Page 17 of Clay White
“Leads into a walled garden. You’d never get out. If you go out the front, you’ll be right on the street. Turn either way and there are neighbors. Get one of them to call the police.”
I continued to follow him, but I doubted the success of his plan. Even if I did make it to another house and convinced someone to call 911, it would be too late to save Marek. I wasn’t even confident the police would stop Buckley from preying on others in the future. With his connections and preternatural charm, he would undoubtedly find a way to convince them he was innocent. And why should they listen to the claims of a disgraced former agent?
We passed through a narrow passageway lined with cupboards—a butler’s pantry—and into a dining room with a table long enough to seat at least twenty. Thick rugs cushioned our footfalls and large paintings hung on the walls, but it was too dark to discern any details. When Marek pushed on the double doors at the end of the dining room, the noises of a fight grew louder. And I thought I recognized the voices.
“Fuck,” I said, stepping into a short hallway.
“What?”
I never got a chance to answer. We rounded the corner and there were the front doors, one of them slightly ajar. But Buckley stood in the center of the grand foyer with his phone in one upraised hand, his teeth bared in a furious snarl. Grimes faced him, his expression a mask of fury. A handgun lay at his feet, but he held a knife in one hand. A short distance away, Tenrael sprawled prone and motionless, his arms reaching toward the other two and his wings sickeningly mangled.
“Run!” Marek shouted, pushing me toward the door. It was foolish of him. With Marek’s speed and with Buckley otherwise engaged, Marek could easily have made his escape. But instead he rushed at Buckley with a roar. When Buckley waved his phone, Marek jerked as if he’d been shocked, and then he crumpled to the floor. He staggered to his feet and attacked again. He got a little closer this time, and Grimes was able to advance nearer Buckley with his blade. But another hand wave sent them both staggering back. Marek appeared to have taken the worst of the assault, because when he fell again, his body convulsed and blood flowed from his mouth.
I was weak, I had no weapons, and there was no way I could harm a man who so easily felled Marek. But damn me if I was just going to stand there and let Buckley destroy… my friends.
I threw myself at him.
All things considered, it wasn’t much of a throw. More a lumbering followed by a collapse. But I’m a big man, and my weight was enough to bring Buckley down beneath me. Pinning him in place, I tried to choke him. My hands found their way comfortably around his neck, but nothing was working properly and my grip was unsteady. Buckley screeched a string of noises that sounded entirely inhuman.
Excruciating pain racked me as he began drawing energy from me again.
Even unbound, there was nothing I could do to fight him. I couldn’t even manage to scream. I just lay atop him, paralyzed, and felt my self—my psyche, my soul, my life essence—pour out of me like blood geysering from a severed artery.
Not a bad death despite the agony, I thought dimly. At least I’d tried to do what was right. At least I had allies. And oddly enough, as I slipped away I felt at peace with myself. In the end I’d acted with honor.
Chapter Eight
A shriek, horrible to hear even in my barely-there state.
The smell of hot blood. Not, I thought, my own.
The pain stopped abruptly, a bubble popped. My eyes too heavy to open. My heart too weakened to beat.
A slightly accented voice, thousands of miles away. “He’s dying. Please, I can’t— He’sdying!”
Another voice. “Do it.”
“What if he doesn’t want this?”
“Then he can reject your gift later. When he’s capable of choosing.” A pause. “Now, or it’ll be too late.”
A few seconds later, blood in my mouth. Cold and metallic, but I was so very, very thirsty, and it was liquid. A faint sparkle of sharpness at my neck. Long fingers gentle in my hair.
Swallowing.
So tired.
Nothingness reached for me. But not the anguishing kind Buckley had thrust at me. No, this was soft and warm. Like my sickbed when I was five, with the quilts pulled up to my chin and a loving touch on my skin.
I welcomed it like a lover’s embrace.
Chapter Nine
I awoke consumed by hunger—so much hunger that I couldn’t think at all. I lunged to my feet and stumbled toward the door, focused entirely on finding sustenance. But something moved rapidly to intercept me, and it bore me to the floor and kept me pinned there, no matter how viciously I fought.
“Feed,” commanded a familiar voice. An arm appeared in front of my mouth and I sank my fangs into it, then swallowed and swallowed the delicious fluid.
I wasn’t sated when the arm was taken away, but at least I was coherent enough to become aware of my surroundings. Marek knelt on my chest, licking delicately at his torn wrist, his expression a mixture of excitement and apprehension.
