AllFreeNovel
Share Us
If Camil e hadn’t destroyed Vanzir for his actions, then was it my place to finish the job she’d chosen to leave undone?
“There’s more.” He was whispering now, staring at the floor.
“Oh Great Mother, no. What else?” I didn’t know how much more I could take.
“While I was . . . while we were . . . while I was fucking her, her eyes turned color—they flashed from violet to silver. And she said something. I’m not even sure she knows that she did. She said,
‘If you don’t like your nature, demon, then forsake it.’ And that’s when it happened.”
“What happened?” I was almost scared to hear.
“My feelers, my ability to feed on life force. I think it’s gone. When she said that, part of me was stripped away. It was horrible, someone inside me, tearing at me, rooting out an essential part of myself. And now, I can’t feed. I can’t even figure out how I used to. It’s like part of me is dead.” He stared at me, a bitter look in his eye. “Your sister did better than kil me. She destroyed what I am.
Now I real y am just a slave. A strong one, but . . . just a slave.”
As I gazed into his eyes, I knew he was tel ing the truth. There was no way he could lie about it to me. Vanzir was no longer able to feed. Camil e—or someone working through Camil e—had destroyed his most powerful weapon.
There was nothing left to say. I shifted back into gear and pul ed out from the curb, heading toward the FH-CSI building. This night just kept getting worse. For once, the thought of daylight and sleep loomed large like a promise of relief.
Chase was waiting. He glanced at the clock. “Cutting it thin, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, but this night has just made everything twice as hard as it should be. Any word on Morio?”
“Camil e’s sleeping in the bed next to him. Tril ian and Delilah are in the waiting room. So far, he’s holding his own. But they’ve run perilously low on the blood he needs. Delilah’s put out an emergency cal to the Supe Community and we’ve had donors straggling in the past hour or so, so that’s one good thing.”
“What the fuck is this about Wade being the serial kil er?”
“I know, I know. It’s ridiculous, but I can’t just ignore it. I have to check out any and al leads. The person who phoned in was male, that’s al I know. He claimed that Wade knew the women and had access to them. I can’t question him now—but on the last ray of sunset, I’l be at his door. I’d like you to meet me there.”
“Sure.” I frowned. “Sun is setting at around four twenty. Meet you there at four fifty?”
“Sounds good. And Menol y, I know you and Wade are on the outs, but I know you don’t want to see him go down for—”
“Actual y, we’re okay. For now, at least. And yeah, I don’t want to see him go down unless he actual y did something. I’l tel you now, it isn’t him. But I know you have to check things out. I’l see you this evening.”
I turned to Vanzir. “I’m heading home. Go trade off with Delilah. She’s going to need her sleep.
Tel her I’m headed home to bed. Make sure she gets her ass out of here. We need to be rested up, with al that’s going on.”
He nodded, not meeting my eyes.
“Vanzir, listen . . .” I paused, not knowing how to say what I was thinking, so final y I opted for just blurting it out as usual. “Whatever you did, Camil e seems to have decided it wasn’t worthy of death given the circumstances. She seems to have chosen her own form of punishment, and I’l admit, it was a doozy. So I’l leave it up to her. Obviously I’m pissed as hel , but . . .”
“I understand.” He raised one hand, then dropped it quickly and headed to the waiting room.
Al the way home, the events of the past twenty-four hours played through my mind. By the time I walked into the house, with thirty minutes to spare before sunrise, I was feeling more exhausted than I had in a long time. Iris had been dozing by the fire, curled up in an armchair. Maggie was in the playpen next to her side. I reached down and planted a soft kiss on the dewy, fuzzy leather of the gargoyle’s face. And then, without waking Iris, I slipped down to my lair and crashed into oblivious, dreamless sleep.
When I woke, I jumped into clean clothes and raced up the stairs, waiting impatiently for the kitchen to clear. Final y, I was able to slip out of my lair and into the living room.
“Morio? Is he—”
Iris nodded. She looked tired. I had a feeling it had been a long day for her. “He’s stil in critical condition. Sharah said there was something about the ghosts that made it worse. His wounds go deeper than just the stake in the liver. The ghost drained life energy out of him when it attacked.”
“Hungry ghosts. A variant of the hungry ghosts,” I whispered. There were several variations of the creatures. We’d come across one or two before, but these were powerful and angry. The thought of Ivana Krask having control over them was rather frightening, now that I thought about it.
But there was nothing to do about it.
“Yes,” Iris said. “They fed on him as his pain grew.”
