Page 38 of King Among the Dead

The man staggered back a step, gasping, groaning. He clapped one hand over his bloodied stomach, and lifted the other, his own knife gleaming duly.

It was easy to dodge his swipe. Easier, after, to put her foot against his belt buckle, and kick him backwards. He stumbled, fetched up against the island, and slid down it, sitting with legs flopped out, panting and clutching at his wounds.

The overhead lights cut on.

Rose squinted against the brightness, and lifted her head to see Beck stalking across the room toward her, seemingly unharmed. His bare feet left crimson tracks across the tile; his hands were dark and tacky with blood, his grip sure on his dirty knife.

As recently as a few weeks before, she would have wanted to shrink back from the intensity of his gaze. Part censure, but mostly that feral spark he’d brought with him into the library so many nights ago. His hair hung in his face, a screen through which he glanced down at her, unable to hide the honey-gold irises being swallowed up by pupils. He looked high; looked sharp and dangerous.

He drew up beside her, muscles standing stark in his bare arms, chest heaving, sheened with sweat in the deep V of his shirt collar. “I told you to stay.” It didn’t strike her as a reprimand, not exactly. “Rose.”

She offered her knife to him, handle-first, surprised to see that her hands weren’t shaking. No part of her was, save her lungs, trembling and quaking as she fought for breath, as she stared at him.

He reached out, cupped her hand with his own – and put it back on the knife handle; tightened her fingers around it. Held her gaze; touched the tip of his tongue to his top lip, considering. Measuring her. Took a slow breath and said, “A true hunter finishes what she started.” Then he glanced down at the man she’d stabbed, inviting her to look, too, with a tilt of his head.

The man was fading, losing strength and coherency, but he would linger a while longer with a gut wound like that. Beck had made it all the way home with one, after all.

This man had none of Beck’s steel resolve, though. His white-rimmed gaze flickered back and forth between them, lips quivering as he breathed in short bursts through his mouth.

“Who sent you?” Beck asked.

The man shrank down into the collar of his jacket, shaking all over. Blood puddled on the floor between his legs.

“Who,” Beck’s voice went silky-soft, low like the rasp of a knife across leather, “sent you?”

The man gulped a few times. “T-t-tony.”

“As I suspected.”

“He said – he said you were hurt. He said you were half-dead.”

“He was wrong. He usually is.” He squeezed Rose’s hand, made sure she had a solid grip on the knife, then released her so he could crouch down beside the man. He rested his forearms on his thighs, head tilted like a curious bird. “Tell me about his conduit.”

The word sent a spike of mixed emotions through Rose: warring dread and curiosity.

Somehow, the man’s face went whiter. His breath hitched. “I don’t–”

With an almost casual movement, a flex of his wrist, Beck twirled his knife and drove it into the meat of the man’s thigh.

He screamed. Kicked his head back against the cabinet face and fumbled for his own knife.

“Rosie,” Beck said, and he didn’t have to instruct her.

She stepped forward and kicked the man’s knife away. It skittered across the tile and got lost beneath a cabinet.

Beck kept his hand lightly on the handle of his knife. “Now,” he said pleasantly. “Tell me about Tony’s conduit.”

No hesitation this time, save the quavering breath, the unsteady voice, the shocky twitches of the man’s lips as he struggled to form coherent sentences. “I don’t…he’s new. I never…never met him…before. Some guy named…Dan…Daniel.”

“What miracles has he performed?”

“He cut – cut a guy in half – just looking at him.”

“Hmm.” Beck drummed his fingers on the knife handle. “You’re sure you don’t know where he came from?”

“No. I swear!”

Beck nodded. Then he looked up at Rose. Crooked his finger. “Come here, sweetheart.”

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