The sound of slow clapping took him by surprise—though it shouldn’t have. He’d known that the vampire would send out his minions to soften Asil up. The White Angel walked out of the shadows surrounding the carousel building.
We let ourselves get consumed by the fight, the wolf observed sourly.But he just threw away his advantage by grandstanding.
The White Angel had been turned when he was twelve. The rain caressed his forever-beardless face, and even in the darkit was possible to see how surprisingly colorless his hair was. The rain had washed out whatever he’d used to darken it to an unremarkable blond.
The vampire had discarded the coat with theChristophername tag as well as the shoes with lifts. Clad in a wet dress shirt and slacks with the bottoms rolled up, and with his feet bare, he no longer looked as though he belonged in high school. Middle school, maybe.
Without the subtle stage makeup he’d used at the ball, his face was still round with childhood, making him look very much like the cherubs so beloved of painters and artisans for hundreds of years. That resemblance and the near white of his hair was the source of his nickname.
Bonarata had forbidden vampires to turn children after Cristofano had become one of his cadre. Asil did not think that was a coincidence.
“Hussan the Moor,” the vampire said, approaching at a steady pace, hands clasped behind his back. “Moreno.” He shook his head and laughed. “I didn’t make the connection until I fed from you.”
Blah blah blah, said Asil’s wolf.
“Do you know I was growing bored with Mari-Brigid? And look what a gift she brought me.”
Your ending, replied the wolf.
But the vampire, unable to hear the beast, was still talking. “If she weren’t a gift, I’d have put her down a few years ago. I am encouraging the romance between her and Bobby. Do you think he loves her yet? When he does, I’ll use him to kill her. That will be fun.”
Asil leaned back subtly, putting weight on his bad hip to seehow much he could count on that leg. Not much. He decided he’d have to wait for the vampire to spring at him and defend himself from where he stood.
But Cristofano, who had heretofore been very predictable—even if Asil had failed to predict him—brought his hands out from behind his back. Asil had a moment to glimpse a short sword in one hand and a gun in the other.
Asil lunged sideways, but he was tired and wounded and vampires were very quick. The bullets—four of them—hit Asil in the chest.
They weren’t silver bullets, but they did a lot of damage all the same, dropping Asil to the ground. He did not try to get up, just lay very still, pulling on his pack bonds as hard as he ever had to heal the damage the bullets had caused. Power, freely given, came to him at his call, but the bullets had been driven deep into his body lengthwise.
He struggled to catch a full breath, and it was imperative to stay conscious.
Asil heard the slow, soft sounds of the barefoot vampire’s approach. He knew that it would take too long to heal. But he still called to his pack and tried.
“Never fight fair,” Cristofano said, dropping the gun carelessly on the ground near Asil’s head.
If he’d been in human shape, Asil might have tried for it. He probably wouldn’t have had a chance, but he’d have tried. His body, abused and fighting to heal itself, clenched and jerked like a landed fish.
The vampire dropped to his knees, short sword in hand. Just out of reach of Asil’s thrashing body.
“I’ve never fed from a werewolf as old as you are before,” he mused. “It was the most extraordinary thing.”
He struck suddenly, in the middle of a word. Asil could not possibly have defended himself effectively, but the speed of the attack meant he had no chance at all. Asil felt the sword slide through his body and deep into the ground, pinning him there like a butterfly…Mariposa…on a lepidopterist’s mount.
He gave up the last shreds of hope.
Asil could still—and would—make the dead thing pay for the blood he was about to take. But Asil was not in the habit of lying, not even to himself. He was going to die today.
I don’t want to die at a zoo in the rain, killed by a baby-faced vampire, he thought as pain and weakness threatened to rob him of clarity. Then he thought,I don’t want to die before I figure out how Ruby fixed my wolf.
I don’t want to die.
Truly, Allah had a sense of humor. Asil would have died—if not happily, then contentedly—any time these past twenty years. Until Ruby.
So, of course, today would be the day he died.
The darkness lightened and a faint hum filled the air as the lantern show came to life around them and cheerfully soothing music that sounded almost as if it came from a calliope or something like it began to play. The tree construct next to Asil lit up with giant flowers of purple, blue, and pink, with luminescent strings of light beads dangling to the ground. Even in the fog of death, he thought it beautiful.
He wouldn’t mind so much if he died in the midst of such beauty.
