“Yes, Phillip knows well what will happen.” A breath of a promise, of death, filled the air.
There was no secret there, not because Phillip or his insane little wife had told it, simply because the Deadly Dozen, as they had once called themselves, always protected their own asses against one another. That fact had been learned the first time the blood of a member had been shed. The others should be worried by now. HR should have been concerned enough to use caution in coming here.
Tonight, death would lose another member of its evil little group.
Alonzo could sense it, it was there in the waves of fear beginning to fill the air. His heartbeat echoed in the night, the stench of his cowardice wrapped around the senses.
“You’re not going to kill me.” The bastard tried to bluff. He should know better.
Canines flashed in the night. Alonzo’s gaze locked on the sight as his heavy jowls trembled.
“You were here. You smiled.” Agony twisted and bloomed in colors of red. “You laughed as they died. I’ll laugh now as you die.”
Forcing back the pain didn’t always work. It was always there, always spearing the soul like a poison-tipped sword as the voice weakened and became hoarse.
Alonzo swallowed; a whimper nearly left his throat.
“You’ll never get away with it.” Terror was thick in the mountains once more, but this time, it wasn’t a Breed’s terror. It was just a human’s. A human of no worth.
“Perhaps getting away with it isn’t my aim.”
“You’ll destroy the Breeds,” Alonzo charged furiously as he began to back away. “My death won’t go unnoticed.”
“They don’t even know who I am, why should I care about them?” It was a hiss of fury, of hatred. “Let them deal with it however they will. You are no longer an equation in their battle.”
He stumbled, then righted himself. His eyes widened. His face went white.
“You don’t want to do this.”
“I did the others. The doctor, the lawyer, the sheriff and the mayor, the police officer.” The words were a sigh of pleasure, almost of ecstasy. “It was good, Alonzo. I tasted their fear, I feasted on their blood. And it was good.”
He froze. Like a deer caught in the brilliant rays of a headlight.
“You,” he breathed. “You’re the one that killed them.”
A chuckle filled the night. The last Breed they could have suspected. It was perfect. It was just perfect revenge. Just a study in exacting revenge.
“It was I.” It was a soul stained with blood, with death, with the need for more. “And now it’s your turn.”
His head shook. His body shook. What was the saying? Like a bowlful of Jell-O? It wiggled and trembled and swayed with terror.
“You can’t do this,” Alonzo wheezed.
Canines flashed again. Sharp, extended. Prepared.
“Good-bye, you little motherfucker. May you burn in hell.”
He turned to run, but there was really no place to run. His screams tore through the night, but there was no one there to care. The gurgle of death, the spurt of blood, the sound of flesh ripping open was a symphony that filled the soul, as the taste of tainted blood touched the tongue.
It had begun here. In these mountains. The dream of freedom had turned to horror. Pain and death and the knowledge that there was no true life, no true freedom. There was this though. The taste of blood. The feel of a diseased soul leaving the body, and the sound of a scream of triumph as life slowly gave its last gasping attempt to survive before succumbing to death.
Alonzo had once sought a Breed known for her killing abilities. She had been called Death. But she hadn’t been Death. She had been living, breathing. She had a soul, a mate and a life. That wasn’t true death. Death had no soul. It had no mate. It had no life. True death had no dreams and no heart.
Crouched over Alonzo’s lifeless body, tasting his blood, feeling it like warm silk flowing through fingers that knew only cold, knew only pain. This was Death.
And Death screamed in triumph rather than pain. Death howled in pleasure rather than horror.
Or was it all the same?