“Come on!” I cry, grabbing her by the arm. “I know a way out.”
She turns to me, looking at me as if I asked her to skin a baby puppy for its fur coat and then eat the remains for breakfast. “Are you kidding? I told you before, I’m not leaving without Magnus.”
“He’s the one who asked me to get you out of here!”
Sunny frowns. “Yeah, well, too bad. I’m not going anywhere. And you know you’d do the same thing if you were me.”
She’s got me there. But then again, I’m the foolish, rash, crazy twin. She’s supposed to be the one with more common sense. “Sunny, don’t be an idiot!” I scold her. “You know Magnus won’t be able to fight if he thinks you’re in danger. Which means you being here endangers the entire coven.”
A loud roar cuts through Sunny’s protest. I look over, my jaw dropping as I see a horde of what appear to be werewolves stampeding toward us with lightning speed. Pyrus must have hired these mercenaries to do his dirty work once he realized he couldn’t rely on Slayer Inc. The wolves tear through the poor Chupacabra, chomping down on them with jaws of steel then tossing their broken bodies away as they advance on the trembling vampire front lines.
“Come on!” I cry, grabbing Sunny’s arm again. “For Magnus’s sake if not mine!”
“Fine!” Sunny breaks her stance and turns to follow me. Together we rush through the camp until we find the purple tent. Diving in and digging through the ratty blankets and pillows, I discover the trap door, embedded in the ground. Ripping it open, I motion for Sunny to go through, praying her claustrophobia won’t pick now to rear its ugly head. Luckily, Sunny doesn’t object, dropping down into the hole without question. I follow, pulling the trap door shut behind me.
We find ourselves in a damp, narrow crawl space slick with some kind of lime-green moldy moisture. I shove Sunny through, then suck in a breath and follow, praying the tunnel won’t collapse on top of us, burying us under a thousand tons of dirt and rock. Especially since, as a vampire, I wouldn’t actually die from this kind of horrific experience. I’d just be spending eternity trying to claw my way out. After the first hundred years, I’m guessing I’d go at least a little bit insane.
I push at Sunny’s butt in front of me. “Hurry!” I hiss. She doesn’t reply but picks up the pace.
After what seems an eternity, we finally emerge from the crawl space into a wide subway tunnel that is illuminated by large ceiling grates. Guess it must be mid afternoon by now. Above us I can see the shadows of cars—commuters going about their days without a care in the world. With no idea of the immortal battle being fought below.
Sunny tosses me a worried look, then glances back to the crawl space. She doesn’t have to speak for me to know what she’s thinking.
“He’ll be okay,” I try to assure her, though in my heart I’m not so sure. After all, there were so many of them. And those refugees were not exactly healthy vampire soldiers trained in combat. Do Jareth and Magnus and the rest even have a chance? And if they are overpowered, will they be killed outright? Or dragged home for Pyrus to do the dirty deed himself?
“I’m not thinking about Magnus,” Sunny corrects, glancing at the crawl space again. “I mean, of course I am. But… did you hear something?”
I freeze in my tracks, training my vampire-enhanced ears to listen for noises coming from the tunnel. Maybe it’s just the corridor collapsing behind us. Or an echo from the battlefield. Or one of the Chupacabra…
…I hope.
“Let’s keep moving,” I say, urging my sister to pick up the pace. But the sound only grows louder as we rush down the tracks. And as we hit a collapsed section of tunnel ahead, blocking our path, a familiar female voice cuts through the darkness.
“Rayne and Sunshine McDonald! Show yourselves!”
Oh God. We slowly turn around, coming face to face with pretty much my worst nightmare.
“Bertha,” I whisper.
The slayer is back in her full Resident Evil attire, her long brown hair pulled back from her sneering face and a razor-sharp stake in her hand. She smiles slowly, a greedy look in her beady eyes.
“Um, what are you doing here?” I ask. As if I hadn’t already pretty much figured it out. One soppy phone call from her asshole ex-boyfriend and she was back on the payroll. Did all my wise advice mean nothing to her?
“You stupid, stupid girl,” she spits, taking a slow step toward us. “Falling for my ridiculous trap. You know, I totally laughed at Pyrus when he first suggested it. I told him there was no way on earth you’d believe that this beautiful body of mine was carved from some eating disorder. That I, Bertha the Vampire Slayer, was nothing more than a weak, lovelorn teen, craving food to make up for her ongoing self-esteem issues like some bad teen novel.”
She’s lying. I know she is. There’s no way she could have been faking her panic when I discovered her ugly secret in the hotel bathroom. Unfortunately I’m not sure this knowledge is going to do me any good now.
But I have to try. “Bertha, you have a problem,” I say, taking a cautious step forward. “You need help. Why don’t you come with us? We can help you get away from Pyrus. And then, once you’re safe, we can deal with your food issues.”
“I have no food issues,” she growls, her eyes narrowing into furious slits. “It’s all diet and exercise, bitch.” She raises her stake.