The Shadows (Black Dagger Brotherhood #13) - J. R. Ward Page 0,141

everybody.

Really.

It was.

FORTY-FIVE

“It’s dead! Fates, it is gone—will you stop!”

No, Xcor thought. He would not.

As he continued stabbing the lesser, black blood speckled his face, his chest, his forearm. Black blood pooled on the cold asphalt of the alley. Black blood got into his eyes.

And still he kept with the assault, his shoulder driving the blade into the torso everywhere but the hollow chest as Zypher yelled at him, pulled at him, cursed at him.

That was all for naught. Unhinged, he was a beast without a leash, his mind floating above the exertion, driving him ever onward to kill, kill, kill—

The yank that finally pulled him free of his prey was that of a tow truck, the force enough to separate him from the mangled, oozing carcass.

He did not take the unconsented-to relocation well. Swinging around, he slashed his dagger through the air, narrowly missing Zypher’s throat. And as the soldier leaped out of range, Zypher unholstered his own weapon, prepared to fight.

Caught in between a lunge and a relenting, Xcor panted, great clouds coming out of his mouth. He had left the deserted farmhouse without any of them, bursting out and heading to the theater of conflict half-naked and fully crazed.

And it had been for his soldiers’ own good.

“What is wrong with you!” Zypher demanded. “What ails you!”

Xcor bared his teeth. “Leave me alone.”

“So you can get yourself killed?”

“Leave me!”

The echo of his shout rebounded up and out of the alley, the words bouncing back and forth between the brick walls of the buildings before careening into darkness like bats released from a cave.

Zypher’s face was pure fury. “They have guns, remember? Or is last night too dim a memory for you!”

“They have always had guns!”

“Not like those!”

Xcor looked down at the slayer. Even mostly dismembered, it was still moving, arms grasping at thin air in slow motion, legs sawing in a stew of innards and black oil.

Snarling at the thing, he let out a shout and then stabbed it into oblivion. The light was so bright he was blinded by the flash, his retinas revolting at the glare. But the readjustment came quickly, each blink clearing his vision further.

He just needed more. He needed to find more—and he needed something else, too.

“Get me a whore,” he barked.

Zypher recoiled. “What?”

“You heard me. Find me one. Bring her to the cottage.”

“Human or vampire?”

“It matters not. Just make sure she’s paid enough to be willing.”

He expected questions. There were none.

Zypher merely inclined his head. “As you wish.”

Xcor wheeled away, prepared to hunt and fight and kill. And before jogging off, he glared over his shoulder. “Blonde. I want a blonde. And she must have long hair.”

“I know who to call.”

With a nod, Xcor ran down the alley, his combats thundering over the rough pavement. Sniffing the breeze, his brain filtered through the smells of diesel fumes and cheap restaurants, and humans that were homeless and unbathed, and rotting fish in the river.

His rage at himself sharpened every sense he had—

“Hey, man, you looking for a taste?”

Pulling his body up short, he turned around, but knew from the scent coming at him on the gusts that it was no human who stood in the shadows.

The enemy he was looking for had found him, the lesser as yet unaware of who it was speaking to.

“Aye,” he said. “I would like a taste.”

“Foreign motherfucker,” the slayer said. “What do you want?”

“Whate’er do you have?”

“I got the good stuff. Pure Columbian white powder H, not that Mexican black tar—”

Xcor did not allow the sales pitch to continue to a completion. With a vicious lunge, he leapt forward and swung his dagger in an arc, clipping the slayer right across the front of the face at eye level. Instantly, the undead brought up his hands, bending in half, howling in pain—and Xcor took advantage of that, hauling back his right boot and spinning it around, kicking the skull like it was a soccer ball, sending the undead flying off its feet to the side.

Leaping high into the air, he landed on the lesser, rolled it over, and trapped its hands over its head in one of his palms. The stench was rancid milk and fetid sweat, and that sweet smell triggered his kill reflex.

The rage he had been unable to contain since Layla had left came out once more. Holstering his dagger, he curled up a fist with his dominant hand and drove it into the pale face of the lesser over and over and over again,