Page 36 of Vows & Violence
I move to cover her back, taking shots clean and fast, until my clip runs dry. I reload, aim, and then fire again. But I don’t see the one coming behind me.
A sting at my neck is quick and precise. A prick of something cold rushing into my veins. I turn, but the alley spins, warping the edges of light. My body betrays me. My knees buckle, my gun slipping from my fingers. I hear Phoenix shout something, but it’s all underwater now.
Hands grab me. I swing, putting up a fight, but my limbs are lead. I fall to the cold concrete as darkness pulls me under.
I wake up coughing on the dirt floor of some hell beneath the Quarter. The room is warm, lit by candles stuffed inside carvedpumpkins, their jagged faces dancing with firelight. Bones hang from the rafters. Real ones, not props.
A circle is drawn in ash around me. Symbols I don’t understand crawl across the floor like curses.
I can’t move. Something’s in my bloodstream. My vision pulses. My heart beats off-rhythm. I try to speak, but my tongue feels swollen. Cotton lines my mouth, making it dry.
The Hollow Sons chant from the shadows. Masks painted with ash and blood. One of them steps closer, holding a knife shaped like a fang.
“You’re the knight,” he whispers. “The one she’d bleed for.”
I try to lunge but fail.
“She’ll come for you,” he says, kneeling just outside the circle. “And when she does, we finish the vow. One life for many. Yours for hers.”
I smile through the numbness. “You better hope she doesn’t.”
Because if Phoenix Kane is coming, the devil himself would run from her.
The bastard kneels over me like a priest giving last rites. I’d spit in his face if I could move. But the drug’s got my muscles locked, like my bones are someone else’s. Like I’m just a passenger in this shell.
“Do you know what All Hallows means to us?” he asks, dragging the knife down the edge of his forearm like it’s foreplay. Blood rolls slow and slick over the blade. “It’s not costumes and candy. It’s the night when the veil thins. When blood matters most.”
His eyes shine behind his skull-painted mask. Delirious devotion. I’ve seen it before in killers who thought they were holy. In cops who thought the badge made them God. But this? This is different. This is older. Dirtier.
“You think she’s coming for you,” he says, voice all velvet rot. “But it’s not a rescue. It’s a sacrifice. Blood of the lover. Willinglygiven or violently taken. The Veil is thinnest tonight. Her blood would’ve opened the gate, but yours will do. You carry her soul’s echo. You bleed, she breaks.”
He lifts my chin with the tip of his blade. “What do you think she’ll choose?”
I smile slowly. Feral. “She’ll burn this whole city down before she lets you touch me.”
That gets to him. His eyes flicker, unsure. And that’s when the first explosion hits.
A deep-throatedboomshakes the chamber. Dust shifts from the ceiling like snowfall. Men's screaming echoes through the hallways. The kind of screams you don’t recover from.
The leader stumbles, his knife jerking away. He curses and backs up, but I already hear her.
Phoenix.
Her boots hit the stone floor like war drums. The door slams open, and smoke curls in behind her, wrapping around her like a cloak. She doesn’t walk, she storms. Her eyes are locked on me. And if I thought she looked dangerous before, now she’s something mythic. Blood on her cheek. Smoke streaking her clothes. Fire in her goddamn soul.
“Step away from him,” she growls.
The man doesn’t move. Neither does she.
“I saidmove,” she repeats, but it’s lower now, calm in a way that means death.
“I was hoping you’d come,” he says, his knife back in hand. “You’ll complete the circle. One soul for another. That’s how balance works.”
“Then let’s balance this,” she says and throws her knife straight into his throat.
He stumbles back, gurgling, while clutching the blade. His dark eyes widen as blood paints his chest. He drops, gasping.
Then hell breaks loose.
