Page 50 of Court of Evil

I cannot drag my eyes away. I have never seen anything like this. It’s a mix between man and machine, monster and technology. The wires tethering him to the machine seem to glow.Recharging him or imprisoning him? Chains lie at his feet, old and forgotten, with holes in the walls where they were once anchored.

His skin is deeply tanned despite being under the earth, but slashes across his chest and abs expose metal beneath his skin, and one of his hands is completely metal up to the forearm. A leg showcases more metal and wires as well.

The fucker is huge, easily eight feet, and completely naked . . . bar the blood coating his body.

This is definitely what we are here for.

“What is that?” Tem murmurs curiously. “A new friend?”

“I don’t have a clue,” I reply. “It looks like a mix of machine and sangui. Whatever they were doing here, they clearly created it”—I glance at the machines, realising they were monitoring it—“and watched it before it went wrong. They tried to trap it down here as a last-ditch effort, but it’s failing now.”

“Interesting and all, but he’s moving,” Ronan squeaks.

I glance back to see him disconnecting the wires from his skin before he steps down, the ground shaking under us from his weight.

“Any ideas?” I ask, but they are all silent. “Awesome. Let’s try talking to it first.”

“I don’t think he wants to talk,” Ronan mutters as he hides behind me. I stop at the glass window. There’s a doorway to theleft, completely open, and he could be on us in seconds. The glass won’t do much, but it sure as shit makes me feel better to have it between us.

“We aren’t here to harm you,” I say slowly. It can obviously speak, so maybe it can understand me. “You are the one draining the monsters, right? You must be so hungry?—”

He roars, and I swallow.

“I don’t think he wants to talk,” the fae remarks casually.

I shoot him a glare before focusing on the man, erm, machine . . . monster before me. “The thing is, you can’t go around killing others and drinking their blood. It’s not good. That’s why I’m here. To ask you to stop.”

His head tilts to the side, and his eyes narrow. His fist suddenly lashes out, hitting the glass. It splinters and smashes, and before I can react, he’s reaching through, uncaring about the sharp edges carving off the skin on his arm as he grabs me and pulls me through it.

I don’t scream as he turns and lifts me close to his face, roaring again.

I see a subtle blue glow in his irises, a ring inside of the darkness—more mechanics.

“I am not here to hurt you,” I repeat as he lifts me higher, effortlessly holding me aloft. As I speak, I slide my hand into my bag with slow movements.

He simply bares his fangs and pulls me closer, no doubt to drain me, but I’m not in the mood for that today. Seriously, why does every monster want to eat me? Can’t they just be friendly for once? I wrap my fingers around a double-edged dagger and slowly extract it as he pulls me towards his mouth.

“Fine, if you don’t want to talk, then let’s settle this another way,” I mutter and plunge the dagger into the only place I can reach—the area between his neck and shoulder.

His eyes widen.

I don’t know what I hit, but his eyes flash blue and then his head drops, his fist releasing me. I hit the floor and drop to my knees, rubbing my throat as I breathe deeply.

Peering up at him, I wait for his response, but he seems to be frozen, and I swear I hear his wires sparking.

“Well, that looked fun,” the fae says.

“You’re doing great,” Tem adds as I glance back to see him and Ronan giving me a thumbs up. Climbing to my feet, I give the man a wide berth as I scan the room. He’s not dead, so I need to find a way to kill him quickly.

If he’s part machine, then maybe there’s a way to shut him down.

There’s a table at the back, so I head over to it and hit the keyboard, but I don’t understand any of the language. Picking up a folder on the side, I scan the contents. Most is in that strange language, but some is in English.

I read the reports and glance at the now stationary man. “It seems the original king of the vampyrs wanted this experiment. They wanted to temper their weakness so they could feed from anyone and anything, becoming invincible. It went wrong, and they created . . . him. He was considered a failure, insane from merging a soul and mechanics. Well, no fucking wonder he’s mad.” I drop the folder. “They created him, experimented on him, and then locked him away to starve and go mad. I’d be pissed too.”

“Super interesting,” Ronan mutters. “Do they say how to kill it?”

“Maybe the way you kill vamps?” I suggest as I eye him. I might feel sorry for him, but I’ll still kill him if I have to.

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