“Oh shit, oh sorry, oh fu—”
Vorster pulled and twisted, dragging Malcolm away from me. They tumbled over the edge, leaving me gasping and shaking. I shuffled toward the opening in the rail, my pulse pounding in my ears. The sound almost hid the mumbling growl coming from the stairs. I turned. Bren crouched, snarling, both hands pressed to his wounded stomach. I spun, desperate for another way down.
An explosion from below pitched the floor another fifteen degrees. I crashed against the railing, scrambling for a hold, eyes darting. Farther around the mezzanine, fire climbed a roll of textiles. The second set of stairs was ten feet beyond that, but the flames jumped when they hit spilled chalk, cutting me off.
The chains of the crane swung in front of me. It was a simple device, wheels on a track, and the track was clear. The electricity might be out, but enough momentum would get me over the pile of machine parts. I could climb down. Right into a pit of suckers, but at least I’d have a couple more options than I did now.
Bren staggered toward me, spewing energy and dripping blood. I was out of time, and everybody else was busy. I dropped my hand into my bag and felt around until my fingers brushed the cool, sleek body of my Zippo.
“Fuck the high ground.” I closed my eyes when I lit it, then opened one eye. I hadn’t exploded. I set it down, angling the top to protect the flame, and slid it toward my shuffling attacker. Covered in combustible dust, he went up fast.
I darted back to the exterior wall while Bren flailed and screamed—a sound I never want to hear again. He ran toward the stairs and straight into the broken crate. It flared, and the resulting smell was horrific. Ignore it, ignore it, ignore it.
I concentrated on the chains. The floor angled downward. The chains were moving, at least six feet from the mezzanine. The drop was closer to twenty. I didn’t know the math on that, but it didn’t seem easy. Bren dropped to the ground, rolling in a series of quick jerks, extinguishing flames with each movement and getting closer and closer.
When in doubt, go fast.
I ran. Another flash of vampire energy burst below just as I jumped. I held my breath, arms rising out in front of me in slow motion, and the crane fucking moved. It rolled, an essential few inches farther away. My hands scrabbled, fingers sliding along the chain as my body dropped, gravity trying to suck me back down to where I belonged. I screamed, caught my left wrist in a loop of chain, then screamed again when the loop jerked closed around it.
The chain in my right hand slipped another couple of terrifying links before I caught hold. Smoke enveloped me, staining the tears running down my face and burning my eyes. I tried to pull myself up, crying out at the agony that brought on. I was so not winning.
I pulled until I could slide my left arm farther through the loop. My elbow finally hooked over and I hung, panting. The debris pile was still a couple feet away. I might be able to make it if I could get swinging, but I’d have to jump—fall, really—to reach it. The floor…the floor was very far away.
The blood drained out of my limbs as I hung there, just breathing. I felt Malcolm. His rage. His pain. His desperation. He was somewhere to my right, but all I could see was smoke, blood and…parts of people.
I swallowed, coughed and slipped again. His energy slid into my skin, warm and chaotic, and I focused on it over the pain and panic. It soothed me, even as it filled me with energy. Energy he goddamn needed. I was a bird on a wire because I’d put myself there, and it very much felt like he was directing power toward me.
“Let go.” Soraya’s voice, behind and below me. My arms trembled, and sweat and smoke stung my eyes. “Let go. I will catch you.”
“Always telling me what to do,” I gasped. “Move faster. Circle. Let me in. Let go and fall two stories.”
“You’re in shock. I will come and get you.”
“No.” I caught a glimpse of Bren, smoking and no longer whole, lurching toward the opening in the rail. Looking to devour the human, now hung like an offering, who’d hurt him. Fuck.
“Sydney, let go.” The slightest influence behind Soraya’s words.
Bren groaned as he crouched, preparing to leap.
I let go.
Chapter Seventeen
I was too damn stupid to live. That was all I could think while I fell. No life flashing before my eyes, just that singular epiphany. I crashed into Soraya, my chin cracking against her shoulder. She tossed me behind her. I stumbled, righted myself, and promptly ran diaphragm-first into the handle of a rusted pallet jack.
Bren fell on Soraya, and new flames sprouted up on his back. She rabbit-punched him and shoved him away. He rebounded off a solid piece of metal and she snatched up her remaining sword and swung. His head thumped onto the ground. It might have bounced. I couldn’t be sure, too busy fighting nausea and trying to regain my ability to breathe. His body wavered for a moment before crumpling.
The vampiress turned toward me, her right arm curled in front of her. I lay there, making weird little noises as my body tried to get air. She took a sliding step, and another vamp streaked up behind her. I opened my mouth to warn her, but nothing came out.
Soraya turned, but she was slow, too slow. A blade sprang out of her back and she stopped, completely motionless for thirty seconds while the sucker stared at her, his expression at first uncertain, then victorious. The idiot. Soraya screamed. She kicked him away, tossed her sword behind her and pulled the blade from her belly. The vamp scrambled to his feet as she dropped low, sidestepped, and plunged his own knife into him, slitting him from groin to neck. His legs kicked spastically as all kinds of horrible shit poured out of his body.
Soraya staggered, slumping to her knees as she neared me. I reached for her, but her head cracked against the cement floor as she landed. She rolled halfway from her back to her side, then fell still. One curved sword lay beside her and…her right hand was missing. I glanced at the twisted blue and red mess of my left hand.
She could heal almost anything given time. But we didn’t have time. I could heal, too, given enough energy. Eladio stepped out of the smoke, blood squishing out of his shoes as he walked, a gnarly serrated sword in one massive fist. He scanned us out of the one eye that remained open, then turned to face two vampires slinking in from the shadows.
Guarding us. Putting his undeath on the line even though he despised me. Because he and Malcolm had a pact, and that arrangement extended to me. Finally able to breathe, I shoved myself onto my side, cradling my bad arm, reaching for Soraya’s sword with the other. I wanted to not be fucking useless. To be able to make a mistake or a bad call once in awhile and survive it without help.
If I could just heal.
Vorster’s energy skittered over me. I shivered, then fixated on the feel of it. Like Malcolm’s, but not. It was colored by Vorster’s feelings, his drives and his fears. But under that, it was just energy. I could take it. I could accept his power, and my body would use it the same as it did Malcolm’s. At least, it should. All I had to do was open to him. I gazed down at Soraya, utterly still, at Eladio grunting as he was hit. Protecting us. I wasn’t going anywhere without their help, and they weren’t going to be able to get me out if I kept falling apart.
I had nothing to lose.
The vampires attacked together. Eladio dodged some kind of mace, punched the other vampire just over his ear. He kept circling, and they kept moving just outside of his compromised field of vision. I focused on Vorster. Cut the strings and the minions will flail, that’s what the vampire scientists always said. I didn’t know if he’d made these vampires, but he was their master for all intents and purposes. They were acting on his wishes.
I relaxed my defenses and opened to him. For a brief moment pressure built inside me, making my heart pound, my nerves twinge, threatening to overwhelm me. Then it was gone, like a release valve had popped. I tapped into his specific current, into a frigid pool of power. It actually stung as it slapped against me. I dropped my head and ground my teeth as it flooded me. In my peripher
al vision, one of Vorster’s suckers fell.
My wrist flopped, things moving beneath the surface of my skin as it began knitting itself back together. The pain was so immense that I scrambled back, boots squealing on the floor as I tried to get away from my own arm. My teeth chattered. The lingering ache in my breastbone and shoulder faded. The throb in my cheek from the wood splinter eased. My wrist went numb, and my fingers twitched like crazy.
Eladio rose slowly from the last body, which he’d just…split. And then Vorster sped into the room, bloody and furiously happy. I stopped breathing. Where was Malcolm? Eladio charged him and the two swirled, too fast for me to track. Metal clanged, and the room shook from their efforts. Eladio’s sword broke, the end of the blade falling, the rest of it spinning away through the air. He fell back, rolled away from a slash, and grabbed up a length of pipe to replace his lost weapon.
I clutched Soraya’s sword, and stared at Vorster’s back, focusing solely on him. The room fell away, the noise, the dust, the fire and chaos. I pulled, dragging great drafts of power into me. I pushed myself to my feet, swaying, but not because I was weak. I should have been, but instead I felt amazing. Full and light and effervescent. And Vorster…staggered. Eladio lumbered toward him.
The South African recovered, too quickly, and stabbed Eladio twice in quick succession. The massive vampire fell and Vorster sank the blade in twice more before turning. I stepped over Soraya’s legs, putting myself between her and the sucker, and raised the sword.
He ran a hand through his hair, smoothing the blood-clotted mess. Then he laughed, a jarring sound that carried no joy “Oh, this is precious. Malcolm’s trained his pet to protect his prize.” The feel of his power changed, smoothing from rolling rocks to silk. I shivered.
“You don’t have to do this,” I said, my voice shaking even though my hands were steady. Surprisingly so. “You can still walk away, Hendrik. Just go…now.”
He paused, blue eyes widening between streaks of blood. I gripped the hilt, then forced myself to relax my hold. Not that my technique was going to matter against something so quick, but I wasn’t going to let him break me like he’d broken Tilde.
“You’re offering me a way out?” he murmured, before laughing. “Even if I’d thought to go before, I won’t now. I simply have to know what talents you’ve got locked up in that blood of yours. Because you, my dear, are priceless. The things I will do with you. The things you’ll beg me to do.” Influence saturated his words, spiking behind my eyes and drilling into my mind. The thought of Tilde, whimpering for his attention, broke loose from my memories, fueling a tide of anger.
“No.” I took a deep breath and dragged more power from him.
“What are you doing?” He frowned and rubbed his chest. He looked down at his hand, then turned it over, staring at the palm with confusion.
Malcolm appeared behind him. He was a mess, his shirt hanging in shreds, his hands stained red. He picked up the end of Eladio’s sword and caught Vorster around the neck. His rigid arm tightened beneath Vorster’s chin, then they jerked in unison. Vorster twitched, opening and closing his mouth like a fish. A bubble rose out of it, pink at first and then darkening as it filled. It burst red and blood ran down his front. Malcolm released him and Vorster took a few short, stiff steps, then shuffled to face him.
“What…did…you…do?”
“Stabbed you in the back, Hen.” His voice was as flat and brittle as shale. He put his hand on Vorster’s shoulder, steadying him. “What you’ve been accusing me of for years.”
Vorster’s hand flopped around behind him. The fat end of the bare blade stuck out of his back and dully reflected the remaining light. Vorster reeled back, then collapsed. Malcolm walked toward him, each step slow and steady.
“Turn away, Syd.” There was no influence behind the words, hardly any tone at all. I closed my eyes, listening to the pound of my pulse in my ears as a blade snicked through the air and clanged against the cement.
My eyes flew open. Malcolm moved toward me, his eyes hollow. He pushed my sword out of his way and pulled me tight against him. “You’re going to be the true death of me,” he muttered into my hair. I began to tremble. “Even though you may be the only person not actively trying to kill me.”
Chapter Eighteen
I knocked on Eladio’s door, bouncing on the soles of my feet until he opened it.
“That suits you,” I said, pointing toward the black eye patch secured around his wide head. He lifted his lip in a silent snarl. I raised the tray I carried. “Delivery for you. Two packs of blood. Petr said it’s A, which apparently means you’ll like it.”
He snatched the blood packs and the tube running from his IV bumped against the tray. He paused, and I sucked in a breath.
“Hurts, don’t it?” I turned the tray and held it against my hip. “Is that positive or negative?”
“What?” If his voice was any flatter, he’d have turned one-dimensional.
“Positive or negative? Your special A.”
Eladio smiled, and that was almost worse than the snarl. “It’s Anna,” he said, before slamming the door in my face. Oh. My nose crinkled up. Eww. I didn’t like my deliveries having names.
I stopped two doors down and tapped lightly. A woman—human—opened it. Beyond her, the room was all rich purple walls and violet gossamer drapery, except for the sleek chrome IV stand. The candles barely cast enough light for me to see Soraya lying on a low, spare bed. Her right arm was swathed in bandages, and still slightly too short.
“I told you we would send word when she wakes,” the girl whispered. I’d borrowed clothes from her. I thought her name might be Mirasol. The line between my eyes deepened. Six hours and the vampiress still wasn’t conscious. Mirasol put her hand on my arm and smiled warmly. “She will be all right. She’s been through worse. This is nothing.”
My eyes widened. “Limb loss counts as nothing around here?” Still smiling, she closed the door in my face.
Maybe I was being a little annoying. I couldn’t stop moving, couldn’t force myself to sit for more than a couple of minutes. Petr had forced food on me in the kitchen while he dispensed supplies to various parties. And then he’d tried to occupy me with delivering medical supplies and blood to the private quarters upstairs. Most of Malcolm’s people had come back, though none in the same shape they’d gone out in.
Terrance hadn’t made it. He’d been brought back in one of the other limos that had somehow been waiting for us when we staggered out of the burning warehouse into the cold, clean air, and I only saw his body—what was left of it—when it was carried into the club.
A crowd had gathered, vampires who either felt the turmoil or were given a heads-up by someone at the club in the chaos of our return. Humans had noted the traffic, and now a line of beating hearts stretched around the corner. Malcolm had cleaned up quickly, downed two quarts of blood—from a stainless-steel cup, I was happy to see—and gone down to hold court.
It was important after a major event, he’d explained brusquely, to make himself seen. To show the other vampires that Bronson’s proxy was still powerful, still in control. Petr had quietly instructed a cleanup crew to go to the warehouse and sent other minions—vampire and human alike—on various errands. The courier shops would be busy tonight. I suspected the orders hadn’t explicitly come from Malcolm, though the vamps followed them without question, which made Petr an intriguing human.
I jogged down the stairs and into the kitchen, dropping the tray onto the counter with a clatter. Petr raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry,” I muttered, running my thumb over the back of my left wrist again. It was bruised and sore, but whole. And I was still brimming with the energy I’d siphoned off of Vorster.
A porter dressed in a short, white jacket pushed through the swinging door and handed Petr a note. The door continued to swing, giving me quick flashes of the bar. Malcolm was around the corner, just out of sight.
“Anything else I can do?” I asked brig
htly. I didn’t really want to stop and think about what had happened, the horrible things I’d seen—and done—or the fact that I was now all fired up from the power of a vampire other than the one I’d chosen to be involved with.
If we were still involved after tonight.
Malcolm had kept one hand on me as he directed the roundup of Vorster’s remaining people, of which there were a few, but his face had been blank. What do you say to someone after his people were hurt defending you, after one of them was killed? Really killed. His body was disintegrating before we’d gotten back to the club, and we were ahead of daylight. The newspaper advice column, not the regular one about ugly wedding presents and in-laws, but the one focused on human-vampire etiquette, didn’t touch on that. I guess there weren’t many humans who found themselves in this type of situation.
“Take a look inside.” Petr gestured toward the round hole in the swinging door. I took a couple of hesitant steps toward it and glanced out.
Thurston and two other vampires sat at a four-top, dwarfing the normal-size table. They were all beat to hell, and the crowd was gawking at them like prizes were about to jump out of them. There weren’t any humans in the lounge tonight other than employees, which made me wonder why they were allowed to line up outside. Probably to increase the intrigue.
“Do you have any feelings about any of them?” Petr asked.
“Feelings?”
He held up the note and I swallowed hard. Was Malcolm asking what I wanted done with the vampires? Thurston’s elbows rested on his knees and he stared at the floor. Defeated. I raised a finger and tapped on the glass. A dozen heads swung toward me. Thurston raised his slowly. His eyes widened before he snapped his mask into place.
Petr jerked me away from the window. “I didn’t mean for you to reveal yourself.” His gaze roamed over me and narrowed on my chalky hair before he turned back to the operations center he’d set up for himself. “Not that anybody will recognize you after you bathe. You are going to bathe, aren’t you?”
Running in the Dark Page 17
