“Uh-oh,” Ben mock-whispered, grinning. “Trouble in paradise, Mommy and Daddy are fighting?—”
“Will you just shut the entire fuck up?” Steve-o snarled—another shock, he was always so laid-back. “I’ve had about enough of your bullshit, man.”
Layla knew she should say something, anything to fix things, to smooth this over. The words dammed up in her throat, dry and horrible, and Dan’s face—once capable of making her melt like ice cream on a hot sidewalk—had turned into a stranger’s.
He lifted his Coors can, still staring at her with that cold, awful expression.
Ben belched again, the sound turning into words. “Brrrrr-uckyou.” He was probably proud of being able to perform that feat. “Shouldn’t have a cunt with us in the first place. Bad luck.”
Pete turned, his hip banging the trestle table, which squeaked and wobbled alarmingly. “Shut up,” he hissed. “Jesus Christ, you’re such a fucking amateur.”
“None of us are pros,” Ack weighed in, and thank God for that. If someone with a dick was playing peacemaker, it might have a chance of working. “Let’s just all calm do?—”
Ben was, of course, unwilling to be reasonable. “Oh,youthink you’re gonna get in the cunt’s pants? She don’t even notice you, man, you—ulp!”
At first she thought Steve had stood up, walked around the table, and punched him. But when Layla’s head turned, she saw Steve still in the camp chair, gazing at the spot where Ben had been. Steve’s jaw was loose, blue eyes cartoonishly round, and the shirt draped over the chair’s arm fluttered on a stray draft.
Where Ben had stood there was nothing. He’d vanished into thin air.
What the…
She couldn’t even finish the thought. A flicker in her peripheral vision, softwhuffof displaced air touching her cheek, and Dan’s chair hit the concrete, the Coors can describing a high, perfect arc before impact, splattering yeasty white foam. The trestle table wobbled harder, the tensor’s glow casting crazy shadows and stacked guns, knives, and ammo clips clattering uneasily.
“Run!” Ackerman yelled.
CHAPTER 4
He had dealtwith mortal hunters before—they had been a touch more effective, as such things went, before steam engines and factories. Perhaps something essential had been lost as those technological marvels rose. Still, the soldier had to admit many wonders were built in exchange, and cities in the old days had certainly smelled far worse.
He drifted in mistform near the ceiling for a short while, watching their interactions. The constant internal clock every child of the Blood bore ticked away, a slowly mounting warning. Dawn was closer than dusk, he could not linger overlong—but he was greedy for knowledge of his nymph’s mortal affairs, in order to arrange them most effectively.
What he saw was unpleasant. Play soldiers at best, save for the wary bare-chested brute who held his silence longest. Though this location was acceptable for a hidden camp and there was even a touch of intelligence evident in the arrangement of detritus to provide cover, they did not set a watch. No, the men were too busy arguing—and insulting their sole female companion—to notice danger.
Dismally unsurprising performance. Only the half-clad mortal would have proceeded past the initial application stages for catspaw duties; none were fit for consideration as dogsbodies. Not even cannon fodder, was his final evaluation.
Onlyshewas sensitive enough to discern his attention, often shivering and glancing about. The soldier had always thought he preferred women in gowns, but the denims clung lovingly to her legs and the peach cotton top showed her to advantage—though what would not? She was simply, sheerly incandescent, graceful even while holding herself stiffly, clearlyen gardeamong male animals.
Indeed the group was laughable, and on the edge of falling apart under its own inconsistencies. The soldier paid particular attention to the one who had pressed her against the wall—her scent still lingered upon him, though also saturating a few other corners of this ramshackle place. The group had been resident some while, and the only real surprise was the large photograph atop a stack of files, his own face clearly captured by film and telephoto lens.
Newer digital devices were easier to guard against.
Sloppy.Realizing just how rigid he had become, how unaware, was chilling. Fortunately she would cure him of that. Sound, sight, sensation poured through him, a glorious welter, and she was so verydistracting. Tendrils of dark hair escaping her braid framed a soft sweet face; even pulled tight with pain or fatigue her mouth was eminently soft, and her eyes lingered in a shade between wintersky blue and ice-grey, fine lavender lines in the iris. Her cheeks were drawn, her collarbones stood out starkly, and the cotton top’s short sleeves could not disguise new, dark-flowering bruises high upon her arms.
The evidence of damage was enough to make the beast in him turn coldly watchful, straining to leap upon whichever of the dolts below had dared lay a hand upon such fineness.
Leila, they called her. An eastron name, ancient even as sanguinant reckoned, lingering sweetly inside his chest like a struck crystal bell.
Then the mortal who watched her most avidly—each time the pug-nosed blond male addressed asBenspoke, a shadow of distaste crossed her expression—as he swilled the watered yellow water they called beer in this benighted age made the mistake of advancing to open insult.
Therefore, thisBenwas the one to be taken first, and the soldier’s only regret was that it was a swift death instead of the lingering agony such behavior deserved. At least the mortal’s blood was hot and fresh, absorbed within moments.
Next he took the most competent male—half-naked as a fighting Gaul, plucked from the flimsy chair and dead almost before the soldier reached the roofbeams with a struggling cargo. Just as he finished the last long, artery-pressurized swallow, the first mortal’s corpse hit the floor with a deep, almost amusing thud.
Which was lost in a cry of warning, for the mortals scattered—save for the sandy-blond man who had been merely, cruelly dismissive of little Leila. Her pulse had changed as she gazed at the one addressed asDan; the soldier took some pleasure in simply striking the blond’s head off its stem instead of draining him.
One precisely calibrated blow, cervical bone-cable snapping, and the soldier vanished before a single red droplet found itself free and jetted high from the stump of a mortal neck.
They were so very fragile. He would have to take much care with his prize both before and after the Gift wore through; leman did not reach the strength and speed of even an elder sanguinant. Perhaps it was payment for their immunity to ossification, and if so well worth the bargain.
