“Don’t you want to see what it is?”
“What?” I asked, groggy. I had no idea how much blood I’d lost, but it was getting pretty bad. I wondered how much more I could lose without dropping into a coma from which not even the snarkiest voice could wake me.
“Over here.”
“What?” I asked again. For a second, I was fuzzy on the details of what was happening, but when I finally got my eyes to focus on Dirk’s face, I remembered. I let out an exhausted whimper, squeezing my eyes shut against the urge to start crying. I was so tired, hungry, and sick. I wasn’t sure how long I could last before my body just gave up and I passed out again.
“Hey,” Dirk said, snapping his fingers a few times to call my attention. I considered sinking back into sleep instead of giving him the satisfaction of answering. “You might want to take one last look at your boyfriend before the demon carves up his eyeballs.”
Boyfriend?
Curious despite myself, I opened my eyes, doing my best to focus my bleary gaze on Dirk and the bundle at his feet. It looked kind of human-shaped the longer I stared at it. Even in the shadows, I could make out the curve of a shoulder and dark hair peeking up from beyond.
Recognition snapped it into focus and I gasped, going tense.
“Mel!” I yelped, leaning forward to fight as hard as my paralysis would let me. “Mel! Wake up!”
“He can’t hear you. He was harder to bite than you were, what with the werewolf skin and all—I nearly cracked a tooth.” Dirk lifted a finger, curled up his lip like Elvis, and pointed to his exposed fang. “Nys threw out a little magic, though, and now he’s sleeping like a baby.”
I darted my gaze to Dirk, anger simmering in my belly, bubbling upward through my throat like heartburn. It wasn’t just that he was talking so casually about chewing on Mel—a few days ago, I probably would have encouraged it, maybe taken pictures and posted them online—but that it represented a larger problem.
Mel was right there, absolutely lousy with car-crushing strength and blurry speed, and yet we were both looking pretty screwed.
“Come on, Mel,” I mumbled, eyeballing him harder than I’d ever done before. Had this been any other situation, he’d have woken up and assumed I was propositioning him with just the strength of my will. Unfortunately for me, he didn’t budge, remaining an unconscious lump of stylish clothes and sculpted muscle.
I called his name a few more times, getting louder when Dirk started laughing. Chloe had said Mel had woken up quickly the last time he’d been knocked out. That had to mean something now, didn’t it? Fate wouldn’t send him to me, drop him nearly at my feet, and leave him to snooze through my execution.
Dirk was still laughing at me, his amusement rumbling through his lips in fitful, snorting jerks like he’d never seen anything funnier.
I paused long enough in my rescue attempts to throw him a glare and in the bad light, I could see what I hadn’t really noticed before.
His features held an echo of the bony, cancer-ridden vampire Mel had described. He was healthy, whole and strong, but with the extra shadows along his eyes and below his cheekbones, I could see the history of illness in him. Without thinking, I jerked my body—well, my head and neck—toward him, as if posturing.
“I’m going to wake him up and he’s going to kick your sorry, sickly ass. Whatever you got from the demon or whatever virgin you sucked dry, it isn’t going to help you when he beats you to a cancerous pulp.” Dirk’s laughter trailed off and his grin retreated. I sneered. “That’s right, Bubble Boy. I’m going to laugh so hard when you’re back to the bald, germ-phobic weakling Mel and I laughed over just the other day.”
Mel still wasn’t stirring, but something in me was. Nerves were firing like lightning through my arms and my left foot. When I lashed out once more, I felt the rope press against my bicep ever so slightly. My victory was short-lived, however, as Dirk took a step over Mel’s head and stalked toward me. I tried my best to stay tough but I couldn’t stop the butterflies in my belly. Dirk stopped a breath away, baring his teeth.
I stared at him, feeling my emotions run from anger to panic. When he snapped his jaws, I felt the scrape of one of his fangs against the top of my lip. I cried out, jerked my head back, and felt it crack against the table. Immediately I regretted the pain of the impact, even while the area around the scratch went numb.
I tried to swear at him but my lips were no longer under my control, numbness spreading through the bottom half of my face. Dirk stood there, still close enough that I could smell my blood on his breath, and laughed.
“Nys likes you talking, but I think this is a better look on you.” I did my best to glower but the paralytic had probably kept my expression several shades away from “die in a fire!” and left it somewhere around, “did you hear something?”
The door opened behind me again and as the demon approached, I felt something tickle the back of my throat. It was subtle, like taking too deep a sniff of freshly lit incense, but it felt familiar. She spoke and stepped into view, distracting me from investigating the new sensation.
“Why is he out?”
““I thought you’d—”
“Just because you’re walking around like a big man again doesn’t mean you get to think. I give the orders and you follow them. I didn’t give this order.”
“Nys—” He was cut off as she shoved into his space, jamming a finger into his chest. The tickle in my throat grew into an itch, a smoky feeling of… of… what was it? Why couldn’t I put two and two together?
The demon started in on a lecture that I had the feeling she’d given time and time again and I did my best to tune her out. My face seemed to be waking up, judging by all the pins and needles being repeatedly stabbed through it. I could move my jaw again, and bite my tongue in an attempt to quell the itching. I sucked my lips into my mouth, trying to get rid of the slimy feeling that reminded me of putting on too much of my mom’s lipstick as a child. The irritation was growing, spreading through my throat and along my tongue, but my lips and cheeks felt overly gooey.
I watched my captors turn on each other, Nys giving Dirk a piece of her mind and him looking like he’d had enough pieces and he’d like to give this one back. Hoping they didn’t see my wincing attempt at bringing life back into my mouth, I opened and shut my jaw a few times. If it was anything like coming home from the dentist, I hoped I could solve my vampire Novocain problem with a little extra blood flow.
I failed to remember, in that moment, that I had no extra blood to flow.
“If you’d just let me explain...!” Dirk argued.
“Oh, sure, let’s hear what you think you’ve accomplished by letting the werewolf out of his cage!”
“It’s fine,” Dirk insisted. The gooey feeling on my mouth had spread to the rest of my face and it warmed. I stopped dead, my jaw hanging open, when I realized what was happening. “I got him good and—uh, tucked.”
“You think you slobbering on his neck one time is enough to keep him out of my hair for the whole day?” Nys demanded. The irritation in my throat intensified, expanding through my mouth like smoke until even my teeth itched. My empathy was waking up much quicker than the rest of me, but I was really wishing it would conk out again.
I gagged hard against the itching of the demon’s emotions, recognizing them as frustration just as she shot a hand out and gripped Dirk’s throat. He choked out a strangled cry and their distraction urged me to be bold. I concentrated on my right hand, doing my best to wiggle my fingers. My wrist twitched, my bicep tensed, and then, with a flood of pride, I bent my index finger a few degrees. The paralysis was finally wearing off! Happy visions of a demonic murder-suicide danced through my mind, followed by images of me freeing myself, waking Mel, and dancing into the sunset.
“Get him out of here before he wakes up,” the demon ordered.
“Relax,” Dirk wheezed, his hands fighting against her little fingers. “He’s still out.”
The sharp sound o
f glass cracking made me jolt as Dirk’s head snapped to the side. It was dark, hard to see, but I thought I caught sight of blood blossoming out the other side of his face.
Nys’s arm was forced to follow and she dropped her captive. I blinked at them and then she and I sat in silence, watching Dirk crumple to the ground. After a second, she turned to me, one eyebrow up. I felt a single puff of what I decided was her confusion and I did my best not to turn it to something worse. When I appeared to be no threat—strapped in and numbed as I was—Nys swiveled to look around the room and consider the source of the bloody hole in Dirk's temple.
Almost casually, she twisted, her hands up in front of her like a magician coaxing a rabbit out of a hat. When Dirk groaned and struggled, another low thud sounded and his head jerked again. He went still and his emotions flatlined, all the wet slimy feelings retreating from my face like I’d wiped away a smear of honey.
Nys shifted like lightning, grabbing the side of my table and yanking it back. My body screamed in pain as it hit its mark and I found myself staring up at the ceiling. The demon crouched next to me, completely silent. The murky cloud of her emotions grew out through my mouth, spreading along my neck and shoulders. Whatever was holding my power at bay seemed to be waning, and I was entirely sure if that was a good thing. At that moment, she was all I could sense and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. Even Mel was a void, though he was still breathing, so optimism demanded I assume he was still wearing the necklace.
Nys peered up and moved her gaze past me to the opposite wall. Swallowing the lump in my throat, I turned to follow her line of sight. A tiny hole had appeared in what I had previously thought was a solid wall.
The demon hissed out something guttural and a smoky wave of anger threatened to choke me. I coughed and fought to flex my hands some more. With Dirk catching some Zs and the demon distracted, I figured there would be no better time to free myself. Sunset, here I come!
I could feel something above me, to my right. It was coming from behind Nys but she seemed oblivious to it. The ebb of it was familiar, a pattern I’d spent plenty of time with. It was faint, though, and I wasn’t entirely convinced it was even there until I heard Nys gasp.
“Trash!” she yelled as I saw her pop back, dropping slightly into a loose stance, knees bent, hands held out as if gripping an invisible basketball. She swirled her hands around each other but nearly the instant a purple glow appeared between her palms, there was a whistle and the handle of a small blade appeared, sticking out of her neck. She stumbled away from me and I lifted my head to follow her trajectory.
Her arms pinwheeled, sending power crashing off clumsily into the walls. I yelped as a bolt came toward me and I did my best to avoid it. My best, of course, went as far as twisting my head to the right and closing my eyes. Adrenaline was making my sluggish body feel light and cold. I had honestly never been this scared before in my life.
“Nysgrogh, Queen Orlagh is none too happy with thee.”
My eyes snapped open when a deep voice rumbled through my chest. A very large, furry hand had stopped one of Nys’s wayward bolts of energy from slicing into me. The hand moved, taking the power with it, and I jerked my head around to find Hardy to my left, a stern look on his tusked face. The demon girl screeched and threw herself at him, hands crackling with purple electricity.
“I do not answer to the fae,” she hissed. Hardy lifted one arm to block her swing, sweeping his other under her guard to press the stolen purple power against her ribcage. She yowled but kept coming at him. Her arms waved, her nails looking especially sharp, as he used one hand to hold her off while the other blocked her swings toward his face. Her body was jerking as he continued to shove his own dark red power against her chest, right above her heart. Meanwhile, she was scratching his arms, drawing blood even through the fur. His blood was red, which surprised me, and his wide face betrayed the pain he was in.
I was too busy watching their struggle to notice that someone was undoing my bonds. At about the third power-backed punch that Hardy blocked, I heard a whisper from my right.
“Psst!”
Yelping, I turned to see the top of Chloe’s head poking up from next to the table. Dizziness rode through my body as my ribcage tried to compensate for the rave my heart was throwing in my chest. I whispered frantically, catching Chloe’s determined expression as she unbuckled the last strap near my wrist.
“You’re alive! You’re—I thought you were—”
“Don’t call attention over here,” Chloe warned, reaching up to press a finger against my lips. “They don’t usually deal with demons but Syham should be able to handle her. I’ll get you out of here, get this shit out of your arm.”
I wanted to ask who Syham was, but I was too light-headed, too concerned with the fact that Chloe was alive and here to rescue me! I was saved! Within moments the straps along my left arm were gone, leaving only the needle and cord. When she shifted to crouch-walk toward my feet, I noticed movement behind her.
“Behind—” I started. Chloe’s expression changed in an instant and I felt a brief stab of anger arc out of her. She darted right, twisting and pushing to her feet. Dirk’s grab missed by a hair’s breadth and she shoved her own hand up, slamming the heel of her hand toward his face. Dirk avoided her attempt to break his nose, dropping downward and reaching out. I missed exactly how he managed it but, to Chloe’s credit, she didn’t scream as Dirk lifted her and flung her backward. She twisted in midair like a cat and went down protecting her skull.
Unfortunately for Mel, she used his body as a landing pad. He grunted but Dirk didn’t seem to notice. He and his badly injured head were making their way past me to assist Nysgrogh in her fight with Hardy. The wicked holes in his skull had decimated his right ear and part of his left eye socket. I was betting the only reason he had missed Chloe was that he was half-blind.
Mel’s voice, raspy with confusion, called out by my feet.
“Chloe?”
“Mel?”
“Help!” I demanded, my body sprouting fresh panic through my skin. I was sweating and the fact that I kept glimpsing the needle in my arm was only making things worse. If I’d been a rabbit, I definitely would have already died of, like, six heart attacks.
“Gwen?” Mel asked. Chloe got to her feet and attempted to heave Mel to his. He made it to his knees before gravity seemed to yank him to the side. “Whoa.”
“Help!” I repeated, willing my free arm to wave in case he couldn’t locate me. It remained draped across the table.
“Help her,” Chloe barked, dropping Mel’s heavy arm and darting past me. I looked up, tried to follow her, but it was too dark and she was too fast.
“So bossy,” Mel complained and I turned away from where Chloe had gone. Mel pushed to his feet, but stumbled.
I shrieked out a terrified, “No!” as I saw him bring his hand up, trying to grab for the foot of the table. His brows shot into his hair as the heel of his hand hit the edge but continued downward. He didn’t know the table was meant to be both vertical and horizontal, and Nysgrogh hadn’t locked it into the down position.
I screamed as his weight carried the foot of the table down, lifting me to a standing position yet again. I felt the table hit something by my head and it made a clacking sound, like when Dirk had snapped his teeth at me.
I jerked my head over, caught sight of Hardy dodging a two-by-four swung by the demon. Shortly after, Dirk shambled into view, hands pressed to his face, which had spouted a cascade of blood. He managed a mumbled string of what might have been cuss words before one of Nys’s swings hit him in the shoulder. She spared him a glance, spat something his way that sounded to me like gibberish, and then turned back to Hardy.
The furry fairy and the diminutive demon eyed each other in silence for a moment and I had the briefest of hopes that she was about to give in. Hardy, however, had no such illusions; he was ready for her as she launched herself once again toward his face, fresh, smoky power oozing from her hands and
arms. She gripped the front of his chest fur and jammed her feet into his gut, holding herself close to him as her free hand went for one of his giant eyeballs.
Past them, I caught a glimpse of Chloe as she popped up behind Dirk. She was patient, her face stern as she mimicked his movements to stay behind him without touching. Finally, as he leaned back, possibly to stop the blood gushing from his broken nose, she carpe’d her diem. A knife glinted in the light as she reached around his upturned neck. I cried out in shock as she pressed, dragged, and slit his throat.
Nys screamed as a white blur appeared behind her, wrapping long limbs around her torso and pulling her away from her target. She kicked out, hitting Hardy in his barrel chest, but he barely grunted. Too busy calling more of his own red, soupy power to his hands, he shrugged off the blow and attempted to close in. Nys kept kicking out, her hands a flurry above her head. Her attempt at attacking Laurel with raw power was pointless; it hit his skin, but dissipated immediately. Even the scratching of her nails didn’t seem to faze him, sliding fast like water down a freshly waxed car. His grip was tight around her chest, his other arm attempting to grab at least one of her wild legs.
Past Laurel and his struggling captive, Dirk was pressing his hands against his bloody neck, backing up as if he could simply step away from the gushing wound. After slitting his throat and planting the knife right into Dirk’s heart, Chloe had disappeared again.
Mel groaned from near my feet. Blinking down toward him, I felt the vibration of the table as he gripped the edge next to my knee and tried to pull himself up. My free arm had flopped to my side but I still did my best to reach out and grab him. Nothing happened.
“Hurry, hurry!” I demanded, my voice a high whine. Mel had gotten one foot under him, trying to push off his knee, when Nysgrogh shrieked an unholy sound. I whipped my head over, catching sight of Laurel being knocked slightly off balance. Nys’s foot shot out and Mel’s luck continued to go from bad to worse.
Without so much as a grunt of pain, he dropped out of sight, keeling over backward: he’d taken an energetic steel-toe right to the face. I blinked down at where he’d been, noting the faint blood spray across my legs.
Mixed Feelings (Empathy in the PPNW Book 1) Page 20
