She froze, straining to hear more.
After long minutes, she heard another sound. A whisper.
“Hey! Hey! Help! Help me!” she screamed.
Silence answered her.
She was wide awake now. She stood very still, waiting.
There. There was another sound. A shuffling.
Soon, the tiny sounds became more frequent. Someone was definitely coming.
“Help me!” she screamed again.
“Sabrina!”
Jake. It was Jake’s voice.
Tears blurred her vision and she blinked them away furiously. “Here! I’m here!”
She guided them with her voice, calling out when they shouted to her. Then the light around Andurag brightened even more and began to move and throw shadows on a wall beyond the space.
Flashlights.
She could hear all of them now. Nyanther’s low baritone, Nick’s prissy accent. Riley, short and commanding.
Sabrina lifted up on her toes, pushed her hand out through the tiny chink between the edges of the alcove and Andurag’s back and waved it around. “Here!”
“There she is!” Jake said.
She heard scrambling, the shifting of many rocks. Then Jake grabbed her hand. He looking in through the chink. “You’re okay?”
“I just want to sit,” she confessed. “I thought I wanted to sleep more than that. It’s all I can think about, now.”
Jake’s smile was bright and quick. “Soon,” he promised.
Another silhouette cast a shadow across the chink.
“Nyanther!”
He gripped her hand. “The beasties are sleeping. We can take them in their stone sleep.”
“How?” she breathed. “I thought they were impervious.”
Nyanther lifted something that flashed with silvery light. The axe Jake had made him. “Time to find out if it works. Stand aside, Jake.”
Jake let go of her hand. “I’ll be right here,” he said.
Nyanther took his place, casting more shadow over her little alcove. His clear-eyed gaze was steady. “Watch your feet,” he warned and reached up to rest the edge of the blade against Andurag’s head. He hefted the hammer, measuring the arch of the swing, watching the blade.
He swung.
The axe and hammer made the same musical booming sound as they had before. The same shrieking, grinding sound. Sparks flew and Sabrina closed her eyes instinctively.
When she opened them, the axe was buried deep in Andurag’s skull, just like it has been in the wall.
“Again,” Nick said. “You have to reach the brain…or what would be his brain if he was awake.”
Sabrina couldn’t see Nyanther directly, because he stepped back to take proper aim and a full swing. She saw his shadow on the far wall, the swing of the hammer up behind him, in a full circle, up over his shoulder, with his whole body straining and stretching.
Then the hammer came down fast and sure.
She saw the hammer strike the flat back of the axe and bury it even deeper, because she forced herself to keep her eyes open, her hand up shielding them just in case.
Andurag didn’t explode. He didn’t collapse, either. It was as if a bubble rose from his middle, disrupting the surface of rock, cracking it apart. Everything splintered and shifted, then dropped back down again…only it didn’t settle back to where it had been. The small avalanche of rocks poured down onto the floor and grew still.
There was still a knee-high pile of them in front of Sabrina. Now she could see out into the area they were in. It was an old subway station, with a platform directly in front of her. What was left of Andurag covered what would have been tracks, only there were none there.
Jake leaned in over the pile of rocks and picked her up. “Come here,” he said gruffly and lifted her up over the rocks and onto the floor in front of her. He hugged her. Hard.
“Jake,” Nyanther called.
She looked over her shoulder. Nyanther was standing next to the little gargoyle, still hunched over in its stone sleep, holding his hammer and axe.
Nick and Riley waited to one side. They were going to let Nyanther take Valdeg. No weapons they had would work on a gargoyle while it was sleeping. The sun pushing through the cracks in the walls, high up by the soaring ceiling, looked dazzlingly bright. It was broad daylight and no one wanted to wait for sunset to take the gargoyles as they stirred, not now they had a weapon that worked on them while they slept.
“Do you want to do it?” Nyanther asked Jake.
Jake picked up Sabrina’s hand. “Yes,” he said flatly. He led her over the rocky floor to where the man-tall creature sat hunched.
Sabrina stopped in front of it and studied it, remembering the whispering, the sibilant speech it had used when it had spoken to Riley. It was an alien creature—a throw-back to a different age.
Nyanther was of that age, too, except he was adapting and adjusting. These creatures never had.
Sabrina thought of the way she had been hauled out of the apartment and dragged here. She thought of all the humans these things had killed, just to survive. She felt no pity for it, nor did she feel moved by its helplessness when it was in stone sleep.
Nyanther held the axe out to Jake, who took it with one hand. He was still holding Sabrina’s hand with the other and didn’t seem to be in a hurry to let go. He looked at her. “Maybe you should hold the axe and I use the hammer.”
Sabrina shook her head. “I’m not a hunter,” she said. “You do it.”
Something gripped her wrist in a squeeze so tight she thought her wrist might snap in half. She gasped and looked down.
Valdeg’s clawed hand was gripping both of their wrists in a pincer-tight hold. Jake jerked at his hand. It didn’t move.
“He’s awake!” Jake yelled.
Valdeg was glowing with an unearthly green aura. It wasn’t a glow. It was as if a cloud of green dust particles surrounded him. As Sabrina looked at him, his eyes opened, showing the red beneath. He turned his head to look at Nyanther and his mouth opened. He was smiling.
Or laughing.
Riley and Nick were scrambling to pull out their swords. They had relaxed, secure in the knowledge that no gargoyle was a threat in the middle of the day.
As they rushed forward, Valdeg brought his other hand around with a swishing sound. The middle claw curved over, slammed into the back of Sabrina’s hand…and kept going.
She felt it move through her hand. The pain was so great she couldn’t even cry out. It was beyond belief, just as the knowledge that what Valdeg was doing was almost beyond comprehension. Valdeg was looking at Nyanther as he drove his toxic claw through Sabrina’s hand and into Jake’s, beneath hers.
He was doing it just to get even.
She could feel the ridges of Valdeg’s claw rubbing against the broken bones in her hand. The pain was such a silvery, intense sensation that something shifted in her mind or her body and the pain moved out, away from her. It was still there, but distant.
Riley and Nick were moving in slow motion. They couldn’t save her. She was right there, standing next to Valdeg, who thought she was not a hunter. She was standing next to two hunters.
Sabrina reached into Jake’s jacket and pulled out the folded butterfly knife, one of a pair he carried with him. She had seen him unfold it one-handed a hundred times. He did it like another man might draw boxes on a sheet of paper to pass the time. It was fidgeting, something to do with his hands.
She let the handle fall open, then snapped it up, so the loose half of the handle flipped up into her waiting palm. She scrunched the halves together, then turned and drove the sheer blade points up under Valdeg’s chin. It hurt to do it. She could feel the bones in her hand grind against his buried claw.
She had to reach the brain. She stepped into the thrust, shoving hard, going deeper.
Valdeg looked at her. He didn’t move his head. He couldn’t. The eyes swiveled to take her in. He was still looking at her when the red glow in the eyes faded and was gone.
Then he disintegrated into a million tiny pebbles, popping like a bubble and collapsing back in on himself.
The claw, now a curved stone, was ripped out of her hand, making her scream. The pain came tearing back, enveloping her and driving out thought.
Jake caught her with his other arm and held her up. His blue eyes were clouded with pain, too. “Not a hunter, huh?” he breathed.
“Quick! Quickly!” Nick shouted. “Nyanther, take her back to the apartment. The antivenin is in the fridge and you can heal the rest. We’ll bring Jake back.”
Jake staggered himself. “Woah…” he breathed and looked down at his injured hand. The blood was streaming from it.
Nyanther picked Sabrina up. She was glad of that because she wasn’t sure if she could stay on her feet any longer. Her hand felt numb and very, very cold.
“He wanted to hurt you,” she breathed. “He did it deliberately…”
“He didn’t know I can save you.” Nyanther was walking now, his steady stride bumping her arm and making the hand throb with agony, despite the cold numbness.
“Jake….”
“Nick will bring him. You need to focus now. You have to stay awake.”
“I don’t feel sleepy.”
Except she did. It wasn’t a normal type of sleep. It wasn’t creeping up on her, announcing itself with yawns and tired eyes. It was washing over her in thick black waves, like unfriendly seas in a storm. The surges were grabbing at her. Sucking. Trying to take her mental feet out from under her.
“Nyanther….” she breathed, scared.
She could feel warmth on her skin, on her face and arms. She couldn’t see it. She could hear traffic, loud and vulgar and so New York. Her vision was covered by clinging gray tendrils.
She did feel Nyanther’s hand on her face. “Stay with me,” he breathed, his voice rumbling. “You can’t leave.”
There was more talking she couldn’t understand. A strangers’ voice. She was resting on something that moved with distinct vibrations.
A cab.
“Sabrina.” He was shaking her.
She roused.
“Don’t let yourself sleep,” Nyanther commanded.
“Your blood…” His blood would cure her.
He was brushing her hair back, touching her face. “No,” he said very quietly. “My raw blood will turn you. We need Jake’s solution. You have to stay with me until we reach it. Listen to my voice, Sabrina. Listen to me. You must stay with me.”
“Talk.”
“Aye, I’ll talk to the cows come home if that’s what it takes,” he murmured by her ear. “Should I tell you about the day we met? How I wished I was human, even for a few short hours, just so I might please you enough to have you smile at me?”
Sabrina sighed.
He stroked her cheek and kept talking, about people in his tribe, the annual cycle of hunting and gathering, the beauty of the wild highlands, his journey through time, the stumbling, bumbling and terrifying early days when Damian had been forced to teach him not only how to understand English, but how to use a door, open a window, even how to put on pants and tie shoe laces.
His voice whispered on, evoking sights and sounds, wonder and awe.
She was being carried again and the sun was not on her face anymore.
“Mr. Straithairn, what happened?” Sabrina recognized the voice. It was a neighbor.
“Too much sun and not enough sleep. She works too hard,” Nyanther said.
“She does at that. Comes in at all hours of the night. Poor lass. I’m glad to see you’re looking after her.”
“I try!”
Then the soft sound of a door shutting. The grit of rocks and sand under his feet.
“I’m putting you on the table,” he warned. “Sabrina?”
“I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m so cold!”
“I know.”
She realized he did actually know what this felt like. This had happened to Nyanther, too, only there had been no handy antivenin for him. Just this steadily darkening gray curtain and hopelessness.
Something hard beneath her. The table.
“Can you feel that?” he asked.
“Feel what?”
“I’ve sprayed your hand. You won’t be able to move it, but you’ll start to feel again.”
For long minutes there seemed to be no change at all. The gray was still swirling in front of her eyes, stealing her vision. Her entire arm was numb from the neck down. And she was so tired she did not think she would ever be able to sleep long enough.
Nyanther was stroking her hair again. “Thank you for what you did, back there,” he said gently.
“Valdeg?” she asked, to clarify. “It had to be me who did it. He was watching you and it was Jake’s right hand he was holding…and he didn’t see me as a threat. I was just the walking leverage.” It took effort to put the words together and her heart was working hard. “I think the gray is fading,” she said.
“You should feel your hand, soon.”
“I can feel…are you touching me, just above my elbow?”
“Yes. Good. It’s working.” The relief in Nyanther’s voice was deep.
“It feels like…are you holding my hand?” she whispered.
“Your wrist. To help with the bleeding. Don’t worry about that now. Just tell me when you can feel your hand once more, then I can start to heal it.”
She sighed. “Valdeg planned this. I think he knew this was the end. Maybe he even wanted it to happen this way.”
“He wanted vengeance. I killed him, before. He could have killed me, but he knew killing you and Jake would be far more painful for me.”
“I heard him, last night. He was muttering the same thing over and over. I don’t know what the language was. There was a green glow, just like there was when he woke up.”
“An awakening spell,” Nyanther said slowly. “He must have found himself a stray demon in the last year and arranged one last deal. Well, he paid for it and will probably go on paying for it in Purgatory or wherever the demon wants to keep his soul to toy with. Deals with demons are always one-sided.”
Pain rippled along her arm, radiating up from her wrist and she gasped. “Oh my god….!”
Her blinking cleared away the gray and abruptly, she could see. She blinked harder and rubbed her eyes with her other hand, looking around the ruined apartment. She was lying on Riley’s dining table, there was blood all over her trousers and tank top and Nyanther was sitting next to her, her wrist held up in his hands.
He gave her a smile that was very nearly a grimace. “You can see.”
“And feel…!” she gasped. “Why didn’t Mrs. Santaolalla panic about the blood? I’m covered in it!”
“I put my coat over you. You don’t remember?”
“No, I don’t remember,” she murmured. Her fingers were curled loosely and the palm was covered in blood. She couldn’t see anything else. “I thought there would be a big hole in the middle.”
“There is. The flesh has fallen back into place, covering most of it. There is a hole and broken bones and torn tendons. If I were a medical doctor, I would be worried you would ever get full use of your hand back again.” He was turning her hand this way and that, examining it.
“Thank you, Valdeg,” she murmured and drew in a sharp breath as he eased her fingers open.
“Sorry,” he said. “I must be able to reach the palm.”
He licked it.
Sabrina hissed as her fingers moved against his face. Her hand, though, was warm.
“Ugh.” Nyanther grimaced and plucked at his tongue as if he was trying to remove an unwelcome piece of grit. “You taste of gargoyle.”
“What do I normally taste of?”
“I don’t know. Nothing of which I have ever had the pleasure of eating. Tasting you makes me long to try.” He licked her hand again. This time, it did not hurt quite as much.
He kept licking, working his tongue over her palm and sliding it across the puncture w
here Valdeg had forced his claw through. Her hand grew hot and tingled.
“Try moving your fingers,” Nyanther told her.
She wriggled them. “It aches, that’s all. I can actually move them.”
“The bones are knitting. The ache is from the tendons stretching back into place.” He reached over and picked up the dish towel that someone, probably Damian, had left lying over the back of the dining chair and laid it over her thigh, then rested her hand on the cloth. It had dust on it, but it was far cleaner than her trousers. “It will heal properly in the next few minutes. You might find it is stiff and difficult to move for a few days. That’s a result of the toxin, not my healing.”
Then he got to his feet and stretched his shoulders.
“Where are the others?” Sabrina asked. “They’re bringing Jake back here, aren’t they? The antivenin is here.”
Nyanther grew still. His gaze lowered to his feet.
“Ny?” she asked, fear touching her.
He shook his head. “They won’t be coming back,” he said and sighed.
Her fear bloomed. Sabrina struggled to sit up. Her hand and arm were still mostly useless, even though she could move her fingers. “What do you mean, they won’t be back?”
“Riley and Nick will go back to the hotel and join Damian, where the police will be able to find them, later.” Nyanther wouldn’t look at her and that made it worse.
“And Jake?” she pressed. “Nick will take care of Jake just like you did me, right?”
“Nick and Riley will make sure Jake…that his body is processed by human authorities. His uncle must be the one to identify him.”
Sabrina drew in a breath that shook. “They let him die?” The darkening veils stealing his vision…the pain… “And you let them?”
Nyanther turned then, his pale eyes filled with sorrow and an echo of the pain she was feeling, that she knew Jake had felt. He pulled her against him and held her tightly. “My way would have been quicker,” he said and there was agony in his voice. “Jake insisted that if the gargoyles did bite him or scratch him we must let it take its course.”
“It was a plan?” she whispered, her heart breaking. She gripped the back of Nyanther’s coat, trying to breathe.
“It was a million to one plan,” Nyanther said heavily, “and I am still to play my part, before time runs out.”
Sabrina's Clan Page 24
