large project that stretched from the thigh, up the rib cage, and over one shoulder.
I glanced at my friend. Nyx wore her pigtails stuffed through side holes of a black and white striped skully, a black Iron Maiden T-shirt, and a pair of black jeggings and clunky Mary Janes. She scrunched her nose and peered at me with those huge, blue expressive Nyx eyes. “Don’t ya think?”
I nodded, then froze. First, the fine hairs on the back of my neck rose. Chaz’s frantic yelp broke through my subconscious, and I leapt up. Second, a cold, frigid sensation crept over me. Third, my body jerked, totally on alert, and I scanned the living room. I’d toned my superhearing down so much that I’d not been paying attention as I should have. I’d definitely have to work on that.
“What’s wrong?” Nyx asked, then followed my actions and glanced nervously around the living room. “Did you hear something?”
Chaz’s growl, then high-pitched yelp met my ears.
“She definitely heard something,” a voice said from the darkened hallway, coming from my bedroom. “Didn’t ya, babe?”
I blinked, and three young male vampires stood in my apartment.
I hadn’t even heard them enter.
Too bad I hadn’t thought to sprinkle Preacher’s magic dust.
I jumped up. As I stared at the speaker’s youthful face, positive I didn’t recognize him, my hand eased down the front of my baggy jeans to the concealed silver blade strapped neatly against my thigh. “What’d you do to my fuckin’ dog, asshole?”
And in the very next split second, Nyx’s scream reverberated off my apartment walls as one of them grabbed my best friend by the throat.
Part Five Merciless
“Dark, dark! The horror of darkness, like a shroud, wraps me and bears me on through mist and cloud.”
“I’m pissed now. It’s one thing to fuck with me,
but fuck with my loved ones? My best friend?
My dog? Hell and no. I might be more arro-
gant than what’s good for me, but arrogance
might be what’s keeping me strong. Either that
or I’m just freaking ignorant. Whichever one
it is, I don’t care. I can kick serious ass now,
and I can do it without Eli’s help. Good thing,
too, because he’s long gone. Like it or not, I’m
not fully mortal anymore, so why not use my
tendencies to the fullest? You can bet your ass
I won’t sit around waiting to be rescued like
some weak little somethin’-somethin’. I got
shit to do, people to see, and vamps to slay—
all while running a goddamn business. Yeah,
I’m pissed.”
Pure silver blades do nasty things to vampires.
After this was over, I’d stash them all around my apartment.
Nyx’s scream died in her throat as the newling—a stocky blond guy about twenty-three years old—released her and dropped her to the ground. The blade I’d thrown at him lay buried to the hilt, straight through the pleather jacket he wore, directly into his heart. His opaque stare dulled as his body seized and contracted, and a painful gurgling emerged from his throat. Slowly, his fangs began to retract, and some white gooey stuff began to leak from his eyes and mouth. That was all I noticed, because the other two newlings dove toward me. I reacted.
In one leap, I fell onto the dying vampire, yanked the blade from his chest, crouched and leapt high, right at the two rushing me. In midair, I pulled my knees up to my chest, planted my feet against the rib cage of one, and pushed hard; he flew across the room and landed on an end table, shattering my favorite stain glass frame and falling against the wall. I plunged the blade into the other’s heart. He fell to the floor, writhing and seizing. I didn’t want to yank the blade out too soon, so I landed in a crouched position, my weight resting on my thighs, and faced the remaining vampire. He’d leapt to his feet and now crouched, waiting to pounce on me. He was older, about my age. I could tell he was not a new vamp; while his eyes were cloudy, insanely crazed, and vicious, I knew he was more experienced than the others. He wanted blood—mine or Nyx’s; it didn’t matter. And he had the patience to get it. I could hear my own heart, slow, sluggish, and Nyx’s beating a million times per minute like a hummingbird’s. She was terrified—so intensely that I could smell the scent of fear rolling off her body in the form of sweat.
“Riley,” Nyx said, as if she’d heard me thinking about her, lightly, barely audible, just a whisper, petrified.
I glanced at her; a fraction of a second. It was the distraction the vamp was waiting for.
He leapt and had me on my back in less time than it took to blink. The air whooshed from my lungs, and Nyx screamed again. With my arms pinned to my sides, I could do little more than stare up at my captor’s face. With distorted, gross, white skin with an exaggerated wide mouth and sharp fangs dropping from his gums, he was . . . horrifying, and barely recognizable as ever being human. His opaque gaze was fixed on the pulse at my throat. “Ready to die, bitch?” he said, his voice low, not human, determined.
“Grab the knife, Nyx,” I commanded gently, slowly, “from the other one. Now.”
So entranced was the bloodsucker straddling me that he didn’t even realize what I was trying to do. But Nyx was in shock and terrified. I knew before the words left my mouth that she wouldn’t be able to do it. I couldn’t blame her. She must be freaked out as hell.
“What?” she whispered, then sobbed.
I couldn’t wait. I inched my fingers to the pocket of my jeans, reaching for the sachet Preacher had given me earlier. Maybe the hoodoo powder would burn him enough that I could get him off me. The newling cocked his head, narrowed his milky eyes, and lunged at my throat.
My mouth opened; I sucked in a breath. I didn’t even have time to scream.
A silver blade whipped by my face and was just . . . suddenly there, buried in the vampire’s chest; a worn black Conversed foot shoved him backward off me. He landed with a thud against the wall and began to seize, gurgle, convulse. I turned away and stared up and into the troubled green eyes of my baby brother. He extended a hand. I grasped it, and he pulled me up.
“Why didn’t you call? From inside your head? Luc would’ve heard.” he said. Worry and anger sat etched into the lines on his forehead. “Why, Riley?” He pulled me into an embrace and squeezed me really hard. “They could have killed you and Nyx.”
Nyx.
I glanced over Seth’s shoulder and found her staring dead at me; blue eyes wide, horrified, her face drawn, even paler than usual. She’d backed against the wall, far from the dead/dying vampires, far from Seth, from the Duprés.
Far from me.
“Nyx,” I said, pushing out of Seth’s arms.
“No,” Nyx said, and held up a hand. “You . . . stay away,” she said, sobbing and trying to back up farther.
