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Looked down in alarm, at the similar piece of wood sticking out of his own chest, the bloody tip glistening in the latest lightning blast.
Mircea had a second to see the red-haired woman standing over the body, her eyes huge, her hands still gripping the other end of the piece of wood. And then the master was hacking at him again and again and again, trying to finish the job. And Mircea was grabbing up a shard of his own, his fingers suddenly quicker, steadier, with the feel of an invisible hand covering his own.
Dorina, he thought, and she was savage, slashing across the creature’s throat, releasing a torrent of black blood, sticky as tar. It flooded over him—them—as he panted in shock and pain. And struggled to get away with the creature’s body pinning his legs.
But he was too clumsy and it was too heavy. Leaving him nowhere to go as the master slowly raised his head, the dark slash in his throat mirroring the grinning rictus on his face. And grabbed for his makeshift stake again, because the horror hadn’t bled out yet!
“Die! Die! Die!” Mircea was yelling and stabbing and scrabbling back, agony shooting up his spine as the true state of his legs became apparent. And as the master got the makeshift stake in him, more than once. And as Mircea kept twisting and turning and scuffling and slashing, to make sure it didn’t hit his heart—
And then watching as the master’s head went bouncing across the cobbles and fell into the canal, when a lucky strike finally finished the job.
He lay there, watching it bob among the waves for a moment, his mind blank with shock.
Until somebody slapped him.
The red-haired woman, Mircea realized, staring up at her.
“Move!” she screamed.
He moved. Not running or even walking, both of which were out of the question now, but crawling, if dragging himself by the arms counted. Because passing out, or cursing, or any of the other things one usually did in these cases, wouldn’t get him anything but dead. And he didn’t want to be dead.
But several hard minutes later, he could still see the space where the portal had been, sandwiched between the two stalls that had fallen over in the gale.
And right after that, the praetor’s voice had shaken whatever tiny hope he’d had left, leading him to his current state, sprawled against the side of the bridge, wondering if the booming sounds from above were God’s hysterical laughter.
Then the woman slapped him again.
“I said, where are the rest?” she screeched.
Mircea blinked up at her, mud and water and gore dripping off his face. “The rest of what?”
“Your companions! When are they coming for us?”
Mircea started wondering if fear had driven her mad. “Would I be in this condition if I had companions?”
She stared at him. And then she shook him. “What are you talking about? Where is the Circle? Where is Abramalin?”
“You know Abramalin?”
She stared at him some more, although he wasn’t sure how well human eyes could see in this light. But she must have seen something, because she managed to slap him again. “You weren’t sent to get me out?”
“Cease attacking me, woman!” Mircea snapped, and pushed her.
From his perspective, he’d barely touched her, but he sometimes forgot vampire strength. Or perhaps she slipped on the torrent raging across the cobblestones—he didn’t know. He knew only that she hit the side of the bridge, bounced off, and fell down the embankment.
Cazzo!
He scrambled after her, afraid she would drown. And she might have; the canal was roiling like the ocean, as if the whole city had somehow floated far out to sea. But she wasn’t in it.
“Abramalin! È un figlio di puttana! Un porco demonio, un miserabili pezzi di merda!”
Mircea blinked. He didn’t know if Abramalin was the son of a whore, but he was absolutely spawn of the devil and a miserable piece of shit. “He sent you in and then abandoned you,” he guessed, as she floundered around in a boat full of fish.
“He said he just wanted information! He said I wouldn’t get hurt!”
“Sounds familiar.”
She wiped her face, which didn’t help because the rain was still pelting down. “You, too?”
