Page 65 of Nightshade

Two guards seized Drystan from where he sat opposite the baron and brought him to the center of the room. The crowd remained hushed, as the guards pushed against the boy’s shoulders, urging him to his knees. Drystan’s dark and scornful eyes remained fixed on his punisher, a sight that only delighted the baron. As one of the guards attempted to remove his shirt, Drystan batted his hand away and unclasped the buttons himself.

The baron watched with great amusement and satisfaction. He rose slowly from his chair, setting the bird into flight, and strode toward the center of the room. Circling his cousin, he clasped his hands behind his back, staring down at the pathetic tattle-tale.

He bent forward and, placing his lips to Drystan’s ear, whispered, “Your humiliation is worth every moment of your retaliation.”

Drystan’s jaw clenched, mouth pressed to a hard line. He undoubtedly imagined the pain he’d inflict, but the baron didn’t care. Proper justice would be served for Lustina’s suffering.

20

Jericho

Crouching on the parapet of an abandoned building, I scanned the alley below that was lit only by the flickering gas lamps off the main street. A black raven sat perched on my shoulder, a pet I’d affectionately nicknamed Pita--pain in the ass. His real name was Cicatrix, due to the scar that marked the path of the arrow that’d once pierced him. In Nightshade, the birds served as spies, always feeding observations to their masters, and Cicatrix was most loyal, seeing as they were vinculum--a type of bond that allowed me to mentally communicate with the bird.

The occasions that I ventured out of the cathedral and into the nearby village were rare, but it so happened the shady snitch I’d come out to meet didn’t trust me enough to meet in a more secluded spot. While waiting for my informant to show, I’d happened upon a distraction, one that Cicatrix had alerted me to--a middle-aged man from what I could see, about six feet in height, slamming a rock into the skull of a boy. I recognized the blue laces of the shoe that lay on the ground beside them—it belonged to the boy from the market square. The sword I’d picked up that day lay across my arms, while I stared at the macabre scene taking place in the shadows beside rat-infested trashcans on wet, cobblestoned streets. The removal of the boy’s pants and the blood between his pale thighs suggested he’d been brutally sodomized prior to the kill, an unfortunate common occurrence in Nightshade.

One last blow, and the man sat back on his heels, breathing deeply.

I had arrived too late to intervene with the boy, but the night was young and the ache in my stomach told me opportunity still abounded.

I leapt from my perch, wings catching the air, and landed without so much of a thud onto the stony alley floor. With quiet steps, I approached the man from behind. The predacious nature of my kind made such encounters almost too easy, and before the man could turn to face me, fast as a thunderbolt I hauled him up from the ground and pinned him one handedly to the brick wall beside us, never once disturbing the sword still caught in my other grip.

The man’s hands flew to his throat, fiery amber eyes bulging with fear.

Cambion.

They always stank of the worst kind of sin.

“W … w … wait. P-p-please.” There were few things in this world that could terrify a half-breed, but a man with a long-standing reputation of Death never failed to stir a bit of panic. And given the tremble I could feel thrumming my appetite like the soft vibration of a spider’s web, the half-breed definitely feared his demise. “It was an accident.”

“It looked awfully intentional to me.”

“I didn’t mean to kill him.”

Most in Nightshade would’ve looked the other way and stolen the opportunity to feed on two souls. After all, when a human perished in Nightshade, their soul remained imprisoned in the place.

I tended to be less impulsive than most.

Closing my eye, I read the man’s past like the dog-eared pages of a weathered book. Growing up on a farm as a boy. His mother and stepfather beating him as a means of turning him into an acquiescent young man. And failing, of course. Catholic school. Torture and rape by the staff. Imprisonment. More rape.

By the time he’d been considered an adult, he’d been abused by countless men, and in turn had preyed on young boys, like the one bleeding out behind them.

“How noble to kill a child so young,” I said, opening my eye.

The man’s lips trembled and pursed with kettled rage.

“Perhaps you saw yourself in this young boy?” I taunted. “The victim that you were. Helpless and hopeless. Clawing for mercy.”

Tears shined in the man’s eyes, and if hate were a bomb inside of him, it’d only be a matter of seconds before he exploded from it. Of course, under the circumstances, he wouldn’t dare say a word.

“Get it over with, then. If you’re going to consume me, just do it.”

Head cocked to the side, I studied the resignation in the man’s eyes. How much I wanted to feed on it. To taste the bitter resolve against my tongue. “I’m going to grant you something you’ve not been given in a long time, Mr. Crane.”

Brows furrowed, the cambion stared back in confusion. “What?”

“A second chance. In exchange, you’re going to focus your efforts on something much more worthwhile than helpless, young boys.”

“I’ll do anything you ask of me. For your mercy.”