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seem to notice. Nevertheless, it became difficult to do so easily with the crowd pushed forward and clamped together. At least they didn’t get violent by pushing and shoving concertgoers.
    The vamps five feet away from me spun around toward me. They grinned.
    It sent a chill down my spine. What could they gain from storming the stage? Assaulting us would not only reveal their powers, but the police might also try to hunt them down.
    If anything, I would have expected them to murder my sister, Alexis, or my niece, Celestina. Killing both of them would allow them to leave the city. Zephora had probably put that decree in place to give witches in our line a chance to mend a tear in our line…and keep the paranormal creatures from roaming the world. That way, our line had the opportunity to round up those with paranormal abilities and vanquish them. Although I’d killed my mother, Zephora had taken residence inside her body, which in a convoluted way, maintained three generations of witches in our line.
    Only now, the supernatural creatures were hunting me. Not my sister or my niece.
    At this point, Brandon twirled his drumsticks and, as though expecting a rush from the vamps, he flung one toward Kendall at the exact moment she turned toward him. She caught it in one hand and lifted it skyward.
    Just as the vamps hurtled the iron railing, I realized that Zephora hadn’t sent her minions after me. Without the capacity to call upon her full strength since it took three days for her soul to sync with Delphine’s body (and only one had passed), she needed Alexis and Celestina to protect her until she regained access to her powers, which she would need if she planned to command the paranormal masses. Therefore, she wouldn’t have launched an attack without the ability to strategize in real time, which potentially meant using her powers.
    That meant Darius set them against us without Zephora’s knowledge. I assumed he found it imperative to eliminate the one person who might try to resist Zephora’s efforts, since my sister wasn’t convinced that Zephora’s spirit had slipped into our mother’s body. After all, Alexis had no reason to consider her as anything but the woman she idolized, even if she failed to realize our mother was a demented child abuser who had the same misguided intentions as Zephora.
    The two vamps landed on the floor in front of the stage.
    Just as I finished a line of lyrics, which would lead into a guitar solo, I ran over and kicked one vamp in the head, pitching him backwards.
    He slammed against the railing, pushing it a few feet into the crowd, all of whom jumped back, shocked at the turn of events. But only for a moment. As if thinking this was part of the stage show, they erupted into applause.
    With unexpected speed, the second vamp hurled himself onto the stage, darted up to Nolan, and threw a right fist at his face.
    Nolan barely managed to back away in time and without hesitation, punched the vamp in the nose, knocking him to the ground.
    The crowd whistled and shouted their approval, as though certain that the band had choreographed everything that took place on stage.
    In one sleek move, the vampire shook off a dazed expression, regained his balance, and diverted his path toward Kendall.
    Seeing him approach her, Kendall tried to raise her left hand to defend herself against an attack, but he slammed into her, pushing them both to the ground, the bass guitar eliciting a thrum of sound.
    Kendall squiggled under him. Calling upon adrenaline that built inside her during the show, she somehow scrambled out from under his grasp, swiveled around, and tried to slam the drumstick into his heart, but the vampire tossed her aside before she got the chance. Kendall slid a few feet away.
    Over the years, I’d taught Kendall many defensive techniques, not to mention how to remain calm during a fight, but it took continued practice and dedication to defeat a quicker and stronger opponent. I ran over and