her skin burned. By the time she reached the stairs, it felt like she was being eaten alive.
Biting her bottom lip and resisting the strengthening desire to scratch at her skin, she hesitated on the bottom step and stared up the stairs. The fog had closed in on the top few steps, making it impossible to see what was up there. But flashes of light bit through the gloom. Either this mist was accompanied by lightning, or someone was performing magic on the roof.
She flicked a knife down into her palm and cautiously began to climb. The old stairs creaked under her weight, the noise snapping through the misty hush surrounding her.
The lightning stopped, and so did she. She tightened her grip around the knife, her knuckles almost white. Nothing moved on the fog-bound landing above her, and no sound beyond the soft rasp of her breathing broke the silence. Yet the air itself seemed to quiver in expectation.
Someone was waiting. Someone she couldn't see.
She took another step forward and slashed at the fog with her knife. It recoiled away, reminding her, oddly, of plastic hit by flame.
She climbed on, slashing at the mist with every step. But as she neared the top landing, the retreat of the mist slowed, then stopped. She paused, staring at the wall of white a few steps above her. Was it just her imagination, or did deeper shadows lurk in the heart of the mist? There was no sound, no creak of wood, no movement to stir the white wall and indicate life—yet every instinct she had screamed she was no longer alone.
Lightning bit through the mist, blue flashes that smelled as foul as they felt. The ants eating at her skin became more frantic, telling her that whatever was happening on the roof was reaching a peak. She had to move, or she'd be too late.
She took a step and sound rumbled towards her.
A growl she'd heard before.
The wolves were back. Yellow flashed through the white—canines, bared in warning. She raised the knife, the blade gleaming with silver fire in the fog. A wolf stepped out of the mist, teeth bared, hackles raised.
'This knife is silver,' she warned, slashing the blade back and forth through the tendrils of mist swirling between them. 'Silver is deadly to shifters.'
The wolf didn't react. Maybe it was a real wolf, not a shifter.
She stepped up one more step. The wolf crouched, its growl rumbling harshly through the night.
'Don't,' she warned softly. 'I will kill you if I have to.'
The wolf's yellow gaze met hers. There was no humanity in those glowing depths. No understanding.
A real wolf, then.
She bit her lip, but she knew she had no choice. She had to stop whatever was happening on the roof, and the only way to do that was to go through this wolf.
She raised her foot to take the next step, and at that moment, the wolf launched. She threw herself sideways, hitting the wall of building with enough force to crack the wooden boards, and slashed at the wolf with the knife. The blade scoured the creature's side, but did little in the way of damage. But the animal landed awkwardly and tumbled down to the next landing. She hitched up her skirt and ran the last few steps to the top landing.
Only to discover the wolf wasn't alone.
The smell of blood and approaching death stung the tunnel's dank air. Michael paused, breathing deep the smell, feeling the richness of it through every pore. The source wasn't far ahead.
The darkness in him stirred, then settled. For whatever reason his demon had risen, he was again regaining control. As much as he enjoyed the taste of blood on the air, he had no intention of sampling the offering.
And that's what waited ahead.
An offering, not one of Dunleavy's sacrifice sites.
He moved forward more cautiously. The tunnel curved around to the right then widened out, becoming a junction with two other tunnels. There, in the middle, lay a man.
In the infrared of his vision, the stranger's body was a mass of pulsing red—but the heat of his blood was dying, just as the man was dying. He was naked, his torso marked with purple patches that indicated he'd taken a beating sometime in the last few hours. His hands and feet were tied with what looked like fishing line, the silvery thread glowing as brightly as the blood congealing on the floor near the stranger's neck.
Michael stopped beside him. The man's eyes were wide and staring, and the stark look of terror seemed frozen on his face. Odd, given he wasn't yet dead.
On his neck were bite marks. Dunleavy had obviously fed off him before he'd slashed the man's neck.
But he'd avoided the jugular, so the rush of blood was slower, as was the dying. Like the woman they'd discovered hanging from the ceiling, there was nothing to be done to help this man. He'd lost far too much blood, and most of his organs had already begun to shut down.
Michael squatted down and lightly touched the man's face. Narrowing his gaze, he reached out with his thoughts, trying to touch the stranger's mind. For a moment, it felt like he was trying to push through treacle. Energy danced around him, burning up his back and across his shoulders. He frowned, ignoring it, concentrating on reaching the man's thoughts. The sensation fled, and suddenly he was reliving the horror inflicted on the stranger.
Dunleavy had beaten him, defiled him. Then he'd frozen the man's thoughts and actions and fed off him.
The bastard might like the fear, the horror, of violating his victims sexually, but when it came to feeding, he preferred them knowing and helpless.
Oddly enough, though the sense of violence was clear and fresh in the man's dying thoughts, there were no impressions of Dunleavy himself. Just sensations. Emotions. And memories of Kinnard dragging the man into this tunnel.
Michael closed the stranger's eyes and quickly snapped his neck, giving him the death that was inevitable. He rose and moved down to look at the man's feet. Like the victim on the roof of the whorehouse, the stranger had the imprint of lips burned into his soles.
Something had fed while Dunleavy had defiled his victim.
Something he suspected might resemble a slug-like creature.
A creature whose energy was similar to Kinnard's.
Whether or not the two where one and the same, he couldn't really say, because there were some differences in the flow and resonance of body heat between the two. But that could very well come from the differences of form.
He'd never heard of, or met, a shifter who took the form of a large slug, but he'd hardly lived long enough to meet all the creatures on this Earth. But he'd known vampires who fed on emotions rather than blood, and they could die just as easily as regular vampires.
What killed Dunleavy would kill his sick little minion.
He rubbed a hand across his jaw as he looked toward the nearest tunnel. The air seemed fresher, indicating there might be some sort of opening close by. Maybe the same one Kinnard had used to drag the stranger here.
But he wasn't here to find an exit. He glanced at the other tunnel. The air there was thick and rich, full of the stench of earth, water and age. Underneath all that, the slightest taint of blood. That's where he had to go.
Again, power burned across his skin, and for a moment, his thoughts became confused. He should go right, find the exit…
He shook his head, and the pressure on his mind become more intense. He swore, fighting it, fists clenched against the urge to follow the orders pressing into his mind. He'd faced telepathic assaults before, and this was very similar. But during those other attacks, his own telepathy had been strong enough not only to repel but attack. This was far stronger than anything he'd faced before, and it had its base in magic rather than mind strength. There was no attacking, only surviving.
The witch was right, which meant she was probably right about other things—like the runes on his back and the magic surrounding this town. Like him knowing her more intimately than what he believed.
