Page 75 of A Shadow in the Reaping
"Khristos, that's a fucking mess," Semyon says as he looks over his shoulder at us and rolls his eyes. I laugh even harder despite the pain and fear, jostling the handcuffs against the stainless steel of my bedrail in delight.
I look back at Adamen, who pulls a tissue from his chest pocket and wipes a smattering of bloody vomit from his chin.
And that's when I see it.
I don't focus on it. He mustn't catch me watching. I keep my eyes on the old man. But my attention is not on him.
My attention is on the door that slowly closes behind him.
I hear what the others can't. I hear the click of the lock.
I smell the faintest scent of sage, picked from a windowsill under the full moon. Crushed with a granite pestle. Burned with a beeswax candle.
The lights flicker.
Adamen's eyes widen. A venomous smile creeps across my face as my fangs descend.
Adamen takes a breath doesn't have a chance to call Semyon's name.
A deafening crack fills the air and the lights go out. The room is plunged into night. It's like we've been hurtled into outer space. Stars glitter and burst around us as they fall from the ceiling, bouncing and hissing on the floor.
Adamen's wheelchair is knocked over. The old man lets out a feeble cry as he hits the floor with a clattering thud. A whisper fills the air from every direction, encasing us in incantations. Semyon is thrown against the wall in a burst of lightning.
The shackles on my wrists and ankles fall apart.
I erupt from the bed and land on the old man as he sputters and squirms, trying to pull away from his overturned chair. His fingertips squeak on the polished floor as he makes a futile final effort to drag himself to the door. I grab his throat and raise his face to mine and hiss, but no sound comes out.
The old man laughs.
"No songs for you anymore, vampire," he says as a thin channel of blood seeps from the corner of his mouth.
And no life for you anymore,old man, I think, and with a smile of fangs and poison I clamp my teeth to his neck and tear it apart.
Crackling electric light covers me and lights my skin in shimmering blue. I swallow all the blood I can in deep draws as a dome of black glitter forms around me. I smell the familiar scent of Ediye. She wraps her arms across my waist from behind as I suck a last gulp of blood from the dying warlock in my grip.
I hear claws scrape with furious desperation against the dome and I know without looking that it's Semyon, transformed and trying to get in. There's a ripping sound and a slice of light tears through the fractured surface of the sphere.Not only did he survive the lightning blast in his human form, but he’s fucking pissed about it.
"Time to go," Ediye says.
She presses me close to her chest. "Sabbi lillaam barbi lillaam," she says, her voice layered like chords in a song.
The dome explodes around us and we fall in a heap together on her living room floor.
"What the fuck," Ediye says when we finally catch some air in our lungs. She turns me over and grimaces. I've never seen her look this worried, not even when she stole my charred body from the stake like a macabre magic trick. "What happened to you?"
I shake my head. It feels like my brain jostles against its walls of bone. I close my eyes and lower my face away in despair. Tears flow across my burning skin as Ediye's palm slides over my forehead. Her touch feels cold when it's usually warm.
"You're burning up. Tell me what the hell happened."
I shake my head again.
"Talk to me, Lu."
I smash my fist against the floorboards in frustration and I feel Ediye back away. I don't open my eyes. I don't raise my head. I make a writing motion with my hand.
Ediye gets up and rushes to her desk, bringing back a notepad and a pen, shoving them into my hands.
No voice, is all I write.
