I fell from the basin to the floor, hyperventilating like I’d just run a marathon and had an asthma attack.

My mind spun faster than helicopter propellers.

I knew how my father died. He had died at the hands of the Dearg Due and her Children.

But I also knew who betrayed him.

Nehemiah had ordered the Dearg Due to slay my dad. I didn’t have all the details, but I had seen enough to know that he had sold my dad out to the Dearg Due to save his son.

I felt her cold slender hand on my shoulder. “Now do you see Sean, what he did? How he cannot be trusted?”

I furrowed my eyebrows as hot tears burned trails down my cheeks. I tightened my grip on Fragarach. I’d slaughter her. Then I’d deal with the wizard.

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“You’re the one who killed him!”

I swung at her. The blade bit into her arm and she fled from me transforming into the dire bat once more.

Her bat maw opened wide. A cosmic scream escaped between her fangs.

Mist rushed in from all sides, obscuring everything to shadows.

I felt more than saw an opening, a rip in the space-time fabric, the barrier between Earth and the Otherside.

Her scream went on and on, whipping up a great torrent. It blew me completely horizontal as I held on to the basin for dear life. A howl from the rift grew louder than the queen’s screech. Between the mist and the wind blowing I could hardly see. One by one Rob, Charice, Tain, Nehemiah, and the dead vamp corpses were all lifted like leaves whipped up by a leaf blower. They flew into the Between.

The wind ripped me from the basin and I stabbed Fragarach into the cement floor. The blade scraped along the floor until it finally caught.

I eyed the vampire queen, the monster who’d been the death of my dad, silently promising that I’d get my revenge.

My sword broke free and I sank into the mist.

The Dearg Due’s crimson eyes and her fanged smile were the last things I saw before the darkness of The Between surrounded me.