I shifted back, inching closer to the sorcerer and Caroline. I belly crawled the few feet and touched Caroline’s back. Her heartbeat was there, under my palm. I could barely feel it, but it was there.
I checked Peter next and was relieved when I felt his pulse. He might have been a pain in the ass, one who forced me to pull out my own eye, but he had led us to Caroline while putting his life on the line to do so. I could forgive a lot for that one act.
“Fine,” Elinor snapped. “Have it your way, but you had better make good on your promises.”
Careful, vampire. Your fangs can’t touch me, but I can still affect you.
Her face twisted, but she didn’t argue again, just advanced on me.
Don’t worry, you’ll get what’s coming to you,the demon murmured. I got the feeling he hadn’t meant that to be overheard by anyone, especially not the vampire looming over me.
I started for my gun, knowing that whatever came next would not work in my favor. Her hand darted forward, burying itself in my stomach. It withdrew, covered in blood and leaving a fist sized hole hemorrhaging blood.
I screamed, an animal sound of pain. My hands covered the wound, desperate to stem the bleeding. It gushed out anyways in great red spurts.
She must have hit an artery. Probably damaged the intestines. Cold crept in, sinking into my skin and down into my bones. My hands slipped away, the feeling in them fading. Too bad there wasn’t anybody left with enough of their faculties to administer first aid.
I tried calling to my power, that ball of magic deep inside, but it refused, hugging itself tight. Not even trying to redirect some of the tiny streams as the pixie had tried to show me worked.
Black bit at the edges of my vision. I was losing consciousness.
The demon loomed in my vision, his face less man and more beast, his slitted eyes bright yellow and a pair of fangs on him big enough to make grandma run and hide.
Finally.Smoke poured off him to consume me, streaking toward that ball of magic inside my core. I struggled lethargically, trying to force my will to assemble some type of defense but it slipped and slid, refusing to catch purchase.
I grasped further, reaching deep, seeking out anything that would help.
As if pulled from my body, I was suddenly in my mental forest, walking through a dark and dangerous world. Storm clouds pregnant with rain above. Wind lashed the branches, whipping them into a frenzy and sending pain stinging across my nerve endings. At the core of my mental forest, I came to a large oak in a clearing. One of the biggest I’d ever come across. Its branches stretching out like a lover reaching for the sky.
I walked closer, even as the sounds of the demon’s laughter echoed around me. Something in me compelled me to race for the shelter beneath its branches.
A large animal crashed in the forest behind me. I hurried. The branches stretched towards me as if they wanted to shield me from the monster coming for me.
I reached their shelter just as it sailed through the clearing and crashed to the forest floor behind me. It crouched, all traces of humanity gone from its form. A slavering, hairless beast, its eyes glinting with a mad lust.
Little vampire, what is this that you hide behind?
I took a step back, oddly comforted by the rough bark behind me.
He paced in a circle around the tree. I moved with him, keeping him in front of me.
Full of surprises.I’ve changed my mind. I’ll take you home with me. You’ll make a lovely piñata for the family.
“No, thanks,” I rasped. “You’re not really my type.”
He chuckled, his voice sounding like gravel in my ears.
I do hope your humor lasts. It’s always so much more rewarding breaking someone with a little gumption.
I wanted to assume this was another scare tactic, one meant to terrify me. He was non-corporeal whereas I was very much of the corporeal state. Taking me to his realm should have been impossible by the laws of physics.
Unfortunately, I’d learned in my short time in this world that very little was impossible.
“Why freeze people and leave them where they stand?” I asked.
I needed time to think.
I got the sense he cocked his head and looked at me quizzically.
