Free Immortal Devices by Kailin Gow

mean Cruces meant nothing. He was their friend, if nothing else, not to mention their only way home given that he was the one who possessed the ring to walk between worlds. They had to save him, even if it meant danger. Though Scarlett still let out a small sound of fear as the huge vampire struck Tavian, knocking him back.
                Scarlett rushed in then, determined to help. She drew her dagger, slashing at the creature, forcing it to turn towards her. That gave Cruces the opportunity to leap onto the larger vampire’s back, gripping it in a hold that would have immobilized a smaller creature. The big vampire just threw him off as though he weighed nothing.
                Tavian came back at it with a series of punches. Each one seemed thunderous, but the vampire merely shrugged them off before driving forward into the young man, smashing him into the nearest wall hard enough for stone dust to rise up as he struck. For a moment, just a moment, that left Scarlett dangerously vulnerable, a mere mortal faced with the full might of the vampire before her.
                It seemed to recognize that, grinning in a way that bared its fangs as it tensed to leap at her. Somehow, Scarlett knew that her dagger would not be enough. The thing would trap her arm so easily, and that would leave her helpless before those fangs. What would it feel like as they tore into her? Would she even know it when they ripped out her throat?
                Something swooped down, tearing into the vampire. It took Scarlett a moment to recognize the harpy that did it for what it was, but by then, there were already other immortals there. The other harpies swooped at the vampire, rending it with their claws, while young men and women with that faint glow that marked them for what they were struck at it. The vampire tried to fight back, but faced with so many foes, there was little even it could do.
                It tried to run instead, turning and trying to leap up to safety on the nearest rooftop. The harpies knocked the  back mid leap. Then the minotaur grabbed it, seizing the vampire in a crushing bear hug from behind that left even its great strength useless for the moment.
                Scarlett looked around, trying to make sense of the sudden aid from the immortals. She saw Hecate walk into the alley, her expression suggesting that she was faintly amused by the whole thing.
                “There you are. Now, what good did you think running away was going to do, girl?”
                Scarlett didn’t know what to say to that. “You saved my friends and me,” she pointed out.
                “Oh, we cannot have vampires causing trouble in our home,” Hecate said. She walked over to where the minotaur still held the muscular vampire. “Hold him higher, child of the labyrinth, so that I might see him.”
                Hecate looked at the vampire closely, even going so far as to trace the mark of the Order with her fingers. Scarlett noted that the creature did not die from that touch, but then, in a very real sense, it was dead already.
                “I do not know this one,” Hecate said. She looked over to where Cruces stood, dusting down his clothes. “That one, yes. I know him and his of old, when he was merely immortal and not one of the blood drinkers. This one, however, is new.”
                Scarlett struggled to make sense of that. Cruces had been one of the immortals before he was a vampire? The Greek immortals had known him as one of their own? She wanted so badly to know more about that, but she did not get the chance. One of the immortals from before, the woman whose face was covered, and around whose head snakes writhed, had grabbed Scarlett’s arm.
                “You still have not told us which immortals sent you after Cupid’s bow,” the woman said. Her voice was surprisingly pleasant.