Lili St Crow - Defiance

Nosferatu crispy-critter really quickly; open flame or direct sunlight are really bad for them. But I wouldn’t put it past him to wait for the fire to be too much for me—I couldn’t move my left arm, my breath came in coughing gasps, and if he could get over getting stabbed in the heart and still have this much juice left a little thing like an entire fucking burning warehouse wasn’t going to put much of a dent in his day, you know?

Sergej darted forward again, the aspect bit down in my left side like there were metal jaws meeting in my flesh, and I battered his attack aside with my right-hand malaika again, with a thunder crack of pain and effort.

Over the roaring and the gunfire, another sound penetrated.

“DRU! DRU!”

My name, screamed over and over again. I knew that voice.

Christophe. Oh, God.

I didn’t take my eyes off Sergej. He shifted his weight, and I did too, Anna’s long-ago training echoing in my head. Her blood burned in me, whispered, tried to show me more of her . The touch pushed it back, making a fist inside my head so I could concentrate. He was going to come at me again, and I didn’t know if I could hold him off. The smoke thickened, tearing at my eyes just like the fluorescents. Who knew when the lights would give out, too? Something about the sound of the fire told me it was Serious Business.

Sergej dropped back a step. Two.

I stared. The aspect gave one last crunching flare of pain, then, amazingly, I took a deep breath. Smoke rasped against the blood-hunger; hot tears slicked my cheeks as I blinked furiously. The agony retreated, turned into a deep bruising ache, and I raised my left-hand blade. Held the malaika in second-guard, naturally as breathing, and straightened. My face settled, eyes narrowing, and I had the sudden lunatic idea that I looked like Dad.

Fury boiled up inside me, pushing aside the pain. The hunger fed on rage, feasted on it, and this time I was a clear glass girl full of red wrath, but it didn’t own me. I stood in the middle of all that anger, a ribbon of cold steel inside me, and felt something inside me shift like a key clicking over in a lock.

Sergej stepped back again. Under the dirty honey-gold curls, he looked almost . . . my God.

My God.

He looked frightened , his eyes completely black now, widening—but the force in them wasn’t reaching through to crush all independent thought. Fine thin threads of gray crawled out of his eyes, fanning like crow’s-feet toward his temples. A great gout of black stinking blood pattered down from his chest, slicking his jeans and boots, and for a split second I saw something else far back in his gaze.

Recognition.

Serves you right, you bastard . Do you see them? Do you see both my parents in my face? You’re not the only one. Come and get me. Come on.

The malaika twitched, my weight shifting forward just a crucial millimeter, playing through the very first initiation of the attack.

This is where the first mistakes are committed, Christophe’s voice said, dry and pedantic, inside my head. Why hadn’t I absorbed his training when he forced me to drink his blood?

But I couldn’t think about that. Because something blurred behind Sergej. A flash of black cloth, pain-darkened green eyes—

—and Graves skidded to a stop, lifted the gun, and started firing.

The first shot went wide. For the rest of my life I will swear, on a stack of Bibles if I have to, that I saw it as it whistled past my head and blew a chunk out of the wall behind me. A little more to the left and Graves would’ve shot me .

The second took Sergej high up on the shoulder from the back, just as the king vampire was whirling to face this new threat. The bullet blew out through the front of his shoulder, fragging and sending splinters, not to mention spatters of black acid blood, everywhere.

And I leapt. The hot hard lump of Anna’s blood in my middle was shrinking, and either the aspect was cooling off or the radiant heat from the fire down the hall was getting much more intense. Either way it was bad news, and we had to finish this, now.

My heart swelled up like a balloon. Graves braced himself, his coat flapping around his knees in the backdraft, and made his triangle, aiming carefully. He didn’t look particularly hurried, and I could see each bruise on him, smell the blood streaking him under the coat, and almost taste the colorless rage fuming off him as well. His lips skinned back from his teeth, and for a moment his eyes flashed bright emerald again. The wulfen Other filled his face with unholy light, and my heart made a funny jumping movement like it was going to break out of my ribs and fly straight toward him.

Sergej twisted back around, bringing up the iron spear. It was too late; I was already inside the critical zone, malaika both slashing in the crux au courant pattern. Christophe had only shown it to me once, but he’d taught it to Anna over and over, drilling her like he someday knew this would happen.

The blades bit. I was a little off, but not by much. One slashed across his face, grating against bone, and the other scored down his chest and bit into his midriff. The iron spear cracked against my shoulder in a flash of crimson pain; I went flying. Hit the wall on the other side, I was a regular old pinball, landed on my feet but my left-hand malaika went tumbling free. The fluorescents flickered, and there was a living glare from behind me.

The fire had found us.

Graves turned onhis heel, firing smoothly as Sergej barreled past him. I couldn’t hear the shots over the roaring. I meant to bend down and scoop up my malaika , only made it halfway before my knees gave out and hit the floor with a jarring thud. My fingers closed around the hilt just as my teeth snapped together, fangs piercing my lower lip, and I tasted blood again. Thankfully, it was the sweet crimson of my own blood, not someone else’s. The bloodhunger retreated to a tired glow, and I leaned back. The wall suddenly seemed incredibly comfortable.

Graves was suddenly there , looming over me. His face contorted; he was shouting. I stared up at him wonderingly. Even under the filth and blood and the ashen-gray tone to his skin, he was beautiful. I’d only seen bits of it before, but now that all the flesh was pared away from his bones he was . . .

He reached down and grabbed my arm. “MOVE!” he roared, a loup-garou ’s command voice breaking through the crackling rush of the flames. “DAMMIT, DRU, MOVE YOUR ASS!”

I found enough starch in my knees to stand up again. His fingers bit into my biceps, and I suspected I’d be feeling this all over tomorrow.

Assuming we lived to see tomorrow.

He dragged me down the hall, gun held low in his right hand. My malaika tips dragged; I couldn’t lift them but I didn’t want to leave them behind. We stumbled together, and the fire licked closer. Glass shattered behind us, and the draft got stronger. Air swirled around us, lifting my hair and teasing at his coat. The hall stretched like infinity; he slipped and I pitched aside, my dumb body weight keeping him upright; he returned the favor by yanking on my abused arm and almost getting the malaika ’s edge against his leg.

I didn’t realize we were running until we rounded a corner and saw the door. It had been busted off its hinges, and the wind around us became a scream. We plunged through the door and into sudden relatively-cool darkness full of little tiny kisses of spring rain.

I dropped the malaika , dug in my heels, grabbed Graves’s arm, and pushed with all the weary strength I had left. We went flying, rolling, his arms around me somehow and wet dirt squelching, as an amazing belch of red-yellow flame shot out of the open door. I lay on my side, cold water seeping into my jeans, and considered passing out.