Mina started to speak and my hand flashed up to stop her. I strained to listen, aware that the seconds were ticking by. Nothing but the distant sounds of people strolling through the display.
Then—a muffled cry, choked off . . .
I gathered up my heavy skirts and started up the spiral steps, still clutching the stake. My slippered feet made soft ringing sounds on the metal stairs. Mina clumped up behind me, the distance between us growing.
Something thumped above me, and I pounded faster up the dark steps. My skirts were heavy and my corset was tight, but I pressed on. The only part of me not perspiring was the nape of my neck.
The chill there was so cold it burned.
All at once, a dark figure loomed over me in the narrow stairwell. A flash of glowing eyes told me I’d found my quarry.
I barely had time to duck before a powerful hand swooped down, narrowly missing me. I slammed into the stone wall, dropping my handful of skirts as I grabbed at something—anything—to keep from falling. The wall was rough and cool, and there was nothing to hold onto. . . .
My foot stepped into air and I tipped backward. My free hand flailed and I grasped fabric . . . yes. The vampire’s coat!
I gave a sharp yank. He shifted off-balance but held steady, and neither of us went tumbling. By now, I found my feet and looked up. Big mistake.
Two red eyes burned down at me. White fangs gleamed in the drassy light. I was aware of the stake in my hand . . . so flimsy in the face of this threat. The enthralling gaze captured me. I couldn’t even blink.
My world slowed . . . became sluggish. My heart pounded, and I felt as if I’d been shoved underwater. My breathing turned shallow. Everything faded away but those eyes . . . red . . . glowing . . . hypnotic.
I was hardly aware when he grabbed my arm. Pulling me off my feet, he bored into me with his stare. He smelled . . . it was the scent of age and evil. I forced myself to remember the stake in my hand, digging deeply into my mind . . . use the stake . . . trying to remember Siri’s lessons.
But the vampire’s pull was strong. The world wavered around me as I struggled to pull myself out of it. My arms were like stone, heavy and cumbersome. A strong band crushed my torso.
The cold, rough stone wall was against my spine, trapping me. A hand grasped the back of my skull. Sharp fingernails dug into my scalp, yanking my head back. Baring my throat.
I smelled stale blood on his breath as he drew closer, still holding me with his gaze. His fangs gleamed, lethal and long. My veins leapt and pounded as if waiting for release, thudding madly in my throat and in my chest, swelling in anticipation.
He was going to bite me. I knew this . . . I fought it . . . deep inside I struggled to break free from his gaze.
The stake.
The world pressed down on me. I dredged for strength, calling on my training, my desire to succeed . . . my need to prove myself. My calling.
Use the stake.
He plunged his fangs into my shoulder.
Miss Stoker
Miss Holmes Is Gravely Disappointed
As the vampire swooped forward, his gaze released mine. The thrall shattered just as his fangs penetrated my skin, sliding in with hardly a prick of pain. My veins erupted, the blood coursed out. . . .
But I was free.
The stake was still in my hand. His chill mouth fastened on my skin as blood drained from my body, pumping forth. Warmth bled from me but I focused on my weapon. Still imprisoned against the wall, I shifted my arm loose.
I drew in a deep breath, fighting against the soft lull of having the life sucked from my body. My arm reared down and back, my elbow slamming painfully against the wall. I tightened my grip on the stake.
Then I rammed it up and into the vampire’s torso. Precisely where Siri had taught me.
Time stopped.
The vampire froze. And then he exploded in a poof of foul-smelling ash. He was gone.
I dropped the stake and it made a hollow sound as it rolled across the metal step. My knees were shaking and I sagged against the wall.
I did it.
Covered with vampire dust, I gasped for breath. The wall became a support rather than a blockade as I leaned against it.
I had proven myself. Inside I danced and trembled, and a great rush of light roared through me. Even so, my knees were too weak to support my body.
Just then Mina appeared, panting and bedraggled. Her hair fell in strands from her temples and she carried an object that beamed a slender light. “Can’t . . . run. . . . Corset . . . too . . . dratted . . . tight,” she gasped. “What . . . happened? Did you lose . . . the vampire?”
“Dead. I killed it.” I couldn’t contain a boastful grin.
“Dead? Already? Where?” She actually sounded disappointed. Then her nose wrinkled. “Is that what I . . . smell? That awful . . . stench? Like a corpse. Is that . . . dust?”
“Yes. It’s UnDead ash. What do you expect?” I brushed some of the residue off my skirt.
“I didn’t even . . . hear. . . . How did you do that so . . . easily?”
The warm trickle pooling in the hollow of my collarbone was blood. “I’m a vampire hunter. It’s supposed to be easy for me. It’s what I’m meant to do. So I guess you believe in vampires now, hm?”
But even as I said that, I remembered the imprisonment of his thrall, the sluggish feeling . . . the sleek penetration of his fangs.
I should have known better than to look in his eyes. That was a beginner’s mistake. It could have been my death.
Never again.
“Oh, gad! You’re bleeding.” Mina, having caught her breath, began to dig in that obnoxious reticule. Apparently unaware that I’d been bitten by my victim. Which was amazing, given her considerable “observation” skills. “I think I have a handkerchief in here somewhere.”
“And some paper?”
A new voice had both Mina and me spinning to look up. A figure stood on the steps above us, her bonnet askew and her gloves missing. She appeared to be trying to repair her sagging hair in the back.
“Miss Babbage!” Mina said.
Miss Babbage? Blooming Pete, how could I have forgotten about her? Mortification swept over me. She might have been the vampire’s next victim if I hadn’t shaken off the thrall.
“Paper,” she said again, this time with a tone of impatience as she withdrew her hand from the back of her head. She held a pencil instead of a hairpin. “I’m in need of paper. Even a scrap. Otherwise I’ll ruin my sleeve again, and Merry will be annoyed. I think this is a new bodice.”
She didn’t appear to be worse for wear, although she did seem a bit distracted. I saw no sign of vampire bites, and the chill at the back of my neck had evaporated along with the Un-Dead. Clearly, she wasn’t a vampire herself.