Page 73 of A Shadow in the Reaping
I smell antiseptic. Alcohol. The adhesive of bandages. The PVC of intravenous tubes. More faintly: clay. Kiln dust.
The brickworks.
A sharp and unrelenting pain pierces through my brain and muddies my thoughts. It takes a moment to realize I can hear again. The beeping of a heart monitor plays an inconsistent beat to my left. The pace is getting faster.
Memories surface like the broken planks of a sunken ship. The weight of Ashen's body on mine. An image of his lifeless eyes, pointed to the sky. The cinders that collapsed beneath my hand and drifted away in the breeze. Tears streak across my temples before I even open my eyes. I look down at my left arm, bound with silver handcuffs to the rail of a hospital bed. I turn my forearm in the light, but the tattoo is gone.
I close my eyes and my shoulders shake with silent sobs.
"Tears for a Reaper? What kind ofkoroleva piyavokare you?" a man says from my right, his accented voice thick with mockery. I look toward the open door of the room.
The Alpha.
Semyon Abdulov leans against the threshold, his arms crossed over his broad chest. His dark hair is slicked back. He wears a burgundy suit, the black shirt and silk tie beneath shimmering in the lights that shine too brightly above us. His glowing, snow-blue eyes crinkle at the edges with a smug, triumphant smile.
"Although, that might just be why you have survived so many years while your kin have not. You are unique. You make unpredictable choices. Most of the time." Semyon pushes away from the threshold and walks a few steps into the room, casting his gaze around the space before it lands on me once more. "Except the human. I figured you couldn't resist another chance to kill him. And we needed you to feed in order to survive. Most of your injuries have healed, no?"
Semyon walks closer and prods my ribs with his finger. The bones shift beneath the pressure and I hiss my fury at him.
"Most, not all," he says as his smile broadens. Semyon turns away and walks toward a stainless steel table along the far wall of the room, obstructing my view of the contents spread across its surface. "You know, the first few hybrids were a mess, quite frankly. We tried with several vampires before we found Arne Larsen. He was more ancient than the others we had experimented with. Not that he turned out very well."
"I noticed. I saw him in the Shadow Realm. Huge dick."
Semyon laughs and looks over his shoulder at me. "Interesting observation."
"Why did you put him down, couldn't stop him from humping the couch cushions?"
Semyon laughs again and turns to face the table. Glass jars clink in his hands. I hear the pop of a cap pulling free of a syringe. "No, we didn't put him down,koroleva piyavok. He died of his own genetic instability."
"But I smelled Angelwing poison."
Semyon turns to face me, a syringe clasped between his fingers like a cigarette. He gives me an assessing stare, his crystalline eyes roaming across my skin. A slow smile stalks across his face.
"That was his own venom."
The realization pulls me under like a rip tide tearing me away from the shore. I smelled the poison close to the hybrid's mouth, but I had assumed they must have given it to him. It never crossed my mind that his body could havemadeit. The implications... the power... Semyon would have a limitless supply of the deadliest poison to fell immortals and Reapers alike.
The cadence of the beeping from the ECG speeds as adrenaline surges through my heart. Semyon smiles.
"Where is the other ancient one you took? Where is Zara?" I ask.
Semyon raises the needle and looks with pride and determination at the thick silver fluid in the body of the syringe. "Safe. Far from here. She turned out much better. The older the vintage, the better the result, you see. That was the key." He turns his back to me once more to tinker with his vials and syringes. "You will be our best. A vampire from the original source. You will be our ultimate weapon. And when your Reaper comes back to find you, he will deliver you like a trojan horse to the Shadow Realm. And then you will slay the Reapers until none are left to stand against us as we take power over the Living Realm."
"He's dead," I whisper as fresh tears pool in my eyes. "The spell that binds us is gone."
Semyon tisks at me and shakes his head. "Now, now. You know that a Reaper cannot be killed for good so easily. After all, you've done it yourself. I imagine it took great effort, even armed with a Reaper blade and Sarno’s spell. We did not use anything that would stop your Reaper from coming back, however. We need him, after all."
I blink in disbelief. Hope ignites the center of my chest. My heart pounds until the sound of it thrums in my ears. Semyon glances over his shoulder at the monitor and gives a chuckle before looking back down at the table.
"I will not help you."
"You won't have a choice. What the Alpha says, the pack obeys. It will be built into your new genetic makeup."
Well, fuuuck. Hard pass, because that sounds super lame.I strain against the handcuffs, but the silver keeps my strength at bay. The harsh metallic sound of the shackles sliding against the railing fills the room.
"Don't bother fighting,koroleva piyavok. It will make it easier on you." Semyon turns around with a butterfly needle for drawing blood and another syringe in his hand, this one half-filled with black liquid. "Andrei. Bring him in," he calls out in a booming voice.
A moment later I hear footsteps approaching from the corridor. They follow the sound of rubber biting the polished floor. I watch the door as an elderly man with fierce black eyes is rolled into the room in a wheelchair. He impales me with a sharp glare, not acknowledging the tall Russian who brought him in as the man departs.
