sword, the tip of which scraped the ground. A red silk cravat was wound around his neck and on first glance it looked like his carotid artery had been severed and was spurting a geyser of blood down his front.
Cyrus’s gaze flew quickly over the rest of him, assessing him, weighing him as an opponent. He’d killed two Shadow Warriors apparently. Cyrus pondered whether Evie could take him all by herself. She was so slight in comparison. He mentally renewed his promise to be by her side when she decided the time had come to exact her vengeance.
‘Wh… what are you doing here?’ Victor finally managed to stutter.
‘It’s a good question and one we’re looking into,’ Cyrus answered as flippantly as he could muster.
Victor took a step towards him. Then, tentatively, looking like he wanted to reach out and touch him but was restraining himself: ‘How’s this possible?’ he asked, his voice tinged with wonder.
‘Maybe I’m like a cat, maybe I’ve got nine lives.’
Victor shook his head. ‘That doesn’t make sense. The prophecy …’ He broke off, still too shocked to form a complete sentence.
‘It was vague, wasn’t it? I mean it never actually said anything about dying. You just interpreted it that way,’ Vero interrupted.
Victor glanced quickly at Vero before turning back to Cyrus, still shaking his head. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’
Yeah, Cyrus thought, and what does make sense? Since finding himself naked walking down a street holding a sword, not very much had made any sense at all to him, but he was learning to go with the flow.
‘They turned up like about ten minutes ago,’ the guy RJ suddenly interrupted. ‘You said to invite them in, so I did.’
Victor barely glanced at the kid.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, directing the question at Vero and Ash.
‘A bunch of unhumans found us,’ Vero answered. ‘Came to our hideout. It’ll only be a matter of time before they find you guys too.’
Cyrus noted snarly thong girl and Butthead giving each other alarmed glances. Victor seemed less bothered by the news though, as if he’d already factored it into his plans.
‘Where’s Evie?’ was all he asked.
Cyrus’s head shot up. ‘Not here,’ he answered quickly. It earned him an interested glance.
‘The girl’s a pussy,’ the girl sneered.
Cyrus crossed the hallway, leapt the step and backed her against the banister before she had time to finish her sentence. ‘I hear you use that word one more time,’ he said, noting the gratifying bulge of her eyeballs as he pressed close into her, ‘I’m going to …’
‘You’re going to what?’ she snapped, cocking one pierced eyebrow at him.
He bit his bottom lip, considering ideas but finding his memory disconcertingly short of them. ‘Well,’ he said after a beat, ‘let’s just say it’s not going to be pleasant.’
She pouted, ‘Mmm, sounds fun,’ she answered back, her gaze lingering on his lips. ‘Any time, baby, you and me. I can take it.’
‘Just ignore her.’ It was Ash.
Cyrus gave the girl one last warning glare and spun around. ‘Where are you finding these people?’ he demanded of Victor.
‘We need reserves,’ Victor said eying him watchfully.
‘You mean cannon fodder?’
‘What are you talking about?’
It was the boy RJ. ‘What is he talking about?’ he repeated, aiming the question at Victor.
‘You’re the forlorn hope,’ Cyrus told him, simultaneously wondering how the hell he remembered random bits of military history but was still drawing a blank on his own conquests.
‘What the hell does that mean? The forlorn hope?’ RJ asked, his voice high as a little girl’s.
‘That was the soldiers they threw ahead of the army in the old days to take all the enemy fire. Can you guess why it was called forlorn? Yeah,’ Cyrus continued, before RJ could even hazard a guess, ‘that’s right, because none of them ever survived.’
‘Is he joking?’ The boy stared pleadingly up at Victor for reassurance.
‘No, I’m not joking,’ Cyrus said, wanting to scare the kid. Evie was right. There was no way these two were going to be of any help when it came to fighting. They were only going to get in the way and get themselves killed, or worse, get one of the others killed.
‘Yes, he’s joking,’ Victor told the kid. ‘He’s trying to scare you.’
‘You should be scared,’ Cyrus spat through a clenched jaw.
‘It isn’t right, taking kids off the street,’ Vero murmured, ‘getting them involved in this.’
‘I’m not a kid,’ RJ protested.
‘We’re outnumbered,’ Victor hissed. ‘I’ll take what I can find. I took you and your sister