Page 229 of Hunters and Prey

He was a strangely tidy eater.

“What else did Miri tell you?” Black said finally.

Revik shrugged, chewing. He glanced at Black’s bowl.

“I thought you were hungry.”

“And I thought I was fucking dreaming all of this about twenty minutes ago,” Black growled. “Humor me, cousin. For our blood connection, if you can think of no other reason.”

Revik sighed, clicking a little.

He didn’t stop eating though.

His expression grew thoughtful as he speared another few chunks of green matter and red, and placed them in his mouth, chewing.

“She said you’re having trouble with Mythers, where you are,” Revik said after a pause. “And she’s worried her Uncle Charles is actively trying to recruit you, and you’re vulnerable to it right now, because of what those…” He let out a half-amused snort, like he couldn’t help himself. “…what those ‘vampires’ did to her.”

Black’s fear abruptly vanished, replaced by a colder anger.

“You think my wife’s rape is funny?”

Those glass eyes shifted up, staring at him.

“No,” he said, his voice hard that time, stripped of humor. “No, brother. Not in the slightest. I’m still wrapping my head around the whole ‘vampire’ thing, I admit––”

“They’re fucking real,” Black said, his voice still cold. “It’s not particularly funny, cousin. I doubt you’d find them so if you ran into them yourself.”

The other seer conceded his words with a reassuring wave.

“I apologize,” he said. “As I said, I haven’t fully wrapped my mind around that end of her story.” His pale eyes grew shrewd, studying Black’s face. “So you really are fighting those things? These vampires? And Miriam’s Uncle Charles?”

Black forced himself to relax, to exhale at least some of his anger.

Combing his fingers through his hair, he frowned.

“Yes––” he began.

He didn’t get any further than that.

“Hullo!” a voice called out cheerfully. “Hullo, hullo! We’re back!”

THE VOICE WAS young––not an adult’s voice, but a child’s.

Black stiffened anyway, right before he leaned over the table, staring around the wall divider in the direction of the voice.

He could hear multiple people entering the house now, rustling things around, like they’d just come back from a big shopping trip and had bags with them.

For all Black knew, it could be giant sacks of rocks.

He just sat there, his light on high alert, his fingers gripping the edges of the table, when three forms appeared around the protruding wall––no, four, Black’s mind corrected, as he saw the smallest of them cradled in the arms of one of the adults.

Then he saw her.

Immediately, his light exhaled in a kind of mind-numbing relief.

“Miri,” he said.

He was on his feet and crossing the floor even as she stopped, staring at him in shocked bewilderment. She was holding two full bags, halfway in the motion of putting them down on a low table near the door, when she froze, watching him approach her.

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