[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
initiates to claim his time and attention. He would always have another and another after
that. Warriors honored the fallen, but they had no time for tears. When she died, her
stakes would be placed beside the weapons of all those that had died before her. Would
they be stained with Dillon's blood?
Jade dried her skin and slipped into the pale pink, satin pajamas she'd bought while
shopping for a new computer. Rather than regretting her frivolous purchase, tonight she
sighed as the material slid softly against her skin. She had enjoyed very little softness in
her life. It soothed her now. The fabric was a simple pleasure, a safe indulgence.
Unlike Dillon.
All alone, away from the eyes of Haven, Jade pulled a forbidden treat from the
pocket of her backpack and sat down on the bed to savor it. The chocolate bar was
harmless. The lack of control it represented, less so. The paper crinkled in her fingers and
the lush scent of the candy rose up to chase away the memory of less pleasant smells
from earlier in the night. Her mouth watered as she broke off the first square and brought
it to her lips. Jade bit into the chocolate, and its rich, intoxicating flavor melted across her
tongue.
Dillon wasn't harmless. He wasn't throbbing house music or a powerful muscle car.
He wasn't daytime television or sweet, sweet chocolate. If she sampled Dillon, there
would be repercussions, a piper to pay. He was pure temptation, and if she succumbed,
her life would be forever changed.
Indulgence.
Jade chewed and swallowed the first chocolate square and then another. The
chocolate was a forbidden treat. Dillon was sin-walking. The difference in degree was
staggering.
She wanted to be more than stained stakes left behind to hear the prayers of those
poor souls who came after. Dillon saw her as more; she was sure of it. In her silky, satin
pajamas, Jade continued to eat her chocolate even when salty tears began to mix with its
sweetness.
She wanted someone to cry for her when she was gone just as she still cried for the
parents and the life she'd lost. She was honor bound to kill the one living creature she'd
ever known who saw her as something other than a killer.
* * * *
Dillon went back alone to finish what they had started. Dawn was hours away, time
enough to torch the worst hellhole he'd ever had the misfortune to encounter. He'd
thought the moldering Raveneaux mansion was bad. The deserted apartment building
made his former home seem like Shangri-freakin'-la.
Fury griped him tonight; it burned hot, needing to be set free. Jade shouldn't have
been ordered into that filth. She was fierce and strong. She'd had to be to survive the hand
life had dealt her. Still, when the battle had been over and she'd stumbled outside, he's
seen a stain on her eyes much like the one he saw behind his own eyelids every time he
blinked.
He had gone with her to find a hotel. He had checked her in, knowing the job
wouldn't be finished without a cleansing fire. Even shell-shocked and suffering, Jade
would have fought him before she'd let him start the blaze. She would have championed
the lost souls, the prostitutes and transients, that might get hurt. Dillon knew some souls
were too far gone to save.
This time, the neighborhood was still, more quiet than even a respectable suburb
where someone's dog might bark or television might play. The silence was unnatural. The
atmosphere seemed bruised by all it had witnessed earlier in the night.
He slowed to a walk. No telling how many vampires had fled the scene only to creep
back just before him. He slowed further and tilted his nose into the breeze, calling all his
senses to alert.
The incense was cloyingly sweet and out of place.
Dillon closed his eyes and breathed in the heavy scent of spice. With his eyes still
closed, he allowed the fragrance to direct his movements. He turned his body. He pivoted
on his heels. Then, he opened his eyes as another scent joined the first. Indefinable, the
second elusive scent followed the first warmer fragrance like a shadow flowing over the
sun. The second scent, though subtle, defined its source more than the first, and it chilled
even his cold bones to the marrow. Death.
"Prepare yourself. I send you back to Xbalba."
A dark shadow detached itself from the murky recesses of the nearest alley he faced.
It came toward Dillon slowly so that he knew it a revelation at a time. First, he saw its
large muscular build, then the glint of its black eyes, and finally the weapons it he held
in his hands, a gleaming whip and a staff tipped with lethal, pointed wood. It was a man
but not a human; the subtle scent of death reached out to Dillon as if it was a questing
alien aura looking for a new body to engulf.
"Can't go back to a place I've never been, Compadre," he told the man even as his
instincts tingled, preparing for a fight.
"An evil hunger lives inside of you. It controls. Corrupts. It must be returned to
where it belongs."
"And, how do you reckon on doin' that?" Dillon asked slipping even further into the
drawl he'd had when he'd been alive. He was sure he wasn't going to like the answer, and
he generally faced danger with a twang and a smile to cover the ferocity that would
follow.
"You must die," the man proclaimed.
"Now, there I've been. No shindig, let me tell ya'." Dillon loosened his joints and
prepared to meet the attack. "You won't take offense if I say 'no' to any plan that starts
with me dyin'."
The man was on him faster than he expected. Even knowing his opponent wasn't
human hadn't prepared him to meet a vampire's strength and speed in a warm-blooded
package. Suddenly, he was tackled by a supernatural linebacker with steel for a skeleton
and muscles made of granite.
Dillon didn't go down. He steeled his own spine and tightened his muscles at the
moment of impact so that his attacker's momentum could only propel his stiffened body
back three feet. The slide left black streaks on the sidewalk as it peeled some of the sole
from his boots. They slid long enough for Dillon to look into the coal black depths of the
man's eyes and see ash in his near future.
He didn't wait to see more. He went for what should have been weak points: the
hollow "soft" spot just beneath the sternum, the "tender" points above each kidney, the
neck, and the knees. His fists flew. His kicks were vicious.
The man was not invulnerable. His skin gave and bruised beneath Dillon's knuckles.
Blood welled up from the corner of his mouth. Yet, a lesser man would have hit the
pavement by the second blow and a vampire's neck would have cracked with the first
well-placed kick.
Disbelief flared beneath Dillon's skin as the man took his attack, blow for blow,
without going down. Then, the man flashed his whip, and Dillon's skin was sliced open,
again and again, so that bright splashes of disbelief spilled free to trickle down over
muscles that strained to resist.
His attacker didn't plunge forward to bury his pointed staff in Dillon's heart. They
continued to circle like boxers in a ring. Dillon continued to land blows that would have
felled most men. This man didn't fall. Instead, he lashed out with his whip, over and over
again, until it became nothing but a stinging blur painting fire across Dillon's skin.
The whip hissed through the still night air repeatedly, but only when Dillon stumbled
did he realize that his skin was being flayed from his bones faster than even a vampire
could regenerate. His vision blurred into a white haze, and his knees went weak. The
realization had come too late.
The whip continued its hissing even as Dillon fell. He was burning. The horrible
agonizing fire of his injuries claimed him so fiercely that he thought he might already be
disintegrating into ash.
Still, the sting of the whip penetrated his pain. Constant now, like a pit full of vipers [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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initiates to claim his time and attention. He would always have another and another after
that. Warriors honored the fallen, but they had no time for tears. When she died, her
stakes would be placed beside the weapons of all those that had died before her. Would
they be stained with Dillon's blood?
Jade dried her skin and slipped into the pale pink, satin pajamas she'd bought while
shopping for a new computer. Rather than regretting her frivolous purchase, tonight she
sighed as the material slid softly against her skin. She had enjoyed very little softness in
her life. It soothed her now. The fabric was a simple pleasure, a safe indulgence.
Unlike Dillon.
All alone, away from the eyes of Haven, Jade pulled a forbidden treat from the
pocket of her backpack and sat down on the bed to savor it. The chocolate bar was
harmless. The lack of control it represented, less so. The paper crinkled in her fingers and
the lush scent of the candy rose up to chase away the memory of less pleasant smells
from earlier in the night. Her mouth watered as she broke off the first square and brought
it to her lips. Jade bit into the chocolate, and its rich, intoxicating flavor melted across her
tongue.
Dillon wasn't harmless. He wasn't throbbing house music or a powerful muscle car.
He wasn't daytime television or sweet, sweet chocolate. If she sampled Dillon, there
would be repercussions, a piper to pay. He was pure temptation, and if she succumbed,
her life would be forever changed.
Indulgence.
Jade chewed and swallowed the first chocolate square and then another. The
chocolate was a forbidden treat. Dillon was sin-walking. The difference in degree was
staggering.
She wanted to be more than stained stakes left behind to hear the prayers of those
poor souls who came after. Dillon saw her as more; she was sure of it. In her silky, satin
pajamas, Jade continued to eat her chocolate even when salty tears began to mix with its
sweetness.
She wanted someone to cry for her when she was gone just as she still cried for the
parents and the life she'd lost. She was honor bound to kill the one living creature she'd
ever known who saw her as something other than a killer.
* * * *
Dillon went back alone to finish what they had started. Dawn was hours away, time
enough to torch the worst hellhole he'd ever had the misfortune to encounter. He'd
thought the moldering Raveneaux mansion was bad. The deserted apartment building
made his former home seem like Shangri-freakin'-la.
Fury griped him tonight; it burned hot, needing to be set free. Jade shouldn't have
been ordered into that filth. She was fierce and strong. She'd had to be to survive the hand
life had dealt her. Still, when the battle had been over and she'd stumbled outside, he's
seen a stain on her eyes much like the one he saw behind his own eyelids every time he
blinked.
He had gone with her to find a hotel. He had checked her in, knowing the job
wouldn't be finished without a cleansing fire. Even shell-shocked and suffering, Jade
would have fought him before she'd let him start the blaze. She would have championed
the lost souls, the prostitutes and transients, that might get hurt. Dillon knew some souls
were too far gone to save.
This time, the neighborhood was still, more quiet than even a respectable suburb
where someone's dog might bark or television might play. The silence was unnatural. The
atmosphere seemed bruised by all it had witnessed earlier in the night.
He slowed to a walk. No telling how many vampires had fled the scene only to creep
back just before him. He slowed further and tilted his nose into the breeze, calling all his
senses to alert.
The incense was cloyingly sweet and out of place.
Dillon closed his eyes and breathed in the heavy scent of spice. With his eyes still
closed, he allowed the fragrance to direct his movements. He turned his body. He pivoted
on his heels. Then, he opened his eyes as another scent joined the first. Indefinable, the
second elusive scent followed the first warmer fragrance like a shadow flowing over the
sun. The second scent, though subtle, defined its source more than the first, and it chilled
even his cold bones to the marrow. Death.
"Prepare yourself. I send you back to Xbalba."
A dark shadow detached itself from the murky recesses of the nearest alley he faced.
It came toward Dillon slowly so that he knew it a revelation at a time. First, he saw its
large muscular build, then the glint of its black eyes, and finally the weapons it he held
in his hands, a gleaming whip and a staff tipped with lethal, pointed wood. It was a man
but not a human; the subtle scent of death reached out to Dillon as if it was a questing
alien aura looking for a new body to engulf.
"Can't go back to a place I've never been, Compadre," he told the man even as his
instincts tingled, preparing for a fight.
"An evil hunger lives inside of you. It controls. Corrupts. It must be returned to
where it belongs."
"And, how do you reckon on doin' that?" Dillon asked slipping even further into the
drawl he'd had when he'd been alive. He was sure he wasn't going to like the answer, and
he generally faced danger with a twang and a smile to cover the ferocity that would
follow.
"You must die," the man proclaimed.
"Now, there I've been. No shindig, let me tell ya'." Dillon loosened his joints and
prepared to meet the attack. "You won't take offense if I say 'no' to any plan that starts
with me dyin'."
The man was on him faster than he expected. Even knowing his opponent wasn't
human hadn't prepared him to meet a vampire's strength and speed in a warm-blooded
package. Suddenly, he was tackled by a supernatural linebacker with steel for a skeleton
and muscles made of granite.
Dillon didn't go down. He steeled his own spine and tightened his muscles at the
moment of impact so that his attacker's momentum could only propel his stiffened body
back three feet. The slide left black streaks on the sidewalk as it peeled some of the sole
from his boots. They slid long enough for Dillon to look into the coal black depths of the
man's eyes and see ash in his near future.
He didn't wait to see more. He went for what should have been weak points: the
hollow "soft" spot just beneath the sternum, the "tender" points above each kidney, the
neck, and the knees. His fists flew. His kicks were vicious.
The man was not invulnerable. His skin gave and bruised beneath Dillon's knuckles.
Blood welled up from the corner of his mouth. Yet, a lesser man would have hit the
pavement by the second blow and a vampire's neck would have cracked with the first
well-placed kick.
Disbelief flared beneath Dillon's skin as the man took his attack, blow for blow,
without going down. Then, the man flashed his whip, and Dillon's skin was sliced open,
again and again, so that bright splashes of disbelief spilled free to trickle down over
muscles that strained to resist.
His attacker didn't plunge forward to bury his pointed staff in Dillon's heart. They
continued to circle like boxers in a ring. Dillon continued to land blows that would have
felled most men. This man didn't fall. Instead, he lashed out with his whip, over and over
again, until it became nothing but a stinging blur painting fire across Dillon's skin.
The whip hissed through the still night air repeatedly, but only when Dillon stumbled
did he realize that his skin was being flayed from his bones faster than even a vampire
could regenerate. His vision blurred into a white haze, and his knees went weak. The
realization had come too late.
The whip continued its hissing even as Dillon fell. He was burning. The horrible
agonizing fire of his injuries claimed him so fiercely that he thought he might already be
disintegrating into ash.
Still, the sting of the whip penetrated his pain. Constant now, like a pit full of vipers [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]