Burned

our blood!

Rephaim forced himself to be still and breathe in the night. He knew what he must do. He drank in one more deep breath, and then began: “I call upon the power of the spirit of ancient immortals, which is mine by birthright to command.” Rephaim steeled himself for the drain that the invocation would cause on his unhealed body, but as he drew power from the shadows of the night, he was surprised to feel a surge of energy. The night around him seemed swollen, throbbing with raw and ancient power. It gave him a sick sense of foreboding, but he used it all the same, channeling the power through him, preparing to charge it with the immortality carried in his blood, the blood that Stevie Rae now shared. But as it filled him, his body was consumed in an energy so fierce, so raw, that it knocked Rephaim to his knees.

His first hint that something miraculous was happening was when he realized that he’d automatically thrown both of his hands forward to catch himself—and both arms responded, even the one that had been broken and bound to his chest with a sling.

Rephaim stayed there on his knees, trembling and holding both arms out before him. His breath was coming fast as he flexed his hands.

“More!” he hissed the word. “Come to me!”

Dark energy surged into him again, a live current of cold violence he struggled to contain. Rephaim knew this indwelling was different than any he’d felt before when calling on the powers his father’s blood allowed him to access, but he was no callow youth. He had long trafficked with shadows and the base things that filled the night. Reaching deep within him, the Raven Mocker inhaled the energy, like the air of a midwinter’s night, and then he threw his arms wide at the same instant he unfurled his wings.

Both wings responded to him.

“Yes!” His joyous shout caused the shadows to writhe and quiver in ecstasy.

He was whole again! The wing was completely healed!

Rephaim leaped to his feet. Dark pinions completely extended, he looked like a magnificent sculpture of a godling, suddenly come to life. His body vibrating with power, the Raven Mocker continued the invocation. The air blazed scarlet as if a phosphorous mist of blood surrounded him. Swollen with borrowed Darkness, Rephaim’s voice rang in the night. “Through the immortal might of my father, Kalona, who seeded my blood and spirit with his legacy, I command this power that I wield in his name to lead me to the Red One—she who has tasted my blood, and with whom I have Imprinted and exchanged life debts. Take me to Stevie Rae! I command it so!”

The mist hovered for a moment, then shifted, and like a ribbon of scarlet silk, a thin, glistening path unfurled into the air before him. Swift and sure, Rephaim took to the sky and streaked after the beckoning Darkness.

He found her not far from the museum in a park shrouded by smoke and death. As he dropped silently from the sky, Rephaim wondered how the humans in the houses framing the area could be so oblivious to what had been loosed just outside the deceptive safety of their front doors.

The pool of black smoke was most concentrated in the heart of the park. Rephaim could just make out the top branches of a sturdy old oak under which chaos reigned. He slowed as he drew near it, though his wings were still spread around him, tasting the air and allowing him to move soundlessly and swiftly, even on the ground.

The fledgling didn’t notice him. But Rephaim realized that the boy probably wouldn’t have noticed the arrival of an army. All of his attention was focused on attempting to stab a long, lethal- looking knife through what appeared to be a circle of darkness that had coalesced into a solid wall—or at least that was how it manifested to the fledgling.

Rephaim was not a fledgling; he understood Darkness much better.

He skirted around the boy and, unseen, faced the circle at its northernmost point. He wasn’t sure if instinct or Stevie Rae’s influence drew him there, and acknowledged—though briefly—that the two might be becoming one.

He paused, and with a single, reluctant motion, closed his wings, folding them neatly against his back. Then he held up his hand and spoke softly to the scarlet mist that was still his to command. “Cloak me. Allow me to cross the barrier.” Rephaim curled his fist around the pulsing energy that gathered there, and then, with a flick of his fingers, scattered the mist over his body.

He expected the pain of it. Though there were aspects of immortal power that obeyed him, the obedience never came without a price. Very often that price was paid in pain. This time the pain burned through his newly healed body like lava, but he welcomed it because it meant his bidding had been done.

There was no way to make ready for what he might find within the circle. Rephaim simply gathered himself and, covered by the inherited strength of his father’s blood, he stepped forward. The wall of darkness opened to him.

Inside the circle Rephaim was engulfed in the scent of Stevie Rae’s blood and the overwhelming odor of death and decay.

“Please stop! I can’t stand any more! Kill me if that’s what you want, just don’t touch me again!”

He couldn’t see her, but Stevie Rae sounded utterly defeated. Acting quickly, Rephaim scooped some of the clinging scarlet mist from his body. “Go to her—strengthen her,” he whispered the command.

He heard Stevie Rae gasp and was almost sure she cried his name. Then the darkness parted to reveal a sight Rephaim would never forget, even should he live to be as ancient as his father.

Stevie Rae stood in the middle of the circle. Tendrils of sticky black threads wrapped around her legs. Wherever they touched her, they sliced her skin. Her jeans were ripped and hung on her body only in shreds. Blood seeped from her torn flesh. As he watched, another tendril snaked out of the soupy darkness surrounding them and lashed, whiplike, around her waist, instantly drawing a weeping line of blood. She moaned in pain, and her head lolled. Rephaim saw that her eyes had gone blank.

It was then that the beast made itself known. The instant he saw it, Rephaim knew beyond all doubt that he was staring at Darkness given form. It snorted, a terrible, deafening sound. Spewing blood and mucus and smoke, the bull tore the earth with his hooves. The creature stalked to Stevie Rae from out of the densest of the black smoke. Like moonlight in a crypt, the white bull’s coat looked like death as he towered over the girl. The creature was so massive that he had to dip his huge head to allow his tongue to lick at her bleeding waist.

Stevie Rae’s scream was echoed by Rephaim’s cry: “No!”

The great bull paused. His head turned to the Raven Mocker; his bottomless gaze held Rephaim’s.

“This night gets more and more interesting.” The voice rumbled through his mind. Rephaim forced down his fear as the bull took two steps toward him, shaking the ground as he scented the air.

“I smell Darkness on you.”

“Yes,” Rephaim spoke over the sound of the terrified beating of his heart. “I have long lived with Darkness.”

“Odd, then, that I do not know you.” The bull scented the air around him again. “Though I have known your father.”

“It is through the power of my father’s blood that I parted the dark curtain and stand before you.” He kept his eyes on the bull, but he was utterly aware that Stevie Rae was just feet away from him, bleeding and helpless.

“Is it? I think you lie, birdman.”

Though the voice in his mind didn’t change, Rephaim could feel the bull’s anger.

Staying calm, Rephaim scooped a finger down his chest, drawing a line of red mist