Page 18 of Bite of the Gargoyle

“I need a blade,” I tell Derith.

He blinks at me for a full second, then, faster than my eyes can make out, he presents me with my bobby blade from his breast pocket.

“Think of it as a gesture of good will,” he says as I grab it, then rip into my flesh. I scream as the pain seizes me all over again, and Derith stares at me with wide amber eyes. Making an incision along the freckle about as long as my thumb, the sting of the blade doesn’t even register. My face is hot and my vision is blurry—both of which could be the side effects of encroaching death.

I jam my fingers into the hole I’ve just cut into myself, and I feel the thing’s oily little body wriggle free of my grasp almost instantly.

“Fuck!”

I can’t grab it. The incision isn’t big enough. Or the water ghoul is too big. Or I’m in too much pain to manage. My eyes go to Derith’s. He gives me a peculiar expression.

“What is it—”

“Suck it out.”

He frowns at me. “What did you say?”

“Do you want me to spell it out in the sand for you, vampire?” I practically scream. “There’s a water ghoul inside my leg that’s going to spread, making me its host, which will fucking-well kill me unless I find a way to get it out of me.” I look at him as he seems to be weighing the situation. “If you don’t want me to die, here’s your chance to play hero.”

He needs me—proof enough is in his expression. I just don’t know why, and right this second, I don’t need to.

“Suck it out!” I command him again, and this time, he doesn’t hesitate.

He grabs my leg on either side of my knee, and he places his mouth over my open wound like a sucker fish.

He sucks in deeply, and I can feel the vile little water ghoul twisting and turning in an effort to get further into my body, but Derith’s lung capacity is impressive, and he doesn’t stop sucking. I’m sure he’s getting a good drink of my blood as well. It’s a sickening thought, but I don’t protest. I’m not in a position to.

As much as I hate to say it, or even think it, this bastard is my only hope to survive.

“Mmghah!” Derith pops up with a green, tentacled blob in his teeth. He spits it to the side and presses his hands immediately to my now gaping wound.

“I believe I got the odious little thing.”

I don’t know what to say. I’m at a loss. Do I thank him? Do I look this monstrous murderer in the eye and thank him for saving my life, even after he ruined it all those years ago? I have the strange impulse to do just that, but I hold back. One good deed doesn’t undo a lifetime of misery, and he took my family from me.

There’s no fucking way I’m thanking him after that.

It’s then that I look over his shoulder. “Move out of the way.”

He squints, looking a little confused for a second or two, but eventually moves, revealing the blob. It’s still a greenish hue, but it’s no longer an amorphous shape. No, it’s transformed. I’ve never seen a water ghoul on land before, but, apparently, they have a much larger terrestrial form than an aquatic one. In the course of the time that Derith spat it out, the thing’s become fucking gigantic.

“Get back,” I tell him, standing on my one good leg and wielding my bobby blade, which must look ridiculous but it’s the only thing I’ve got to defend myself, so I’m going to use it.

He turns around and his eyebrows reach for the sky when he sees the awful thing.

“That’s a quick and speedy transformation.”

“I said get back!” I growl, vitriol in my voice. I don’t care whether or not he gets hurt, but at the moment, I’ve got the water ghoul to take out first. And, there’s a part of me that’s trying to make the point that Derith did just save my life. Which still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Just because he did one decent thing doesn’t mean my plans have changed,I tell myself.

They haven’t. They never will.

I lean on Derith’s shoulder as I stand, hating that I need to, but the water ghoul needs to die or else it’ll just glom onto someone else. I can’t let that happen. I’m exhausted, and I’m wounded, and I’m armed with nothing but my bobby blade, but it’ll have to do.

“Get me under it,” I say.

“What?”

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