How to Kiss a Vampire novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Midnight Guest

"Take Torsten below," Ragnar said.

Four vampires were out of their chairs before he finished the sentence.

They crossed the dining room faster than the eye could follow.

Torsten threw one of them across the table, and a second one took him around the neck, and a third got his arm.

He was strong, but he was one against four.

I watched them pin him to the wall.

I watched the fourth vampire take a length of silver chain off his belt.

"Hanne," Torsten said hoarsely. "Run."

I thought about what Ragnar had said.

Guest right.

The House could not touch me until midnight.

Nobody had said I couldn't touch them.

I pulled the framing hammer out of my tool bag and walked across the room.

"Ms. Solberg," said the vampire with the chain, in a polite and puzzled voice. "You are protected. You may not interfere."

"Okay," I said.

I broke his kneecap.

It made a noise.

He folded over with his mouth open, shocked, and the chain hit the floor.

He did not hit me back.

He could not.

He looked at me with a face of pure outrage.

"Guest right is a one-way street," I said, and swung at the next one.

I hit the one holding his left arm in the elbow.

I hit the one holding his neck in the ribs, as hard as I'd drive a sixteen-penny nail.

They let go.

They stumbled back.

One of them said a word I had not known a three-hundred-year-old man would know.

Torsten came off the wall.

He put me over his shoulder, and I barely had time to yell, "The roof!"

"What?"

"The roof! I know roofs! Go up!"

He went up.

He bounded up the grand staircase, with me hanging off his shoulder.

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