But it wasn’t him. The hands on her hurt, biting hard; she was thrown over something stonily muscular, and the world spun away underneath her.
Oh, fuck.
Being fireman-carried at high speed might have made her vomit as well, except her body simply refused. Bouncing, jouncing, sharply changing direction at random intervals, she tried to look for landmarks or direction; her braid had come loose and her hair was a wind-whipped cloud, denying even the briefest glimpse and as a bonus, attempting to climb into her nose and mouth as well.
By the time all motion came to an abrupt, screeching halt and she was nearly tossed from her carrier’s shoulders, landing on her feet with an effort that seemed to take every last bit of starch from her legs, the thirst was a rage in her throat and her teeth were hot, sensitive razor edges. A faint trace of metallic taste said she’d bitten the inside of her cheek, and the thin thread of coppery taste hit the back of her throat hard.
Jesus, please. Layla fetched up against something vertical, hard, and blessedly motionless—a wall sheathed in heavy dark wooden paneling. She clung to it gratefully, fingernails on her free hand driving in with a small splintering noise.
The cessation of windrush, heartbeats, crowd- and traffic-noise was almost as shocking as the sudden motionlessness. Her pulse was hummingbird wings in her throat, her wrists, even her ankles and behind her knees; a single other drum was beating in this space, slow and terrible. A quick shake to get hair out of her eyes, bumping the back of her skull against the wall, andthe sense of being watched was dismally familiar and uncanny at once.
It wasn’t Max’s gaze, she could justtell. She peered through long dark strands, and a flat, quiet voice spoke.
“You reek of my son.” A dark, musical tenor, the syllables weighted oddly, bearing the imprint of another language through textbook English as well as a strange, stilted effort to enunciate.
Pretty much as Max had spoken at first, but somehow this guy sounded far more strained. Almost as if he could barely force the words through a janky translating app on a weak, wavering wifi connection.
A shadow snapped into focus—tall and lean, topped with a mess of gleaming dark curls, and though sheknewit wasn’t Max hope sprang up wildly for the second time, filled her aching throat, and was just as quickly snuffed. The figure’s shoulders weren’t quite so broad, and instead of Max’s eerie focused stillness, this guy almost vibrated in place, a flood of jittering force just barely held in check.
Her new instincts spoke again, loud and clear. This creature wasold, far more ancient than Max. Strangely, though, he lacked the sense of leashed, smooth riptide strength Layla’s monster carried. So, old, but somehow not so… not as strong?
Plenty scary though. Oh, Lay, we are in the shit now.
The biter blurred into motion. Layla screamed, the sound trapped against a moist, folded sweater-cuff swallowing her hand—do vampires sweat, gotta find some research on that, a darkly hilarious thought—as she tried to back through the paneling. His palm slapped next to her left ear, his breath flooding her nose. The biter’s eyes were wide and dark, swelling wet crimson points eating the pupils. He inhaled deeply, and her own new eyesight was pitiless.
Hefeltancient, but the face inches from hers was barely old enough to buy beer. Skin perfect like Max’s, yes, but with a peculiar tender texture implying he’d never shaved; his nose was classically straight, his mouth chiseled though the top lip contorted, both sets of upper fangs fully displayed, gleaming softly.
The biter snuffled so hard his chest heaved, her hair stirred by moving air. His shoulders trembled, waves of shudders down to his rope sandals, and the bizarreness of being huffed by a vampire threatened to give her the screaming-meemie gigglesyet again.
It didn’t help that he was wearing… a bathrobe? No, a sort of knee-length tunic. Dark material gathered at his shoulders, a belt which looked like several different kinds of frayed rope braided together, his muscled arms bare and gleaming, his knees and shins equally naked, and those weird huaraches. Of course, Layla looked like a kid playing dress-up, swimming in Max’s sweater and dirty from dodging groups of vampires for what felt like hours, but this guy was just plainoutlandish.
Then his head darted forward, lizardlike, teeth snapping together with a solid, heavychuklike a clean break on a backroom pool table, and she screamed again as hot breath caressed the side of her throat not shielded by a raised arm. His heavy vibrating growl was a physical weight, pressing her against cold, slick wood, but the vampire didn’t bite her.
Instead, he recoiled, almost as if slapped. His teeth champed twice more and the red dots in his pupils dilated, liquid-glowing at the corners as if the light was saltwater tears.
Behind him loomed a cavernous parquet-floored space, and a tinkling overhead was a row of honest-to-gosh chandeliers marching along a ceiling full of plaster gewgaws and furbelows. They were only indifferently lit; several tiny electric bulbs loading each glass-and-metal confection fizzed and blinked, ontheir very last legs. Floor-length drapes clothed the side walls, stiff with dust, and the whole shebang seemed vaguely familiar.
Ballroom? What the hell?Where had she seen this before?
It was almost like trying to remember a red-stripe file while Pete and Dan argued over comms. No time to think, because the biter tilted his head back, his cheeks twitching madly as the fangs receded and normal, blunt human teeth—or the illusion of them—returned.
He had to do that in order to speak, apparently. His chin lowered, loose curls falling softly over his forehead, and this new, exotic terror examined her afresh.
“Not dead yet,” he said, that odd accent pushing at the vowels. The words were still clunky, either jammed together or weirdly spaced. “But is no matter. He shall do predicted, I will dispose of what’s left. You are indeedaima-glyza, that is good.”
He likes to talk. But he ain’t bit me yet, okay. Layla stared, folded sweater-cuff still clapped to her mouth, and tried to figure out what to do.
Submit if you are caught, Max whispered in memory.Do as you’re told… I will find you.
Sure, easy for him to say. She was, as usual and as always, on her own. The thought that this creature might try to hold her down and?—
No. She couldn’t think about that. Bad enough she was almostmissingMax, in some weird way, but this guy, thisthingwith its red-flashing eyes was somehow completely alien in some essential fashion, as the monster who had killed her team seemed not to be.
It wasn’t just the lizard-twitching or the mad flat shine in its eyes when the red light faded, or the jittering, shivering force only barely controlled. It was the singsong voice, the idea that it was wrapped in a world all its own and its intense,casually terrifying power could strike out at any moment, doing something completely unexpected.
Not to mention fatal.
Is this what bit him?Trying to imagine Max being infected by this crazyass thing, living with its moods for hundreds—no,thousandsof years—was horrifying, but she couldn’t waste time on that. Layla twitched, attempting to slide sideways along the wall, maybe buttonhook and bolt for half-open doors at the far end of the ballroom.
