“No.”

“I’ll behave myself now,” I promised, folding my hands in my lap.

“That I seriously doubt, Pandora.”

Nero parked the car just inside a grove of black-barked trees, then turned off the engine. Everyone piled out and followed him. We walked for about ten minutes, then he stopped at the crest of a hill.

“The vampires are just down the hill, hiding out in the ruins of those old buildings,” he said, squatting down. He pointed down at the firelight flickering across the hill of trees below us, setting shadows into motion.

“There are a lot more than ten of them. It looks more like twenty,” I observed.

“This changes nothing,” he said coolly. “We will trap them as planned.”

Then he instructed Jace, Mina, Toren, and Lyle to lay down a fire line around the camp. Enchanted with magic, flames would shoot up on it when activated. It was one fine piece of Magitech, and it must have cost a fortune.

As the others laid down the line, Nero, Lucy, and I stayed behind to watch the vampires’ camp.

“These are loaded with vampire tranquilizers,” Nero said, handing us each a gun. “It will knock them right out. But be careful. They will knock you out too.”

“Much better than broken glass,” I commented, patting the gun fondly.

“Broken glass?” Lucy asked me.

“That’s how I took out my last vampire,” I told her.

“With glass?”

“Well, technically I smashed his head into a mirror, then hit him over the head with a fire extinguisher.”

Lucy’s eyes grew wide. “You are kind of awesome, Leda.”

I grinned at her. “Thanks.”

The rest of our team had just returned, so we all headed down the hill. The vampires jumped to their feet when they saw us emerge from the woods, but most of them slumped back down again as soon as the reality of our Legion uniforms set in.

“I am Colonel Nero Windstriker of the Legion of Angels.”

Gasps whispered across the crowd of vampires as they realized what his rank meant: our leader was an angel.

“You have been illegally turned,” Nero continued. “Under the authority of the gods, I am placing you all under arrest. Surrender at once and no one has to get hurt.”

The rest of the standing vampires sat down—all except for one. He must have been their leader. “We are outside the gods’ rule now,” he declared.

“There is nowhere on this Earth that is outside the gods’ rule, not even out here on the Black Plains,” said Nero.

The vampire’s lips drew up into a sneer. “We’ll see.”

His fearlessness put fire back into the hearts of the vampires—or maybe they’d just realized there were twenty of them against only seven of us. As they charged toward us, Nero set off the fire line. A wall of flames shot up all around the campsite, trapping the vampires inside. And us with them. I hoped Nero had thought this through. The six of us weren’t veteran soldiers. We were newbies with one month of training under our belts. It had only been only a few hours since we’d gained the physical powers of vampires, and most of us weren’t wielding those abilities at one hundred percent yet—or even at ten percent.

Thankfully, the blazing wall of fire around the campsite seemed to have distracted the vampires. We fired at them. Thanks to my new abilities—and my practiced preference for long-range attacks—I even managed to hit a few of them. As Nero had promised, the vampires went down instantly. This anti-vampire ammunition was awesome.

The vampires’ numbers dwindled. A few of them were eyeing the fire wall, like they were thinking of escaping, but the flames burned too high. The ring of fire had effectively trapped the vampires.

Or so we’d thought.

The roar of a revving engine tore out of the ruins, followed by a vampire riding a motorcycle. It was the leader. He drove up a pile of debris, using it to jump onto what remained of the roof of one of the buildings. Broken shingles bounced off his wheels, raining down as he and his motorcycle leapt over the fire ring.

“Get these vampires chained and brought back to town. You’re in charge, Pandora,” Nero said, tossing me the controller for the flames as he ran after the motorcycle.

His shimmering wings spread from his back in a glorious tapestry of blue, green, and black—and then he flew into the air to give chase to the fleeing vampire. I stopped and stared at the beauty of his wings for a moment, but a charging vampire snapped me back into the fight. I shot him in the chest, then shot two more vampires. The fight was over.

When all the vampires were lying unconscious on the ground, I put out the flames. Then came the fun part. We tied up all of our prisoners and carried them back to our truck. We were much stronger than humans now, which was in our favor, but the vampires were heavier than humans too. And the hike was uphill the whole way. By the time we had them all loaded into the truck, it was an hour later, and we were sweaty, dirty, and tired.

And Nero still hadn’t returned.

13

The Black Plains

It took us another two hours to drive back to town and stuff all of our vampire prisoners into the jail cell in the Legion’s office room. Three hours had passed since Nero had flown off in pursuit of the escaped vampire, and he still hadn’t returned.

“That doesn’t bode well,” I told the others.

“What do we do?” Lyle asked me.

The others all looked to me for guidance—even Jace and Mina. Apparently, the fact that Nero had put me in charge counted for something. I still couldn’t fathom why he’d done that. Jace would have been the more obvious choice. He was stronger and better trained than I was, and in spite of his penchant for being a complete asshole, he did have the temperament to lead others. Even I, in all my pettiness, could admit that. But whatever Nero’s reasons, he had put me in charge, and I was going to make full use of my authority.