Page 79 of Cold Curses
And the enchantment or spell or incantation, or whatever thedemon equivalent was, grew stronger. I pulled salt from my pocket, tossed it at our feet, and watched it spark and evaporate in the mist.
“You think that’s going to stop me?” Dante asked. “We are older than humanity. Older than the fetid pools you crawled out of. And you haven’t gotten any smarter.”
Any pretense of him being a businessman was gone now. Dante’s eyes gleamed with magic and age and the deep narcissism of the powerful. His magic grew deep along with the mist, the floor no longer visible beneath it.
Then he threw back his head, roared his displeasure. The sound was a wave that covered us with power and shook the stone beneath our feet. The crystals in the chandelier above the lobby clanged cacophonously as they vibrated. An enormous canvas fell from a wall, and ceramic pots holding palm trees shattered, sending dirt spilling to the floor. The trees toppled and bounced, and spiderweb cracks appeared in the nearest window.
Then Dante lowered his head, and the sound stopped, but left a ringing in my ears. Apparently done with us, he turned toward the main doors, minions clearing a path through the mess he’d made.
“Tell me how to save my friend,” I said, my last-ditch effort to get something, anything, I could use for Lulu.
He stopped, looked back. “She’s not worth saving.”
Maybe it was fury or fear or adrenaline or the effect of his magic. But I had my sword in hand in less than a second and was striding toward him. And I’d have used the blade to threaten a cure out of him…if he hadn’t tossed me back through the air without so much as a flick of his hand.
I dropped the katana, which clattered to the floor, and I hit the wall of the elevator bank several feet behind me with force enough to have it cracking from the impact. There was a blissfulnanosecond before the pain signals circulated, and then I hit the floor, bounced, and felt the collision from teeth to toes.
I heard Theo call my name, but held up a hand to stop him from coming closer. I wanted to keep my position between him and the demons.
I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn’t support me. My vision blurred, and I slipped to the floor. I’d have to wait for the pain to subside and the healing to begin; in the meantime, I’d be vulnerable. I lifted my gaze to check the demons’ advance, but they remained where they were, halfway to the door. Maybe they assumed Dante had finished me off, and concluded Theo posed no threat.
Or maybe they were leaving the finishing to Dante.
“Want us to find her, boss?” someone asked.
Dante’s gaze snapped, narrowed at the one who had asked the question.
“How?” he asked flatly. “We don’t have any way to reach her.”
“Maybe back to the beginning,” one of the demons said. “The first place we met her people. Maybe her HQ is near there.”
Name the damn place, I thought. Tell me where to find the upstart. Because as much as we needed Dante put away—after he fixed Lulu—we needed Dante’s demonic competitor even more. Her body count was higher.
Dante considered his minion’s suggestion. “Let’s go,” he said.
I prepared myself for the pain of standing up to follow the demon’s trail. Maybe Gwen’s people would surveil Dante and all the minions, if they had enough resources. Theo must’ve had the same idea, as he caught my gaze, nodded his readiness.
But then Dante turned back to me, that reptilian shadow across his skin. He glanced at Theo, and his smile was gleefully malicious.
“Didn’t bring a warrant,” he said. “And he won’t be followingme out. Vampires are predators, as much as they prefer to deny it.Remember,” he added in a low, gravelly drawl. And then he was out the door.
Murmuring another curse, he directed it at me, still stuck on the floor.
My blood began to tingle from the magic in the air, and that portended nothing good. I tried to climb to my feet but didn’t have the strength to stand yet. The magic had wicked away my strength, leaving only pain.
“Get out of here!” I told Theo. “You have to follow them.”
“I’m not leaving you like this!” he called out, and although he was only twenty or thirty feet away, his voice sounded far away and hollow, like it had traversed a great distance to reach me.
With a hand on the cracked wall for support, I made it to my knees. The effort had sweat pouring down my face.
“I don’t know what he’s done,” I said, “but he’s aimed it at me, and I think it’s going to be ugly. I don’t want you getting hurt.”
The tingling turned to heat…and then to hunger. Not for food, and not just for blood…
But for prey.
Vampires are predators,Dante had said.Remember.I was never unaware of who or what I was. My identity was me; I was my identity, and that was vampire. But like most, I didn’t take blood from humans without their consent unless it was necessary to save their lives. And I’d done that only once.
