by T. G. Ayer
The tap-tap of water dripping onto stone told me the hovel would be just as cold and wet inside as out here. Guess our demon wasn’t on the smart side at all.
Somewhere along the hillside an animal cried, and my panther ears pricked to attention. It was a cat’s cry and though I couldn’t be sure what feline species it belonged to, it sounded more like an invitation than a warning. But I held myself stiff, cutting through my panther’s temptation to investigate.
I padded around the broken wall to where a half-open door hung precariously from a rusted hinge. A mere breath from me would be enough to send it to the ground. The narrow space was just wide enough for me to slide inside the darkened interior without having to test my breathing theory.
Inside, the hovel was silent. A glance upward showed me the once well-thatched roof was now bare straw, moldy and broken, over rafters swollen and split in so many places that I’d bet it would collapse under a sparrow’s weight.
Up near the rafters something shifted, and pale light gleamed on a ragged spider’s web. The shifting image morphed into the web’s now seven-legged owner. Even higher up, scurrying flashes of darkness confirmed the presence of rats.
Great.
Even in panther form, I hated the vermin.
Demons I could handle.
Rats? Nope.
I clicked across the floor, my sharp claws hitting the wet stone and echoing loudly around the room. Another doorway, this time free of anything remotely door-like, led to an inner room, this one no drier.
I froze, suddenly sure I’d heard something move. I felt, deep in my gut, the presence of someone or something. I tasted his scent on the air, and it led me to the far corner of the room, drawing my attention up toward the shadows within the high thatched roof. I squinted, the world a multitude of shades; gray and shadow and night, as my panther located the demon, and conveyed it to my human brain.
I’d discovered long ago that panther sight and hearing could overwhelm me, so I’d learned to blend it well. Now the sensations were not a total shock to my system.
Helps when you finally accept the panther side of you, doesn’t it?
My eyes narrowed. My prey crouched on an old cracked rafter so swollen from the rain that it looked ready to burst into shards of toothpicks especially with the demon weighing it down.
He watched me too, his head tilted to the left, his demon eyes glowing amber. It was clear that he wasn’t sure what to make of me.
I smelled no fear on him either. And that was certainly a mistake. He should be afraid of me.
His white protruding canines—yes, vamp-demons had them too—glinted as he grinned down at me.
It was easy to see why humans mistook this creature for the legendary vampire. His glamor didn’t help either. Soft blond hair that hung to his shoulders, deep green eyes, a muscled tanned physique that would make him instantly sexy. He’d have plenty of fodder on the streets of Glasgow, let alone in cities as big as London or New York.
It certainly made sense that Sentinel would want to be rid of him. I found it refreshing that they hadn’t requested we bring him back to headquarters. Omega had that particular requirement on all the missives they’d sent my way. Not a palatable job when I was forced to hand over a potentially innocent person—demon or otherwise—to Omega. They possessed a stained track record for experimenting on their own, one I wasn’t comfortable with.
But, as pleasing as the instruction was, it didn’t contain fine print regarding innocents. Something I planned to discuss with the higher-ups the first chance I got.
The barest hint of sound drifted to my ear. It wasn’t much, probably the shifting of a stone against the path, or the brushing of clothing against the stone wall that surrounded the abandoned hut.
Cassie.
When the demon stopped grinning and simply disappeared, my panther’s gut churned with the same fear my human self experienced.
I spun around and loped to the nearest window. I launched myself through the bare casement, its glass and framing long gone, and landed smoothly on the bare sand outside the hut. I stiffened as both my sense of smell and sight worked in tandem.
Across the yard, the shape of the demon shifted.
He’d stopped running and disappeared into a shifting smudge of darkness, only to reappear halfway up the hill to the left of the house, as if he’d taken a mere step away.
We’d been right about his uncanny ability to elude us.
He’d Jumped.
Chapter 2
NOW IT MADE SENSE HOW the slippery vamp-demon had managed to evade us for so many days. He’d disappeared off Cassie’s radar one too many times for it to be a coincidence, and it had bugged me to a point that I’d begun to suspect that Sentinel, or someone else, was setting us up.
Paranoid much?
On the plus side, we’d managed to get close enough earlier that evening—by walking past him in a run-down old pub over in the next town—to place a tracking device on him. Vamp-demons didn’t seem to mind when chewing-gum got stuck under their shoes. Or, in his case, army boots.
He still hadn’t found the bug, but since Sentinel’s equipment appeared to be on the fritz, it hadn’t helped us locate him.
Gritting my teeth, I scrambled across the yard, knowing my midnight dark fur would make me melt into the evening. I flew across the low stone wall, landed softly on padded paws, then slunk toward a stand of trees on the hillside up ahead.
Vamp-demon scent drifted down toward me, proof that he wasn’t smart enough, or experienced enough, to at least remain downwind. Either that or he thought he was too smart. I’d put my money on the latter.
But right now, Cassie was my first concern. Although her main role with Sentinel was as an Appereo, a rare type of mage with the ability to shapechange and turn herself invisible at will, she was still essentially human as most mages were. I could smell her human scent pretty strong on the soft breeze that filtered down the hill. The demon would close in on her faster than I was able to run.
Pity I couldn’t jump too.
I loped to the top of the hill and flew over another low wall, landing a few feet from where Cassie hunkered down out of sight of the hut, both our backpacks at her feet.
I took a step toward her but I was too late.
The demon shimmered, twisting shadows slowly forming into the creepy vamp. He stood, profile to me, studying Cassie who was halfway onto her knees, her invisibility beginning to shimmer, distorting the air around her.
The demon’s teeth glinted and I sprang at him. Cass’s eyes flickered in my direction but the demon must not have much of an instinct going on. Granted, all he saw was a black panther. But how many black panthers lurked around the farmlands of Scotland?
Cass flickered into nothing but the demon wasn’t to be bested so easily. His fingers snapped out, sharp black nails sprouting in a blink as he wrapped them around Cassie’s invisible neck.
Cassie shimmered again, visible now, eyes wide. Something was wrong. He could teleport and now he had the power to see Cassie while she was invisible.
This was not happening.
The demon laughed, tightening his grip. Cassie was unable to get away from him. The bastard must have some sort of spell on him that held her in this plane. That we hadn’t expected.
Cassie let out a furious grunt, using the force of her solid state to tug away from his razor-sharp grip but all she managed was to topple over the fence. Which wasn’t the best idea. It saved her ass, but it also meant the vamp’s claws sliced into her skin and tore a good portion of her flesh open. Thankfully, the injuries weren’t mortal; it would take a good deal more than that to threaten the life of a high-level paranormal like Cassie.
And, the demon seemed to be the I-like-to-play-with-my-food variety. A good thing in this case or—judging by Cassie’s shocked face and her grimace of pain—maybe not.
She paused, raising her the fingers of her right hand closer to her comms, but the vamp wasn’t as stupid as she’d hoped. H
e grabbed the earwig and flung it into the grass.
It landed a foot in front of me.
I stood frozen in the darkness considering my next move. If he really meant to kill her he was taking his time. Any sudden move on my part could finish the job if I wasn’t careful.
I studied the location of his nails in her throat, the lines of the blood trails on her skin, the ragged flesh where he’d torn her open. Cassie gasped as he tightened his grip, her bulging eyes searching wildly for me as he held her neck stiff preventing even the slightest movement.
When he leaned forward I thought nothing of it until I saw the glint of a sharp lengthening canine. Okay, so he wasn’t going to muck around after all.
I sprang at him, aiming parallel to the stone wall to allow Cass to fall on this side of the fence if he suddenly let go of her.
He didn’t let go.
I hit him broadside. His head snapped around, eyes shocked and furious at the interruption. When he realized his attacker was the black cat he’d so recently dismissed he didn’t release his prey. He fell sideways, hitting the ground hard, his fingers still clamped around Cassie’s neck as he dragged her with him.
She shrieked and I sank my claws into his arm. But he was a stubborn bastard. My presence didn’t seem to discourage him and he only gripped harder.
And as she lay very still beside him, Cass made a strange, hair-raising sound. The sound of dying; last gasps, final desperate breaths before the end.
Not on my watch.
I shifted my paws and threw my weight forward onto his neck, keen to provide him the same treatment he was meting out to Cassie.
Your turn, asshole.
The vamp-demon grunted, lifting his shoulder as if that small action would dislodge my claws. When I didn’t move he rolled onto his back, lifted his knees and kicked his feet into my abdomen.
As prepared as I was for his reaction, the force of the blow still winded me. For all his scrawny appearance, he packed a wallop. I grunted, and it must have sounded too human for any kind of feline because he gave me an odd, worried glance.
Sounded human, huh?
Too bad. His new position gave me more claw to skin surface area than my previous angle had, and I took advantage of it. I pulled my razors free and then plunged them into the base of his throat. My paws thumped hard on his chest side by side, and I pressed with all my weight. I’d break his sternum. Stop his ugly heart. Rip into his throat deep enough to drown him in his own blood—
A bit on the vicious side, aren’t you, Kai?
With his full attention on the basic need to live, the demon’s survival instinct finally kicked in. He dropped his hold on Cassie.
Part of my brain registered that she was no longer dying but wheezing and gagging for breath, the ragged breathing and hollow coughing of my poor, near-suffocated partner.
But I didn’t have time to celebrate. As I sucked in my own breath a shudder rippled through me. My gut twisted, as a red haze began to fill my vision, fear gripped my throat. I might have saved Cassie but the bloodlust of the walker had finally come to claim me.
I’d danced around bloodlust since I’d shifted. It had been easy enough to avoid—until blood started to flow. Now that sweet, coppery scent began to entice my inner feline. Soon it would be a raging frenzy.
Usually the blood call forces the human-to-feline change. But because I was already in cat form, my visceral need was more powerful, a deep-throated bellow to my panther’s wilder nature.
A call for the kill.
I strained against the call, the pull of pain in my teeth, the ache in my bones. I’d heard of this type of bloodlust. It went deeper than just being a walker. It was a more primal, unadulterated animal instinct that demanded dominance. I’d heard tales of walkers going over to the darker side, giving in to the primal need and never being able to come back to normality.
The walker could return to human form, but the bloodlust came home with her, and she’d have to spend the rest of her life fighting it. I didn’t want that for my future. I had too many things to consider.
Too many people I cared about.
I stiffened my resolve. Tightened my jaw—
Cassie’s fear filled my nostrils and her strangled cry brought me back to awareness.
I blinked.
My jaws were clamped tight around the vamp-demon’s neck. Horrified, I spat him out, scrambling backward on my hind legs.
No. No.
One moment, I was a hulking black panther stricken by bloodlust. The next I was a very naked female, pale skin streaked with blood.
Chapter 3
I CHOKED, SHOCKED AT WHAT I’d almost done.
Huddling on the wet ground, I watched as Cassie crawled to the demon and studied him, pressing a hand to her wounds. They trickled a thin stream of blood but I was sure she’d been through worse.
Paranormals were a tougher brand of human.
She looked up at me and shook her head, her pale-gray eyes wide and bright. “He’s too far gone. He’ll be dead in a minute or so.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it, unsure what to say. And she understood.
She got to her feet, dabbing her neck with fingers before giving them an annoyed glance. Then she wiped her bloody hand on her equally bloody jeans, grabbed a fistful of clothes from my backpack, and threw them at me. I snatched them out of the air. “Put something on before he dies of shock instead.”
I glanced down at him.
Death for a vamp-demon was always a slower process than for a human. This one’s neck was a mess, and thick black blood seeped into the ground beside him, but he still seemed to be in control of some of his faculties. His eyes especially. Despite being moments from death he studied me. Leered at my naked body.
Cassie snorted, searching the grass for something; probably her comms. “Or before he dies of something else.” She grinned as she found the device and dusted it off before inserting it into her ear.
I shook my head, trying not to think about the anatomy of a vamp-demon, and proceeded to dress as fast as possible, more concerned with the cold than the dying creature.
When I’d finished, I stepped closer to study him. I wasn’t usually the morbid type but he was still conscious.
“You’re her,” he rasped, his voice rumbling.
“Her who?” I asked. I already knew what he’d meant. When he didn’t respond, I said, “If you’d stopped when I told you to then you’d still be alive.”
He shook his head, coughed, and splattered blackish blood all over my boots. “I know your type. Kill before asking questions.”
“Not the way I operate. You didn’t need to attack her.” I pointed a thumb at Cassie who stood beside me, glaring at the reddened tips of her fingers as they continued to come away from her wounds bright and wet. She was taking longer than normal to heal and she didn’t seem to be the patient type.
“She would have killed me.”
“Damn straight I would have,” Cassie snapped, colder than the night air.
He cocked a weak eyebrow. “See?”
“Cassie.”
“Okay, well, if she had insisted I would have left you alive.” Cassie shrugged, her expression a confused mash-up of guilt and regret.
“See?” I repeated his word back at him and got a look of regret for my trouble.
Not that it helped. He was still going to die.
“Well, I’m on my way out, but you can still save him,” the demon whispered, his voice still gritty but now a tad weaker.
“Save who?” I asked, leaning over him.
Cassie’s grunt warned me not to get too close but it didn’t matter. His eyes, blank and fixed, stared unseeing into the black sky.
“He’s gone,” said Cassie.
“No shit.”
Cassie grabbed her rucksack and threw it over her shoulder. “What’s with you?”
She pressed a white bandage to her neck and from the pink speckles it looked like her wound had finally stopped bleeding. A
lthough Cassie was primarily a shape-changer, I knew, from spending a few days in her company, that the power to change form helped her to heal too.
“Nothing’s with me,” I snapped, reaching for my backpack. “He’s dead.”
“Yeah. He’s dead. So maybe keep your distance before he goes poof in your face.”
I grunted and turned on my heel. Vamp-demons didn’t go poof, as she well knew. They merely disintegrated to ash and had to be dealt with using a good old broom.
I was about to tell her to take me home, when a low sound caught my ear. Tilting my head, I glanced at Cassie, in silent question.
She narrowed her eyes and frowned as my ear shifted slowly from human to feline, its pointed end pricked to pick up even the merest hint of sound.
There, again.
I shifted around toward the sound, finding myself moving back in the direction of the hut.
It came again, low. Pained. Agonized.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I launched into a run. Cassie hurried down the hill at my side and we took the low wall like the trained agents we were.
Or rather, Cassie was a trained agent, I was merely house-broken.
We neared the hut and separated, Cassie pointing around to the side of the building. She’d enter through one of the empty window holes, while I crossed familiar territory, paying even closer attention this time around.
Outside, there had been a hollow note to the cry. When it quivered through the building this time my panther ear and my instinct told me to search below the floor.
I moved slowly along the floor, sweeping my foot left and right, shifting soil off the stone. Where would I find the entrance to a cellar in a place like this?
Moving into the second room I saw Cassie slipping over the empty sill. She closed in and we stood still waiting to hear the cry again. When it came—plaintive, mournful, and very loud—I shivered. So did Cassie.
The walls around us were bare, the rafters in full view, so again we were left with the floor. I began to stomp the surface of the dirty stone until something clanged beneath my weight. I toed the dirt away.
