Page 16 of The Seeker
Rhys froze.
“I can hear you,” the Grigori said. “I’m not running. Are you going to kill me or not?”
“Do you want me to kill you?”
The man looked over his shoulder and frowned. “You’re not one of the local scribes.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Why are you here?”
“Research.”
The man’s shoulders shook but his laughter was hollow. “A professor? That’s who finally caught me?”
The walls were high but not insurmountable, especially for the Grigori who’d led Rhys on such a merry chase.
“Why aren’t you running?” Rhys asked.
“I’m tired.” The words were spoken in a growl. “I shouldn’t have run in the graveyard. Should have let you kill me there. But I suppose running is instinct at this point. Fighting. Hunting.”
The man finally looked up, and Rhys stopped dead in his tracks at the haunted expression. “Who are you?” he asked.
“A child of the devil. A killer. You know who I am, scribe. ‘You’re all the same.’ Haven’t I heard that from more than one of you?”
“Who is your father?”
The Grigori gave him half a smile. “You’ll find out soon enough. It’s coming.”
What is?Rhys wanted to ask, but something in the wild and desolate expression in the man’s eyes told him no straight answer would be forthcoming. “You’re dying, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” The man rolled his neck and shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t want to fall to dust in my sleep. Figured I’d rather go out in a fight.”
Rhys drew a silver dagger and glanced over his shoulders, but the windows of the two old houses were shuttered and no lights shone behind them. He walked slowly toward the Grigori, mindful of a trap, but the weariness of the man’s expression was unmistakable.
Unless given new life by their sires, the natural life span of a Grigori was usually only around one hundred fifty years from their births. They didn’t show signs of age or weakness. They simply turned off, like a light bulb burning out. This Grigori had reached the end of his life and felt his final hours approaching.
“Tell me who your sire is,” Rhys said. “And I will kill you quickly. Don’t tell me, and I’ll give you pain. I won’t kill you at all. I’ll wait.”
The man’s eyes burned. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
The Grigori lunged toward Rhys in a burst of raw fury, but Rhys slipped to the side and locked the man in a headlock before he could get away. The Grigori’s body twisted as his feet tried to find leverage in the slippery mud.
Rhys said, “I can wait like this a long time.”
The Grigori turned and tried to sink his teeth into his arm, but Rhys knocked him with a blow to the temple, shoved him to the ground, and pressed his face into the mud.
He twisted the monster’s head to the side. “This won’t kill you, son of the Fallen. But tell me the devil who sired you, and I promise I’ll give you a quick death.”
“Dieudonné,” the man spit out.
“Wrong,” Rhys said. “There is no angel by that name in the Americas.”
“And you know them all?” He cackled. “I promiseyou don’t.”
Rhys shoved his face in the mud. “Try again.”
