made. I didn’t save many of my people.
My people. That was telling. It wasn’t true that he hadn’t saved many; already she could see the vampires retreating, killing as they went, but falling back, unwilling to engage the hunter as he cut them down.
Vadim’s movement caught her eye and she turned her attention to him once more. The two men he’d killed lay like broken dolls and he kicked their bodies out of his path. One by one his brothers joined him. Then Fridrick and two others. They cut their wrists and dripped blood collectively into the wood of each horse and chariot, a black spell spewing from their vengeful mouths.
While Tariq fought off the small army of recruits, the Malinov brothers defiled his creation with their tainted blood. Then Vadim stood over each of the horses and chariots. Charlotte watched in horror as a small shadow was wrenched from him at each of the carvings. The shadows seemed alive, writhing as if in pain, wiggling like tadpoles. Vadim’s blood was dripped onto the things, and then each man spit, mixing his saliva with Vadim’s blood. The small, shadowy, wormlike creatures desperately tried to return to their maker, but Vadim sent the shadows deep into the wood.
One of those things was inside her. It had entered her, and even Tariq couldn’t remove it. She shivered, the cold so far into her bones that now she felt frozen. There was more to do, more to understand.
She fought to stay close to Vadim, although his presence repulsed her. The battle raged in the background and yet he didn’t even look at the army he’d created that Tariq was fast destroying. Vadim turned his head and muttered something to Fridrick, who grinned insanely and nodded.
First Fridrick brought a child to Vadim, a young boy no more than ten. Vadim barely looked at the boy. He simply picked up the child and tore into his throat. Blood sprayed over a horse. Vadim moved in a circle making certain the blood hit each of the horses. He murmured words while he did so. At first she could only see the dying child.
Come back now.
She couldn’t. There was something more. Something she had missed. Fridrick brought another victim to Vadim. A woman this time. He did the same thing without sparing her a glance. He tore into her throat and sprayed her blood over the horses and chariots. This time, Charlotte didn’t look at the woman or Vadim. She looked at the blood. The shadow rose up and swam through the blood, taking with it tiny cells she would never have seen if she’d been looking through human eyes. She was looking through eyes that were mostly Carpathian. The shadow consumed red blood cells.
That was how the curse worked. The victim of the splinter would wither and die. But how did the splinter multiply? How could there be more than one victim per horse or chariot?
Come back now or I will force you to do so.
Tariq was already doing so. She felt him yanking at her, pulling, but she barely heard his voice. Icicles formed on her skin. In her hair. She breathed them into her lungs until she had to fight for every breath she took. It was right there. Right in front of her. The wasting illness. The splinter somehow consumed the red blood cells and no amount of transfusions could save the victim once enough time had passed. Vadim would know instantly where that victim was and he could, at his leisure, should he be in the area, find and kill the man, woman or child.
But how did the splinter multiply? What had he done to make certain the cycle could repeat itself victim after victim? She tried to think about it but her brain felt mushy. Detached. She was cold. Icy even, but she couldn’t think what to do about it. The splinter was wholly Vadim’s, yet the same one could be used over and over. How? How had he done that?
She shivered, hearing a call, one she needed to answer, but she’d forgotten how. The saliva, she murmured. Something Vadim did when the others mixed their saliva with his blood. It hurt to think, but she had to know. They had to know, but now she wasn’t positive who they were. She shivered uncontrollably, trying to conjure up the scene in her mind, to pay attention to Vadim, not the others, as they spat onto the wiggling parasites and mixed saliva