Page 82 of Night in a Waste Land

The thuds of bodies hitting the floor, and bodies colliding. She became aware that her opponents came slower, and more reluctantly. They were thinning the ranks.

Then Gavin said, “Lance!”

Rose halted, and then pulled her knife out of the belly she’d stuck it in. She blinked, and felt like she was surfacing after a deep dive into dark water. Turned, and there, across a sea of felled guards, she saw Lance, on his knees on the floor, swaying, a hand clutched to the wound in his gut; blood ran over and between his fingers, a shiny patch like an oil slick down his shirt, and the whole leg of his pants. Gavin stood over him, gripping his shoulders.

He glanced toward her, face tight with fear. It was the most afraid she’d ever seen him. “He’s gonna bleed out!”

Rose ran to them. Went down on her knees beside Lance, and up close, she could see how pale and clammy his skin was; saw the way his lashes fluttered. “Shit. Shit, shit. Lance? Can you hear me?”

He didn’t respond.

She sheathed her knives and fumbled in one of her cargo pockets for her portable med kit. “Watch our backs,” she said to Gavin. “Don’t let anyone…”

Gavin said, “Oh my God,” in an entirely different voice.

Rose tore open a packet of gauze with her teeth and pressed the whole wad of it to Lance’s wound, over the hole in his shirt. He needed to be laid down, to have the area flushed; needed firmer pressure than her bare hand could provide. She heard running footfalls; glimpsed Gallo and Tris heading for them, Gallo already unslinging his pack.

“Oh my God,” Gavin repeated.

She twisted her head around, an order she wasn’t entitled to give poised on her tongue…

One that promptly flew out of her head.

She had a clear profile view of the unfolding tableau. Beck had backed Shubert up against the dining table, was bending him back across it with one clawed hand at his throat, and his tail stabbed through the conduit’s belly, out the other side, the spade tip buried in the wood, pinning him in place. Shubert had phased his hand through Beck’s chest.

Rose gulped.

But Beck’s eyes weren’t burning out, and he wasn’t screaming or shuddering, the way the woman had. In fact, he was smiling, fangs bared right in Shubert’s face.

Shubert’s terrified face.

All the color had bled out of it, and his lips trembled. “Why…why isn’t it…what are you?”

And then, in the deeper, resonant voice of the angel inside him, with a hint of something almost like dread: “King Arthur.”

Beck’s grin widened. “Exactly.” Then he ducked his head and bit Shubert’s throat.

Rose gasped, and heard Gavin, Gallo, and Tris echo it.

Lance’s blood tickled her palm, hot, terrifying.

Beck…Beck seemed to drink. His throat worked as he swallowed, again and again. His black hair trailed over Shubert’s slackening face, and his wings flexed in small increments, echoing the rhythm of his drinking.

It seemed to go on for only a moment, and for forever. Rose wasn’t sure she breathed the whole time.

But, then, finally, Beck lifted his head, his mouth red and steaming. He tipped his head back, eyes closed a moment, sighing. His tongue darted out, cleaning the blood from his lips, from his fangs.

Shubert wasn’t moving, but that didn’t stop Beck – once he’d straightened – from gripping his head in both clawed hands and wrenching it to the side, so he faced them, glowing blue eyes blank and sightless. The crack of the body’s neck breaking echoed through the otherwise silent space, rebounding off the windows.

Beck withdrew his tail from the body with a sick squelch, stepped back, and lifted Shubert up with a hand beneath each of his arms. “That should buy us some time,” he said, brightly, turning to them. “Long enough to get him back to base and properly bound. You have lead and iron, right?”

After a long beat, Gallo said, “Y-you. You killed him.”

“No, dear,” Beck said, smile slipping, sighing impatiently. “I’ve incapacitated him.” His gaze skipped to Lance. “Hm. He doesn’t look good.”

Rose waited a beat for someone, anyone to take charge. To start barking orders.

In the end, she was the one who said, “We have to call in a helo.”

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