Page 94 of Slaying the Vampire Conqueror

“Atrius,” I choked out.

I dug more, pulled more, trying to get him out?—

And then he came free.

Not all of him.

His head.

His throat had been severed, the cut messy and dripping. His hair was matted with blood. I let out a choked sound of horror, but I couldn’t let him go. Couldn’t look away.

Look, the voice whispered.

And I lifted my head. Forced myself to take in something other than Atrius’s head.

And then I realized it—that the town was not empty.

No, I had missed the many, many rocks, one every few feet, in the sand of the beach, in the gritty dirt of the trees, in the vegetation.

Rocks that were not rocks at all. Rocks that were actually pieces of shoulders, or heads, or hands, or legs.

Hundreds of corpses.

In a panic, I leapt to my feet. I didn’t drop Atrius’s head—instead I clutched it to my chest, as if to protect him.

The clouds rolled in. Thunder roared. The first drops hit my head, hot and fast.

Of course it was blood.

This is a vision,I told myself.I can leave. I can stop this.

But no matter how many times I said it, I couldn’t bring myself to fully believe it. Nor could I bring myself to drop Atrius. I clutched him tight, in a gruesome embrace, and threw myself from the thread.

And together, we fell.

And fell.

And fell.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Iwas on my hands and knees, coughing violently, when my consciousness returned to my body. My chest burned. My stomach lurched. I gagged up a mouthful of stomach-sour salt water.

Atrius knelt beside me, his hand on my forearm. My clothes were soaking wet. I shivered violently.

“—tide is coming in,” Atrius was saying, as he dragged me across the beach. “I don’t want you to drown.”

Atrius.

It took a moment for me to come back to myself—to feel his presence, strong and forceful and very much alive.

He let go of me on a drier stretch of sand, and I had to resist the sudden, overpowering urge to throw myself against him.

“Here.” A heavy cloak fell around my shoulders. Atrius’s hands stayed there, on my arms, for a few seconds longer than they needed to. “Stay near the fire.”

I struggled to orient myself. “How l-long was I g-gone?”

I couldn’t keep my teeth from chattering. The moon seemed higher in the sky. I must have been Walking for quite some time, especially if the tide came in enough to reach me while I was under.

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