Everything stopped. Then, Anna was on Koschei, stabbing him with the silver plate, and the blade he’d just used to cut me went flying. The operating table I was lashed to spun sideways.
Koschei’s assistant ran up to my bed. “Where is it?” he asked aloud, picking through Koschei’s remaining tools. He found a short triangular blade and looked down at me. “Where?”
“Where is what?” My voice cracked in fear as he raised the knife over my abdomen.
“Your soul—” he answered, slamming the knife down into my stomach.
It felt like I’d been punched. All the air rushed out of me, and I was left gasping for mercy. “Stop—please—”
He ignored me and wrenched the blade sideways, sending another wave of pain after the first. He raised the blade, sending my own blood spattering up my chest. I gritted my teeth to stop from screaming at the sight and—
Another vampire ran up and tackled him, taking him down into the mud. They wrestled, spinning my table again. I tried to lift my head up to see my stomach, but it hurt too much to move. I went stiff instead, staring at the ceiling, listening to the growing sounds of anarchy from all around me.
The lights began to fade. Gut wounds were awful, messy, tragic, and sweet Lord, I hurt more than I’d ever hurt before, but—how much time had passed? Surely not enough to bleed out. But my fevered logic couldn’t refute the massive darkness descending from above like the belly of a black spider. I knew I was dying. And then I heard the sound of breaking glass as the lights winked out above. From every recess the operating basement possessed, shadows began to multiply and gel.
A pitch-black drop formed on the ceiling, the height and width of a man, then fell down. I turned my head with a gasp of pain to follow it as it dropped onto running vampires. Both of them disappeared inside of it, pinned like amber-trapped flies. Neither of them came out again.
Shadows. The Shadows. Keepers of the County, finally come to defend their rights.
“About fucking time,” I whispered.
“We come to take back what is ours,” said a chorus of horrific voices, directly into my mind.
Fighting sounds continued from beside me, sickening wet crunches and pops, the sucking sound of mud taking hold, then giving way. My bed was kicked, and the whole contraption rattled, wheeling around again like a rooftop in a tornado—and for a moment, I could see Anna again. Somehow seeing her made me able to concentrate on her voice, and I listened to her yell above the other chaos.
“You told them I was younger than you, Koschei. Say you lied! Say they should have chosen me instead! Say it!” She was crouching over Koschei, her hands embedded in his hair, bringing his head down onto the edge of the drainpipe again and again, as he beat at her with broken arms. “Say it!”
“They should have saved you instead!” he finally howled in defeat.
Anna stopped. “No,” she said, panting above him, holding him halfway. “They should have saved everyone.” She moved to bring his head down on the pipe again, but shifted him, so that this time the pipe caught his neck. It snapped. She shoved and he screamed, until she ripped him in two. Then she held his head aloft like a Gorgon, showing it to the few Zverskiye who remained. It stared out at us, gasping apologies and blinking, until it collapsed in on itself, scattering dust. The remaining Zverskiye ran away at this, and she ran after them.