While Dominic continued to rain a merciless storm of treated silver needles and razor-thin blades from his perch, a flash of movement ignited near the high western arch of the hall. Chloe, moving with a lethal grace that defied her aesthetic, violently cast aside the heavy iron fireplace poker she had been gripping.
She lunged forward, balancing perfectly on the thin, dangerous heels of her pointed patent-leather boots. With the blinding flexibility of a trained assassin, she snapped her leg upward, driving the reinforced heel of her boot directly into the center of the antique, brass-plated emergency fire valve embedded in the stone wall.
CRACK!
The copper pipes snaking across the high gothic ceiling groaned under sudden, immense pressure. Within a heartbeat, the overhead sprinkler system did not spray water—it erupted into a torrential, cascading deluge of Melanie's glowing, sapphire-blue white-wolfsbane antidote.
