had been about to take out two civilian vampires twenty minutes ago, what Phury was doing
was still wrong. The civilians had been saved. The enemy was incapacitated. The end should be
brought cleanly.
He didn't stop himself.
As the lesser howled in pain, Phury stuck with what he was doing to the thing, his hands and
blade moving swiftly through skin and vitals that smelled like baby powder. Black, glossy blood
ran onto the pavement and covered Phury's arms and oiled up his shitkickers and splashed onto
his leathers.
As he kept going, the slayer became a StairMaster for his fury and his self-hatred, an object to
work out the feelings. Naturally his actions made him think even less of himself, but he didn't
stop. Couldn't stop. His blood was propane and his emotions were flame and the combustion was
inescapable now that it had been ignited.
Focused on his gruesome project, he didn't hear the other lesser come up from behind. He caught
the whiff of baby powder right before the thing struck, and just barely wheeled out of the way of
the baseball bat that was aimed for his skull.
His rage shifted from the incapacitated slayer to the one that was up on its feet, and with his
warrior DNA screaming in his veins, he attacked. Leading with his black dagger, he ducked low
and came up for the abdomen.
He didn't make it. The lesser clipped him in the shoulder with the bat, then laid in a solid
backswing to Phury's good leg, catching the side of his knee. As he crumpled, he concentrated on
keeping hold of his dagger, but the slayer was all Jose Conseco with that aluminum number.
Another swing and the blade went flying away, twirling end over point, then dancing away
across a stretch of wet pavement.
The lesser jumped on Phury's chest and held him down by the throat, squeezing with a one-
handed grip that was strong as wire cable. Phury clapped a palm on the thing's thick wrist as his
windpipe compressed, but then suddenly he had issues other than hypoxia to worry about. The
slayer switched his grip on the bat, choking up until he was holding it in the middle. With deadly
focus he lifted his arm high and brought the butt of the bat down square on Phury's face.
The pain was a bomb burst in his cheek and eye, its white-hot shrapnel ricocheting throughout
his whole body.
And it was… curiously good. It overrode everything. All he knew was the heart-freezing impact
and the electric throbbing that came right afterward.
He liked it.
Through the one eye that was still working right, he saw the lesser lift the bat up again, piston-
style. Phury didn't even brace himself. He just watched the kinetics at work, knowing that the
muscles that were coordinating to elevate that piece of polished metal were going to tighten up
and bring that thing back down on his face again.
Death blow time, he thought dimly. His orbital bone was already shattered, in all likelihood, or at
the very least fractured. One more belt and it wasn't going to protect his gray matter anymore.
An image of the drawing he'd done of Bella came to him, and he saw what he had put to paper:
her sitting at the dining room table turned toward his twin, the love between them as tangible and
beautiful as silken cloth, as strong and enduring as tempered steel.
He said an ancient prayer for them and their young in the Old Language, one that wished them
all to be well until he met them in the Fade at some far, far future point. Until we live anew, was
the way it ended.
Phury let go of the slayer's wrist and repeated the phrase over and over again, dimly wondering
which one of the four words would be his last.
Except there was no impact. The lesser disappeared from atop him, just popped off his chest like
a puppet whose strings had been pulled.
Phury lay there, barely breathing, as a series of grunts echoed in the alley, and then a bright flash
of light went off. With his endorphins kicking in, he had a nice, spacey high that made him glow
with what felt like health, but was really evidence he was in deep shit.
Had the death blow already happened? Had that first one been enough to leave his brain
hemorrhaging?
Whatever. It felt good. The whole thing felt good, and he wondered whether this was what sex
was like. The afterwards, that was. Nothing but peaceful relaxation.
He thought about Zsadist coming up to him in the midst of that party months ago, a duffel bag in
his hand and a hellacious demand in his eyes. Phury had
| | |
|