Milt and Clay tried to separate, but she moved fast to keep either from getting behind her. Clay moved in close to punch and she brought the iron head of the baton down hard on his forearm with the sound of breaking bone.
He cried out and pulled back. She leaped at him to bring more force into play, smashing the cudgel against the top of his head, splattering bone and blood. Too late, she realized her mistake. Overzealous to strike him down, she landed off balance and Milt surged over Clay.
She swung the baton but didn’t have enough room before he crashed into her, throwing her back against the brick wall, pinning her there. Dazed, all she could see was his feral grin as he bared his fangs. Grabbing her hair, he slammed her head into the brick wall.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The elder bandruí gaiscíoch held the stake underhand as she moved toward his two nestlings. They both lunged at her, snarling like beasts. She danced to the side and drove the stake up through the closest nestling’s ribcage. He screamed and shuddered, managing one more step before he collapsed.
Lorcán forced himself to his feet and moved toward the end of the alley. He had to get away from her. The pain in his side was excruciating. He fell into the brick wall. Pushing himself up, he used the wall to keep him steady as he stumbled down the alley.
He didn’t make it. Something heavy hit the back of his knees and he went down hard to the asphalt. He twisted onto his back to find the savage bandruí gaiscíoch standing over him. Her face and torso were covered in the blood of his nestlings. Glancing past her, all three she’d fought were down.
She punched Lorcán in the face over and over until he turned away. Grabbing his arm, she helped him turn for some reason he didn’t understand until too late.
The stake.
He screamed as she pulled it from his side, the pain causing his vision to turn red. She pushed him onto his back and knelt on his abdomen. He swung feebly at her, but she simply leaned back to avoid his hands.
She raised the stake over her head. His own blood dripped onto his face. He twisted and bucked, trying to dislodge her, but she hardly moved. But then he saw something that gave him hope and he stopped moving.
“Get off me or I’ll have them kill her,” he said, his voice weak, but she glanced over her shoulder.
Two nestlings held the young bandruí gaiscíoch between them. One held the sharpened end of a bloody stake to her throat. Shirt saturated in blood, the other nestling looked weak but was able to stand on his own.
The elder bandruí gaiscíoch returned her attention to Lorcán. She whispered, “Sorry, Tabs.”
Terrified, he begrudgingly respected her for letting the apprentice die. She raised the stake to its highest point and drove it down. The pain didn’t last long. His vision went from red to black.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Tabby knew it could come to this, that her life would be in mortal danger, she just didn’t think it would happen on her first night. After stunning her, Clay took her rowan baton. Milt staggered to his feet, dazed but recovering too quickly from being whacked in the head.
Clay grabbed her left arm and Milt stumbled over and grabbed the other. She watched it all in a dazed blur, her head throbbing. They walked her down the alley. Ahead, the other three MMA vampires were sprawled out in the alley in a trail that led back to Lorcán. He was on his back with Aunt Patrice straddling him.
As her mind cleared, she glanced at Milt, but he was looking more stable as well. Their grips on her arms were like steel bands pulled painfully tight. Lorcán said something, but she had a ringing in her ears, and she couldn’t understand him. Aunt Patrice glanced back for a second then returned her gaze to the vampire. She lifted a stake above her head and drove it down into Lorcán’s chest.
Then Aunt Patrice fell backward. At first, Tabby thought her aunt must have lost her balance, until she saw a shadow wrapped around her.
“What the hell?” yelled her aunt.
Without warning, Clay punched Tabby harder than she’d ever been hit before, and she lost consciousness.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Darkness clung to him, but Lorcán moved his hands up to his chest, feeling for the wooden stake. It penetrated his heart, but he was one of the Céad—one of the first of their kind—and could not be destroyed so easily. With a grunt, he pulled the stake free. He looked for the bandruí gaiscíoch. She had foolishly left him without making sure he was destroyed.
No. She was on her back, Balor wrapped around her neck and dragging her down the alley. Beyond her, two nestlings approached.
“Kill her,” he said, hardly able to speak.
The daemón clung to her, constricting her throat as she labored to breathe. But the older warrior was not finished yet. She rolled backward and kicked, catching a nestling in the face. He growled and stumbled, but the other fell on her, beating her. She did not cry out or beg for mercy. She fought until the shadow rendered her unconscious.
These warriors are fascinating. Without my help, vampire, you would be dead right now.
“And I thank you, Balor.” Indeed, the warriors had been too fascinating. He was lucky.
Lorcán pushed himself into a sitting position, too weak to stand. “Bring her to me.”
The nestling dragged the older woman across the asphalt and dropped her in Lorcán’s lap. Baring his fangs, he bit deep into the bandruí gaiscíoch’s throat. The hot blood coursed down his throat and invigorated him. It was different than a typical human’s. He drank deeply. Greedily. It was like no blood he’d had before. Intoxicating.
Do you not want her alive?
He ignored the daemón’s whisper and drank, unable to control himself. And when the blood stopped, he bit down and ripped out her throat. Within moments, his wounds healed, including his heart. Even with fresh human blood, his heart would have normally taken hours to fully heal. He cradled her lifeless body and sat immobile for several minutes before one of his nestlings broke his reverie.
“May we, sire?”
He opened his eyes, spit out the viscera of her throat, and looked at them. They stood over the young bandruí gaiscíoch, hungrily eying her.
He shook his head. “No.” They looked disappointed, but they obeyed him.
His bloodlust faded. He had not felt anything like that since—well, since he was turned by Balor’s dark power and experienced his first hunger. “Dispose of this body.”
“Completely?”
“Yes, use the acid then dump what’s left in the river.”
“May we taste of the dead human?”
Lorcán was confused for a moment. He had forgotten about the human he had paid to impersonate one of their kind. It had not been more than a few minutes since the younger bandruí gaiscíoch had killed him, his blood was still fresh.
“You may,” he said.
The two descended upon the corpse.
“Drink quickly. Dispose of his body, as well.”
Lorcán rose from the asphalt and went to the four nestlings still on the ground. Three of them were destroyed beyond reviving. He pulled the stake out of the fourth one, who stayed immobile for several moments before finally twitching. Lorcán opened the nestling’s mouth. Using one of his long sharp fingernails, he sliced his own wrist and let the blood drip into his nestling’s mouth. It would give the nestling strength and shorten the time for his body to repair itself.
The nestling groaned and opened his eyes.
“Drink of the dead human, then help your nest-mates to dispose of all the bodies before you return to the nest.”
Lorcán felt energized, but not just because of the blood of the bandruí gaiscíoch. With three of his nestlings destroyed, leaving him with five now, including Ciarán and Garbhán, he felt strong again. His dark power was not spread so thin. The elder of the bandruí had been right. He had overextended his dark powers. The two warriors killing three of the newly turned nestlings saved him from having to do it himself. Five was still a lot but manageable.
“Clay,” h
e said. He had not baptized them in dark power and given them new names. They would be eliminated after this affair was complete.
The nestling rose immediately from the human.
“Take the young bandruí gaiscíoch to the nest and bind her well.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Clay placed the young bandruí gaiscíoch inside the daemón’s rune. Lorcán knelt next to her. He was clothed. There was no need to disrobe for blood magic. She was still unconscious.
He used a bronze dagger to cut the duct tape binding one of her arms to her body. Clay had used an entire roll, wrapping her completely from ankles to shoulders. Crude, but effective. Lorcán lifted her arm straight up and plunged the dagger through her palm. She flinched but did not wake up.
Removing the blade, he held her arm until blood flowed down its length. He cut the tape covering her chest. Her low-cut dress revealed her breastbone. He drew the blade from her neckline down the middle of her sternum, making a cut several inches long. Lorcán tossed the knife across the floor. He did not want the bandruí gaiscíoch to regain consciousness and grab it. He put his hand on her breastbone, coating it with her blood.
Now, whispered Balor.
Lorcán placed his hand over her face, making a bloody handprint.
You can leave the circle.
Lorcán stood and stepped back, watching with interest. The daemón’s rune, drawn on the floor with the blood of some of Lorcán’s victims, glowed a burnt orange.
The bandruí gaiscíoch moaned, her body shuddered. Her free arm moved spastically, as if she were trying to wave it. Her eyes stayed closed. The daemón intoned ancient words of blood magic.
Yes. Yes. I have the location—
The shadow disappeared and the woman’s body went still.
“Quickly,” Lorcán said to Clay. “Bind her arm.”
The nestling retrieved another roll of duct tape and knelt next to her. She moaned and her eyes fluttered open.
“Hurry.”
She struck Clay in the face and sent him sprawling backward. She looked confused, but immediately pulled at the duct tape with her free hand, ignoring the obvious pain from the knife wound.
Lorcán said, “Help him.”
Two nestlings jumped forward. She struck another one before the three were able to pin her arm and secure it to her body with the tape.
Her face contorted in fury. “Where’s Patrice?”
His nestlings rose and backed off. She struggled, twisting like a dervish, but it was pointless. He grabbed her hair and lifted her clear of the ground. She looked like a cocoon attached to a branch. Her face showed the pain, but she did not cry out. Well-trained. Strong. He pulled her face in close and whispered.
“She was delicious.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The sun was shining when Calico walked upstairs with the vodka. It felt like someone had hammered spikes into the base of her skull. She banged the bottle down onto the dining room table and continued into the living room. It was an open floor plan, so the living room, dining room, and the kitchen beyond were really just one long room, with two couches, the dining room table, and a kitchen island marking the territories.
Before sitting on one of the couches, she remembered she had to pee. Changing directions, she went through the front entryway, back into the hall running from the back door to the front. From the hall, an open staircase led up to two bedrooms. Beyond the bathroom that she entered, was the doorway to the basement.
Calico sat on the toilet and winced. The act of sitting caused her head to pound with the slight uptick of her heart rate. As she peed and stared at the floor, her stomach decided to twist. She might have to throw up again. Ignoring her stomach, she flushed, pulled her panties up beneath her tight black dress—she hadn’t changed since getting home from the Dead Beat Club—and bent to the faucet. Wincing again from the sudden pain in her head, she drank deeply before shuffling back to the living room to sit on the couch facing the foyer for her front door. She didn’t see any point in going upstairs to bed, certain if she tried to sleep, she’d see Tabby in that alley.
“Where are you, Tabs?” She had no way to contact her sister. Because she wasn’t Tabby’s seanchaí, her storyteller, her historian, she was cut off from any communication with her. That was why she’d called Mom. Calico knew she would reach out to Tabby and Aunt Patrice to make sure they were okay. And they must have been because Mom never called back.
That’s when she remembered turning off her phone. Shit. She glanced over at the dining room table, which looked miles away. It would take great effort to get up, but that wasn’t the reason for the inaction. She didn’t want to know what she’d find when she turned on the phone.
Sighing, she looked back toward the entranceway. There was a shadow on the wall that hadn’t been there a second ago. There were windows to her left, maybe a car passing had somehow cast it. Jesus, it didn’t matter, just more excuses to keep herself from checking her phone.
Of course, the vodka bottle was by her phone. Two birds. Find out what was going on and then drink herself into a coma.
She leaned her head back against the couch. “Fuck!”
Her head throbbed. She waited for it to pass before lifting it very slowly. There were only a few thumps of pain.
Cait Sidhe stood in the middle of the room glowing purple. The cat looked up, her fur in a ridge along her back.
“Why the hell are you—” Calico sat upright and squinted. What was that? A little dark-gray shadowy cloud hung in the air only a few feet above the cat, who was either terrified or pissed.
Calico laboriously pushed herself to her feet and shuffled toward it, wincing the entire way. Was the cloud buzzing? She cocked her head. It was buzzing, right? She reached out, then jerked her hand back. It felt cold.
Strands of the shadow clung to her hand and stretched back to the main body of the thing. Okay, that cut through the drink and the headache.
She flicked her hand, as if ridding it of water, but the shadow stuck to it. Calico backed away, and the shadow followed. No, not just followed, it moved up her arm. Where it touched, her arm went numb with cold. As she scraped at it, strands of shadow attached to her other hand and moved up both arms.
She shuddered from the cold and the terror racing like hyper rats through her body. She looked at the black cat, who was not happy in the least. With a tremor in her voice, she said, “Uh, what the fuck is this?”
Calico fell back into the couch. A panicked whine escaped her lips as she flailed her arms in the air. “Get off me!”
The shadow moved steadily, flowing up to her shoulders, toward her neck. She was so freaked by this time she didn’t know if the cold was constricting her throat or if she was imagining it. That is, until she became lightheaded. She scratched frantically at her throat, but there was nothing to grab onto.
She kicked and thrashed as she fought for air. Her throat was completely blocked, she couldn’t even utter a groan or whine.
She was dying! The edges of her vision dimmed, and faint purple spots popped like bubbles. She kicked against the floor and manage a horrible squealing sound. The room faded until she could hardly see shapes anymore.
In her panic, she didn’t see the light at first. A small pinpoint in the middle of the darkness. Don’t go into the light, Carol Ann! Oh, fuck, there really was a bright light when you died.
The light got bigger, from pinpoint to dime to quarter. It floated in the air much like the shadow had. She stopped kicking, entranced by the light, or maybe already dead. The light kept growing. She must have been in her final throes.
The shadow suddenly hissed like escaping steam. That couldn’t have been the shadow. Some kind of auditory hallucination brought on by asphyxiation. Look at me sounding all medical and shit as I die.
Calico gasped as the light suddenly filled the room, blinding her. She closed her eyes against it, but she could breathe again. She gulped in air as the cold retreated.
There was a
brief moment of relief before a horrifying shriek filled her head. Inhuman—pain and anger that ripped at her sanity. Unhinged and disconnected from reality, she was flung into an abyss filled with nothing but hatred and evil.
Consciousness shredded, Calico lost herself as she fell into madness and terror. A plummet of infinite depth. A relentless darkness. She tried screaming but the darkness surrounded her like a physical thing, smothering her. More terrifying than death, she was afraid she would suffer the fall for eternity surrounded by evil and hatred.
Then a hand reached out to her.
A male human hand appeared in the darkness. She saw nothing beyond the forearm, as though the person stood outside the darkness, thrusting his hand beneath the surface to save her from drowning—clutching and finally grabbing her. The falling sensation jerked to a stop and she felt herself being pulled.
She came up short against a barrier, but he wouldn’t let go. And then she felt herself dragged through a viscous membrane. The mundane light of day blinded her for a moment and then she stared up at the smooth off-white ceiling of her living room. A man leaned over her, looking as scared as she felt, his hand on her arm. She reached for him as he faded and disappeared.
She lay there breathing hard, her head filled with a swarm of bees that dissipated after a minute or two. As the terror receded, she suddenly jerked around in a panic looking for the shadow, but she didn’t see it anywhere. She lifted her arms. They were warm again and there was no shadow attached. She didn’t see it on her anywhere.
“Seriously, what the fuck?” she said. Her voice was hoarse, and it hurt to talk.
She pushed herself to her feet, her muscles fatigued, and stumbled to the bathroom. Her face was pale as hell, but she turned one way then the other and didn’t see the shadow. Her heart pounded so hard she swore her chest moved to the beat. Then she noticed a slight discoloration around her throat. The shadow? She spasmed briefly in a panic. But it wasn’t cold. Leaning toward the mirror she saw that it was the beginning of a bruise.
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