#shoutout to the car behind us too- they swerved and did not hit us

[raeathnos]

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[mermaidmafia-official]

{ PART IV: BLOOD GETS IN YOUR EYE }

taglist: @bebemoon​ @interluxetumbra​ @vampirkaninchen​ @blubbingbeautifully​

shoutout to semp for amare’s lines! <333

[ WHERE THERE’S SMOKE . . . ]

Yinmei was the first to wake.

Fire, she thought, as she jolted out of bed. And then the other scent hit her, overpowering the acrid smell of smoke.

Wolves. But how?

No matter; there was no time. Yinmei scrambled out from between the sheets, pausing only to dig out a satchel filled with spare clothing and glass eyes from the dresser, before racing down the hall in the direction of the stairs, wrenching the others’ doors open as she ran.

“Get up! The house is on fire!” she shouted over her shoulder, not stopping until she reached the banister.

Yinmei’s un-beating heart sank as she took in the sight. Downstairs, flames licked at the newly-refurbished floors and furniture, and it wouldn’t take long for the fire to finish burning through the entire ground floor. After that, it would only be a matter of time before the flames reached the staircase. Smoke was already floating up through the air, drifting in front of the windows (which showed, alarmingly, that the sky was starting to lighten) in a haze of stinging gray.

Yinmei whirled around and headed back in the direction of her room. She could smell the Wolves, waiting outside the front door - restless and hungering for a fight. 

Angelika’s room was closest to the stairs. “What’s happening?” she asked blearily as she joined Yinmei near the bannister, her white-blonde hair loose over her shoulders.

“Wolves set fire to the house,” Yinmei answered tersely. She quickly flicked her gaze down the corridor, mentally tallying up the doors she’d already passed. 

She drew in a breath, ignoring the smell of flames and Wolves alike. “Maddelena, Cyborée, Ysabelle, and Amaelia. They’re on the other side of the house. Make sure they’re awake,” she ordered.

Angelika’s eyes widened, and she was gone in an instant, flying down the hall to rouse the others. 

Yinmei continued back towards her own room. Shoes would be nice - and she needed the rifle.

Yinmei began banging on the doors that were still closed on her way back, and one by one, the other vampires realized what was going on, gathering outside their rooms. “Get to the roof,” Yinmei instructed. “The ground floor’s on fire. Get to the roof!”

The only door on her side of the house that was still closed belonged to Amare. Yinmei frowned, and knocked loudly. “Amare, get up!” she snapped through the wood, impatiently jiggling at the doorknob. “Get up, unless you want to end up burning to death!”

When the door finally opened, it was not Amare herself who stood in the doorway, but her human servant. Yinmei didn’t know her name, and she’d never cared to learn. She pushed past the mortal and into the room itself. “Amare!”

Amare stretched vexingly slowly and got up out of her bed in a languid motion, while her human began to panic as she realized what was going on. Yinmei resisted the urge to rub her temples; she had neither the time nor the patience for either of their unnecessary dramatics.

“Granny please, there is no need for yelling,” said Amare. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”

"The house is on fire, and the Wolves are here,” Yinmei snapped impatiently. “Do you want to be turned into dog food, hmm?”

Amare ignored her. “Where’s Mother?” she asked instead, looking over Yinmei’s shoulder and ignoring the human girl as she hurried about the room - presumably to gather some of Amare’s belongings.

“I sent Angelika to wake her.”

“Perhaps Mother will do us all a favour and leave her little ginger parasite to the flames,” Amare mused dreamily. “It’s the perfect time to let go of that which holds us back.”

Yinmei arched an eyebrow, despite herself. “Yes, well, there’s a thought,” she answered. “Now get on the roof. It won’t be long before the stairs are on fire, too.” 

With her work done, Yinmei moved to slip back out to the hallway and find the others. The hand that Amare put on her arm made her pause, however.

“Granny, take my darling Sabine to the roof with you - you’re far too old and frail to make it through this inferno. I will rouse the others. Mother would never forgive me if I simply let you turn to dust because of a little fire.”

It was Yinmei’s turn to ignore Amare’s comments, but her suggestion...it was true. They needed someone on the roof, to find a way out. They couldn’t travel by shadow, what with dawn being so close, so it would come down to the garage. Yinmei didn’t know if it was on fire or not; she could only hope and pray that the Wolves hadn’t gotten to it yet.

“Alright,” Yinmei said, calmly. “I’ll meet you on the roof. And, Amare-” Yinmei cut off and reached out to gently grasp her shoulder, and she pressed her lips together. “There’s a rifle in my room; it’s in the rosewood chest. You should find the bullets in there too. Bring that with you.”

“Wonderful,” Amare replied, nodding. She leaned over to kiss the human girl - Sabine - tenderly on the forehead before changing shape and flying out into the hallway as a bat.

There was nothing left to do, except to get the hell out of there. “Come here,” Yinmei snapped at the mortal, yanking the curtains back and pushing open the window panes. She flung the girl over her shoulder in one fluid motion and half-climbed, half-levitated out onto the roof, hissing with disgust as the Stench of Wolves assaulted her nostrils. 

Yinmei was on the south roof; from her vantage point, she could see the Wolves crowding near the front door. She grimaced and directed her attention back towards the rooftop, waving the others over as they made their way out of the windows. Yinmei duly ignored Sabine, who was fretting very annoyingly about Amare, clutching Amare’s bag as if her life depended upon it.

With the Wolves below and the fire behind her, Yinmei began to map out their escape. The garage looked like it hadn’t been touched by the fire - so far - and the house would hold up long enough for them to get there. Or so Yinmei hoped, anyway.

The Wolves had noticed her standing among the conical spires that jutted out of the roof and were now circling around the area directly below her, where the ashes from the raging inferno were turning pristine white snow into a grimy gray in the pale blue light of the approaching morning. They jeered up at her, and Yinmei had no choice but to grit her teeth and focus on something else (such as Nessa disappearing around the corner two stories below, presumably toward the garage), her hands itching for the rifle as she briefly fantasized about blowing out some dog-brains.

She was thrown back to reality when small section of the roof gave out, accompanied by alarmed shouts. They didn’t have much time left.

“Get over here!” Yinmei screamed, her voice betraying more of her apprehension than she’d intended. Who were they missing? Where was Angelika - and Ysa?

As if on cue, a gunshot sounded out from the opposite side of the roof. Yinmei breathed out a sigh of relief; that must have been Ysabelle. And a few moments later, Angelika and Amaelia came into view, Amaelia’s bright hair the same shade as the flames licking up the sides of their former home.

“Mother says to - Mother says to get to the garage,” Angelika gasped out. Amaelia was clinging to her arm, frightened out of her mind. “She’ll meet us later.”

Wooden beams groaned and crackled and collapsed, not ten feet away from them. “We have to go,” Yinmei said tightly. “Where the hell is Amare?”

“I don’t know,” replied Angelika, her eyes wild. “I thought she was with you!”

Yinmei pressed her lips together. Thankfully, only a minute or two passed before Amare appeared a short distance away.

“Garage!” Yinmei barked out, and they were on the move.

[ FIRE AND BLOOD ]

It didn’t take long to 1) get to the garage, and 2) for the south roof to completely cave in on itself as the flames devoured the house’s wooden frame. Angelika, Amaelia, Amare, and Sabine crowded into one of the cars with Yinmei, who tore open the door to the driver’s seat and pulled the key out of her satchel. With no time to lose, she turned on the ignition and sped towards the garage opening-

-just as the Wolves began setting fire to the garage, too.

“Get as many as you can,” Yinmei told Amare (who had done as Yinmei had instructed for once in her undeath and brought the rifle. Antique as it was, silver bullets were still silver bullets), her voice tight with tension and her foot poised over the gas pedal. “I’m going to run them down.”

Amare cranked down the window of the passenger side (after Sabine hurriedly showed her how to do it), and Yinmei tightened her grip around the steering wheel as the engine roared to life.

The vampires in the backseat yelped in alarm as they were thrown forward. Yinmei braced herself in between the headrest and the steering wheel and let the car shoot past the flames, swerving over the slippery asphalt. Wolves leapt towards the black car, their claws slicing deep gouges into the sides, and blood splattered across the windshield as a silver bullet hit home. Still - the Wolves who were in human form were advancing frighteningly quickly; too quickly for Amare to take out one-by-one with the rifle.  

“Gather in the Depths!” Ysa’s voice rang out, and Yinmei would have slumped forward with relief if she hadn’t been, you know, careening wildly towards the treeline with the Wolves hot on her heels (literally, as they were setting fire to anything that would burn at this point - including the trees that they were about to crash into).

“Ysabelle!” Yinmei called wildly, sharply jerking the steering wheel to the right so that she could circle back for the Bloodmother, ramming into a Wolf with a satisfying crunch as she did so. The tires screeched and skidded, but Yinmei managed to keep them upright (thank the stars), and moments later, there was a thud on the roof, accompanied by more gunshots.

“Amare, take them out from the backseat,” Yinmei ordered, snapping her wrist and flicking open the door to the passenger side. Ysabelle slipped in, her black dress bloodied and slashed to trailing shreds, and slammed the door shut while firing off another round out the open window. 

Yinmei gritted her teeth, narrowed her eyes, and hit the gas.