Dark Destiny (Dark Sentinel #1) - Lexxie Couper Page 0,94
fire, gnat corpses stuck to his chin. “Impressive.” He brushed at his sleeves with one hand and then the other. “You have improved since we last met.”
Patrick glared at him. “Where is my brother?”
Pestilence curled his lip. “Is there nothing more in that pathetic human brain of yours?”
Rage smashed through Patrick. He struck out, hurling a wall of sand at the First Horseman. “Where is my brother?”
Pestilence cried out, arms raised, hands shielding his face from the blasting grains. He stumbled backward, cowering from the onslaught of sand and force.
Pulling more sand from the beach, Patrick flung it at the faltering Horseman. More. More. Fury fueled him. Fury and fear.
Where was Ven? Was he alive? Dead?
“Where is my brother?” he roared, pummeling Pestilence with grain after grain after grain of raw glass. Slicing at his skin. Stripping it from his bones. “Where. Is. My. Brother?”
“Hey, fuckwit.”
Patrick swung to his left, his stare locking instantly on the strange vampire standing beside the wind-frenzied dangerous-surf flag.
The vamp grinned. “He’s here.”
He shoved something forward, a large something covered in blood that fell to the ground with a boneless thud, looking like it belonged in an abattoir from a horror movie and not on a beach in Australia.
Oh, Jesus…Patrick’s own blood ran to ice and his heart stilled. Ven.
“And now,” Pestilence smirked, rising to his feet. Blood trickled from a thousand tiny wounds in his flesh and a foam of black vomit dripped from his mouth and nose. Swiping sand from his shoulders, he crossed the beach to Ven’s motionless form and shoved his foot between Ven’s shoulder blades. “So are you.”
A heavy knot of fury twisted in Patrick’s chest. “Let Steven go.”
Pestilence laughed, his smirk triumphant and smug. “Why would I do that, Patrick Watkins?” He held out his arm and Ven snapped upright, eyes dazed, face bloody and bruised. “While I have Steven, I have you.”
With a wild laugh, the other vampire spun about, smashing Ven in the jaw with his heel. Patrick screamed, leaping forward. Intent on tearing the demon to pieces.
But before Patrick could destroy the distance between them, Pestilence grabbed Ven’s neck, holding his limp form as if it were a shield. “Not a good idea, lifeguard. Not unless you want me to rip your brother’s throat out. I think even a Sentinel would fail to survive such an attack from an entity of my stature.”
“You mean short-arsed and stinky?”
The barely audible mumble came from Ven and Pestilence hissed, a shudder wracking his frame. He flung Ven against the vampire, who snatched his neck in blood-tipped claws, driving him to his knees in the space of a heartbeat.
“He will be dead before you can draw breath, lifeguard,” Pestilence shouted, blazing stare locked on Patrick. “Move and he dies.”
Patrick froze, every fiber of his being feeling his brother’s pain. He stared at Ven’s slumped frame, the sight of his once-pale-but-healthy flesh now sallow and covered in weeping sores, filling him with agony. The sight of his brother’s once-unassailable strength beaten beyond death filling him with misery.
His throat slammed shut. He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t let his brother suffer. Not the one soul who’d spent his life, his death, doing everything in his power to protect him. The one person who always knew when he was sad, angry, scared. The one person who sacrificed it all to make sure Patrick lived.
Patrick choked back a sob. He couldn’t do this. Not to his brother. Not to Steven.
He turned from Ven’s shuddering, broken body and fixed Pestilence with a flat stare. “My brother’s life for mine.”
The wind picked up his words. Whipped them from his lips.
Pestilence smiled. Gleeful. Smug. “Of course.”
Driving his fingers into the soft center of his palms, Patrick drew a deep breath. What was to come would hurt, but for his brother he would face it all.
I’m sorry, Fred, but I can’t let Steven suffer for me anymore.
He began to drop to his knees, Pestilence’s stretching grin burning into his brain.
“Yes,” Pestilence whispered, his voice ringing with supreme elation. “Yes. The Cure shall surrender to the Disease and the Disease shall destroy the Cure.”
“Don’t you bloody dare!” Ven’s growl shattered the silence of the beach. A ripple distorted the very air around them and he surged to his feet, arms flinging wide, body transforming into a creature of immense size and might.
“The Sentinel!” Pestilence screeched.
Ven spun, massive black wings unfolding from his impossibly wide back, long, muscled arms reaching out to snare the vampire around the neck. His skin,