chapter 17
Someone was waiting for me.
Although, at this point, I supposed I should have expected such...surprises.
A small part of me wondered if I would still be alive tomorrow.
Now that would truly be a surprise...considering who it was.
Eyes hidden behind a pair of aviator glasses, hair disguised underneath a rather filthy baseball cap, there was still no hiding the fact that my target stood in front of me, leaning against an expensive looking silver car, arms crossed over his chest.
He looked comfortably warm in a flannel jacket and dark blue jeans tucked into a pair of black cowboy boots.
A rather incongruous image, considering the last time I saw him, he looked like the classic example of a Victorian printer, especially with his round rimmed glasses and checked vest.
The doors swung shut behind me ponderously slow, but the fact of the matter was, here stood the Order's most outstanding enemy, and he was alone. Or looked it, in any case.
I could kill him right now.
Or attempt to.
Either way, something would end. Either my life or his.
He smiled.
The breath caught in my throat. "Why are you here?"
He uncrossed his arms, that same, small smile on his generously plump lips. "Surely you didn't think we wouldn't keep, what's the word, ah, tabs on you, Miss Hwang?"
My mouth was almost painfully dry. "What do you want?"
Kill him.
Kill him now.
He was quiet for a moment, taking the time to look at the structure of our headquarters. "Your...order. They try so hard to keep us at bay. But in the end, they will only die, one after another, until there is no one except for those...Elders you seem to follow with such blind hearts."
Did he know? "You have a lot of nerve. To come here. Knowing what they hunt."
I almost said "we" but barely managed to keep the word from spilling off my tongue. For all intents and purposes, I was Jason's Ailward.
"A nice attempt at distancing yourself, but I think we both know you're playing both sides of the field, or so to speak," he said and then opened the passenger door. The dark interior made my palms sweat. "Let's go for a ride, shall we?"
"I'd rather not," I said and risked a glance at the twin doors. Could the guards get the doors open before I became a splatter on the walls? I doubted it.
He took off his glasses and his light blue eyes narrowed. "I'm sorry. I know it sounded like a request, but it really wasn't. Get in. We need to talk about your so-called...Master."
"And if I don't?"
An eyebrow rose. "Don't what? Don't get in? Jason is, for the lack of a better phrase, at my mercy, didn't you know? If you say no, it will be reflected in his treatment. Surely you wouldn't want that...would you? Or did you mean you simply didn't want to talk? Which in that case, I'm afraid the results will be the same."
A more blatant threat could not have been possible. "So I have no choice."
The smile faded away. "No."
My hands itched. "I could kill you right now."
"No," he said again, shaking his head. "I don't think you can. You are, without a doubt, quite the little warrior, but you cannot kill me. Haven't I showed you that with, what's his name, ah yes. Rammstein. An interesting diversion to say the least, but then again, also just a diversion."
I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. "They think I'm working for you." Even now, my right cheekbone stung. There would be an ugly bruise within the next half hour or so.
“I’m sure standing here doesn’t help,” he replied and gestured to that dark, cavernous depths. “If you will? By nature, I am a patient man, but even I have limits. Get in.”
I didn’t have a choice.
The inside of the car smelled like leather and something else, something almost earthy, and when Noir closed the door, I felt the familiar sense of choking as the darkness closed in around me, like a vise.
Perhaps I made a sound because Noir said, “Ah, yes. Forgive me. I did forget about your strange little quirk. Although, I do think it’s strange, a vampire hunter afraid of the dark. There’s a button next to the armrest. Feel free to open the window. Unfortunately, I cannot turn on the lights. I rather like the darkness, truth be told. Besides, it’d be like traveling with a bullseye emblazoned on the hood. There are people hunting me and moving in the dark is my best defense.”
Opening the window did help. “You waited outside for me. Weren’t you out in the open, then?”
“That is true,” he said. “However, I have an unusually good sense of the areas near me. Before someone drew a bead on me, I would know. But in a car?” He shook his head. “There are…interruptions. Also, you can dodge a bullet out in the open. In a car? Tell me, have you ever tried to dodge an explosive?”
“You mean, there’s someone else hunting you besides…the order?”
I almost said us and judging from his raised brow, he must have known it as well. “Yes. You see, for some strange reason, enemies of our…partnership seems to think I am the weakest link. Hence, all challengers to our reign here in Centennial City seem to come straight to me.”
“Imagine that.”
He looked at me. “Was that a note of sarcasm I hear?”
Sarcasm? Hardly. I had a hard time understanding jokes as it was. Sarcasm was on a whole new different level. “Not at all. I heard from Vincent. He says you are the true monster of the four.”
“Hah!”
“It’s not true?”
He let one shoulder rise and then fall. “I suppose it depends on how you define a monster. How do you define a monster, Ailward?”
I didn’t know how to answer. So I did the next best thing; I moved on. “Why am I here?”
“Well, spoken plainly, you are here because I’ve blackmailed you.”
Blackmail. It was an ugly word and an even uglier concept. “That’s not what I meant. What purpose could you possibly have for me?”
The car moved like a silent animal. I couldn’t even hear the engine. Could only tell the car was going from the occasional stops and acceleration. That and the sound of the wind whipping through the tiny gap in the window that let in the cold.
“Ah, well, in that case…I must admit to a certain curiosity,” he said, elbow on his knee, chin braced on one hand. The streetlights bathed his face in light, then darkness, then light again. He was beautiful. Beautiful in the way a tiger prowls through the underbrush, beautiful like the sheen and angle of a blade. “I’ve heard some extraordinary things about you. Is it true that you can see the future?”
My laugh was hoarse, rough. “I am not a fortune teller.”
“A pity,” he replied, voice lingering. “But you’re a human. Who can fight toe to toe with one of my kind. I’m told you eliminated an assassin the first night of your Master’s turning. How did you do that?”
Was it wise to tell him? I thought not. “I would rather not talk about that.”
“Hm. In that case, I suppose I could always threaten you with the death of your Master.”
How could he smile?
Vampires were monsters. Not a shred of humanity between the lot of them; I had forgotten.
I had forgotten. “Is this how you get what you want? By threatening?"
He tilted his head to one side. "Pardon?"
"Have you ever considered asking, perhaps even offering something in exchange for whatever it is you require?"
The vampire let out a slow breath and then lifted one hand, staring at it intently, as though he could read his fortune in the lines. "Do you know how I've survived as long as I have?"
"You're avoiding the question."
He looked at me, eyes completely black. I wished he was looking back at his hand. "You dare ask me such a thing? Tell me, Hunter, aren't you afraid of me or are you just too stupid to be afraid?"
A combination of both. But I wanted to live, so I kept my mouth shut.
He opened his mouth to say something, but then held up a finger. “Wait.”
I watched him pull a cell phone smaller than the palm of my hand from the flannel jacket that looked and smelled like it had come from a discount clothing warehouse that specialized in keeping beggars from going nude.
“What?” he answered.
He stilled and his lips pursed. “I see.”
A pause.
“Have Vincent notified. Tell him we are headed his way and will pick him up at the club. We should arrive in the next ten to fifteen minutes.”
Instinctively, my muscles twitched.
Vincent? In here? I would share a car with Centennial City’s two most powerful vampires. Panic made my breath come up short and when he snapped the phone closed, I jumped at the sudden, sharp noise.
He rolled his shoulders back and sighed, a startling sign of humanity I hadn’t expected to see.
“We have a…problem.”
I felt the almost unstoppable urge to laugh like a maniac. “I cannot imagine something possibly going right.”
“Fate does seem to have a way of making sure to frown upon you, doesn’t she?’
This time, I did laugh. I couldn’t have stopped it for the world. “I can only wait and see what she has planned.”
The brackets between his thin lips deepened. “You will not like this piece of news, I fear,” he said and sighed. “On second thought, there can be only one person who could rejoice at this news and that would be the one who took him.”
The one that took him.
Something tightened in my chest. “Who took who?”
He shook his head. “Jason. No one can say. Well, no one who can speak, that is.”
“What happened?”
His fingers tapped wildly on his thighs. Was it a sign of his disquiet? It was clear this was extremely worrying to him, although how it could worry him more than myself, I could not understand. “There was an attack at my estate after I went to intercept you. From what I can gather, someone or something simply walked into my home and demolished it.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Demolished it,” he said again and to my most abject horror, found myself sitting only three inches away from a vampire lord with fully extended fangs. “They came to my bastion and left no one alive. They slaughtered all of those under my protection and left my home in shambles.”
I wanted very much to leap out of the car. When it came to taking my chances with an angry vampire lord or asphalt going seventy miles per hour, I’d take the asphalt. It would be less painful. “Then who called you?”
“Ryder,” he said. “He was supposed to help you acclimate to the new…atmosphere.”
And even though fifteen years of conditioning made me want to lunge for my sword, it would only prove cumbersome in the car’s interior.
That and I didn’t think Noir would give me the time to pull it out of its bag, much less the sheath itself. “You’ve been rather accommodating to someone who hunts things like you.”
His smile was crumbling visibly at the edges. “It would seem you’ve got more pull with him than most other Ailwards. Seen but not heard, I believe, is the purpose of them, no? Clearly, you must not have received the memo.”
His fangs had retracted just a bit but it was enough that I released my death grip on the door handle. I might die that night, but chances were high it would not be in that moment, in this car.
“What happens now?”
The car took a right turn a little too abruptly and I careened into Noir’s side.
Slamming into a brick wall woiuld’ve been less painful and the breath left me in a sudden whoosh that left me gasping for air, my stomach cramping.
Someone screamed, long and high.
I didn’t realize it was the driver until the car screeched to an earsplitting halt and I bounced off the front barrier, cutting my chin on a metal coat hook.
“That…that wasn’t planned, was it?” I asked, like a stupid idiot. I tasted blood in my mouth and felt it dribble down my chin; I’d bitten my tongue, and pretty badly at that.
Noir stared at me, his eyes wide, and I stared into those empty, pitch black depths. “What?”
He shook his head and turned away, as though he could not bear to look at me. “Wipe your chin. Hurry up and wipe it before I do something I regret!”
Shit. I swiped at my face with trembling fingers. I almost put an eye out. “Sorry. Sorry. I didn’t think.”
“Never mind,” he said forcefully and opened the door. “Are you ready?”
I didn’t think he was, when someone, something jerked him out of the car and into the darkness that seemed to beckon like some horrible shadow that knows all your secrets.
Suddenly, I couldn’t get away from that side of the car fast enough.
Sword clenched in my right hand, I felt for the door handle digging deep into the small of my back, and I frantically depressed the handle, all the while aware of the terrifying howling, snarling I heard from the other side of the car.
The car door gave suddenly behind me and I fell heavily on my back, my right arm twisted in an awkward position underneath my hip.
“Well, ain’t this a surprise!”
Marcus leered down at me and before I could move, reached out, squeezing my shoulder hard enough to bring a cry to my lips.
Pulling me onto my feet, he dragged me around the side of the car where I saw Noir flanked by a pair of vampires, their eyes dark, fangs fully extended.
Meanwhile, the vampire lord’s right eye looked like it would explode in its socket if someone so much as coughed in his direction and blood drenched the flannel coat, dripping on the asphalt that seemed to absorb the blood before it even had a chance to pool.
I didn’t recognize the vampires standing on either sides of the bested vampire lord, although I did recognize the feminine figure that sat on the car trunk, her black stiletto heels kicking in the air.
“Hello, Ailward.”
Marcus shoved me forward and I fell on my knees, bruising both kneecaps.
“Vincent’ll have your heads,” I managed to say with some modicum of dignity.
Annabel exposed the long, pale length of her throat, running a fingernail down it as she pretended to observe the full moon. “Yeah, well, what he won’t know won’t hurt him, now would it?”
Noir tried to pull free of her guards, but one of them kicked him in the back of his knees, forcing him back down. “So, this is how you planned on eliminating the Sanguinate? Take out his allies and then take him out as well? Tell me, my little vicious, betraying darling. Is he already dead?”
For some inexplicable reason, she turned his dark gaze to me and for one terrifying moment, I thought she nodded.
But she only smiled.
What did that mean?
“Not yet,” she said. “But who knows what will happen in half an hour? I’ve left him with someone who very much wanted to meet him.”
My throat was dry, painfully dry. “Who?”
She tapped her forehead with a long, elegant red fingernail. “Well, he’s always professed an interest in Sanguinates…especially since we killed the last one. Said something about how he never got the chance to study his own creation.”
Noir tried once again to pull free but only succeeded in receiving a resounding cuff to the side of his head that would have felled a cow. “You stupid, silly bitch. You’re playing right into Matthias’s hands! Don’t you think this is what he wanted?”
She tilted her head to one side. “I don’t care what he wants. Once I get rid of you and Vincent, I’ll be the one and only power to Centennial City. I am sick and tired of playing second fiddle to you buffoons. Do you think this constant pandering to the humans is good for our species?”
“It’s the only way we can survive!”
“Wrong!” she screamed and smacked a hand on the car roof. All of the windows blew out with a crash and a shard dug deep into my left cheek. “You think the humans are afraid of us? They think we’re some kind of joke, Noir! Well, no more. I’m not some kind of tourist attraction, you got that? I’m taking the f*cking night back, do you understand me? The f*cking sheep will learn to bow at our feet once again. Just like you and that human next to you.”
Noir studiously avoided looking at me. Blood was beginning to trickle down my face again. Damn it. “So, what happens now?”
She slithered off the hood, the moonlight casting a faint aura over her pale white skin. “Well, you die. Then she dies.”
“And Vincent?”
She waved a hand in the air. “Oh, I’m sure the Fellow-thingie will take care of him well enough.”
I choked on my own spit and sputtered, eyes watering. “You called the Fellowship on them?”
Her eyes narrowed with malicious pride. “Oh, they loved it. Ate it up. Ate it up even more when I told them you were betraying them all along.”
You were betraying them all along.
In that instant, I didn’t want to kill anyone more.
I would have given anything to feel her blood drip from my fingers.
She clapped her hands. “Yes, yes! Look at me like that. Glare at me like you think you can do anything about me. God, I love it. I wish I could feed off hate. F*ck blood, give me hatred any damn day.”
Marcus’s hand tightened on the back of my neck and I stopped breathing. One faint twinge of his fingers and I would breath no more.
A frightening, sobering thought.
Shit. I hated lose-lose situations like this.
“Anyways, I’ve gotta go.” She waved a hand and proceeded over to a dark blue sports car parked a few meters away at the curb of the oddly quiet industrial parking lot. “Got a few vampire lords to overthrow. Have fun, hm?”
Marcus’s body thrummed with nervous energy behind me. “What do you want to do with these two?”
“I told you, kill them,” she said without a backwards glance and when she screeched out of the parking lot, I tasted dust, thick and heavy, in the back of my throat.
Marcus sighed. “Jesus.”
I shifted under his grip, to keep my knees from turning into hamburger meat on the rough gravel, but a single tightening of his forefinger and thumb stopped me from making any more zealous movements.
“I, uh, wouldn’t move, if I were you,” he said. “I’m not exactly the most steady at the moment.”
“Your eyes. They look better,” I said, my voice sounding even quieter in the silent night in which even the crickets declined to sing. “I was worried.”
His laughter was husky. “Were you now?”
“You are not my enemy. I have never considered you the enemy.”
“Lady, you don’t even know me.”
“And you don’t know me,” I said. “What kind of hold does Annabelle have over you? Didn’t you say that Vincent owned you?”
He was silent for a moment. “You don’t know her. Vincent might own me, but he’ll at least leave a dead man’s body alone. She might be an idiot, but she’s a vindictive one. She’ll go after everyone I know. There are people I have to protect. If I tell her no, she’ll find a way to make me pay.” His breath seemed to hitch. “I’ve got a son. In second grade and I swear, he looks just like his mother. She threatened his safety. Knew the name of his teacher and his best friend. You have to understand, I would do anything to keep him alive.”
Noir cleared his throat. “Including inciting a coup?”
I wished I could see the expression on the werewolf’s face. “You don’t know her.”
“Wrong,” replied Noir. Was that a pitying look on his face? “There is no one who knows her better than myself. She’s an idiot. A twit who doesn’t even know she’s being manipulated. And you’re playing right into her hands. Just as she’s playing into his.”
His hand twitched and a sharp, sudden pain ran down my back.
For one second, one breathlessly terrifying moment, I thought he’d broken my spine.
I screamed. Long. Loud. My voice cracked in the night.
“Jesus Christ!” Marcus let go of my neck in surprise and I fell on my hands, moisture pooling at the corners of my eyes.
No. I was okay.
I had used my arms.
I was alive.
Alive.
I turned on my knees, the bi-su's abrasive handle cutting deeply into my palms.
But not as deeply as it slashed across his Achilles tendon and brought him down to eye level.
He had healed, but not well, the scars puckered underneath his eyes like something was trying to burst out from underneath his skin.
Behind me, I heard thuds, the sound of a blade leaving its sheath, but all of that faded into little consequence when Marcus reared back, mouth open in a silent cry.
A flailing arm caught me on the left side of my face and pain burst across my vision, bringing forth fireworks of black and white.
“You have to die!” he howled, face raised to the moon. “My son is the only thing worth living for.”
I didn’t want to.
I did not want to kill.
With his Achilles tendon severed and blood pooling over his shoes and into the gravel, he was hobbled, crippled. It seemed more than a possibility he would never be able to walk on his own power again.
He howled again, the sound long and low, arms held up as though he thought he could reach out and embrace the moon.
I realized what he was doing too late.
Fur shone on his body and I watched in sick fascination as he fell on his hands and knees, the bones breaking and knitting underneath a skin stretched far too thin for it to stand the stress.
Noir shouted. “Kill him! Kill him now before he turns!”
I had no time to go for the sword; I turned the bi-su in my hand and stabbed downward, the point over the base of his neck.
I worried the blade would simply connect with a bone and deflect into his neck.
My worry was all for nothing because he swept his hand up and knocked the dagger out of my hand.
The force was enough to send reverberations through my body and I staggered back as my arms seemed to shake enough to be in grave danger of falling out of their sockets.
"You have to die," he said.
No.
Growled.
Werewolves were never my prey.
So this was what it felt like to be faced by a seven foot tall humanoid being with claws long enough, sharp enough to eviscerate me.
So this was what it felt like to be faced by a shifter whose eyes glowed red in the moonlight, whose body dripped some kind of strange fluid down the form that had gone completely furry.
There was nothing that looked remotely familiar about the monster in front of me.
There was nothing that looked remotely human about the monster in front of me.
And there was no way I was going to fight the monster with a three inch throwing dagger.
Well, fight and expect to live, in any case.
But that didn't mean I couldn't give it, forgive me, a stab.
And I did.
Give it a stab, I mean.
I scrabbled in the gravel for the dagger, knees digging deep, trying to gain the traction to cover the six feet that separated me and the thin but sturdy length of metal.
A paw the size of a dinner plate stepped in front of me.
I supposed I should have been gratefully it didn't step on me.
Perhaps there was honor in wolves, after all.
“Get up, worm.”
At least, that's what I thought he said. It was hard to make out a single word when being uttered by a snout the length of my forearm, the serrated teeth glinting in the faint moonlight. Every one of the teeth looked more than capable of going straight through my arm and I slowly backed up, staring at the monster that loomed over me like the worst possible nightmare.
“You think that potato peeler is going to help you?” he asked.
It looked like he was smiling. It was hard to tell with all the teeth and hair getting in the way.
I took a moment to stand up, keeping my eyes on his chest. I'd be able to see any blow he threw my way although how I could possibly counter any attack, I hadn't the slightest idea.
“You're just a pawn,” I said. “How does it feel to be so manipulated? Is that how you want people to remember you?'
There was no mistaking the raspy exhale-inhale for anything other than laughter. “How I want people to remember me? Are you implying I'll be dead soon?”
I chanced a look behind me.
It was a stupid, life-risking move, but I had to know the reason for the lack of sound. Had Noir won? Had the vampires won?
And if Noir was dead, where did that leave me?
Did I still owe an allegiance to the Fellowship?
Although, if what Annabelle said was true, maybe they no longer wanted me. Maybe I was now persona non grata. That or someone on their Wanted list. I didn't know which was worse.
And did I still owe Jason? If Noir, my original purpose, no longer existed, where did that leave the two of us?
Questions laid thick and heavy in my mind and I couldn't not look.
I had to know.
But as it turned out, all of my questions were for naught.
The parking lot was completely empty.
“Where do you think you're looking?”
Without thinking, I ducked.
Instinct and training paid off.
An inch or two higher and I would've lost the top of my head.
Even so, I felt the wind from his passing claws ruffle my hair and with my heart in my throat, I tripped over my own feet, trying to put as much distance between myself and the werewolf.
“If it's the bloodsuckers you were looking for, they made for the forest a long time ago,” he said. “Hah. Noir was running with his tail between his legs. Just like the bloodsucking coward I always knew he was.”
Noir is the most frightening one of us all.
Vincent's voice echoed in my mind.
Why had that come to mind now? “I've heard otherwise.”
I sounded almost normal. Well, that was something. Father would have been proud of me. Mother would have lamented.
The smile was almost obscene and I would be lying if I didn't say it knocked my heartbeat up to the triple digits. “Oh?”
It was getting hard to talk in a normal voice. “Someone once told me Noir is the one you need to look out for. That he's not the meek lamb everyone seems to think he is.”
“And what do you think?”
My head was still attached to my shoulders. That was a good start. “I think you should be glad I'm the one in front of you. Not him.”
The hwan-geom was back at the car, fallen out of my hands as Marcus dragged me from the car.
I needed it.
I couldn't take on a seven foot beast with my bare hands.
Unfortunately for me, I didn't have much of a choice. Not when the shifter reared back and then charged.
At that point, the sword seemed kind of moot. Especially when he had the equivalent of ten, one for each of those claws that could turn me into raw meat, ready to be hurled on the grill.
I waited until I could count the individual lashes on his eyes.
Don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes.
I hurled gravel into his face, fighting to buy time.
He howled, those sharp claws trying to swipe at the grit in his eyes, and that was all the time I needed.
I took advantage of the slippery, tiny rocks and ducked as the werewolf made a sudden swipe in my direction. I let the momentum carry me over the gravel and slid to the car, almost hitting my forehead on the back bumper as I slid, perhaps too well.
But the sheath was in my hand, and that was half the battle, wasn't it?
The hwan-geom made a beautiful sound as I pulled it free from the lacquered sheath and the blade glittered in the moonlight.
Just like the werewolf's claws.
The dark red eyes narrowed and a globule of saliva dripped off his muzzle. “That's a pretty sword, girl. Think you can use it?”
I hefted the sword, the weight of it comforting and for some reason, calming.
I always felt better with it in my hands.
I wondered what it said about me.
“Want to test me?”
One blink of an eye and he was off the ground.
I thought I had lost him.
And once you lose an enemy, you might as well say goodbye to your life.
But my vision grew dark for just an moment and I looked up, sword arching up over my head.
It was enough to keep him from raking the face off my head.
Barely. His left index finger, tipped by a five inch claw, raked down the right side of my face, missing my eye by just an inch.
I slid backwards, but somehow, the sword kept him away.
My face felt like it was on fire. But I had felt worse, and survived worse. “Paying me back?”
His laughter made things worse. How could a human's breath smell like he'd been eating garbage for half a day? Or maybe it was just one of those things that came with having claws and fur. “Maybe? Maybe not. Either way, you're not going to be so pretty anymore.”
And even though I felt Death's scythe resting softly on my neck, I managed a tight smile. This was what I lived for.
The fight. The battle. “Then it's a good thing I wasn't very pretty to begin with.”
With a low cry, I pushed up and out, enough to force Marcus off balance and giving myself enough breathing room to take the offensive.
I couldn't remember the last time the sword felt so light in my hands, adrenaline pulsing through my body, giving me a beat to time my swings and thrusts.
Marcus was not an alpha for nothing.
With mind-boggling athleticism, he dodged every strike I threw his way, all the way laughing at me.
“Maybe the sword is too much for you.”
Despite the freezing air that made my breath white, sweat dripped down my spine. “Hardly. Are you ready to stop playing?”
The cut on my face burned incessantly, while my forehead throbbed from the beating I'd received back at the Sanctuary.
A corpse would've looked better.
You'd make a hell of a corpse.
Pushing away that highly disconcerting thought out of my mind, I ducked and then felt a sting on my upper arm.
It had been a paltry pain, something barely felt, but the werewolf stepped back.
Surprising.
I looked at my left arm, saw the blood dripping like rain off my fingers.
Then it felt like fire had erupted inside my body.
The pain was bad enough to bring me down to my knees, and for the second time in an hour, coarse gravel ground almost straight through to my bones.
Marcus shook his head.
“I don't understand it,” he said quietly, and I watched my blood drip from those claws that could slit my throat as easily as shredding a sheet of paper. “In layman terms, I've got you against the ropes. Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you. Give me one good reason why I should spare you when my only child's life hangs by a thread.”
My left arm was completely useless and it dangled like a discarded marionette by my side as I levered myself back up to a standing position, the sword shaking precariously as the blade took my entire weight.
“I'm right handed,” I said.
“I know,” he replied and shook his head. “You just don't give up.”
“Can't. I made a promise.”
Ah, but how bitter that sentence tasted on my tongue. I hated everything, hated the fact that I had ever taken the contract for Noir's death.
The moment I met Jason, everything had changed.
I did not like change.
“Promises?” He laughed. “I thought promises werwe made to be broken.”
I hurt everywhere. Even talking hurt. I felt like a giant, walking bruise. “Not me. I never break a promise.”
“And you promised to keep that vampire of yours alive, didn't you?”
There seemed no point in lying. “Yes.”
He shook his head, almost mournfully, clucking under his breath. I hadn't known such a sound was possible with a snout, but it just goes to show that new things can be learned every day. “Your loyalty is to be commended. But this is the end of the line for you.”
The ground swam in front of my eyes. “I understand. I'm sorry, Marcus.”
It was the first time I ever called him by his name.
“Me too,” he said. “Me too.”
He charged, breath white in the frigid air.
I stood my ground and let the world run into red and white.
This was it.
I drew in a deep, steadying breath and braced for the initial push that would bowl me onto my back, given half the chance.
I would give him no chance.
No quarter received, no quarter allowed.
Moving with a speed and ferocity that would've been beautiful if it wasn't me about to get eviscerated, he lunged forward, claws catching the moonlight and I dodged the blow, scoring a slash across his chest.
The fur and skin split apart like a seam coming undone and blood sprayed in a thin mist that drenched my face, turned my vision red.
He reared back, head thrown back into a howl and I saw the killing blow that would crush my skull and spine.
I beat it.
I ran him through to the hilt, my feet sliding back on the slippery pebbles and felt his body convulse underneath my hands.
Howls filled the night air as he staggered back.
I was too close; claws scored deeply into my back, tearing through the leather jacket, bringing forth blood and fire in their wake.
It was his death strike.
But I needed his death ensured.
My back was nothing compared to what I was doing to him.
I twisted the blade, felt the hot, almost scorchingly hot blood drench my hands. Abruptly, the sword gave way and the blade snapped at the hilt, still embedded deep into his chest.
He fell back, a cloud of dust arising from his descent.
My legs went weak and I fell to my knees.
I was still alive.
And he was dead.
Such is the way of my world.
Marcus coughed and I watched as the wolf shrunk into itself.
The fur shrank into nothing, the claws retracted, and the bones re-knit themselves into the form of a stout, powerfully built man with two feet of metal in him like a spit.
He convulsed once, a rattle coming forth from the throat offered up to the moon, and went still.
I began to shiver, the familiar pain starting at the base of my neck, the pain that would consume me whole.
“Well done.”
I looked over my shoulder, not surprised to find Noir watching from a few feet away. “How long have you been standing there?”
He let one shoulder rise and then fall in a nonchalant, casual manner. “Long enough.”
“The vampires watching you?”
He only smiled.
That was answer enough.
Then, the darkness overwhelmed me.
I did not stop it.