“In one room,” he whispered, shifting so close his warm breath teased my ear, “there are … papers. Do you want to see this?”
“Yes,” I breathed. “Which way?”
He started cautiously across the ceiling. I crawled after him, trying to keep up but not rushing. The slightest noise could betray our presence. My muscles burned from the effort of holding my body rigid above the panels as I ducked under hanging wires and cables. The murmuring of voices from below grew louder.
Zylas crept up to a missing panel, the rectangular opening lit from below. I wobbled over to him, arms trembling. Talk about a workout. It was like nonstop planking and pushups.
As I puffed out a pained breath, I realized I couldn’t hold myself above the panels. My muscles were too tired—which left me only one option. Brow scrunching and cheeks already heating, I put an arm across Zylas. His head tilted in my direction as I pulled myself on top of him and lay across his back, letting him support us both.
He had said I wasn’t heavy. I refused to feel guilty.
Holding his shoulders, I peered into the spacious room below. Surrounded by closed doors and scattered with abandoned construction supplies, it would probably be filled with cubicles once the reno was finished. The farthest end was set up like a slumber party—rows of sleeping bags, pillows, yoga mats for mattresses, and a few extra blankets.
In a different corner, someone had laid a sheet of drywall across a double stack of twenty-gallon buckets, and loose papers and folders were arranged on top in three tidy piles.
A few feet from the makeshift table, a man and woman sat on the floor. They’d propped an old lamp, its lone bulb glowing half-heartedly, on top of a dusty piece of equipment with a yellow tank on the bottom. An air compressor? Three red jerry cans were lined up nearby, as though the tool’s owner had expected to return the next day to resume work.
The woman was peering at a monitor, set up on the floor beside a black computer with severed cords hanging off it. Claude’s computer, stolen from his townhouse.
The man threw a handful of papers into an empty bucket. “Found anything yet?”
His companion glanced up from the monitor, her brown ponytail bobbing. “Everything important is encrypted. This isn’t my area of expertise.”
“You’re a computer science major.”
“That doesn’t make me a hacker. I didn’t even get to graduate,” she added, bitter accusation layering the statement.
The other man shrugged as he skimmed another paper. “We can’t change what happened to us. Just be glad you were turned around the time Lord Vasilii arrived.”
Lord Vasilii? What kind of name was that? It sounded like a cartoon villain.
“You’re too new to know,” the man continued in a low voice, “but we used to hide in sewers all day hoping the hunters wouldn’t find us. All we could think about was blood. But in the last two months, Lord Vasilii changed all of that.”
“How?” she asked uncertainly.
“When he’s nearby … can’t you feel it? Maybe you can’t yet, but it’s like being new again. It’s like my head is clear for the first time in years. I can think about more than blood.” He tossed another page into his discard bucket. “He makes this life almost bearable.”
The woman’s shoulders drooped as though she were discomforted rather than reassured by his words.
He tilted a few papers toward her. “This looks promising.”
She hunched more. “Add it to the pile.”
Pushing to his feet, the man placed the new pages on the makeshift table. He returned to his spot and read the next document. Were those papers also from Claude’s townhouse? Or could they be from Uncle Jack’s safe?
Zylas, I thought clearly, not wanting to speak aloud with the vampires so close. I need those papers.
Shifting back from the opening, he canted his head in a silent command. I slid off him and onto the nearby crossbeam. He drew his legs up, positioning himself in a compact crouch at the edge. Faint red magic veined across his hands.
He hopped through the gap and landed on the concrete with barely a thump, but both vampires turned at the sound. He was already flashing toward them. His hands closed around their throats, crushing their windpipes so they couldn’t cry out, then crimson talons sprouted from his fingers and he rammed them into the vampires’ chests. Catching both his victims as they collapsed, he eased them silently to the floor.
My heart twisted as the young computer science major slumped lifelessly, and I reminded myself about Zora’s hard-earned wisdom: Killing them was a mercy.
I clambered off the beam, scooted closer, and dangled my feet through the hole. Returning to the opening, Zylas reached up. I pushed off the edge. He caught me and set me down.
Too many blank doors—probably leading to future executive offices—looked into this large room and it made me nervous. I turned to the papers. The sheet the male vampire had added contained a handwritten list of names and phone numbers titled “Emergency Contacts.” I recognized Uncle Jack’s messy scrawl.
I scooped the papers up and clamped them to my chest. For good measure, I snatched the other piles too.
“This is what I need,” I whispered. “Let’s—”
“Do you smell that?”
The sharp question, muffled by a wall, echoed from somewhere nearby, but I didn’t know which room the sound had come from.
Zylas snatched me by the waist and boosted me toward the ceiling. I grabbed the lip and scrambled into the gap, and he jumped up after me. He rolled away from the opening, tail sweeping up into the darkness.
Footsteps thudded across the concrete.
“What?” a shocked voice barked. “They’re dead?”
Not daring to move, I peeked sideways through the gap. All I could see were the slain vampires’ legs. At least three new figures had gathered around the bodies.
“Stabbed through the heart,” another vampire gasped, crouching to examine the body. “I’ve never seen wounds like this.”
“What could have …” Stiffening, the third vampire faced something I couldn’t see.
The crouching vamp shot to his full height, going equally rigid as footsteps much quieter than the others drew closer. A long pause.
“Find the intruders.”
The low, dry voice issued the command without inflection, and the vampires leaped to obey. I held my breath as they spread throughout the room, opening office doors and searching amongst the construction supplies. They didn’t react to my and Zylas’s scents, so I was guessing they were only sensitive to the smell of blood. Good thing neither of us was bleeding.
Zylas, I thought, we need to get out of here.
He scanned the darkness, tense and focused. Holding the bundle of papers against my chest, I looked around for the quickest way out of the crawlspace. Not far to my left, two large, round duct lines descended from a square hole in the floor above us. I crawled closer, mentally calling Zylas to follow me. Beside the ducting, I peered up. Was that an unfinished opening above?
As vampire voices and the clatters of their search filled the room below, I cautiously pulled myself up. Ducting and wires ran through the spacious gap—large enough for Zylas to fit easily. I reached up and found the open edge above.
“Drādah,” he hissed.
“I can fit,” I breathed, feet braced on a beam as I pulled myself up one-handed, holding the folders tightly with my other arm. “The wall up here isn’t finished. I can get onto the next floor.”
“Drādah—”
Adrenaline flowing hot in my veins, I clambered onto the edge and squinted into the room of the floor above. A small office, perhaps? The empty doorway across from me was a black rectangle, too dark to make out anything beyond it.
Zylas, hurry up and …
My thoughts fizzled. My mind went blank.
In the doorway, a shape darker than the shadows had appeared. Larger than any human, armor glinting faintly—and crimson eyes burning like seething magma
.
The demon entered the room in a silent prowl. I recognized his powerful build, his sharp face, his curving horns and dark hair, his long tail and huge bat-like wings. The last time I’d seen the demon, he’d choked Amalia and Travis unconscious at Claude’s command.
Moving with deadly silence, he crossed the small room. Perched on the edge with the opening behind me, I couldn’t even recoil.
The demon stopped in front of me and a cold, cruel smile curved his dusky lips. He reached out and my lungs locked with terror. His huge hand closed around the bundle of papers I clutched.
He dragged the papers from my grasp with no effort at all. Satisfaction tinged his smile—then his open palm struck my chest.
I pitched over backward, plunged into the gap, and smashed headfirst through a plastic panel in the ceiling below.
Chapter Seventeen
The concrete floor rushed up to meet my face—and I jarred to a painful stop, the crown of my head inches from cracking open like a dropped melon. As pieces of the broken panel rained down, my infernus hit the floor and bounced away.
Zylas clutched my ankles. He hung upside down out of the ceiling, his knees hooked over the steel grid.
A surprised exclamation. Three vampires, spread throughout the room, had frozen in the midst of their search. Dread cut through me and I slapped my palms against the floor so Zylas could release my legs. I toppled over. He dropped headfirst out of the ceiling, landed on his hands, and flipped onto his feet. I clambered up with far less grace, head throbbing from my impact with the ceiling panel, and scoured the area for my infernus.
Hungry grins spread across the vampires’ faces as they closed in on us.
Zylas grabbed my sleeve, swung me behind him, and curled his fingers. Crimson power swept across his arms and solidified into six-inch talons. The vampires didn’t so much as blink at the sight of his forbidden magic. If anything, their ravenous expressions intensified.
Their dark eyes—black sclera, white pupils, and thin red rings—ran over him. I backed away, pulse drumming in my throat. The vampires prowled closer, surrounding Zylas, and his tail lashed as he sized up his enemies.
He had to kill them quickly. I didn’t know how far the other vampires had wandered in their search for intruders, but considering the noise I’d made falling through the ceiling, they would return soon. Zylas sank lower into his defensive stance.
The first vampire sprang—and his movements were a rushing blur.
Zylas darted aside, scarcely evading the man’s grasping hands. Another vampire jumped onto his back. The demon whirled, his powerful motion throwing the vampire off. He cut open the vamp’s shoulder, but the creature didn’t even stumble. Zylas dove away, and his three opponents moved with him, attacking from every side.
And they were fast. Faster than the pair of vampires Zylas had fought in Claude’s townhouse. So fast they matched the demon’s speed.
He broke free of their ensnaring circle, only to be surrounded again an instant later. Crimson light burst off his hand. A female vampire flew backward and he thrust his talons toward the chest of another one. The vampire grabbed his wrist, halting the attack with the demon’s talons scraping his sternum. Blood drenched his shirt.
Zylas pushed into the vampire, and the vampire pushed back. Zylas slid across the concrete, overpowered, then slashed his other hand out, talons ripping across the vampire’s throat and snapping his neck. The vamp collapsed, but the other two charged him.
A door slammed open. A new vampire sprinted across the room and tackled Zylas from behind. His greaves hit the concrete with an earsplitting bang.
With their numbers returned to three, the vampires piled on him. Red power flared, then exploded off Zylas, throwing the vampires back. He sprang up, hands extended, crimson runes flashing over his arms as he prepared a spell.
A vampire kneeling on the floor caught Zylas’s outstretched wrist. Mouth gaping, the vamp wrenched the demon’s arm down and sank curved fangs into his hand.
Zylas’s magic sputtered out. He whipped around, fist swinging, and smashed his knuckles into the vamp’s face. The vampire lurched back, fangs tearing free. Zylas sprang away—and landed with an unsteady stagger.
Darren’s words from last night flashed through my head: A bite will put you down like a shot of horse tranquilizer.
But Zylas was a demon. Surely he wasn’t susceptible to—
His knees buckled.
The vampires were on him before he could fall. One grabbed his arm and bit down on his bicep. Another caught his hand, tore his sleeve out of the way, and latched onto his wrist. The third stepped behind him, a hand gripping his jaw, and pulled Zylas’s head back.
Crazed thirst burning on his face, the vampire licked Zylas’s throat, savoring the moment, then bit into the demon’s smooth skin. Zylas hung in their hold, his legs twitching weakly as he fought to move. His wide eyes stared, breath rushing from his lungs.
Horror rooted me to the spot, then I tore free of my paralysis. Daimon, hesychaze!
Nothing happened. The vampires clung to Zylas, mouths fixed on him, throats working as they swallowed with frenetic intensity. The red rings in their white-and-black eyes glowed brightly.
The infernus—I needed the infernus! It was too far from me for the command to work! I spun in an unsteady circle, but I couldn’t see it among the litter of construction supplies. Finding a small pendant in this mess would be impossible.
I snatched a piece of rebar from an untidy pile of scrap metal. Turning on the vampires, I swung it into the female clamped onto Zylas’s wrist. It smacked her skull with a dull thud and bounced off. Her gaze, clouded with greed and ecstasy, focused on me.
As I lifted the bar again, she flung her arm out. The blow hit my chest and hurled me off my feet. A whoosh of air, then I slammed into a wall. Pain burst through my ribs and spine. I slid limply to the floor, unable to breathe.
Vaguely, I remembered these vampires were monstrously strong … and I was a feeble, breakable human.
Slumped against the wall, my vision blurring in and out, I tried to bring the room into focus. Zylas hung limply, spasms no longer moving his limbs. His unseeing stare had gone dark, the glowing crimson dimmed to flat, lifeless black. The vampires continued to feed with frenzied gluttony. They were killing him.
“Control yourselves, children.” The dry voice was quiet but its commanding power seared the air. “Even a demon will succumb to death if you drain it.”
The vampire drinking from Zylas’s throat lifted his head, a trickle of dark blood running down his chin. The other two reluctantly pulled their mouths away.
“My lord,” the female breathed, licking her lips clean. “Does the demon need to live?”
The newly arrived vampire glided across the room and stopped, unhurriedly assessing Zylas. Tall, pale, dark hair. Wearing a charcoal sweater and black jeans, he could’ve walked in off the street, but despite the dim light, a pair of curved sunglasses hid his eyes, the lenses reflecting the room. Four more vampires were arranged behind him, all staring hungrily at Zylas.
“Our own source of demon blood,” the man, who could only be Lord Vasilii, said in that emotionless voice, “will benefit us far more than a single indulgent meal.”
The female vampire pouted as she dropped Zylas’s wrist. The other male let go of his arm, and the final vampire pulled the limp demon against his chest, holding him possessively close.
Vasilii stepped closer. With a pale hand, he lifted Zylas’s arm. Inhaling over the bite wound on the demon’s wrist, the man ran his tongue across a trickle of blood.
“Exquisite,” he whispered.
The other vampires stirred restlessly, fixated on Zylas like starving hounds on a slab of meat.
“My lord.” The woman rotated on the spot until she faced me. “If we can’t have the demon, can we drink from the girl?”
“No, Bethany. If the girl perishes, her demon will be released from this world.” Vasilii frowned slightly. “She s
eems familiar.”
“She’s Jack Harper’s niece,” another vampire supplied. “I recognize her from the photos.”
Photos? What photos?
“Ah.” Vasilii looked across the room, then back to me. “Why are you here, niece of Jack Harper?”
I stared up at him, too terrified to make a sound.
“Is she injured?” His mouth shifted with irritation. “Did you wound her, Bethany?”
“I only struck her once.”
“Hmm. Bring them.”
As he walked away, the vampire holding Zylas followed. The woman leered at me, then grabbed a handful of my hair. Pain tore through my scalp, and I whimpered, clutching her wrist as she dragged me across the floor.
The vampire lord stopped at the makeshift table. Bethany flung me down, and a moment later, Zylas landed beside me, his head striking the concrete with a horrific thud.
After studying the empty table, Vasilii ordered one of his minions, “Watch over them. I will return shortly to question the female. If the demon stirs, bite him again—but do not feed on him.”
My panicked breath whistled through my clenched teeth. I dragged my aching body to Zylas’s side. He was sprawled on his back, blood streaking his neck, and his half-open eyes were black as pitch and empty. How much of his blood had the vampires drained—and how much tranquilizing saliva had they pumped into his body?
I wrapped my fingers around his upper arm. His skin was cool. Zylas? Can you hear me?
He didn’t react. Not even a flicker of awareness in his dark eyes.
“Can you smell it?” Bethany breathed. “His blood … the power in it.”
Another vampire licked his lips. “We will all get to drink.”
“Why can’t we have him now?” another whispered.
“The demon could die. We have to be careful. Lord Vasilii will make sure the demon keeps feeding us.”
My stomach turned over. They intended to keep Zylas as their personal blood bank? My hands tightened around his arm. Zylas, return to the infernus.
I waited for crimson light to overtake his body. Was the infernus too far away for him as well, or had the tranquilizing vampire saliva and blood loss anesthetized him? His comatose state, so much worse than when I’d been bitten, terrified me.
Slaying Monsters for the Feeble: The Guild Codex: Demonized / Two Page 15