Page 58 of Taken By Raider Kings
The cricket-voices rose around her in a swirling tide, insubstantial hands clutching and ripping.Marc’s fist glanced off her cheekbone; he leapt to his feet and kicked her, a red explosion of pain spearing her ribs.
Something inside Sophie turned, shifted… andwoke up.The feeling poured through her like a gulp of raw alcohol or too-hot coffee, exploding in her middle, so unfamiliar she couldn’t name it for a long taffy-stretching second, before the realization hit her like thunder after lightning.
It waspower.And it was hers.
Themajirborrowed from her, slid through as if she was an open door.Now that she had ceased resisting, they filled her like water.And she wondered if the other shamans ever felt like this.
She would probably never find out, now.
The ropesloosened.They slithered like fat snakes, rasping against flesh rubbed raw.Another kick caught her in the back—she was rolling away, her muscles afire from a long time trapped motionless on concrete.Marc screamed, the torrent of obscenities and guttural beast-sounds splashing inside her skull, making it difficult to think.
He was always so goddamnloudwhen he started in on her.
Her head hit something soft; a shower of foulness splatted over her hair.She kept rolling, squirming away—his foot caught her under the ribs again.He screamed and kicked, connecting just under her jaw.A red explosion smashed through her head; Sophie scrambled blindly, got her feet under the rest of her.
He wants to kill me,she thought, dazed.Of course.I’ve known that for a long time.She hit the wainscoting, the spirits swirling around her, and her legs almost failed.Cramped and bruised, she found herself tossed against the wall again, her back thudding as Marc crouched, one hand on the floor like he was part of some crazy football game.
“Youbitch.” The thing that had been her husband snarled, its mouth full of sharp teeth and clotted scum.
The heat and power inside her crested, her entire body shaking, buzzing.Warm coppersalt dripped her eyes.She was bleeding, hands raised palm-out, the swirling ghostlike faces crawling up her arms.Their touch was warm and forgiving, and she no longer tried to hold them at bay.The rattling intensified, became a rattlesnake’s buzz.
A warning.Stop, or I’ll bite.
Marc produced a sound halfway between wet lipsmacking and a throaty growl.His body bunched up, nauseatingly bent in ways it shouldn’t, and Sophie knew she was going to die.He was going to kill her the same way another vampire had killed Lucy, snuff her out in a stinking wine cellar.
Three days ago she might have screamed.
Sophie opened her arms.The spirits streamed through her, whispering.Don’t worry,they whispered.Everything is going to be all right.Not long now.
And the world… exploded.
No, not the world.The door to the wine cellar exploded inward with megaton force, broken bits of wood whickering through air gone suddenly hard and viscous.The spirits streamed away from her, a tide of quicksilver and smoke, bright eyes and glittering claws.They splashed against Marc’s face like Silly String, steam rising as they bit and clawed.
A completely inappropriate desire to laugh bubbled inside Sophie’s chest, right next to the simmering crimson rage.Go ahead!Burn him!Hurt him any way you can!
Darkness burst the shattered door, pouring like liquid, resolving into a low shape running with fur, smoking with black blood along one side, a white stripe sliding down its length.It landed in a compact ball, claws snicking against concrete, and its growl trailed off in a series of clicks.
She sagged against the wainscoting, staring, as Marc whirled, flying wood peppering him with obscene little chucking sounds.
And Marc, the monster, the huge, terrifying thing that haunted her,screamed.It was a high childish cry, all the more absurd because sherecognizedthe striped thing that uncoiled, stalking forward with graceful eerie authority.
She would know him anywhere now, with the spirits crawling under her skin, the rattle of copper-bottomed pans buzzing in her veins.The feeling was delightful, a strength that laughed at the deep drilling pain in her side whenever she took a breath, snickered at the way blood kept dripping in her eyes, and snarled at the way her legs trembled, threatening to spill her to the filthy floor.
The thing that had been her ex-husband kept screeching.It streaked toward Zach, who faded aside with scary grace, striking out with one elegantly clawed paw.His form blurred like ink in running water, never fully pausing, fur shifting along its lines.He was sleek and deadly, and she recognized the crackling in the air around him because it had invaded her own veins too.
It was the rage.And it wasgood.
The spirits knew.They whispered that he was too far gone, that the fury had taken him and he was just as likely to kill her as Marc.They whispered that he was over the edge, and that she should back away, make herself small and quiet so neither combatant noticed her presence.
For the first time in her life, Sophie didn’t want to hide.
She launched herself forward, the spirits crackling around her, their faces turned to pictures of astonishment, and landed on Marc’s back, barely aware she was screaming.Her blood-slippery fists pounded, something tore in her side again and a red sheet of pain fed the thing roaring inside and outside of her skin.
He threw her.She was weightless for a long second, the spirits pouring in a confusion of long spectral hair and open, awestruck mouths.The wall loomed; she hit with a sickeningthump, her head snapping back and something else inside her body breaking.
The rage ate the pain, turned into a thundercrack.The noise was incredible.The shapes before her eyes refused to make sense for a moment, hazed with deep opaque crimson.
Zach and the thing that had been Marc circled.The vampire was making a sound like nails slicing rusted metal, its throat swelling and its Brooke Brothers suit torn to tatters.Zach hunched on all fours, moving fluidly, still making that odd clicking noise.His muzzle lifted, white teeth showing, and the two closed, a welter of noise and tearing.
