32: how accurate are weird, magic blood maps?

Not only does Safiya not know how to close a door—she apparently does not know how to knock on one, either. Midge and I are on the couch, tangled together, when we hear the door to the porch bang open. Instinctively, we spring apart, and I roll to the floor with a harsh thud. When I look at Safiya, however, she seems unimpressed.

"Jesus, it's not like everyone doesn't already know."

I pause, not sure if I want the answer to the burning question in my head. I ask it anyway. "How much of that did you—"

"Most of it," she replies, checking her nails, which aren't even painted anyway. "You guys are always loud."

Midge, red-faced, blurts, "Fine! Whatever! Why'd you come in here, anyway?"

Safiya raises an eyebrow at Midge. "Your map looks done to me," she tells us, gesturing back to the living room behind her, "and I think it knows where our boy is."

Midge is up so fast that she nearly steps on me. With a groan, I stagger to my own feet, following after her. As I brush past Safiya, I say, "So I'm really not subtle, huh?"

"The farthest from it, Grey," she answers simply, and the look in her dark eyes is almost pitying. "The farthest from it."

"Thanks, Safi."

"Anytime."

As soon as the word's left Safiya's mouth, there's a high-pitched scream from Midge's direction. All four of us—even River and Jamie, who were already crowded around the parchment—jump at the noise. I don't even have to ask; before I know it, Midge has hopped to her feet again, waving the paper around like a madwoman.

"I know where he is!" she shouts. "It's—I know where they're keeping him!"

"Let me see," I order, striding forward and snatching the map from her. Safiya leans in to peer over my shoulder, and for a second I'm not one-hundred percent sure what we're looking at. But the lines, crimson as the blood Midge smeared upon the paper, cement themselves, and I realize it's a subway map.

Five Points, the center of Atlanta's subway system, is circled multiple times.

"I—We were just there," I mutter. "That's where my house is right now. The hell...how did we miss that?"

"Well, they are hiding the kid," Safiya comments, taking the map from me and squinting at it once more. "They're not gonna just wave a flag that says We Have Rocco."

"Whatever," snaps Midge, and though her voice is harsh, the hand she lays on my shoulder is one of the most gentle things I've ever felt. "Everyone, get ready. We're finally gonna get to the bottom of all this."

Lucky for us, it's late enough that the last train has gone for the night. The tunnels are empty. Dark, ominous, but empty. I've never really felt uncomfortable here—not in darkness, not in the subway tunnels that were my home for so long—but now I do. Where we're headed isn't just an average part of the city anymore. It's the center of something evil, and I'm walking right towards it.

I lead the group, because my vision's the best out of all of us in this lack of light. River and Jamie are at my shoulders, because if anything's going to jump out and decapitate me or what not, they'll be the ones to sense it first. Midge and Safiya are the eyes in the back, Midge's wand held out in front of her like a searchlight.

"What exactly are we looking for?" I whisper to no one in particular, listening to each of my footsteps as they strike the metal tracks in rhythm. "I don't even know how you'd hide someone down here, not without a spell like Sybil's."

For a moment, no one replies.

Then Midge calls out, "Are you insinuating a witch is behind all this?"

I shrug before I realize she can't see me. "It's a hypothesis."

"Oh, I'll make you a hypothesis—"

"Alright, lovebirds!" snaps Safiya, the rise of her voice echoing off the dense concrete. "We have a more important goal right now. Focus before the two of you get us all killed."

As if on cue, River says calmly, "Stop."

We stop.

I turn to face him. His curls hang in sweaty clumps over his pointed ears, his eyebrows drawn near. Even in this light his eyes are oddly bright, like they have some sort of weird pixie bioluminescence. Still, the look on his face scares the hell out of me.

If it's possible to scare the hell out of a half demon.

No, that's a genuine question. I don't even know.

"What is it?" I ask, trying to stay cool when I'm anything but cool.

"It's—there's a lot of energy here. I don't know why."

"Energy?" I repeat. "Good energy or bad energy?"

"Definitely bad energy—oh my God, Grey, behind you!"

"Behind me?" I yelp, and whirl just in time to catch a blur of pasty white skin, a flash of even paler fangs. I let out a high-pitched scream that rivals even Midge's and strike the guy with my fist, drawing a knife from the shadows while he's stunned.

The vampire rubs his face with a groan, and I take a step back, watching as more figures slowly lope towards us from all directions. We're surrounded, it's dark, and we're way outnumbered. It's almost like we've walked into a trap.

They must have known we were coming.

But I'm not leaving without Rocco.

The vampire I sucker punched seems to have regained himself, and now he and a couple of his buddies are lunging for me again. I ready my knife, angling myself at what I hope is a protective enough stance. I call, "If any of you die here, I'm going to kill you!"

"What the hell!" shouts Midge over the noise of the dozens of hungry, basically rabid vampires. "That doesn't make any sense!"

My knife meets a guy's throat. He crumbles away against the blade. "Sure it does! Just don't die!"

Conversation dissipates, words replaced by the clanging and slicing of weaponry. Safiya's taking people down with heeled boots. Every once in a while there's a flash of light from Midge's wand, and a vampiric groan to follow. Jamie, a wolf, bites about five of the guys in half at once. Real pretty picture. Then there's River, who's somehow managing to stay alive using plants.

Not that I have much time to question it, because I'm busy trying not to die myself.

It's like it was in The Steam Room, but twelves times worse. Once I've taken one down, there's three more to follow. I spin in every direction, my knife arcing this way and that, shadows dancing around me as vampire after vampire turns to dust. It's a little fun. I mean, not a lot, because I'd rather not be fighting for my life and it smells like sweat and decay, but it's a little fun.

But then Midge screams, and I whirl, looking for her. "Midge?" I call. "Are you okay? What's going on!"

For a second, there's no reply, and I grit my teeth, shoving a vampire away from me in an attempt to get closer to her.

Then I hear: "My magic! It just—it stopped working again!"

"How did it just stop working?" comes Safiya's voice. "It's not another dead zone, is it?"

"It wasn't before!"

I'm too busy worrying about Midge that I've forgotten about the danger on my side of things. A sharp pain jolts through my shoulder, and I let out a grunt of frustration, turning fast enough to tear the vampire's fangs from my skin, which almost hurts more. Breathing a little heavily, I draw my knife up, ready to cut the guy open, but then he just stops.

All of them do.

I back up, and back up again, running into Midge. I swivel and look at her, and she's just as confused as I am. Every one of these vampires, who were all just trying to kill us a second ago, have stopped moving.

"The hell," breathes Safiya, "just happened here?"

It gets weirder.

They all hit the ground, either dead or close to it.

I wasn't able to see it over the mass of murderous bloodsuckers, but we're in the center of the subway station, at the edge of a rotunda-like structure where all the tracks intersect.

And standing there upon the tracks, armed with only...a water bottle, of all things, is Rocco, a frown on his face.

He turns the bottle over in his hands.

"You're late," he says.