“—out here. And if you’re ready, you can take over the throne now. We’ll start the transition of power tonight, if you want—”
He grabbed her arm and yanked her behind him. “Go!”
“What are you talking about?”
That was when the restless summer wind came around again, and she caught the stink properly. Not just dead meat, but that telltale sweetness.
Looking behind herself, she saw thelesser. It was distracted, focused on something on its phone. But as a car passed, the headlights hit that pale hair so it glowed white as snow, and there was no mistaking the banked power in the undead’s lithe body.
L.W. hustled them in the direction she’d come from and then all but threw her into the alley she’d just walked out of. “Go!”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Oh forfuck’ssake.”
The ease with which he took out a gun chilled her to the bone, and then he was dragging her into a run. When they were halfway down the cramped chute of bricks and pavement, he shoved her into an alcove and went back-flat against the building. Then as if he’d been in this kind of danger a million times before, he trained his attention calmly toward Market, his eyes unblinking, his breathing slow and steady.
“I’ll take care of this,” her son said in a level voice that was so much more alarming than if he’d been flustered. “But you need to get the hell out of here.”
He really wasn’t scared at all.
Not even as thelesserstopped at the head of the lane, cranked its head in their direction, and gunned up so fast, itwas clear that the undead had had serious fighting experience over the course of its life—
As the bullet whistled by her ear, she ducked. “Wrath!”
She hadn’t called him by his proper name since back when he’d been an infant in her arms, and it was as if he didn’t recognize the syllable or maybe even hear her at all: His arm swung up and he squeezed off three rounds—right into the slayer who started running right at them as if it didn’t have a thing to lose.
L.W.’s aim was target-practice good: Theundead’s upper body jerked back at the impacts, and then down it went to the dirty asphalt, falling ass-first to join the broken bottles, the discarded trash, the random car parts.
Except thelesserdidn’t stay down. The torso rose as if from the grave, and its crazy smile was lightning-lit from up above: Pale eyes, pale skin, evil radiating from its very pores. Meanwhile, black blood glistened on its mouth and dripped from wounds off-center on its chest—
The knife went flying before she saw its arm move with terrible coordination.
She put up her own gun. And for a split second, forgot how to fire it.
One bullet. She managed to squeeze off only a single bullet. Which was what happened when you’d only ever shot at a range before. And talk about amateur aim. A spark flared as it hit the wall five feet from the slayer. Which didn’t even flinch.
Something else flew by her—
A throwing star. Just like the ones her mate had used way back when.
With a nasty curse, L.W. moved so fast, he was quicker than the lightning. Jumping forward out of their cover, he attacked the undead, grabbing it by the throat and shoving the slayer backward with such force that the skull hit the pavement ona cracking strike. Grabbing the white hair, he jerked the head up again, and with a frighteningly practiced surge, pushed the muzzle of his gun into the open mouth. He immediately pulled the trigger, vaporizing the brain, blowing it right out the back.
But before Beth could react to all that, she jerked her head around so she could see deeper into the alley.
There was another shape coming toward them, moving with stealth in the shadows. And humans didn’t run to this kind of trouble.
An inhale confirmed what it was, and she moved before she could think about it.
Up again with her gun, and this time, she knew exactly what to do. Her forefinger squeezed over and over, the nine kicking in her hand, the jerking steadied by her outstretched forearms.
Then without thinking, she started running at the damn thing. She had no clue what she was doing, no plan, she just kept pulling that trigger as she closed the distance—and even though she’d never engaged with the enemy before, she had no fear. No conscious awareness of anything. She only had the ringing clarity that what was in front of her was going to try to kill her son.
And fuck that for a laugh.
In retaliation, bullets came back at her, whistling by her head once more, grazing her body, catching her somewhere, she wasn’t sure where. Except it didn’t matter. If she died out here? But saved him?
The slayer’s shoulder blew back as she finally managed to hit the thing. And that success locked her in even more, making it so she drilled thelesseragain. With the second impact, the enemy moved slower and shot worse, and then she was so close she could see the pitch black pupils in the center of its all-white eyes.
