It was a rush to race through the compound, her sire and her lover beside her. Danger in the form of gas, harmless to those who didn’t breathe, but lethal if it was ignited, crept behind them.

“They’ve locked the doors,” Teucer noted, a few steps ahead of them. He was, of course, far faster even than Helena herself, and was slowing his pace to let them keep up. “Mind your feet. The floor is wet.”

“Can we get through?” Owen asked, magical speed coating his skin in the form of mercury feathers. They faded off his skin in wisps of silver smoke. Helena didn’t have to ask to know that when they were gone, his unearthly speed would be gone as well. “Blast door?”

“Yes,” Teucer called. “But no matter.”

Determined now in a way he wasn’t before, Teucer put on a burst of speed that left even Helena breathless and hit the door with a clang that echoed down the concrete hall, almost a blow in itself.

The door, faced with the full, unbridled strength of a master vampire fighting for those he loved, gave way. It crumpled around Teucer’s hand like damp paper. The hinges, which had been welded to rebar sunk deep into the concrete, shredded apart. Flakes of broken concrete burst in every direction.

Teucer, barely slowed by such an obstacle, continued onward.

Helena didn’t stop, but she did spare a moment to be very impressed with her sire. It had been a long time since she saw him fight, and longer since he had a reason to unleash all of his considerable might on something in his way.

There was something to be said for planning a battle and having one’s ancient sire apply his expertise to the job.

The next door they came to was guarded, after a fashion. More than a dozen of Josef’s men were pounding at a bolted steel door. There was nothing special about this one, meant to keep men out, not vampires. The men, however, took one look a them as they blurred into sight, and pulled their weapons.

“DO you want to die here?” Owen shouted to them even as Teucer drew his sword and Helena brought up her long-bladed daggers. There was little time to spare, and she certainly wasn’t about to die int his compound. A distant blast of a whistle, three short, repeated over three times, told her that her Coven were safe already. They were the last to escape. “They’ll kill you, here and now. Don’t you want to fight another day?”

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The men hesitated. Two dropped their guns and were shot by their fellows before they could raise their hands. A third wavered, and Helena marked him in her mind.

That one would live, if he kept his bullets to himself.

By the time she finished making the decision, Teucer was moving, and she followed him a tenth of a heartbeat after.

Again, blood painted the walls, artistry in crimson and grey, flung by blades and spattered by the cannon-blast of Owen’s shotgun.

“Drop it,” Helena told the one man who wavered. He looked at the men around him, dead in less time than it took to blink, and let his gun fall to the floor. “Wise. Now, run.”

There was a hideous screech of steel as Teucer ripped the door apart, and the human soldier took her advice to heart. If she didn’t know better, Helena might have thought he had Other heritage for how fast he bolted for the bare safety of the road beyond the trees.

Behind them, there was a deep whump.

The gas was lit. They were out of time.

“Go!” Helena yelled over the roar of the explosion behind them. Somehow, her hand found Owen’s.

On the leading edge of an explosion, started with gas, but with the deep rumble that promised powerful explosions behind the gas.

A clever trap. The flames from the gas would kill most younger vampires, and even one of Teucer’s age might not survive the blast of true explosives at close range.

Well, he might, but it wasn’t a chance Helena wanted to risk, and she certainly wouldn’t survive it, even if he did.

And Owen was human. He wouldn’t survive any of it.

The wash of cold air outside was like a blessing against her face as Helena, hand in hand with Owen and only a step behind Teucer. The skin on the back of her neck was tight as heat followed them out the door in a plume of flame.

Somehow, by the grace of whoever was watching over them, they made it out, singed, but alive.

In a final burst of speed, they made it to Helena’s Coven. Gasping for breath she didn’t need, Helena finally released Owen’s hand and reached for Victiore, her trusted second in command.

“Is everyone safe?” she asked between breaths that were more to steady herself than anything els.e “Did all of ours make it out?”

“We lost a few in the fighting,” Victiore told her, one hand strong on Helena’s shoulder. “But none of ours fell in the blast.”

“Thank Heaven,” Helena murmured with a grateful glance upward, thanking again whoever was looking over her children today. She expected casualties, but the loss of so many would have broken her heart. “We were the last out.”

“It was an inside job.” Owen had his breath back and the last of the feathers were gone from his skin. By now, Helena’s Coven knew him and parted so he could come to her side. His face was grim and his hand was tight around his axe. “No one but the other Elders knew we were coming.”

“And so the rot goes deeper yet,” Teucer said grimly, infuriatingly unruffled despite the activities of the day. He shared a nod with Helena and straightened. His mask, that of a fledgling vampire, fell away and the coven scattered back as they discovered the Ancient One in their midst. Even Victiore, who had her suspicions about him already, gave Helena an incredulous stare. “Come, children. This conversation is one to hold behind secure walls.”