Bitten to Death

Somehow, probably aided by his Sensitivity, Dave managed to backpedal fast enough that the bear only got one hit on him before it fell. But it was a skull bender. A claw across the forehead that released a four-inch flap of skin and a gush of blood that instantly blinded him.

It’s like vamps, I reassured my jittering heart as I reached Dave and grabbed him by the arm. He can’t become a werebear unless the sucker damn near kills him first.

I jerked him away from the monster, whose wounds were already beginning to heal, and tried to lead him toward the door. But our way was blocked by Genti and his crew, who’d decided the best way to remove the bear was to roll it up in the tablecloth and drag it out. Rastus, Koren, and Meryl were hastily removing all the delicate and, no doubt, highly expensive tableware to chairs while Genti urged them on to greater speeds without lifting a single finger to help.

Are you kidding me?

I slammed Dave against the wall. “Don’t move!” I yelled, as he tried to clear the blood from his eyes.

I grabbed the edge of the nearest tablecloth and jerked.

You know that trick you see on TV, where the material slides out from beneath all the plates and glasses, leaving everything unmoved and perfectly intact? Too bad I can’t do that one.

China, hand-blown glass, silver, and bowl after tureen after platter of food crashed to the floor as Genti, Rastus, Koren, and Meryl gaped at me like the owners of an antiques store that’s just been rolled.

“Here!” I threw the cover at them. “Now move your asses!”

“How dare you!” cried Genti.

“Genti Luan!” Disa yelled. She hadn’t moved from her spot. She might not like getting her hands dirty, but she sure loved to throw her weight around. He responded instantly.

“Yes, Deyrar.”

“Wrap up that bear!”

While the Four Stooges got busy, I pulled Dave farther from danger. His shirt stuck to his chest, it was so soaked with blood. Too much of it, every damn where.

“You going to be okay?” I asked as I hustled him toward Vayl.

“Of course.” He would say that. If the creature had chewed off his arm he’d have wrapped a tourniquet around the stub and laughed it off as a flesh wound. My brother. The original Black Knight.

Shouting from the other side of the room distracted me. Niall, Admes, and their human guardian had surrounded the wolf. Or so it seemed. The human carried a small-caliber handgun, hard to see what kind from my angle. Admes held a sword. No way, my mind whispered. But I couldn’t mistake the nearly two-foot-long pointed blade with its ivory hilt. I’d seen the same model on display in the American Museum of Natural History the last time I’d hit New York. That’s a gladius. Admes is fighting with a sword that’s twice as old as Cassandra.

Dave’s new flame, whose psychic gifts had helped us out of a jam before the two had even met, had let slip that she’d been globe trotting for a thousand years. If Admes was as old as his blade, we must all seem like irritating little rugrats to him.

For all his age, the broad-shouldered vamp hadn’t lost any of his fighting skills. And the wolf seemed to recognize a worthy foe when it saw one. Or two, actually, because Niall was stirring powers that raised every hair on the back of my neck. The wolf must’ve felt them, too. Because, after hesitating for a few moments, it picked out the lone human and attacked.

I’ll give him this, the man Niall trusted to guard his sleep didn’t panic. He stood his ground, obviously meaning to empty his gun into the wolf, thinking he had plenty of time to take it down. But he’d underestimated how much the animal had healed and the speed at which it could move. It exploded into him, knocking him back into the wall, cracking his skull so hard I heard the impact from across the room. Before Niall and Admes could pull the Were off, it had ripped the man’s throat out, spewing arterial blood in ever-weakening bursts that marked the last beats of his heart.

For a second that was all I could see. Blood on the floor, the walls, my brother’s face, his shirt. And then a face swam out of that thick, dark fluid. One equipped with fangs that dripped so steadily it was as if they carried their own supply.

Its mouth twisted into an agonized grin. The eyes squeezed shut, fat tears trailing down the pitted cheeks of a man who looked like he’d survived slow torture only to find himself drowning in a pool of someone else’s life source. “Dearling girl, I knew you would come,” he gasped.

I hadn’t had a nightmare in weeks. Now I knew why. My demons had been saving up, pooling their freakies for one big BOO! that would instantly transport me to the horrors of my past. The ones I’d survived but hadn’t stomached—the deaths of Matt, Dave’s wife, Jessie, and our crew of Helsingers. This face didn’t resemble any of theirs. And the sickest part? I almost wished it had.

I shoved my left hand into my pocket. Clutched the engagement ring Matt had given me fourteen days before our last moment together. I kept it there as a sort of talisman against exactly this kind of event. I shut my eyes. Tight. When I opened them the face was gone. But I’d activated the special lenses I always wore. The ones Bergman had engineered that allowed me to see in the dark. For a second everything glowed green with that extra edge of dark yellow and maroon that my Sensitivity had added to the mix after Vayl had taken my blood when his regular supply had been tainted.

I didn’t need better vision, dammit! In fact, I wanted some kind of reverse Lasik. Yeah. Less graphic input, that’s the ticket. Because it’s getting to me just like that song “Doctor My Eyes” by Jackson Browne, I thought. I’ve left them open for too long.

Chapter Six

I stood by the shuttered and shaded window of the suite Disa’s boy toy, Tarasios, had led us to, watching Vayl stitch Dave’s head back together. But my mind was on the Weres.

Which I hadn’t hallucinated one single bit, thank you very much. Wait, I wasn’t happy about that either. But at