outside. Lucy’s roommate was an apparent exception. I was starting to wonder if Katie was ever in their room, or if it was just a storage locker for her crap.