I wrench my arm sideways, snapping her neck. But that won't be enough, not for a vampire her age. Not for my maker.
So I don't stop.
I twist with everything I have left. The crack of her spine separating vibrates through my palms. She's still fighting, still clawing, so I keep going. I dig my fingers into the torn flesh of her throat and pull until muscle shreds and tendons snap like wet rope.
Her jaw is still working. Still trying to curse me.
I wrench her head free. The sound is wet and grinding, nothing clean about it. Her body spasms once, twice, then goes still.
I drop her head and watch it roll across the concrete until it comes to rest against a pillar. Eyes finally empty.
I stand over what's left of her, breathing hard despite not needing to breathe at all.
My maker. The woman who turned me, abandoned me, used me. Who watched me struggle and suffer and nearly die, and laughed about it. Who told me I was nothing but a weapon, a product, a thing designed for someone else's destruction.
She's dead. By my hand. With my strength.
I should feel triumphant. Instead, I feel... hollow. Empty. Like I've been running on rage for so long that without it, there's nothing left.
The silver blade is still lodged in my side. I wrap my hand around the hilt, grit my teeth, and pull.
The pain is blinding. I hear myself scream, distant, detached, like it's coming from someone else. The blade comes free with a wet sound, and I throw it away from me, watching it clatter across the concrete.
Blood pours from the wound. Too much blood. And something else, a wrongness spreading from the injury, radiating outward through my body.
The modifications will come undone, Valentina said.You'll die, just slower than me.
I can feel it starting. A destabilization deep in my core. Myblood turning against itself, fighting some internal war I can't see or understand. The silver wound in my side burns with a wrongness that goes beyond pain, like it's unraveling something fundamental.
Silver to your original modification site, Valentina said.The place where he first changed you. Now the changes will come undone.
Whatever Konstantin built into me, the silver is tearing it apart.
I stumble. Catch myself on a concrete pillar. The parking structure spins around me, lights blurring into smears of white and gray.
The silver is still working its way deeper, I realize. Spreading from the wound site. Destroying whatever it touches.
I slide down the pillar, leaving a streak of blood on the concrete. My legs won't hold me. My vision is tunneling, darkness creeping in at the edges.
Through the haze, I see Maximus and Konstantin.
They're both bloodied now. Both moving slower than before. Maximus has a gash across his chest that hasn't fully healed; Konstantin favors his left side where something seems to be broken.
But they're still fighting. Still matched. Neither willing to give ground.
Then Konstantin sees me.
His gaze moves from me, to Valentina's headless corpse, back to me slumped against the pillar, blood pooling at my feet. I watch him calculate. Watch him reassess.
"It seems my fledgling has exceeded expectations," he says to Maximus, loud enough for me to hear. "Killing her own maker. Impressive."
Maximus doesn't take the bait. Doesn't look away from Konstantin. "Surrender. This is over."
"Is it?" Konstantin smiles. "Your woman is dying, old friend. I can smell it from here. The silver is in her modification site, Valentina's little insurance policy. Whatever's happening to her, it's not going to stop on its own."
Now Maximus does look. Just a glance, a fraction of a second, but I see his expression change. See the fear flash across his face.
"We'll continue this another time," Konstantin says. "Go save my weapon. See if you can defuse her before I decide to use her."
