Page 88 of Edge of Oblivion (Night Prowler 2)
When he spoke again, his voice took on a deep, animalistic quality, coarse and barbarous, entirely inhuman. It rumbled through the room, echoing, and all the animals screamed anew.
“Where is the third panther?”
The guard stiffened, mouth gaping in a silent scream. His face darkened to purple. He released the contents of his bowels into his pants with a loud, malodorous plfflolff!
Xander dropped him, and the man crumpled to a heap at his feet, coughing, clutching at his throat. Boots pounded down the hallway, closer.
“Where!”
“Second floor,” the terrified guard rasped. Shaking and coughing, he spat blood onto the white tile. “Surgery suite on the second floor.” His eyes rolled back in their sockets, and he passed out cold.
Xander turned, ran the length of the room past the shrieking and howling and screaming and baying, and Passed through the back wall just as half a dozen more armed guards burst through the ruined doorway into the deafening chaos.
Nausea rolled through Julian in wave after hot, sickening wave. Lights strobed red and orange beneath his closed lids; he felt movement and big, gentle hands beneath his body. Sounds, warped slow, penetrated the blackness he floated in as if from somewhere very far away or underwater. There was pain, but it mostly kept far away, too, only occasionally swooping in low to nudge him with sharp talons.
He was aware of being lifted, of being spoken to, of moving swiftly through space, though how that was possible he didn’t know since he was paralyzed. He didn’t much care, truth be told—despite the nausea, the blackness was warm and comforting and he wasn’t inclined to leave it anytime soon.
After a while cool, fresh air brushed his face and he sucked it deep into his lungs.
That helped the nausea. He sank a little deeper into the comforting blackness.
“Julian!” said a male voice he vaguely recognized. Whoever it was sounded really worried.
Panicked, really. The voice said, “If you die on me, I’ll fucking kill you!”
Ha. Ha ha. He liked the owner of that voice, whoever it was. He drew in another breath, feeling his heartbeat slow. Liking how peaceful he suddenly felt. His body began slowly to melt.
“Julian!”
Fainter sounds reached his ears, animal sounds, low grumbling, yowling, hissing sounds, and with the sound of an engine turning over the movement changed from jerky to smooth. Something wet and rough passed over the side of his face, something wet and cold nudged his nose. For a moment he wanted to try and open his eyes, but then the darkness called once again and he turned back to it, melting, sinking, falling, surrendering happily to the endless void.
That almost-familiar beseeching voice called out his name over and over again, until, finally, it fell silent as Julian dissolved into darkness.
30
With his dead father’s elaborate Victorian silver letter opener held carefully between two fingers, Dominus slit open the sealed manila envelope in his hands. The sheaf of papers from the lab in Milan that emerged from within was an inch thick, bound by a black jumbo clip at the top corner. He dismissed the bowing servant who’d brought it and without returning to his desk began quickly to skim the summary page on top.
...nucleotide represented as sample A in report successfully replaced by sample G...
As he read, the manila envelope dropped unnoticed from his fingers and silently floated in a sideways drift to the floor at his feet.
...mutation replicated in successive testing...
His heart began to pound. His gaze skipped down farther, to the bottom of the page.
...positive test results achieved.
His arms, strangely numb, lowered to his sides. He raised his head and stared at the stone statue of Horus against the wall, glowering blank-eyed into the gloom. Outside a new day was dawning, but here in the dank belly of the catacombs, darkness held fast. Twenty-five years it had taken him, but now he would rise from the darkness, take back everything that had been stolen from his kind, and rain death on that spreading stain that was humanity. All he needed now to complete his happiness was that unmated full-Blood beauty he’d seen at the Spanish Steps.
And by this time tomorrow he would have her. Demetrius’s dreams had attested to that.
“My lord?” murmured Silas, emerging from his ever-present silence in the shadows of the library. He approached in a rustle of robes and the smoky tang of incense they always burned to diffuse the scent of mold that saturated everything.
“It’s time, Silas,” Dominus whispered, gripped suddenly by the fear that to say it aloud would jinx it. But he was a man of science, a man of action—he didn’t believe in superstition. He straightened and spoke louder. His voice echoed through the room. “I’ve finally done it. It’s time.”
He turned to find Silas staring at him with a look of stunned disbelief. He sank to one knee on the stone floor, pulled the gold medallion he wore around his neck out from beneath the collar of his robe, and kissed it.
Seeing him on his knees got Dominus’s mind to working. “I feel like celebrating,” he announced, walking to his massive oak desk. He opened a locked drawer and carefully set the report inside. He laid his hand flat on it for a moment before locking the drawer again. “Go get that new blonde I had last night.”
