Sal wrapped his hands around the last two stakes, muttered his enchantment, and then sat back on his knees. “That’s it, then.”

And it really was it. Because either this was how we won, or this was the most colossal mistake I’d made yet. One way or another, the night was about to end.

“If this works, there are going to be a lot of pissed-off vampires,” Sal said.

“At least they won’t be dead vampires.”

“The girl I met just a couple of months ago would have said passing through my fence was a death sentence.”

I put my hands on my hips and looked out toward the field. A crowd was gathering under Sydney and Sophia’s command. I blew a stray hair out of my face. “That girl sounds kind of awful.”

He stood up, brushing the dirt of his hands. “Eh. She’s not so bad.”

“Don’t go soft now, old man. If this doesn’t work, we’ve just drawn targets on our backs.”

“Guess we’re about to find out,” he said.

The swarm of people was surging toward us, a single amorphous entity, backlit by the stadium lights. I had never been more impressed by the influence of the Carlone twins, the true queen bees of Hope High.

We stepped aside as the first tendrils of that swarm sprinted into the tunnel, racing toward the gym. As quick and as confidently as people were moving, I could only imagine Sydney and Sophia had told them the gym’s front doors were open. I hoped they would forgive the lie if this plan panned out.

And if it didn’t . . . well, I guess they wouldn’t remember anyway.

“Stay to the middle!” I shouted, pointing out the fence stakes, so people wouldn’t trip. “Get to the gym! It’ll be safe inside!”

Most folks ran through the gap Sal and I had left in the fence, while a few jumped right over the stakes. More than a dozen humans had passed by before the first vampire crossed the line. It was an Elder, vaguely familiar from the council gathering, and I held my breath as he sailed over the fence, just above the gap . . . and immediately crumpled to the ground.

Another vamp passed through and dropped next to the first.

Then another.

And another.

My human heart pounded as I watched them fall.

They writhed on the ground, clutching their chests and gasping for breath. A breeze rustled the grass around them, the force of Sal’s slayer magic. I remembered the power of that little personal tornado from the first night I’d stepped through the cottage gate.

“It’s working!” I cried actual tears of relief. “Sal, it’s working!”

Laughing through my ridiculous human tears, I slammed into Sal with a hug that nearly knocked him off his feet—as much from surprise as from the force of it.