Chapter 14
fourteen
They’ll be watching the fire escapes—it’s what I would do. His world of options was rapidly narrowing, and she wasn’t making it any easier by becoming limp deadweight whenever he slowed enough for her to lean against anything.
The reek was rough and clotted in his mouth, an old-rust corruption of spilled blood and rotting spice that raised almost every hackle he had.
Then there was her fragrance—ice and moonlight sharpened into the marvelous soothing of a triggered shaman, his triggered shaman.
With a wide wine-dark river of fear boiling underneath, rasping against his nerves until he didn’t know whether to scream, run, or Change.
It didn’t help that Sophie was pale, visibly trembling, and all the sharp intelligence had gone out of those lovely grey eyes.
Her glasses were still shiny, her hair a wild mass of electric, beautiful curls, and the grey pencil skirt and sheer nylons over those sweetly curved legs was enough to make a man’s train of thought derail.
But one glance at her pale, terrified face, fever-spots of wild color high on her perfect cheeks—one slightly swollen, as if she’d been slapped—and the way she looked anywhere but at him, almost cowering if he made a sudden movement…
It was enough to make any man feel like tearing down a few brick walls to get at whatever had turned her into this.
Except he’d done a lot of it, by handling her in exactly the wrong way.
Her apartment spoke volumes. One broken-down, tattered armchair.
A print of some painting that someone had probably taken pity on her with.
One mattress and a pile of mismatched blankets, one pillow, five library books stacked next to the makeshift bed.
Empty cupboards save for two packages of ramen, one bag of bulk oatmeal.
Nothing in her fridge but a quart of milk, four bags of frozen peas, and a half-empty bottle of ketchup.
There was some kind of froufrou scented candle on the kitchen counter, half-burned and probably a gift as well.
Five grey suits in her closet. Two pairs of sweats and one lone pair of jeans. He hadn’t gone poking through her underwear drawer, but he’d be willing to bet it was empty as the rest of her apartment.
He knew what poverty and fear smelled like, and the sad little place reeked of both. There were two boxes of personal papers in her closet, neatly labeled in a round Palmer script, and he’d taken a peek at the one named Divorce.
The bloodless language of the law almost managed to cover up something capable of making him nauseous.
With the beast screaming in his blood, he had handled her exactly, completely wrong. Time to start remedying that—if, of course, he could get her out of this deathtrap of an apartment building.
There was only one way to go. He had to half-carry her up the maintenance stairs, both because he was using inhuman speed and because her legs kept giving out.
She was in low black heels he’d be willing to bet were her second and last pair, since her first were still in the van, and he hadn’t had time to get her into sneakers.
God only knew where the outfit she’d had on a couple nights ago had come from.
Keep your mind on your problems, and not on her clothes. He paused, looking at an emergency exit and weighing his options. The building was five stories tall; they were on the fourth floor.
“God,” she whispered, right before she collapsed again; he kept her upright. “You lied to him.”
Duh. “Of course I did. What else was I supposed to do?”
“Is Zach really your name?”
Sharp girl. “It really is, sweetheart. The one I was born with, even.” Family name. We’ll get around to that.
“Why are the lights fuzzing out? And the… the things—” The only thing that alarmed him more than how pale she’d turned was the dreamy, disconnected way she was asking questions. “Like scarves.”
We hit the jackpot with you, honey, if you’re already that far along. “You’re seeing the spirits, the majir. And the upir make the lights go. They prefer to hunt in darkness.”
“Hunt?”
“Us.”
“Oh.” She nodded, calmly enough, and drew a breath, as if to scream.
He couldn’t take the chance and shoved her against the wall, covering her mouth. The fine tremor running through her infected him, as well. His other hand curled into a fist, and he stopped himself from ramming it through whatever paste was masquerading as walls around here just in time.
“Listen to me.” A snarl ran under the words.
Her throat-cut fear was taunting what little control he had left.
“I need everything I’ve got to get us out of here.
I’ll keep fighting so long as you stay with me.
Right here.” He stared into her shock-glazed grey eyes, disregarding her glasses, pushed askew by his palm. “You stay with me. Understand?”
Something flared in her pupils. It was a spark, struggling out from under the terror. He willed it to stay, but the tiny point of light was extinguished almost as soon as it arrived, and he heard the soft rotten drumming of their feet. More of them. Jesus, what’s going on here?
“Okay,” she whispered, when he peeled his fingers away. “Fine. Stay with you. All right.”
Relief warred with fresh rage inside his chest. She looked absolutely hopeless, but still soldiered on.
“Good girl.” He did something he’d wanted to do since the moment he’d first glimpsed her in the crowd—leaned forward, pressed his lips to her forehead, inhaled the smell of her hair.
Clean, fresh, female; even with the sharp sawblade of fear underneath, a single breath held the power to calm the animal inside him.
Goddammit, she smelled like she belonged to him, and he didn’t have time to take it easy, ease her along. The lights were dimming rapidly as the upir mounted every upward path, floor by floor, a pressure like an approaching storm.
She blinked up at him, owlish, and some sense had filtered back into her pale gaze. “What did you do that for?”
Because I wanted to. “Come on.” Up the last flight of stairs, a locked door he kicked once to crumple, metal tearing with a screech. Cold sleet-drenched air poured past them as the lights failed completely, night reaching into the building like spilled ink.
“They’re floating,” she whispered, in an awestruck little voice.
Oh, yeah. She’s gonna be a live one if she’s seeing that so soon.
Need to feed her and get her settled somewhere she can shaman-sleep.
Wind cut across the rooftop, and he glanced out.
The best bet was off across the flat expanse toward a likely corner.
The three-story building over a narrow alley was the best route; it had cover and he’d be able to take that drop easily, even carrying her.
Still, he paused for a moment. There was nothing to be gained by running blindly. If he was hunting someone, he’d have a lookout on the roof.
There. A patch of foul-smelling shadow in the lee of an air-conditioning vent. Sophie shivered, actually moving closer to him and pulling her jacket close.
He hadn’t even given her time to change her clothes.
Better start treating her nice, Zach. It’s your responsibility.
Yeah, sure, he told himself. First let’s get us out of here in one piece. Hard to treat her nice in the middle of a melee. “Stay with me,” he whispered. “Okay?”
She nodded, curls falling in her face, and he had the urge to brush at strands, see if they were as soft as they looked.
Then he dragged her out into the cold, deliberately stumbling as if drunk or wounded, and the lookout took the bait just as he’d hoped.
It came streaking out of the darkness, disturbing the flung silver pellets of icy rain, and Sophie didn’t even have time to scream before he shoved her down and away, grabbing two fistfuls of upir and letting the Change bloom inside him like glass daggers.
It answered one question, though. The blood-heavy parasite was a little older and more experienced than the rest, and it had come straight for Sophie, not even veering for Zach as the biggest threat.
They wanted her.
Its claws burned as it turned on itself, a rubbery snake of bloodlust; he took the hit without caring, low on the side, turning so it grated on ribs instead of opening up the vulnerable belly. In a normal fight this would be the time for noise, a roar to spur him on. But not now.
This was deadly serious, and deadly quiet, the only sounds Sophie’s hurt little cry and hitching breaths, the patter of ice-hearted rain, and the upir’s high shallow breathing, air whistling past shark-sharp teeth.
Scuff of bootsoles and whisper of fabric as they closed again, the Change roiling down Zach’s side in a tide of thorny oil, closing the rips and fueling speed and strength with the pain.
His claws found the vulnerable soft throat and wrenched; a gout of foul noisome black blood, and the body of his enemy fell as Sophie let out another thin wordless cry of warning.
I know, he wanted to tell her, don’t worry, but his mouth wasn’t shaped for human words right now, and in any case there was no time.
He turned and leaped, every iota of force applied to fling himself back toward her, hitting the highest point of the arc just as the other two upir collided with him.
He wanted to knock them off-trajectory, away from her, and succeeded, landing catfoot on all fours and snarling just once, shoulders hunching as his claws snicked against the rooftop.
Once was all the warning they were going to get.
They spread out, then feinted in, trying to get past him at the shaman, who had scrabbled back against the wall near the kicked-open door.
He snapped, stalemate for a moment while he worked the geography of the rooftop around in his head and tested the wind for more enemies.
Backed up a little to give himself room, his body between the shaman and the twisty-coiling things reeking of natron-drenched death and rotting rust, their faces twisted plum-colored obscenities because they had dropped any mask of breathing humanity.
They snarled; he simply braced himself. teeth bared and a series of glottal clicks filling his throat. This is mine, the animal in him said without words, a wash of musk and blood-tinted determination.
The taller one leapt at him and instinct took over, tucking his chin and twisting his body aside, his own claws tearing through reeking blood-fat flesh. A true-dead corpse thumped to the rooftop and the second, smaller upir fled screeching.
Dammit. There goes my quiet exit. He straightened, the Change melting away, and felt the cold slap of precipitation. The rage folded down quietly, the animal watchful and angry in its corner at the very bottom of his soul.
The shaman hunched, hugging herself, eyes huge and dark with terror. He held out his human-now hand, noticing for the first time the wind’s knife-edge. “Come on.” A rough whisper. “We’d better get out of here.”
“Jesus,” she whispered. “Those—they were—”
“We’ll talk about it later, sweetheart. They’re after you. We need to figure out why.”
“I haven’t done anything!” She was shivering, and in a little while she’d be soaked. Her jacket was clinging over a thin blouse, and the way the wet cloth molded itself to her was not doing anything to help him concentrate.
“I know.” But maybe they don’t know that. “We’ve got to get away. Come on, Sophie.”
She reached up blindly, touched him willingly for the first time. Her fingers slid through his, and an acrid thread of smoke reached his nostrils. Jesus. What the hell now?
For a terrible moment he was years ago and far away, smelling smoke, hearing the awful shattering unsound of a shaman’s death. It took a deep breath he didn’t have time for and a wrenching physical shudder to bring himself back to the present.
Not this shaman. Not this time. This time, I’m going to do it right.
A moment’s worth of work got her to her feet; he added up the rooftop again and arrived at the same answer. “You’re not going to like this, but we’re going to have to jump.”
She didn’t even protest, and that bothered him more than he wanted to admit. Instead, she just nodded wearily. “Yeah. Sure.”
“It won’t take long,” he said, as if she had protested.
“You killed them.” She sounded numb, and was shivering so hard his own teeth wanted to chatter.
“Of course I did. They weren’t here to give you Christmas cards. No idea what they want?”
“None at all.” She slumped helplessly as he hurried her across the rooftop, reached to push her glasses up her nose with a fingertip. The little movement made his heart do something funny inside his chest. “We’re jumping?”
“I’m jumping.” He eyed the distance between the two buildings and decided he could do it even if she passed out, but he’d have to Change a little.
His stomach spoke unhappily, and he told it to shut up.
The smell of smoke grew stronger, drifting up through the open door.
Upir hated fire, why would anything be burning?
I don’t like this. His stomach rumbled again, reminding him the Change required fuel. He blinked away bad memories and the sick thumping of fear in his chest. Neither would help.
First he’d get them the hell away from here. Then he’d feed both of them, and everything would be fine.
“I’m jumping,” he repeated, trying to reassure them both. “You just hold on.”