by Jess Haines
Never had I felt so ill at having a piece of Max inside me.
Iana studied the collection on the wall before selecting a short, double-bladed sword with some kind of raised line running down the flat of the blade. It was old. Ancient. Cast bronze, now myriad shades of green, but not so pitted or oxidized that the metal couldn’t hold an edge. The pommel was far newer than the rest of it, but even still, the leather around the grip was cracked and so faded that I couldn’t tell what the original color must have been.
She held it out to me expectantly. As soon as my hand closed around it, a jolt of something dark and hungry radiated off the blade. Countless images of angry, frightened faces, splashes of blood, and other things assailed me.
Hair like sunshine. Eyes like the sea. Taken away in a flash of red, replaced by the shadow of Rhathos—Royce—and then Iana was shaking me, and the images were gone.
“These things will haunt you if you let them.”
“No shit,” I replied.
The sword Max had used to fight against Royce for the life of his ladylove, Helen of Volos, was in my hands. A fight he had lost, and with it, any hope of reconciling with the only true friend he’d ever had. Thousands of years old, and the weapon was still so well preserved and cared for despite its age that it could cut through flesh and bone like butter.
I was tempted to throw it away, to find some other way of dealing with Max, but I knew it wouldn’t matter which weapon I picked up. They would all carry memories of death, and it was up to me to keep it under control. “I’m fine. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Gideon ran a fingertip down the edge of a much newer blade, smiling at the red smear he left behind. “We’ll have to come back here before we leave. I could use a few vamp-blooded blades for some rituals I’ve been meaning to try.”
“I don’t think so,” came another voice. That hated, familiar voice.
Max stood in the doorway, his eyes gleaming crimson and his hands and clothes spotted with flecks of red and black. He must have run his hands through his short, dark brown hair at some point, because half the curls were plastered to the top of his head by I-really-didn’t-want-to-think-about-what.
Iana grabbed a sword and rushed forward, her eyes full of murder. Before she was halfway across the room, Max was behind her, one hand on her wrist and the other wrapped around her throat, holding her tight against him. Christ, I hadn’t even seen him move.
Her skin reddened under his touch, and she cried out in a mix of rage and pain, dropping her weapon with a clatter. I raised my sword with shaking hands and edged closer to Gideon. Iana twisted and writhed like a snake, but Max didn’t pay either of us any mind. He bared his fangs and growled, glaring at Gideon over her shoulder as he tightened his grip around her neck.
“This is the thanks I get for taking you into my home? Allowing your union with my progeny?”
Gideon laughed, slumping against the wall next to the vampire minion staring blankly up at the ceiling like a mannequin. “I’ve done nothing to betray you. I kept your property safe, distracted, and out of the battle. You should be thanking me, you decrepit antique.”
My gaze shot to the necromancer. “You ... you what? ”
He wiggled his fingers at me. “I did what I needed to. And so will you.”
An all too familiar sense of something taking the wheel in my head set in. I shut my eyes and shook my head, but it didn’t stop the fucker from propelling me like a goddamned puppet straight at Max, sword raised in a suicidal run while blood filled my mouth as fangs popped into place.
If it didn’t mean Sara would hurt too, I would strangle that fucking necromancer the minute he loosened his mental grip on me.
Max threw Iana out of the way, sending her crashing into a display of armor that wouldn’t have been out of place at King Arthur’s Round Table. The vampire caught my sword arm on the downswing, but he didn’t move fast enough to block the gun as I shot him in the gut with my off-hand until the gun gave nothing but a series of dry clicks.
It made him jerk, but he didn’t otherwise react to the bullets. He gave no sign of pain or anything beyond a furious glare. A glare that became a great deal more pointed when he noted the sword in my hand.
“You don’t deserve the honor of touching that sword,” he hissed, digging his thumb into my wrist until the pressure became so painful that even with Gideon’s goading I couldn’t keep my grip on it.
“Neither do you,” I spat out, simultaneously fighting his hold on me and Gideon’s mental talons.
He shoved me down to my knees, and I winced at the force of it, knowing there would be bruises later. “You suicidal little bitch. As soon as I clear out the rest of the rabble, I will flay the skin from your body and break every bone until you beg me for death. The minute you do, I’ll sire you just so you heal and I can start over again. Then I’ll send you, a piece at a time, to your precious Rhathos.”
Glaring up at him, I thumped a fist against the bullet holes in his abdomen, already closing. If I was going to die anyway, I was going to stand up to him the only way I could before I did—by running my mouth.
“Revenge is not the spackle that will fix the Helen-shaped hole in your heart. Making someone else feel sad because they made you feel that way is childish, and I’m a person, not a toy for you to steal and break so you can piss in Royce’s sandbox. Grow the fuck up.”
“You know nothing about me or my motivations, you vacuous, insignificant shant of a blood-whore.”
“All you live for is someone else’s pain! You’re nothing but an empty shell, making everyone else hurt just because you can’t stand that someone did it to you. You’re nothing. Helen knew it, and so did Royce. I’ll bet Athena did, too.”
Max growled softly, grabbing my other wrist before I could hit him again and his grip tightening to the point of pain. I still met his glowing red eyes unflinching. He’d already taken everything else from me, so forcing his way back into my head would only further prove my point.
“You’re a ghost,” I said, voice soft, knowing how much my words were cutting him and wishing I had a way to make more than his heart bleed. “A ghost who should have faded away with whatever shreds of humanity you had left when Helen died.”
“Get her out of here before I forget I still need her alive,” he hissed in Gideon’s direction, though he still stared down at me with the promise of pain to come written all over his features. The pressing cloud of barely leashed power swirling around him gradually tamped down as he got his rage under control, but I knew that wouldn’t save me from the world of pain he was planning to deliver on me later.
I glanced over at Gideon and—the vampire that . . . wasn’t there anymore?
Then I screamed in pain as Max’s grip tightened even more when the other vampire latched onto his wrist and blood-crusted hair from behind, fangs digging into his neck. Max voiced a furious howl and shoved me away as he twisted and clawed at the other vampire.
“You filthy little betrayer!”
Gideon waggled his eyebrows, moving his hands like he was orchestrating a symphony as he gave Max a fierce grin, showing his teeth all the way to the molars. “Abra-cadaver, you fucking bastard.”
With a move too swift for my eyes to track, Max was across the room, his fangs embedded in Gideon’s throat even as the other vampire remained latched onto him like a freaking monkey riding his back. It would have been hilarious if I wasn’t terrified Gideon would be killed, and, with him, Sara.
The necromancer didn’t even have time to cry out, his look of shock fading into a slack-jawed combination of pain and ecstasy. His eyelids drifted shut as Max pinned him against the wall.
Gideon’s hold on me was fading. Not a good sign. I had to find a way to stop this, fast.
The vampire drinking from Max jerked his head back. Alarm quickly turned to panic and disgust, and he let go, stumbling back to spit out a red glob before he swiped his arm over his mouth.
Before he could get far, Max released
Gideon’s limp frame and whirled, bloody fangs bared. The other vampire backpedaled, but he barely got two steps before Max was a blur again.
Sharp cracks were followed by a wet ripping sound, and a fine spray of cold, red mist hit my face and hands. Panting with terror, I dropped my empty gun and scrabbled for the sword with my off hand.
Before I could reach it, cold fingers slid around the back of my neck and yanked me up to my feet.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I screamed so loud and shrill I managed to startle myself.
Max whirled me around and then slapped me so hard, stars filled my vision and blood filled my mouth from the blow and from my own fangs cutting into my lower lip. Before I could fall, his fingers curled around my throat, cutting off my breath and lifting me until my feet dangled off the floor.
The ringing in my ears didn’t last long, but between him cutting off my air and the blood in my throat, I was starting to black out. He ran his thumb over the blood dribbling down my cheek, making it a point to flick one of my fangs, then sucked the smear of liquid off with a grim, red smile.
“I’m going to enjoy sucking the life out of you. Giving it back just to take it away again.”
Then he stumbled and dropped me as Iana plowed into him from behind, a curved scimitar jutting out between his ribs. My knees were like jelly, collapsing under me as I fell. A choked off cry was all I could manage as pain jolted up my wrist when I tried to catch myself. Max must have sprained or broken it when he shook the sword out of my hand before.
Iana snarled and clawed at Max from behind, her legs latched around his waist and her body pressed tight against him to keep him from dislodging the weapon. Her hands were glowing again and everywhere she touched him, terrible burns appeared on his skin. He kept trying to grab her arms but every time he got a grip, her free hand would swipe along any exposed part of him she could reach and tear at the skin and muscle until he let go.
With a roar, he twisted around and body-slammed her into the ground, which had the added effect of shoving the scimitar even deeper into his chest. The lights on her hands winked out and she let go with an inhuman, ululating screech of pain. They both rolled away from each other to rise into wary crouches, each looking for an opening.
Max kept his eyes on her as he gripped the flat of the blade and started to push it out. Aside from a slight tightening around his eyes, I saw no sign that he felt any pain. The slow, taunting smile that spread over his lips only seemed to infuriate her further.
“Just like old times,” he whispered.
Whatever that meant to her, it struck home. She moved with the clear, vicious intent of a monster, and I could almost see phantom talons and the shadow of something far bigger than her petite frame sweeping down on Max. It wasn’t enough. He swatted her aside, sending her into an ungainly sprawl she quickly recovered from. Seething, she regained her footing and reached for another weapon as he moved toward her.
“I will rain fire and blood on this house. I will end your life and bloodline, and all you hold dear. I will—”
“You will shut up and go back to your cage, or I will find that last hidden temple you thought I knew nothing about and destroy it.”
Iana lifted her chin, her golden skin turning crimson high on her cheeks. “I would rather see the last temple fall than for you to remain on this earth a minute longer. I’d sooner die than return to you.”
“As you wish.”
Once again, Max moved too quickly for me to follow. Between one blink and the next, he was across the room, a dagger buried in Iana’s gut. The rotting peaches scent that was quick to permeate the room was mixed with the charnel reek of ruptured intestines. Her eyes flared gold as she gasped and bent double, clawing weakly at his chest.
He helped her sink to the ground, one arm over her shoulder to support her on the way as he cradled her jaw, the other keeping the dagger in place.
“Poor sweet,” he said, stroking the back of his hand over her cheek. “If you think it hurts now, just wait until I have the time to properly salt the wounds.”
And that was when I drove the ancient, bronze sword into the sweet spot between his neck and collarbone, deep into his body, angling for his heart.
Bet the sack of shit wasn’t expecting that.
He arched his back, gasping and releasing his grip on Iana to claw at the air. I leaned in from behind, my lips brushing against his ear as I put my weight into the blade to shove it even deeper.
“I know you won’t be around to appreciate this little life lesson much longer, but ... no means no, you fucking unrelenting asshole.”
His mouth moved, a crimson froth bubbling on his lips. Then he was twisting, on top of me, black, molasses-thick blood dribbling from his mouth onto my face as he snarled down at me. I clenched my teeth and pressed my lips together so none of his blood would get in my mouth.
All it took was a good, adrenaline-fueled yank on the pommel of the sword to make him roll aside, twisting in agony. He tried to speak, his voice a breathy gurgle.
“Ath ... Athena . . . will kill you ... for this . . .”
I rolled too. Once I was on top of him, I wiped his blood off my face and then met his crimson eyes, leaning in to make sure he couldn’t miss my utter contempt. “Wow. Look at all the fucks I don’t give. Save me a ringside seat in hell, you son of a bitch.”
Though I had to use my weaker wrist thanks to how he’d mangled my dominant hand, I still managed to put a twist on the blade and jerk it to the right. I had no idea where all the blood came from considering how much he’d already lost, but a gush of cold, black fluid jetted over the pommel and my fingers and pooled around us on the floor. His struggles became less and less, then stilled, the red glitter in his eyes growing dim and then dying out forever.
I leaned over to grab the blade Iana had dropped, using it to slice off the fucker’s head. Had to be sure. There was no other way to know with certainty that he wasn’t coming back. It took a bit of sawing, and my hands, arms, and knees were coated in a wash of blood, but the sharp blade made the gruesome task easy despite having to use my off-hand.
When it was done, I sat up, tilting my head back and closing my eyes, gulping air. Bands of steel around my heart tightened, a mix of relief and an unexpected sense of loss swirling through me in a wash. Though I wasn’t sure why, tears stung my eyes and an empty, gaping chasm had settled in the region of my chest.
Distantly, the sounds of screaming, loss, agony, rattled through the walls and buzzed in my bones. Vampires. Blood-bound donors. The ones who felt that he was gone.
I knew how they felt. Some part of me was gone. Not like the loss of humanity and self when I had killed someone. Not like the piece of me left behind when I acknowledged I was turning Other.
No. This was something else. Like a hole had been chewed in my heart, a black hole of need that would suck me down into some dark abyss if I let it. The temptation to use the blade on myself didn’t seem so weird on the surface. After all, I would put an end to all the pain and misery and suffering I was already going through.
I would be with Max again.
That was enough of a reminder to tell me that I was still a few beers short of a six-pack, and I needed to rethink my priorities.
Swiping the tears off my cheeks with my palms, I looked around, bleary-eyed. Gideon was still slumped over by the door. The other vampire was a few feet away. The rest of him was close to Gideon, except for that one chunk in the corner.
Iana groaned, and I shook my head in an effort to rid myself of the weird urge to do something to follow Max into oblivion. She needed help. Whatever was going on in my head and whatever afterlife Max had gone to could wait a damned minute while I checked on her and Gideon.
Ignoring the desire to slide into that black void, I crawled on hands and knees—awkward, with my hurt wrist—to Iana’s side. I hadn’t seen it before, but Max must have used a nail to slice her jugular. Even though that cut had mostly healed already, she had lost a tr
emendous amount of blood. It was pooled around her head and soaked into her hair like a pale, glittering halo. The wound in her stomach was too jagged and wide for me to do anything about. She’d already pulled the dagger out on her own, but I had no idea how to stop the bleeding.
One of her hands, coated in a thick, sticky layer of her own blood, settled over mine. Though she couldn’t manage to speak much louder than a whisper, and must have been in a horrific amount of pain, she managed a beatific smile for me. “I’m going to give you a parting gift. You gave me freedom. I thank you for that.”
“Oh, Iana, no.” My eyes blurred with fresh tears as I twined my fingers with hers and leaned over her. I did my best to be gentle as I pressed my bad hand to the seeping wound at her throat, ignoring the pain rocketing up my arm to put some pressure on it. There was so much blood already, all around her, but I had to try to keep some inside.
“Hush, I have little time. There is no saving me. Better to die free than live as a slave,” she whispered, her eyes closing as her fingers tightened around mine. “Your spirit is good, if not pure. My gift is twofold. I will cleanse you of the taint you carry. I ask only that you carry what remains of me to the Sleeper.”
She stared up at me expectantly, obviously waiting for me to say something. I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “I can’t drag your body back to New York with me, Iana.”
That prompted a short-lived laugh out of her that quickly cut off into a little cry of pain. She had to catch her breath before she could continue.
“No, Shiarra. I just need your agreement. My . . . essence, or soul, I suppose you might call it, will join with yours. Then you must find her. She’ll know what to do.”
“Wait, what? You can’t have my soul!”
“Foolish child,” she said, voice weak, thready. “Your soul is you. Not a part of you. My presence will do nothing to change that. Your body is but a shell, and it can house two for a time. Yes or no? I won’t have the strength to do this much longer.”
Even though I wasn’t certain what I was agreeing to, I didn’t think Iana would do anything to hurt me. If she thought this Sleeper could help, then I would track her down and play the part of metaphysical delivery person.