Spotting them crumpled on the ground amongst dry leaves and twigs a few steps away, he walked over and grabbed them up. The urge to cast them aside, to run down the sand and plunge head first into the breaking waves as naked as the day he was born rolled over him. He looked at the surf, lifted his gaze to the midday sun and back to the surf again. It was tempting. To submerge himself in the water…to submerge himself in a life he once thought lost to him forever.
The waves had no memory. They cast no judgment.
He took one step forward.
Go on. Do it. Let the surf scour away the guilt and contempt still churning in your gut. You know you’ll feel better. Almost human, in fact.
Stinging disdain smacked into him, a merciless slap of reality. He scrunched up his face, yanking his jeans up his legs and over his arse. He wasn’t human, no matter how much he longed to be so. What he’d just done to Amy in her living room, what he’d just been about to do to Amy proved that all too well. A quick skinny-dip in the ocean wasn’t going to change the fact he was a vile creature of malevolent myth. What he had to do now was prove to himself he wasn’t the monster lurking in his veins.
“Fair dinkum, you’re one fucked up vampire, Steven Watkins.”
He dropped to his arse on the sand, resting his elbows on his knees to watch the waves build and break, build and break in a lulling, perpetual rhythm. The sun peeked at him through the branches of the old eucalypt, painting him in a dappling pattern, and he closed his eyes again, breathing in the perfection of the moment. This was heaven. This was where, when the time came and some little Buffy wannabe staked him in the heart, he wanted to spent eternity. If he tried hard enough, he could almost believe the insidious, powerful hunger devouring him from within was just a case of the midday munchies.
A twig snapped behind him.
In a blur of shifting muscles, he was on his feet, his stare locking on the creature standing under the trees before him.
His throat slammed shut and his fists bunched. Oh, fuck.
“What the bloody hell are you?”
He is a q’thulu.
Ven started, snapping his head to the disembodied voice to his right.
A man stood there. A skinny man in a black suit with sallow flesh and lank, greasy hair.
The man smiled at him, revealing rotting yellow teeth.
He is a touch grumpy. I had to bend many rules to rouse him from his slumber, so I do not think this will be pleasant for you.
Ven blinked. Every molecule in his body churned. His stomach, sick from starvation, rolled. His demon screeched and without thought or hesitation, he shifted, letting the very thing he’d fled from mere minutes ago rear to the surface again.
Whoever the man in the suit was, Ven didn’t like him. At all.
I must say, I have never been able to locate you, Steven Watkins. Until today, that is. It is surprising to find you standing in the sun. The man pursed his lips, a contemplative expression flashing across his face before he smiled. I would stay to watch, but the sight of one demon tearing apart another quite frankly makes me feel ill. Yellow teeth flashed in the sunlight, glistening with thick, putrid saliva. Ironic, really. He lifted his hand in a small wave. And vanished.
Throat squeezing tighter still, Ven swung his stare back to the horrific thing waiting amongst the trees. “Fuck,” he muttered again.
The q’thulu stared at him with dead, black eyes, the thick tentacles of its face writhing and twisting. All seemingly reaching for Ven.
Its thin, puke-green wings flapped once, slapping the tree branches in clumsy aggression. It took a lumbering step forward, a high-pitched keening, like the cries of an ill baby, slipping from its nonexistent throat.
Ven was not deceived.
“’Struth, you’re an ugly fucker, aren’t you.” He dropped into a crouch. “I don’t know who the bloke holding your leash is, but it’s time for me to go.” He pictured an empty car park, any empty car park and launched himself into the air.
Only to be slapped back down to the ground by a massive tentacle, the suckers ripping chunks of flesh from his torso.
He hit the sand with a grunt, the bones in his right shoulder shattering on impact. Agony detonated through his back, up into his neck, down his arm. He staggered to his feet, spinning around to see the tentacle responsible for his pain squirm back to its place amongst those spewing from the q’thulu’s face.
Ven bared his fangs, icy-hot pain stripping through his shoulder as the broken bones knitted instantly. Blood ran freely from the wounds torn in his torso, mingling with the sweat and sand caked on his chest. “That hurt, fucker.”
The q’thulu lumbered forward, wings battering the trees around it, displacing the air in decay-tainted gusts. Its lifeless black eyes stayed fixed on Ven, a terrible stare that made his flesh crawl.
Tensing his leg muscles, Ven prepared himself for flight once again.
And was knocked to the ground once again.
“Oww,” he shouted. “Stop that.” He scrambled to his feet…or at least, tried to. In a whiplash-quick blow, a fat tentacle wrapped around his hip and punched its meaty tip straight into his balls.
A bellow of rage ripped from his throat. He threw back his head, gouging deep furrows into the malicious tentacle with his claws as he fought with the agony exploding in his groin.
The q’thulu squealed, the tentacle releasing its crushing grip. He dropped to the ground with a thud, new pain exploding in his body. Fists bunched, fangs bared, he lowered himself into a crouching stance. The creature looked fat and slow, but it moved faster than he did.
How the hell did he kill it?
You just do.
An unknown voice reverberated through Ven’s head. Undeniable. Impossible to ignore. A shiver ran through him at its authority, its ascendency. His lifeless heart thumped. Once.
Six thick tentacles lashed out from the q’thulu’s face, wrapped around the truck of a young eucalyptus tree and tore it from the ground. A squealing cry pierced Ven’s ears and then the q’thulu threw the tree straight at him.
He leapt backward, just as the tree crashed into the ground on the very spot he’d been standing. Staring hard at the q’thulu, he took another step back, searching for even ground. He needed a plan of attack. He could sink his teeth into the flabby mass of pudgy fat that may or may not be a neck, hopefully severing its main artery, but did he really want to? He was hungry, but was he that hungry?
“I bet you taste like calamari, don’t you, fat boy?”
The q’thulu let out a low, wet grunt, wings trembling, tentacles lashing.
Ven eyed the hideous thing. “Never been a fan of calamari.”
He shot forward, aiming for the q’thulu’s grotesque neck, mouth wide, fangs lengthening. A shimmer of icy heat rippled through him, almost identical to the sensation he experienced every time he folded space. Suddenly his arms were longer and more muscled, his flesh no longer pale but jet black and leathery. He flexed his fingers and found them to be talons larger than an eagle’s.
The q’thulu’s dead eyes rolled. It hissed, its tentacles thrashing on its face.
Fucker’s scared, Ven thought, mid-lunge. Seconds before his massive wings—wings—thumped once more and he slammed into the q’thulu’s equally massive form.
A piercing squeal shattered the still air. The q’thulu stumbled backward, its tentacles whipping at Ven’s face.
But even that was different. He could feel it. Gone was his nose, his lips. The tentacles slapped at him, but it wasn’t him they struck. Sinking his talons deep into the thing’s flabby shoulders, he pumped his wings, forcing it backward, backward until it lost its footing and fell to the ground.
And even then he didn’t let up. He snapped up his legs and sank the talons on his feet into its gut, ripping at its thick flesh, tearing its stomach open as the force from his wings drove it harder into the sandy ground.
The q’thulu thrashed beneath him, piss and black ink spurting from its body, its fac
e. Ven snarled, ducking the vile, stinking fluid and frenzied tentacles. “Nasty bugger, aren’t you.”
Enormous arms struck out at him, but he swatted them away with his wings, tearing into the q’thulu’s shoulders in punishment for its stupidity. The creature wailed, legs and arms flailing, hot guts spilling from the gaping hole Ven’s feet continued to tear into its body.
Calm determination rolled through him. Whatever he was, he was made for this. The utter destruction of something so vile and evil.
Hooking the talons on his feet deeper into the q’thulu’s oozing gut, his wings acting as a counterbalance, he released his grip on its shoulders and grabbed two fistfuls of writhing tentacles. He crushed them in his grip, holding its head in a fierce lock. “Hold still, fat boy.” He lowered his head to the q’thulu’s face. “Let’s get a look at what I’ve become.”
He stared into its wide eyes, drawing closer, closer until he saw his reflection in their bulging black surface. Saw his serpentine face, his pupiless white eyes, his lipless mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.
By the Powers, what am I?
***
Pestilence dropped into his throne with a thud, his mouth open, his blood roaring in his ears. He gazed blankly at his empty bed, his disbelief robbing him of sight. The lifeguard’s cursed brother had killed the q’thulu.
Molten-red fury ripped through him. By the Powers, the fucking blood sucker had killed the q’thulu. It was not possible. No lower-order demon could kill a second-order demon, no matter how fast or strong or powerful.
“Fuck!” he screamed, gouging his nails into the throne’s green bone armrest, feeling the veins in his neck and temple throb. This was not happening.
Drawing his power into his core, he reached through the Veil with his mind for Raziel. A wave of blackness threatened to consume him but he fought it. The “visit” to the beach had drained him more than he had expected, the projection into the world of man like forcing his existence through a wall of solid nothingness. He had taken the risk despite the danger, wanting to see the look of terror on Steven Watkins’ face.
Incensed rage smashed through him and he roared. It had all been for nothing. Nothing!
Sinking his nails deeper into the armrest, he locked his mind onto the sleeping vampire and “jerked” him from his undead slumber.
“I do not care how you do it,” he growled into Raziel’s head, a cold twist of joy threading through his fury at the sudden fear he sensed in the vampire’s core. “I do not care that the human sun is still in the sky, I want the key. The woman. I want the female human brought to me. Now.”
***
Patrick smoothed his hand up Fred’s bare back, enjoying the velvet feel of her flesh, the firmness of her fine muscles under his palm. She uttered a contented moan, sliding her knee further up his thigh and wriggling closer to the side of his body. Her soft, full breasts pushed against his ribcage, the tight peak of her nipples brushing the side of his chest in a tantalizing tickle that left Patrick’s mouth dry.
“I think I’ve said this already,” she traced lazy circles over his stomach, “but that feels nice.”
Patrick smiled and pressed his lips to her forehead, pulling in a deep breath of her wonderful scent as he did so. “You have, but feel free to say it again.”
Fred chuckled, rolling onto his body to grin down at him. “Now you know I’m not going to do something as clichéd as that.”
He returned her laugh, exploring her back and hips with his hands, letting the tips of his fingers brush the swell of her butt cheeks. “There is nothing clichéd about you, Fred.”
She preened with melodramatic pride, shifting her hips until the damp heat of her sex aligned with the growing stiffness of his. “I will take that as a compliment.”
He laughed again. “Of course you will.”
Wriggling about on his body, she let her legs slide either side of his thighs, supporting her upper body on her elbows as she rolled her hips upward. “Laugh again. That feels really good.”
A sizzling lick of heat worked its way into Patrick’s groin at her intimate position and suggestive request. Holding her arse cheeks in a firm grip, he did as she asked, keeping her pussy atop his lengthening shaft the entire duration.
She murmured her appreciation, eyes closed, lips curled into a cheeky smile. “Mmmm…thank you.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Is that how you’re going to thank me?”
She returned her gaze to his face, and he clenched his jaw at the serious light suddenly glowing in her eyes. “Depends.” She tilted her head, a frown creasing her forehead. “Are we going to finish our conversation about Pestilence any time soon?”
Patrick bit back a growl. Damn, he thought he’d successfully distracted her from that train of—
“Not even close.”
He shot Fred a glare. “If you’re reading my mind now, we can just call this off straight away. I don’t understand what’s in there half the time without someone else poking around in there as well.”
“I’m not reading your mind, Patrick. I could tell by the look on your normally unreadable face.” She placed her hands on his chest, and if he didn’t know better he’d think she was holding him prisoner.
Why?
To lecture you?
“As much as I want to impale myself on your very impressive male appendage,” she gave him a dirty grin, “we need to prepare for whatever Pestilence has planned. I need to help you get ready.”
A heavy beat thumped in Patrick’s chest and he turned his head aside. The end shall be the beginning and the beginning shall be the end. The Cure and the Disease facing off in what was sure to be a real bastard of a fight. A lowly Australian lifeguard and an agent of the Apocalypse. Yeah, he really wanted to think about that.
And now you’re just being churlish, Watkins. Grow some balls, will you. You can’t stay here like this with Fred forever.
Why not?
Letting out a sigh, he turned back to Fred, his chest squeezing tight at her beauty. He’d heard it said more than once—usually the last whispered words of elderly swimmers dying on the beach—that Death was a beautiful thing. He understood now. She was. She was also a stubborn pain in the arse.
“You’ve told me I can’t kill him. You’ve told me you can’t kill him. Seems to me the battle’s already been decided.”
“That’s not true. You’re not listening to me. There are ways Pestilence can be defeated, but only if you are ready.” Eyes flashing with frustration, she shook her head, her long black hair tumbling about her shoulders. Patrick pulled in a breath. He wanted to bury his hands in that shiny, silky curtain, tug her face down to his and kiss her senseless, not talk about his upcoming appointment with a man he’d already met once who attacked him with bugs and made him almost throw up with just a look.
Churlish again, Watkins. Grow up.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Fred studied him, her eyes shimmering with white light. “Lift me up,” she said suddenly, gripping his hips tightly with her inner thighs.
Patrick frowned at her, the unexpected command and abrupt change in conversation throwing him for a loop. “Huh?”
Fred squeezed her thighs harder against his hips and a tendril of unpleasant discomfort ribboned through his hipbones.
“Lift me up.”
“Hey!” He moved beneath her, trying to escape the discomfort of her increasingly brutal hold.
Her eyes flashed white again and she lowered her face closer to his. “Lift. Me. Up.”
Sharp irritation flared within his chest. He curled his fingers into her hips and tried to shove her from his body. But she didn’t move.
“Is that the best you can do?”
Patrick ground his teeth, anger joining his heated irritation. He glared up at her, increasing the pressure of his fingers on her hips. “Get off me, Fred.”
She bared her teeth in a dark smile. “Make me.”
He shoved at her again.
And again
she didn’t move.
“Not that way, Patrick.” Her expression turned deadly and she squeezed her thighs until a shard of white pain tore through his hip joints. “The other way.”
Chapter Ten
Fred stared down at Patrick imprisoned between her thighs and pressed her legs harder to his hips. The sharp angle of his hipbones dug into her thighs, a drilling pain she shut from her mind. She needed Patrick to react. If she had to hurt him, then so be it.
What Pestilence planned to do to him was far worse.
He squirmed beneath her, his fingertips digging into her, his eyes flat. He still resisted moving her with his mind. She could see the dogged determination to shift her physically etched in his face. Along with a bleak contempt she knew was directed at himself.
Whatever Patrick was, he loathed it.
She needed him to embrace it. For his sake and the sake of mankind.
If he didn’t Pestilence would achieve the unthinkable.
She crushed his hips harder still, drawing perverse resolve from the unnatural light flickering in his angry glare. He was close. Even as he shoved at her hips with his hands, the force within him surged to the fore.
She hoped.
“What are you, weak?” she goaded, fighting his physical strength. It took all her considerable power to remain planted on his hips and groin. He was strong. Very strong. The muscles in his chest and shoulders bulged, growing ropey and hard before her eyes. At another time, such an undeniable display of his might and vigor would have made her sex constrict and her pulse leap away from her, but at this moment it infuriated her. He didn’t need to use his body.
He needed to use his—
Crushing heat gripped her arms. There was a split second where Fred knew she was about to be torn in two by inescapable, unseen hands and then, with a sudden invisible, brutal shove on her chest, belly and face, she flew backward. Flung across the room by nothing she could see.
She smashed into the wall, her teeth clicking shut, the breath forced out of her lungs in a loud oof, and fell to the floor in a crumpled heap.
“Fred!”
Death, The Vamp and His Brother Page 17
