“What do you mean?”
“Stop talking and drive,” I snarled.
I noticed when the blonde vampire from the task force joined the growing crowd of vampires. “Jade?” She shouted, clutching a radio. She looked like she was going to step off the curb until the broad shouldered Drake vampire directed her to back up.
Josh hopped in the driver’s seat and buckled his seat belt—they’d left the car idling, so when his red-haired companion threw himself into the passenger seat, Josh shifted to drive and slammed on the gas before he could close the door.
The SUV roared down the road, breaking every traffic law in the city as the red-haired vampire barely managed to shut his door and buckle himself in.
“Potions,” I snapped.
“Yes.” The red-haired vampire opened the SUV’s glove compartment and passed me back an aqua blue potion, followed by a rose red potion. “Pour the blue one over her arm wound—it can be absorbed through the skin but try to avoid just dumping it on her clothes.”
I held the vials in one hand—clutching them by their necks.
I bit the cork of the blue potion and yanked it out, then delicately peeled her tattered sleeve off her arm. “She packed her wound; do I need to take that out?”
“No—oof.” The red-haired vampire winced as Josh blew through a stop sign and took a left turn, the momentum slamming him against the door. “If the surgical gauze absorbs the potion, it’s fine, as it’s inside the wound. Look out!” He pointed to the vampires who were starting to swarm the road.
I barely registered the car’s sudden movements as I emptied the potion bottle over Jade’s wound.
“Perhaps you should release your command, Elder Maledictus?” Josh humbly suggested as he narrowly avoided hitting a vampire standing in the road.
I’d called out to every vampire nearby. They were following us on my continued command.
Instead of letting them go, I shifted the command as I tossed the empty potion bottle to the ground.
Clear the roads to the local hospital.
“Very good, Elder Maledictus,” Josh said—likely feeling the order all the way to his bones. “That will help a great deal.”
“Oh, backup.” The red-haired Drake pointed to a dark SUV that pulled onto the road in front of us and the black car that joined our caravan behind us, both cars driving with the same high speed as Josh.
“Hold on,” Josh advised before he took another sharp corner.
Jade and I didn’t move, but the red-haired vampire had to brace himself from getting tossed around.
“How far out are we?” I impatiently asked.
“Less than five minutes,” Josh said.
“You can administer the red potion,” the redhead said. “Here.” He pulled a white kerchief from the pocket of his suit, then took the red potion back from me—uncorking it and pouring some of it over the kerchief. “Pour it on the cloth, then wipe at her lips or stick it in her mouth. You don’t just want to pour it in—she could choke.”
I took the moistened kerchief and potion, juggling them so I could properly support Jade, then followed the directions and dabbed at Jade’s mouth.
Josh watched for a moment in the rearview mirror, then nodded before returning his attention to the road.
Neither of the vampires, I noticed, had mentioned my bespelled clothes or the general weirdness of the situation.
The red-haired one, however, eyed Jade’s blood. “Elder…” he slowly said. “Do you… to be safe…”
“The poison in her blood doesn’t affect me,” I said. “I’m too old.”
“Ah.” He sat back in his seat looking vaguely terrified.
“I didn’t know that was possible.” Josh gunned the car through a red stoplight after glancing to confirm that a few vampires were standing in front of the rare car at the intersection, holding it back. “But I suppose it makes sense—you can likely heal faster than the poison can affect you.”
The redhead clutched the door. “You just ran a stoplight.”
“I’m aware,” Josh said.
“Could you not? You might like to wax poetry about the sweet embrace of death, but I’d like to survive tonight.”
“I looked—see?” Josh looked left, then right before he blew through another stoplight in which the intersection was blocked by vampires.
The redhead made a noise.
“Look back at Elder Maledictus and tell me if I don’t drive through stoplights that our lives won’t be in danger.”