Death's Rival (35 page)

Human man raced down path and made breathing sounds when he saw big vampire on ground.
Fear-sweat-stink was wetting clothes. Man was carrying two knives, long knives like
Jane-claw. He turned around and around, staring into shadows, looking for Jane. Finally
he bent over vampire and whispered, “Are you still with us, man? Blink once for yes,
two for no. Crap, what’d she do? Break your neck. Sorry, big guy, but you’ll live.
She still alive? Stop blinking so fast. I can’t read your lips. I’ll get her, don’t
you worry.” Human man stood and held knives before him. He wore jewelry like Jane:
rings and silver and steel through ear.

Beast drew paws close under body, watching new prey. Jane said to keep humans alive.
Never kill humans. But I hate pack hunters, and Jane slept. When human pack hunter
turned his back, I leaped. Landed on his back and screamed in human’s ear. Human man
tried to turn, tried to cut with steel claws. Beast sank killing teeth into his neck
and tore flesh, shaking hard. Breaking spine high against skull. New prey fell, steel
claws beneath him. Unable to breathe. Dying.

Beast stood over human hunter until life drained from him. Saw life spill from his
eyes. And when human was dead, snuffled through his clothes, learning his scent. And
smelled . . . magic! Tingly gray magic with blue spots of power, like magic of Molly-witch,
Jane’s friend.

Heart started to beat fast. Had smelled this magic before on amulet from hot, dry
Sedona place, place where Beast had eaten goat and not told Jane. Witch amulet was
important.

Snuffled and scented. Found amulet in clothes at human man’s waist. Sank teeth into
cloth and pulled, tearing cloth. Magic smelled good, smelled like meat! Tore into
man shirt and man pants, ripping and tearing. Tasted blood and flesh and . . . stopped.

Was tearing dead human body. Was tearing human flesh. Spat flesh onto dirt. Tasted
of magic and meat. Amulet magic was meat magic. Did not understand. Anger rose and
Beast screamed. Turned to vampire on ground. He was breathing again. Was healing from
broken spine. But when Beast’s eyes met his, he squeaked like rabbit. Like rabbit
with much fear. Beast smelled prey’s death fear. Beast pawed big vampire prey over,
pushing big prey with big lion mass. Prey rolled over, dead meat, slow heartbeat,
but still alive. Must kill prey.

Lay across vampire, feeling heartbeat grow fast, fastfastfast. Hearing vampire breath.
Bit down on throat, killing teeth piercing thin skin of vampire. Crushed windpipe
of prey. Breath stopped. Held throat, watching prey eyes. Vampire eyes grew wide,
vampire teeth folded back into vampire mouth with sharp snap like stone falling onto
stone. Prey’s heart raced now, too fast to follow beneath Beast paws. Beast bit down
more, killing teeth cutting. Vampire blood flooded mouth. Tasty. Good blood. Strong
blood.

Jane always said
do not eat
. Stopped cutting with teeth and lapped blood. Jane did not say do not drink. Good
vampire blood. Strength flooded into Beast. Blood slowed and Beast bit down again.
Lapped blood again. Watching vampire eyes. When blood stopped and healing began, Beast
bit down. Lapped fresh blood. Did this many more than five times, watching prey eyes.
Time passed. Blood slowed. Beast licked jaws and muzzle. Watching prey eyes. Stood
on prey chest, staring down, thinking,
Will kill now.
Bit down hard and tore flesh away from throat. Spat vampire meat to path. Bit down
and spat again. Did not eat. Tore through muscles and flesh until only broken bones
of neck were left. Then twisted prey head to side and bit down hard on neck bones.
Crunch.
Spat bones to side.

Vampire heart slowed. Heartbeat stumbled like feet of injured prey in forest. Stumbled
again. Prey died.

Beast butted head away with chin. Screamed in victory. Beast was big. Beast had killed
big prey. This was Beast’s territory. Screamed and screamed and screamed.

Hunger gripped stomach in claws. Had killed but could not eat dead prey. I padded
to bayou. Birds were awake on banks, startled by Beast’s territory victory scream.
Two Canada geese were on bank close to Beast. I crouched, leaped. Up and across and
down bank to bayou edge. Caught one goose in jaws. One goose with claws. Killed both
and landed on edge of water. Small alligator hiding in reeds blinked. I dropped geese
and stared at gator.
I am Beast. I am big tonight. I will kill and eat gator.
But small gator sank below water. Gator was afraid.

Either that or it’s never seen a two-hundred-pound mountain lion with feathers sticking
out all over her face,
Jane thought, her words sleepy.

I/Beast hacked with displeasure and turned back to geese. I settled and ate.

* * *

I came to in the night, lying on dirt and leaves, covered by plants that blocked out
the sky. My head was on my piled clothes, angled to look down the path. In the dim
light I made out a heap of dark flesh and dark clothes, the Enforcer I was supposed
to kill. Had killed.

Beside him lay a human. Crap. Beast had killed a human too? I put it together quickly,
realizing that the vamp had cheated and sent a human into the park on a different
tangent, so that if I did get the drop on him, the other guy could take me out.

I pushed up slowly and dragged myself to the bodies. I had killed two beings tonight,
one human. From the looks of the body, Beast had gone a little bonkers over the kill.
She had savaged the human’s side. Not good. She knew not to eat, but killing two opponents
must have led her to the brink. She had tasted human flesh.

I closed my eyes and held them shut for a long moment, not sure what my religion permitted
about this. Not sure how to pray. For that matter, I wasn’t certain what my tribal
forefathers would pray in a time like this either. I settled on the truth. “I didn’t
want to kill,” I murmured to God. “Forgive me that I am violent and cold and a killer.
Forgive me that I tasted my enemy when he attacked.” For a moment, I could taste human
blood on my tongue and my stomach roiled. I remembered the words of my cruel grandmother.
“We do not eat the bodies of our enemies. It is forbidden. It makes us sick.”
What it did was make us even less human and drive us closer to the threshold of
U’tlun’ta
. Now I understood.

I had no tears. I felt oddly empty, as if God hadn’t heard. As if God would never
hear me again. I had killed and tasted human meat. My stomach rebelled, twisting in
pain. Something else to deal with someday. Maybe. For now, I stripped the jewelry
from his clothes, leaving his weapons beneath him. I didn’t want my fingerprints on
them anywhere. While I searched, my fingers tingled with magic and I pulled a pocket
watch amulet from his pocket, just like the amulet carried by the blood-servant I
had taken down in Sedona, the one Rosanne Romanello drank from. Now I had two magic
things that I had no idea what to do with, three if I counted the blood-diamond in
the safe-deposit box. I was amassing a hoard of magic things I couldn’t use but was
honor-bound to protect. Ducky.

I dressed in the night, surprised that my clothes still fit. Beast had stolen mass
from the concrete lion and given it back, seemingly perfectly, despite the possible
presence of organic matter—shells, maybe. I shuddered at the thought of organic matter
buried somewhere in my body. I had no idea what it might do to me later. Maybe nothing.
Maybe . . .

I would look the same to the gathered vamps, all except for my eyes, which were yellow
now, the contact lenses lost in the shift. I pulled my hair back into a coil and slid
into the flip-flops, shivering in the cold breeze.

I walked down the path to Big Guy’s head and stared down at him, his eyes looking
up into the sky. Dead. By my hand. “I’d honor you, if you were honorable,” I said.
Instead, I lifted the head by his ears and walked down the path to the Peristyle,
my hair blowing in the icy wind, my feet aching from the cold. Hungry, needing to
eat.

The wind was at my back, blowing my scent and the scent of blood before me.

I was determined to end this night as I had started it, with moxie and magic. Holding
the head by one ear, I pulled my hair around and let the wind carry it before me across
my left shoulder. A long gray and white flight feather was caught, tangled in my hair,
and I pulled it free, holding the feather out to the side with the head.

The Peristyle came into view, the vamps lined up in the center, staring upwind, toward
me. When I was close enough I raised my voice and called out, “Pellissier wins. De
Allyon’s Enforcer is dead at my hands and teeth.”

De Allyon stepped forward, his entire body vibrating with emotion, his fists clenched.
“That is not possible!” he shouted into the wind.

“Why? Because you gave him a knife?” I called back. “Because you sent a human behind
him to make sure I died? Your Enforcer fell on his knife and lost his head. And your
human is dead with him.” I threw the human man’s jewelry into the Peristyle, and it
clanked as it landed.

“Did de Allyon deceive us?” Sabina asked. “Was there deception in a
gather
?”

“The human woman lies!” the enraged vamp screamed. “It was her own knife!”

“Not mine.” I called on Beast’s speed, racing past the table holding my weapons and
through the pavilion, palming what I needed in the hand, hiding one behind my lower
arm and the extension of the twelve-inch feather, holding another along the length
of my leg—more sleight of hand, dependent on the sight of the severed head and the
feather to keep their eyes from the weapons I’d grabbed. “And I am not
human
.” Beast glared at de Allyon through my eyes and I knew they glowed golden. I/we growled.

De Allyon drew back. “You cannot
be
. I drank down all of your kind.”

“Wrong. I’m alive.” I tossed the severed head at him. Beast shoved her strength and
speed into me. The world went silvery gray. Everything around me dilated and slowed.
I turned the stake in my left hand, its base against my palm. De Allyon caught the
head, looking down into the face. He looked back up at me, disbelief in his eyes,
his neck exposed.

We ambush,
Beast whispered to me. I had all the time in the world. I dropped the white feather
that had been caught in my hair. As it fell, I stepped back, twisted my body forward,
stabbed with the stake I had hidden. The sharpened steel tip parted de Allyon’s ribs,
pushed through his cartilage, deep into his flesh. The heart muscle resisted, rubbery
and moving. I could feel it beat once, up through the wood in my grip. The steel tip
pierced the heart and slammed through, the four inches of silver plating and the ash
wood poisoning him. The wing feather was still falling as my fist hit against his
chest.

The wood and silver in his chest should have immobilized him, should have stopped
his heart. But his heart kept beating.

I released the stake. Continuing the arc of my momentum. Bringing up the vamp-killer.

I cut once, a single hard slash across his throat, severing tendons, muscles, and
blood vessels. His head fell back, his blood pulsed out. Human warm. In a gush over
me. The silvered blade caught in his spine with a dull thud that jarred up my arm
and through my frame. It changed my trajectory, shoving us both around in a twisting
spiral. His blood pumped again, showering me, burning like acid. De Allyon dropped,
pulling me with him.

Faster than my eyes could follow, the vamps facing me vamped out and attacked.

Leo screamed and charged past me. Bruiser pulled weapons and started firing.

I rode de Allyon down, my blade trapped in the crevices of his spine. I landed on
top of him, one leg to either side. De Allyon was watching me, his eyes still open.
The flesh around the blade began to reknit, the restorative powers of the Naturaleza
healing him. I yanked up on the knife, jerking it back and forth until it released
from the spine’s bony processes, then pressed, cutting the healing tissues. Slicing
deep. “You killed my people,” I whispered as I cut. “You killed my people. I am the
hand of God tonight, because you
killed my people
.”

The battle raged around me as I cut. I smelled Leo’s blood. Smelled Bruiser’s, and
felt the heat from his body on either side of me. He had straddled de Allyon and me,
his weapons firing with steady precision. I smelled Rick nearby, injured. I scented
human blood on the awful wind, and heard gunshots from near the cars, the drivers
fighting. Heard other cars roaring up. More humans coming.

Sabina’s power was a barbed icy meat hook pulling on my blood-chilled skin. I rose
and cut down, putting my weight into the knife blade.

I had killed a Naturaleza before, and I knew how hard it was to bring one true death.
I sawed at his spine, the bones catching and grinding on the silvered blade. De Allyon’s
blood pumped again, burning, pooling beneath us.

I severed his head. The blade hit the flooring beneath and rang like a bell, scoring
deeply into the floor. Lucas de Allyon’s head rolled to the side and swiveled, as
if looking at me. The remainder of his blood gushed out. I grabbed the hair of his
head and pulled my legs beneath me. Pushed against his chest, steadying myself on
his body. Bruiser stepped aside from me, spinning the twin short swords I had given
him. Both blades were bloodied. I chuckled, and he slid his eyes to me, seeing my
blood-drenched state and the head in my hands. A grim smile hardened his features.
I held the head aloft and shouted, “De Allyon’s blood-feud is over!”

Sabina shouted, far louder than I had, “Enough!” Her power shot through the room like
frozen lightning. Everything stopped. All the vamps, all the humans near the cars.

“This is finished,” she said more quietly. “De Allyon’s territory and hunting grounds
are forfeit to Pellissier.” De Allyon’s heir and spare started forward, vamped out
and bloody, but seemed to lose the ability to walk. Both settled slowly to the floor
in ungainly heaps, the priestess’ cool gaze following them down. All de Allyon’s other
vamps went still, immobilized by her power. They looked at the priestess with something
akin to awe.