That’s the bloody mess on the floor of the lobby. Something happened there. Something that doesn’t have anything to do with me.
I’m still trying to put all these pieces together when I sense a weird vibrational change.
I slowly turn my head to the left where the woods are and immediately feel adrift. Like the floor has fallen away beneath my feet. It takes me a moment to realize I have risen up in the air. My wings aren’t even spread out, I just… rose up.
It’s an instinct, I realize. A response to a threat. Because coming out of the woods are… they are… I don’t have a word ready for what they are.
Because they arenotscions.
They are not vampires, either.
They are…dead.
Every zombie movie I’ve ever seen flashes though my mind. And this is the same moment when they see me, because their arms reach out for me, and they begin to run as a horde.
My eyebrows go up, that’s how confused I am.
What the hell do they think they’re doing? Are they going toattackme?
I actually laugh.
But then Josep appears between the trees and some of the puzzle pieces start slipping into place.
Paul’s little vials and puddings.
Splitting his scions in half.
Sending Syrsee and me to live in a dreamwalk while some of the scions drank us and some of them didn’t.
This isn’t the birth of the American Vampire, this is awar.
Josep versus Paul.
The Darkness versus… well, that’s where my understanding ends and I don’t have any more time to think about it because Josep is here. He is tall, and muscular, and beautiful. His skin is blue-black and as he exits the trees his wings stretch out and rise up so far on either side of his body, they block out the sun. And as this shadow falls over me, three things happen at the same time:
One, he smiles and his eyes light up with blood lust.
Two, my wings rise up as I bare my fangs and growl.
And three, the horde is here. Right below me. Reaching up with half-decomposed hands, trying to pull me out of the air. They look like they’ve been buried in the ground for decades, clothing tattered and dirty, faces contorted into expressions I don’t even have words to describe—but the most noticeable thing is their scent.
That’s not earth. It’s not dirt or death, either.
It’s blood lust.
I’ve never attached a smell to this longing to feed, but this is what it smells like.
And in their eyes is a singular look. A focus so intense, there’s no way to miss it.
They are hungry forme.
