creature away from the man, who leaned drunkenly against the cement wall, a silly grin on his handsome face. A good sign. They’d caught the rogue before he’d claimed the man’s life force.
“Paul!” Thalia ran to the vampire’s prey and supported him before he could slide down the wall. “We need to get him to a hospital.”
The creature he had yanked off the mortal looked like a walking skeleton. His wrinkled, yellow skin hung off his wasted frame like a hand-me-down suit. He had only wisps of coarse hair on his bald skull. The creature grinned, showing pointed bloodstained teeth. “You don’t recognize me, do you?”
It was true. Gideon could not recall this decayed remnant of a man. But as the vital blood from his youthful victim circulated through the rogue’s ancient veins, a transformation occurred. His flesh began to plump out. His sallow skin took on a wholesome glow. His crooked spine began to straighten. His shrunken body grew up and out.
Soon, a man Gideon did recognize stood before him.
“Akos.”
The man he despised more than any being in the world, next to himself. His nemesis. The man who had shown Gideon what he truly was. “I thought you were dead.”
“Far from it.”
The emaciated arm swelled in Gideon’s steely grasp. Muscles strained beneath his fingers. Akos would soon be strong enough to be a danger.
His old enemy laughed, a dry, rusty sound like a broken-down car refusing to start. “What are you going to do? You’re a wanted man, and the police will be by any second. Not time enough to take care of me and the boy.” He waved a hand in his victim’s direction.
Thalia had lost the fight to keep the man upright, and he’d slithered to the flooded pavement. Thalia pushed his head between his knees and forced his thighs up to his chest to aid his stuttering heart in its quest to push blood to his brain. Her face, blanched with concern, could not compete with the man’s waxen complexion. Gideon could hear the thready, irregular beat of the man’s heart. His cells, deprived of oxygen-rich blood, were dying. The man stood on the very threshold of death. He needed blood and fast.
Offering his blood might turn him, and Gideon had no idea what witch blood might do to him or how to get it in him. There was no time to spare. A hospital was his only chance.
Akos, flush from his aborted meal, but not at full strength, and without the augmentation of the Claiming, would be a fool to attack Gideon now.
Gideon flung the ancient’s wrist away and turned his back on his age-old rival. He stooped to gather the victim up in his arms.
Akos rushed him. Gideon spun and planted a sidekick in Akos’ middle, knocking him across the alley. He hit the wall of the next building and slid to the wet ground. Before he could rise, Gideon scooped up the dying man, grabbed Thalia’s hand, and teleported them directly outside the nearest hospital.
The suddenness of their arrival outside Highland Hospital’s Emergency Department startled Thalia. Disoriented, she froze, taking in her new surroundings.
“Get help!” Gideon said, urgently. “Tell them he got into a fight, and his opponent cut his throat. Go!”
Recovering her scattered wits, Thalia sprinted inside. Seconds later, she ran back out with two E.M.T.’s and a gurney. Paul lay on the curb, his jacket pillowing his head, barely conscious, a hand pressed to the wound at his neck.
Gideon was gone. She didn’t bother looking to see if he hid nearby. His presence affected her on a cellular level. She always knew when he was near.
He had left her.
She drew a deep breath, feeling strangely abandoned.
No doubt he’d gone back to find the man he’d called Akos. She needed to get back to him. Who knew how much energy he had expended teleporting?
Grunting with effort, the E.M.T.’s loaded Paul onto the gurney and rushed him inside. She trotted alongside, the soles of her sandals slipping on the shiny floor. She placed a hand on his forehead and uttered a quick healing spell under her breath. With any luck, it would keep him alive until they could transfuse him. They came to the doors that led to the E.R. and Thalia stopped, saying a prayer for good measure as the door closed behind them.
A kind and helpful man, Paul didn’t deserve to die for the crime of knowing her. None of the victims had deserved that—not Kimmy, or Sarah, or Grace, and