Page 4 of A Bond with the Dark

Especially these days.

Even though Scarlet has that otherworldly beauty and can use it to her advantage to lure poor souls like him into her clutches, she loves the hunt and the thrill of the chase. She is crouched down and about to pounce on him when Hattie bounds into the air above her, landing on the victim's back.

Before he can scream, she snaps his neck. The breaking of bones and popping of tendons tangles with the city noise of crowds and traffic.

“Hattie!” Scarlet shouts as Hattie commences draining the man. “Fucking bitch, he was mine!”Her eyes flash white, and her fangs emerge.

Ollie, always the peacekeeper, steps between them before they can fight. “Scar, chill. We'll find more.”

“One that isn't tainted with grim blood?” Scarlet scoffs sardonically.

The grimspawn population has been rapidly growing in the last few months. We're in New York City to figure out what to do and how to stop them.

That's the thing, though. The only way to stop them is to stop the warlock producing them, andtheyare impossible to kill.Warlocks are created by the fae, which is why we were in Neverdusk.

“What are we going to do about that?” I ask as Scarlet visibly calms, the color of her eyes seeping back to green.

“So far, we've come up with nothing,” Ollie answers, his lips pursing in concentration. “Checking the Neverdusk haunts is proving to be pointless. The fae don't even know where these fuckers are coming from.”

“We gotta do something,” Hattie responds, wiping her chin of the excess blood and dropping her meal to the ground with a thud. “Those twats got Amanda.”

“Not to mention,” Ollie expands, “if we don't get a handle on this, they'll overrun not only the mortal realm but the supernatural world as well. It will be the end of the world as we know it.”

“What happened to Amanda?” I ask, heaving the lifeless body of the poor mortal who crossed my sister's path into the dumpster.

“She was marked,” Hattie answers.

Being marked means the mortal has been marked for necromancy, to be a grimspawn. While the warlocks are producing the grimspawn, they pick out humans to mark by applying theirbrandon that person which compels them to do murderous things. The more heinous the crime, the better, as it desiccates their soul to the point the warlock can attach themselves to the mortal. The grimspawn ends up being a mindless zombie doomed to roam the Earth to kill for the warlock, feeding it youth and eternal life. When they’re in the state of being desiccated to be a grim, they’re called trackers; the stage someone is in before the mark kicks in.

They are also cloaked by magick, so normal humans don't see the awful creatures they are.

The grimspawns look and smell differently from each other; no one grimspawn is alike. Some have melted faces and no eyes, but rows and rows of sharp teeth. Others take on the appearance of whomever they've been feasting on. Some have rotted so far beyond belief it’s impossible not to know when they are near; their rancid smell permeates their presence. All of them have gray skin that’s thin as a drum, revealing black veins that spiderweb underneath.

The dangerous part of this is that the newly marked humans are impossible to ascertain. If you bite them and drain them, killing them in the process, the mark then transfers to you, and then you are doomed for necromancy.

“Is there any way Amanda can help us find one of the warlocks?” I ask Hattie.

“Even if we find them, Dom, what would we do?” Jasantha questions, her midnight-kissed skin glimmering in the moonlight. “Mom doesn't know of anything that will kill these things.”

Ollie's head snaps up like he scents something—or someone—and flashes away.

“There's got to be a way to kill them,” I respond, watching Ollie's trail of colors as he zips off. “We have to find a way.”

“We've tried everything,” Scarlet says, her blonde hair backlighted by the lonely amber light above us. “There's no way to get close enough to kill them. And even if we did, they're playing with a kind of magick we know nothing about. I'm afraid there's no way to kill them.”

Ollie returns with two women, young twenty-somethings with tight skin and bright eyes. It’s obvious by the vacant expressions on their faces that Ollie used his veilweaving magick on them—putting them in a trance with his voice.

“Dinner, Dom?” he offers.

I look at the blonde one hesitantly.

“You don't have to kill them, Dominic,” Ollie murmurs, drawing the brown-haired girl close into his arms. “Just a snack.” His fangs elongate, and the eerie crunch echoes off the walls of the alley as he sinks them into the soft flesh of the brunette's neck, the sound of his feeding piercing the night.

“Oh, all right,” I concede. I am hungry.

Grabbing the blonde by her neck, I yank her toward me, feeling my fangs elongate and sink into her, savoring the sweet nectar of her blood on my tongue.

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