Bitten to Death

Chapter Twenty-Three

Get up real slow,” said Old-Timer.

I couldn’t have moved any other way. In fact, Blondie’s blows to my kidneys and lungs made me think it would be nice if an elderly lady would appear beside me with her walker, which I could then attempt to summit. I did consider grabbing the wall for support as I tried to rise. But they’d like that too much. So I just let my mind scream, Ow! Ow, ow-ow-ow! as I made it first to my knees and then to my feet.

At which point I realized Overbite had Dave covered as well.

“Have a seat,” ordered Old-Timer, pointing his gun at the fountain-bound wicker, his other arm hanging useless at his side.

Overbite shook his barrel at Dave. We both began walking.

I don’t know how many steps I’d taken, enough to feel like I was going to make it to the chair before they killed me, when pain lanced through my back. I spun, barely stifling a scream as I realized I’d been cut; that huge droplets of blood had splashed onto the seat cushions and into the fountain behind me. Blondie stood before me, his dagger red and dripping, his smile wide and lustful.

Screw getting shot. I’m going to kick your pretty teeth in, I thought wildly. With Old-Timer standing to my left, and Overbite to my right, the latter holding his gun to my chest, it wasn’t going to be a long, drawn-out revenge. But I thought I might at least get to wipe that disgusting look off his face before I died.

Mohawk beat me to it. He shouted from the doorway, where he stood watching, holding his damaged wrist with his good hand. “These are proven warriors! They have earned an honorable death!”

“Who are you to decide?” Blondie demanded. “I am Samos’s field commander.”

“Not after he learns you lost his dog.”

Blondie flinched, his eyes going just round enough to make me wonder what kind of punishment Samos would mete out to an underling who’d screwed up as badly as he had.

Mohawk went on. “In fact, I think your only way clear of slow torture is to have died in battle retrieving Ziel. Which will, of course, leave Samos free to consider a new commander.” He nodded to Overbite and Old-Timer, who each nailed Blondie with a single shot. Blam, blam.

The crack of both guns going off simultaneously, even though they carried silencers, still sent a doomed whip of sound snapping through the room.

The impact, hard as double sledgehammers slamming into his skull, threw Blondie backward. He died before he hit the floor, his last expression one of mild surprise. Blood pooled beneath him, filling the cracks in the floorboards, running toward my boots as if to lick them in belated apology.

Old-Timer turned to speak to Mohawk, but before he could get the words out he was interrupted. By singing. Loud, raucous, off-key belting in the deep voice of a man who’s had way too much to drink, coming closer by the second.

“Well, it’s a girls’ night out. Honey, there ain’t no doubt. Hey!” Tarasios appeared, grinning happily in the doorway, his head practically on Mohawk’s shoulder. “Well, if it isn’t the exterminators. Did you find the cockroaches okay?” He glanced down. “Aw, look, a dead man!”

Crowding Mohawk aside by virtue of a drunken stumble combined with a sigh that had to smell strongly of the bottle of ouzo he held, Tarasios half knelt beside, half fell on Blondie.

“I know how you feel, buddy. I’m a”—pause for monster belch here—“a smidge under the weather myself. Love stinks, didja know that? Well”—he nodded wisely—“I’m here to tell ya. It stinks like . . .” He paused to think about it, took a whiff of his own armpits, and nodded his head. “Yup, that would be me.” His eyes wandered over to us. “How you doing?” he asked. “Enjoying your stay at the Heartbreak Hotel?” He suddenly launched into an amazing imitation of Elvis. “It’s down at the end of Lonely Street at Heartbreak Hotel.”

Overbite and the Old-Timer looked at each other, shrugged, and pointed their guns at Tarasios.

“Everybody freeze!” We did. Mostly out of surprise because the command came from the forgotten vampire who now stood in the bedroom doorway, hair standing on end, shirttails hanging, scratches running down his cheek, and a large malamute tucked under his left arm. Ziel’s head drooped and every few seconds he licked at his nose, which I suspected had taken a thump sometime during his struggle not to be caught by the dude who currently dangled him like a naughty child.

“Here is what we are going to do,” Vayl said. He stared down Samos’s men, one by one. The certainty in his voice a concrete barrier, he went on. “You are going to pull your men out of this room. You have until the count of three, after which I will crush this animal like a beer can.”

Overbite’s face went red. I got excited. Maybe that was the sign that Bergman’s little robots had finally done their job. But no. The explosions going off inside his brain had nothing to do with my sci-guy’s technology.

Vayl said, “One.”

The Old-Timer raised his eyebrows at Mohawk. “I’ve seen bluffing. That’s not it.” Actually it was, but only I knew Vayl well enough to tell.

“Two.”

Mohawk gave his cohorts a curt nod. “All right, we’re leaving,” he said.

“All of your men,” Vayl insisted.

They paused to grab Blondie’s corpse by its arms and legs, which meant they had to holster their weapons. The second I saw those Baikals stored I pulled my own gun. I didn’t intend to shoot. We were at stalemate. I understood that. So did Mohawk, who’d pulled a Glock 37 from behind his back the second Vayl showed his hand.

“When do we get the dog back?” Mohawk demanded.

“We’ve got your number,” I told him. “We’ll call at dusk to let you know.”

Mohawk wanted to linger, do more negotiating, but shouting from a lower floor told him he was out of time. “Dusk,” he said firmly, trying to make it an order. They took off. I went to the door, but by the time I got there the hall held only a dusty gold chandelier and a framed print of a bunch of Christians being eaten by lions.

I turned to compliment Vayl on his quick thinking. But Dave stood in my way. “The cut on your back—I think it looks more spectacular than it actually is.” He winced and touched his fingertips to his jaw as his own injuries pained him. “You probably won’t even need—” But I didn’t hear the rest. A face, that face, had emerged from the pool of Blondie’s blood. I knew it was real because Ziel perked up his ears, looked straight at it, and then decided he wanted to bury his face in the gap between Vayl’s shirt buttons.

As my sverhamin dealt with the dog, the face blinked a couple of times, rolled its red eyes as if trying to get its bearings. And then it rose into the air.

“That’s new,” I murmured.

“What did you say?” asked Dave.

“I said that’s a new deal for me. Not needing stitches.”

“And not dying,” he added. I glanced up at him. Were we reverting to weird jokes? Already? I looked back at the face, hovering over the floor like a huge red mask. Nope, I’m not laughing yet. In fact, I’m trying pretty hard not to scream.

Because the face was staring in my direction, and once again he was horribly happy to see me.

Dave said something about leaving his first-aid kit in the bedroom when he’d changed clothes. As he went to retrieve it I wished he could’ve dabbed a little Neosporin and stretched some gauze across my damaged cerebrum. Vayl seemed pretty intent on Ziel, who’d gone slightly batty once he’d been set down, demanding lavish praise and repeated apologies for how he’d been threatened just now. Tarasios, still sitting in the spot where he’d collapsed earlier, seemed fascinated by the ceiling bots, so I decided it was as safe as it was ever going to be to confront my vision.

“What do you want now?” I hissed to the face.

“She is nearly finished with me!”

“Who?”

“The Destroyer.”

“This riddle shit is really pissing me off. Who is she?”

“You must stop her! Before she kills me!”

“You’re alive?”

A look of confusion twisted the face so severely that for a second it became an indecipherable blob. When I could make out features again, it blinked at me with such despair I actually felt a flash of sympathy. “It seems, for me, the answer is not so simple. But you and your sverhamin are essential. Only you can save the Trust.”

“The Trust?” I whispered. “Or you?”

“We are interchangeable.”

“Why?”

“Because . . .” The face drooped in defeat. “I cannot remember.”

Tarasios began to sing again. Not Elvis this time. Ed Cobb’s “Tainted Love.”

“Yes!” The face raised his bloody brows in triumph, shouting so loudly that I slapped my hand to my forehead. “Her mangled notions of love have brought me to this. You must undo the coil. You must save me. Save me and you save the sverhamin.”

“But you just said my sverhamin was supposed to save the Trust.”

“We are all One!”

“You are really bonkers, you know that?” I wasn’t exactly sure I was addressing the face.

“It is her you must kill,” he insisted. “The Destroyer. Kill her!”

“Her who?”

“I cannot capture her name in my mind. The . . . the Deyrar.” Oh. Her.

I cleared my throat. “Dude, you’ve dialed the wrong number. I’m just here for Samos. That’s it.”

His sigh ended almost in a sob. “Then all is truly lost.”