31. Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty:
Knox
Knox stared at her through the doorway, his heart slowed to a sluggish thump in his chest. The book is going to eat her alive. He wasn’t sure how he was going to make it better, because this was nothing one of his spells or deals or contracts could fix. That book was beyond anything he could protect her from. And it seemed it intended to take all of her to use. He’d been in that space with her, seeing spinning lights and her eyes roll back in her head. Knox would never forget the sound of her teeth chattering as she begged him to close it. Her skin turned blue around the lips. Then with the sound of his voice, she was ripped back to reality. Humans were never meant to handle such horrors.
If she was going to use the book to defeat Declan, she couldn’t be as soft as a human. And it was cruel to think as his pet was the strongest human he’d ever met. She was sturdy, a fighter; it was the only reason she was able to even hold the book. Pure grit, she fought tooth and nail. But it wouldn’t be enough.
Unfortunately, Knox didn’t have the time to figure it out.
For a man with seven backup plans for his backup plans…he never planned for the front door to his estate to fly open and the foyer to fill with bats.
Screams bounced off the walls as Gael burst out of her spare room. Her ghoulish fingers wrapped around her skull as she fought off the call of her sire. Knox froze in the doorway to his bedroom, staring at the spawn transforming before his eyes, unable to do a thing. If he went for Amelia, Gael could follow him into the room.
If he went for the book, then Amelia was defenseless.
If he went to cover Penny and Brayden, both cowering in their doorway, Gael could get to them first.
The world froze.
“KNOX ZRAZDUEL…”
He turned his head ever so slightly to the stairs. Declan’s voice boomed up the steps. Straight out of his nightmares, the same sharp, deep voice booming around as if it rattled Declan’s very bones. Knox blocked his doorway, staring at a swarm of bats coming up the steps. Gael shrieked, blood trickling down her cheeks. She begged, ‘no-no-no-no’, as she scrambled away from him.
“There you are.”
Maybe Knox should have let Amelia invite Declan for coffee and murder, maybe he would have been better prepared. Knox stepped out of his doorway, putting himself between the person forming at the top of his stairs and the hallway full of his wards. Knox made his whole empire on the ashes of Declan’s. Built his entire business on the promise of revenge and a better life for Declan’s victims.
He wasn’t a scared little teen, hung by his toes in the dungeon of a strange casino.
Knox wasn’t afraid of Declan anymore…but he was afraid for the people he swore to protect.
Declan lumbered out of the hazy mist at the top of his stairs. A six-and-a-half-foot figure made of rotten flesh and fangs too big for his face. Hair drenched in blood and ichor clung to his lumpy scalp in stringy clumps. Hollowed eyes sunk into his face and half his jaw exposed by clawed open skin.
Knox stepped closer to Declan, smirking. “Now…don’t tell me you didn’t get on the wrong side of a particular Lord Commander.”
There were definitely talon marks clawed deep across his chest.
Declan coughed with an open mouth, spraying Knox’s floor with wriggling worms and graveyard soil. “He roosted me…I don’t remember Lord Commander’s being this nosey. When I was in charge of this city, Lord Commanders didn’t rule the streets, and they certainly didn’t meddle in my affairs.”
“When you were alive, Lord Commanders could be bought,” Knox cocked a brow. “Hard to buy politicians when you stink of rot and decay, Declan. I must say, it’s almost laughable how much of a letdown you are. Here I was expecting you to be exactly as I remember you but…”
Knox trailed off chuckling, tossing his arms out to his side.
Declan, dressed in rags, undead and destroyed, roared, surging forward a few steps. Knox’s cane snapped into existence. His fingers wrapped around the fox head shortly before banging its tip against the floor. The walls lit up in purple magic and a forcefield went up between him and Declan.
“When I eat you whole, then I’ll get it all back.” Declan’s grave breath seeped through even magic, turning Knox’s stomach.
“And when I feed you to the—”
Knox had been stabbed before. He’d been nicked in the arm, stabbed in the gut, ripped open before. Most of those were painful from seeing the blow coming. He saw the blade before it cleaved through his flesh. His body would tense up and he would anticipate the pain.
There is nothing like having the very air knocked from one’s lungs when a knife is plunged deep into one’s back. Knox lost all bravado, all face, all focus. The magic broke around him as Gael ran him through with her sharpened claws. She buried them between his ribs and ripped open his lungs. Knox stumbled to the side, his cane clattering to the ground. His back hit the wall to his right. World spinning, he stared at a ferally grinning Declan looming over him next to a wide eyed, gurgling Gael. Eyes burning like rubies in direct sunlight, fully under Declan’s control.
“You always did have a flair for the dramatics, Knox,” Declan wheezed, reaching two boney hands with overgrown fingernails toward him.
Knox gulped down air, struggling to move as Declan hoisted him up and off the wall, only to have the wind knocked out of him again as a bat swung and clocked Declan upside the head. He roared, whirling and throwing Amelia into the other wall. She grunted as her body thudded against the paint. Bat clenched hard in both hands; she snarled at him.
“Ah, the human snack.” Declan nodded toward Amelia with his chin. When he directed his attention back to Knox, the fiend had slid another arm’s length from the vampire. “Where are you going, Knox?”
Knox couldn’t get his cane before Declan snatched him again.
He saw from the air above Declan as Amelia swung with all her might. She didn’t hold back, fending off Gael with mighty blow after blow.
A thunderous symphony of chaos rattled up the stairs as people charged for him.
“Declan!” A familiar roar of Aravis Blightwood filled the hall as the massive Lord Commander broke into the hall.
“As much as I loved meeting you, young Lord Blightwood,” Declan swiveled to hold Knox up in front of him like a meat shield. Penny shrieked from behind him. Knox wasn’t sure how many of Declan’s spawn were in the house. But at the sound of Penny screaming and the muffled sound of ‘Rick’, he could bet Declan meant to end it tonight.
His eyes darted to Amelia as she cracked her bat against Gael hard enough to send the spawn into the Lord Commander’s wings. She aimed the bat past Declan, murder in her eyes. “Put them down.”
“Or what?” Rick’s shitty, smug voice came from behind Knox.
“Wanna find out?” Amelia snarled, storming forward. Declan shifted backward, wringing Knox by the throat as he dragged the fiend down the hall. Knox was finally able to see Penny held at fang point by one vampire and Rick with his fingers around Brayden’s neck.
“That didn’t go so well for you, last time, Am-crack.”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” Amelia growled, swinging the bat in a full circle before gripping it tight in both hands. “Only Brayden gets to call me that.”
“Fucking break his skull, Am-Crack!” Brayden howled, thrashing in his father’s hands.
“Shut the fuck up, kid,” Rick hissed. Before he could throttle Brayden, Amelia chucked the bat at Rick’s head. He made the mistake of knocking it to the side. Amelia dove, fingernails out first, in a pair of silky pajamas, for his eyes. Knox had enough air in his lungs to join her. He whirled in Declan’s grip, letting the vampire shred the flesh around his throat. His fist knocked into Declan’s skull. Everything screamed inside his body as Declan and him tumbled to the ground. The vampire hissed. Tossing Knox into Amelia, Declan snatched Brayden and rushed off with the preteen thrown over his lumpy shoulder.
“Brayden!” Penny shrieked. Her body bucked and thrashed in her captor’s grip.
“Knox!”
“Get,” Knox wheezed, his magic stitching up his shredded insides piece by piece. He whirled to see Aravis passing off an unconscious Gael to another Enforcer beside him. “Her out of here! Get everyone out of here!”
He couldn’t protect his staff and Gael while also fighting Declan. He needed as few victims and bystanders as possible. His jaw unhinged, a sharp, skinny beam of plum fear shot from his throat. The spawn holding Penny hostage stared at him, wide eyes, unblinking as a hole was burned through the center of his skull. With a heavy thud, the corpse of the spawn hit the ground. It would come back, just like Kyle and all the rest…but it was a start. Penny stumbled to the side.
“Aravis!” Knox barked. His legs were wobbly, brain swimming in his skull. Penny shot him a dirty look. Knox pointed at her weakly then snapped a long finger to Aravis. “Get Ms. Calhoon out of here.”
“Don’t you fucking dare,” she snarled, kicking her legs as Aravis personally snatched her up.
“Penny,” Amelia commanded everyone’s attention with one word. Penny’s lower lip quivered as her fight died down.
“Please, I can’t lose either of you,” Penny whispered.
“Amelia and Brayden will return to you.” Knox stared at Penny in the eye, trying to let her know out of everyone…the backup plan that formed in the middle of the hallway.
Knox was never going to be able to defeat Declan. But the book could…and Amelia was the key to using the book. As long as Amelia was human, she would never be able to do it.
There’s always one surefire way to fix the human aspect. Knox looked at Amelia, cupping her face with a sweaty palm. “We get the book, we kill Declan, and no one will die tonight.”
And it was a lie.