I pumped the action.
One for you. Another fireworks show that splattered charbroiled angel shoulder-meat across the walls.
That wreck must’ve screwed up something in my brain because I was pulling to the left. I’d been aiming for his head.
I racked the shotgun and picked another target that I wouldn’t miss by enough to matter.
One for you.
Most of the foot soldiers who weren’t on fire had pulled their sidearms and started shooting. They were probably wishing that they hadn’t brought pussy bullets to an armor-piercing incendiary round fight. I could feel the little nines and .22s slamming into my body, but the pain was far away, like listening to the bass line from a vehicle somewhere down the block.
My arm froze mid-pump. I tried to move, but it wouldn’t respond. It was like when Bailey had stuck that bag of garlic in my mouth or when Lonely paralyzed me.
Finally that nagging thought about darkness and headlights got through to my brain. It was nighttime.
No, not now!
But my arms wouldn’t move. I took a step, but couldn’t drag my other leg forward to catch me.
Not tonight, please, they’re going to be here in five minutes and I haven’t even got to Desty yet, please, please, please— I tipped forward. The shotgun butt slammed into my chest and levered me onto my side rather than let me hit the melted carpet face-first.
Stay awake!
I couldn’t.
*****
At the edge of the blackness, I heard fire crackling and voices yelling. Footsteps circled me. Wings rustled. I tried to force my eyelids open, but it was like they were nailed shut.
Only fucking vampire who sleeps at night. Wake up wake up wake up!
Someone laughed. The volume turned up on the world just enough that I recognized the voice.
“Mikal was right,” Kathan said. “You Whitneys may be annoying as all hell, but you’re so damned entertaining.”
Holding onto consciousness was too hard. It slipped away from me.
She needs you. They need you. Everybody’s depending on your sorry ass. Get. Up.
Gunfire. More yelling close by.
“Tough?” That was Dodge.
Scout yelled, “Is he—”
Dammit. The first team was here and I couldn’t open my eyes. Worthless piece of shit!
“Tough?” Sweaty hands grabbed me by the neck and shook me.
More gunfire. The hands let go.
“Dodge!” Somebody started shooting pop-pop-pop-pop without pausing. Twelve shots, then the snap of a pistol slide locking back. Whoever was shooting had just run dry.
Finally, my eyes cracked enough that I could see a blur. There was a pair of arms and man-boobs in a faded gray-green t-shirt less than a foot from my face. I tried to look up toward the head, but my eyes wouldn’t move. I didn’t need to see his stubbly, razor-burned cheeks and wide nose, though. I recognized the leather bracelet with the bronze bass picks riveted to it.
“Somebody help me!” A smaller set of hands grabbed me by the ankle and started pulling. My face stuck to the floor, then unstuck and squeaked across the tile. “Grab his other leg!”
Coyotes yipped and wings flapped all around me. Gunfire was everywhere.
Then a warm body grabbed me around the knee and elbow and heaved me up onto its shoulders, fireman style. My brain spun. I had to wake up. They were trying to take me out of the Dark Mansion, but I couldn’t leave yet. Desty was still in here somewhere.
“Let’s go!” Clarion yelled. “I got him. Go! Fall back!”
The shoulders jolted underneath me. I tried to move my mouth, shake my head, anything. All I could do was look at the blur of blood and skin that used to be the left side of Dodge Kelley’s face as they carried me away.
Desty
Even though the lunatic’s cell had almost warmed back up to my body temperature, I shivered. The blood was back. I hadn’t passed out or been drugged this time, but red swirled all around me in the darkness, a comforting ocean of blood, soothing away my pain. This time I could feel my hair floating in it, moving with the currents.
Kathan had found a way to make Tempie and me the same again, so he would probably escalate the torture now. At least they had stopped digging inside me with that coat hanger. That was something. Maybe they had finally realized that I couldn’t have been pregnant.
Theoretically speaking, I could’ve been. Vampires are dead, but they come back to life in a way after they drink from a living being. Some start breathing again, others may feel warm for a few minutes after feeding. What’s to say that they don’t make vampire condoms because blood livens up dead little swimmers?
No break in clinical distance came this time. I hadn’t been carefully detached and analyzing my situation anyway. When Kathan had offered to end the pain if I would just give in and become his familiar, something had snapped inside of me. I could feel what was left of it dangling like a bunch of broken cords inside my brain.
To join Kathan’s side now would be like agreeing to marry one of the foot soldiers who’d raped me if they pinkie swore not to rape me anymore. It wasn’t happening. They could systematically tear me to pieces, but I would not let myself be mentally handcuffed to that evil bastard. He was just as bad as the God who had let this happen. The only downside to not becoming Kathan’s familiar was that I wouldn’t be powerful enough to destroy both of them.
Unless that’s the lie Kathan wanted you to believe—that you needed him so you could destroy the world.
On the stairs after he’d first tried to enthrall me, Kathan had said that he could hear it written in my blood, that I was the other half of the Destroyer. If
