Page 36 of Bite of the Gargoyle

Before I can respond, he reaches out and grips my hand, turning it over in both of his, and looks down at the white bite scars on my left wrist. Then he looks up at me.

“It’s a bite,” I say.

“You were bitten by…” It’s almost as though he doesn’t want to finish the sentence.

“A vampire.”

“But you didn’t turn…” He looks confused. “How?”

“I don’t know,” I answer on a shrug. “Ask your brother.”

***

We make our way through the winding trees, and I notice that the bark is darker here and more moss-covered. We’re headed towards the river, which is a relief, because my throat is dry, and I’m feeling parched.

“Tell me about the old witch who lives in your forest,” I say, just to break the monotony of the quiet.

He shrugs. “She brought me back to life after Balor killed me. That was about the same time she did that pesky bloodline spell.”

“Don’t you think she might be able to help you?” I ask. “She clearly wants Balor taken down too—”

“The witch was clear with me about the fact that she is free of her debt to our family, and after that, she wanted nothing more to do with any of us.”

“But why?”

“She said we weretouched by darkness,” he says, imitating her old, wobbly voice on the final three words. I can’t help my smile at that.

“Whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

“It means that Darkness and I are old friends, of sorts.”

“I still don’t follow.”

He grins at me and for a shard of a moment, I can imagine what he must have looked like as a young boy.

“Darkness is exactly what I’ve become.” He breathes in deeply and then nods. “I won’t pretend I don’t miss the feeling of the sun on my face.”

There’s a snap of a twig a few yards away from us, and without another word, the two of us spring into action. Derith draws an arrow back by the string of his bow. I grab my dagger in one hand and my bobby blade in the other. We take our stance, back-to-back, making a slow, careful circle as we move steadily toward the source of the noise.

I lock onto the sight of two narrow yellow eyes in the bushes.

“Derith—” I try to warn him, but it’s too late.

The yellow-eyed monster charges right for us.

Derith takes down the manticore in a single fluid motion, simply releasing his arrow into the thing’s exposed chest and sinking it all the way through its heart. The creature falls sidelong onto the ground in a pool of its own blood. The thing splutters on the blood now gurgling up its throat and then its head lays lifelessly on the ground. I breathe out a sigh of relief—that could have gone very differently. Manticores are notoriously brutal, malignant creatures with nary a thought in their heads except what creature to destroy and consume next.

My heart is racing and blood is pooling in my palms, eager to stab, to kill, to take action. Luckily, there’s another smaller manticore hot on the dead one’s heels.

“Let me at this one,” I tell Derith, and he nods once.

As soon as the next manticore breaks through the trees and out into the little patch of empty grass we now occupy, I lunge and sink the dagger into its abdomen. It cries out, but it doesn’t go down. For a small manticore, it’s putting up a hell of a fight. I jab the dagger into the thing’s throat which brings it to its knees, but just when I’m getting the drop on it, another comes galloping out of the woods. They do tend to travel in packs so this is no surprise.

“Joanna!” Derith yells as he comes to my aid.

He kicks the thing’s front leg which snaps like a falling tree branch. The creature’s pointed teeth and gnarly yellow eyes bare themselves angrily as it screams out its pain. If these emaciated creatures ever get a second’s worth of advantage over us, they’ll eat us before we can blink. Hurrying up behind it, I jab the bobby blade into the sensitive space behind its ear. It takes another second for it to go down.

By this time, Derith is wrestling with the third manticore. He couldn’t get his bow and arrow ready in time, but his vampiric strength is formidable, even against something as notoriously strong as a feral manticore. I rip the throat clean out from the one I’m straddling, just to make sure it’s really dead. Then I let it slump to the ground, jump over the limp body and pounce onto the back of the manticore Derith is struggling with.

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