Page 53 of Cry of Blood and Joy
Finally, with visible reluctance, he released Serenity’s arm. His fingers trailed along her skin as if he couldn’t quite bring himself to let go completely.
The tension drained from my muscles. Good. If he’d kept holding her back, I would have had to fight him again—and Steve didn’t have time for that.
Serenity immediately moved with purpose, kneeling gracefully beside Steve, who had slumped against the base of the leather chair where he’d slipped through Lorcan’s supporting grip like water. His head lolled to one side at an unnatural angle, and his long red hair had fallen forward to shield his face like a copper curtain. The strands were damp with sweat and stuck to his pale skin in dark streaks.
She leaned in closer, her delicate nose wrinkling as she lifted the torn edges of his blood-soaked shirt. Three deep gashes carved across his chest like claw marks, the edges black and festering with something that definitely wasn’t natural. “This smells really bad.” She glanced up at Keir. The odor was vile and chemical, like antiseptic that had gone rancid. “Do you know what this is?”
Keir met her worried gaze with grim acknowledgment, his usual mask of cool composure cracking slightly. “Some kind of deadly poison, unfortunately powerful enough to kill even a newly made vampire.”
I paced back and forth across the floor, trying to contain the nervous energy about to explode inside me. “He’s the only one who knows where Joy is being held. You have to try Serenity, or Joy dies.”
Serenity placed her palms gently on Steve’s thigh, and the moment her skin made contact, she jerked back as if she’d been burned. Her face contorted with pain. Steve’s body went rigid before erupting into violent convulsions.
“Serenity, no!” Angelo lunged toward her and grabbed her arm.
“I can do this, Angelo,” she said as she yanked her arm free. “We need to find Joy.”
Steve’s limbs thrashed wildly, muscles seizing and releasing in rapid succession as foam began to appear at the corners of his mouth.
“Fuck, he’s dying!” I stopped pacing and dragged my fingers through my hair. “Do something! He’s the only one who knows where she is!” Desperation clawed at my throat as I watched my last hope slipping away. “Serenity, please—if he dies, Joy dies with him.”
“I know, I know, Enzo. I won’t let him die.” Serenity moved away, wiping her sweat on her arm and pointing. “He needs to lie down on the floor while I heal him. I need someone to hold down his arms and someone to restrain his legs, or he’s going to hurt himself—and me.”
Using vampire speed, I lowered Steve to the floor. I positioned myself at Steve’s legs, wrapping my arms around his ankles and pressing my full weight down. Even semiconscious and poisoned, he was incredibly strong—his muscles bunched and strained against my hold with enough force I had to draw on every ounce of my own vampire strength to keep him pinned. His legs kicked and twisted like a wild animal caught in a trap, and the raw power still flowed in his limbs even through the poison’s effects.
Lorcan’s massive hands clamped down on Steve’s right arm, his knuckles white with the effort of restraining the convulsing vampire. Angelo took the left arm, his gaze focused on Serenityas Steve’s supernatural strength fought against their combined grip.
His sickness polluted the air with that wrong, chemical smell and the copper tang of blood. But underneath it all was something else—something that made my enhanced senses recoil.
Serenity took a deep breath and placed her hands on Steve’s thigh again, her palms glowing with that familiar white light. The moment her healing energy made contact, his body erupted into chaos. His torso rose up and slammed back down against the hardwood floor with bone-jarring force. His head whipped side to side so violently I was afraid he might snap his own neck, red hair flying in wild arcs around his face.
The putrid smell that had been hovering around him suddenly got thicker, more repulsive, as if whatever poison was killing him was being forced to the surface by Serenity’s divine power. The stench was overwhelming—like a combination of sulfur and rotting meat—making my throat close up in protest.
Steve’s spine curved in an impossible arch, his back bowing off the floor until only his shoulders touched. I had to hold him tighter as the convulsions intensified. Then his mouth fell open. Thick black ooze, like crude oil mixed with tar, began pouring out, but I forced myself to maintain my grip even as the viscous substance pooled dangerously close to my hands.
“Turn him to his side!” Serenity ordered. “Before he chokes to death!”
I released Steve’s ankles, allowing Angelo to roll Steve toward Lorcan, who barely managed to scramble backward before another torrent of vile black vomit erupted from Steve’s mouth.
This wave was worse than the first—chunks of something solid mixed with the liquid darkness, splattering across the hardwood floor in chaotic designs that seemed to writhe andshift, the black substance rippling and pulsing as if it had a life of its own. Tendrils of the ooze reached out like tiny fingers. Shapes moved within the dark mass—things that shouldn’t exist in any natural substance.
Keir stepped back from the spreading puddle, his usually composed expression twisting with disgust as he turned up his aristocratic nose. “Dead demon blood,” he said with grim certainty of someone who’d seen this horror before. “Someone must have scratched him with either fingernails or something sharp coated with dead demon blood. It’s designed to kill people or supernaturals from the inside out—slowly and agonizingly.”
My hands shook as I dragged my fingers through my hair. If someone had scratched Steve with this poison...what about Joy? Was she somewhere suffering the same horrific death?
The black substance continued to writhe on the floor, making soft, wet sounds, like whispers or tiny screams trapped within the ooze.
Serenity pulled her hands back and wiped the hair off her sleek face. “I think he’s going to be okay.”
I held my breath, waiting to see if she was right, praying that she was.
Steve’s eyes fluttered open like a hummingbird’s wings fighting against a hurricane, the blue irises unfocused and dilated with pain.
Thank fuck. Relief crashed through me so hard I nearly staggered. He was alive, conscious; he could tell me where Joy was.
His chest heaved as he panted desperately, each breath a monumental effort that seemed to cost him everything he had left. Saliva mixed with traces of black ooze still clung to his lips as he struggled to force words past his damaged throat.
“Joy.” Her name came out cracked and broken, but it was like a lightning bolt straight to my chest.
