Chapter 23 #2
The biter blurred into motion. Layla screamed, the sound trapped against a moist, folded sweater-cuff swallowing her hand—do vampires sweat, gotta find some research on that, a darkly hilarious thought—as she tried to back through the paneling.
His palm slapped next to her left ear, his breath flooding her nose.
The biter’s eyes were wide and dark, swelling wet crimson points eating the pupils.
He inhaled deeply, and her own new eyesight was pitiless.
He felt ancient, but the face inches from hers was barely old enough to buy beer.
Skin perfect like Max’s, yes, but with a peculiar tender texture implying he’d never shaved; his nose was classically straight, his mouth chiseled though the top lip contorted, both sets of upper fangs fully displayed, gleaming softly.
The biter snuffled so hard his chest heaved, her hair stirred by moving air. His shoulders trembled, waves of shudders down to his rope sandals, and the bizarreness of being huffed by a vampire threatened to give her the screaming-meemie giggles yet again.
It didn’t help that he was wearing… a bathrobe?
No, a sort of knee-length tunic. Dark material gathered at his shoulders, a belt which looked like several different kinds of frayed rope braided together, his muscled arms bare and gleaming, his knees and shins equally naked, and those weird huaraches.
Of course, Layla looked like a kid playing dress-up, swimming in Max’s sweater and dirty from dodging groups of vampires for what felt like hours, but this guy was just plain outlandish.
Then his head darted forward, lizardlike, teeth snapping together with a solid, heavy chuk like a clean break on a backroom pool table, and she screamed again as hot breath caressed the side of her throat not shielded by a raised arm.
His heavy vibrating growl was a physical weight, pressing her against cold, slick wood, but the vampire didn’t bite her.
Instead, he recoiled, almost as if slapped. His teeth champed twice more and the red dots in his pupils dilated, liquid-glowing at the corners as if the light was saltwater tears.
Behind him loomed a cavernous parquet-floored space, and a tinkling overhead was a row of honest-to-gosh chandeliers marching along a ceiling full of plaster gewgaws and furbelows.
They were only indifferently lit; several tiny electric bulbs loading each glass-and-metal confection fizzed and blinked, on their very last legs.
Floor-length drapes clothed the side walls, stiff with dust, and the whole shebang seemed vaguely familiar.
Ballroom? What the hell? Where had she seen this before?
It was almost like trying to remember a red-stripe file while Pete and Dan argued over comms. No time to think, because the biter tilted his head back, his cheeks twitching madly as the fangs receded and normal, blunt human teeth—or the illusion of them—returned.
He had to do that in order to speak, apparently. His chin lowered, loose curls falling softly over his forehead, and this new, exotic terror examined her afresh.
“Not dead yet,” he said, that odd accent pushing at the vowels. The words were still clunky, either jammed together or weirdly spaced. “But is no matter. He shall do predicted, I will dispose of what’s left. You are indeed aima-glyza, that is good.”
He likes to talk. But he ain’t bit me yet, okay. Layla stared, folded sweater-cuff still clapped to her mouth, and tried to figure out what to do.
Submit if you are caught, Max whispered in memory. Do as you’re told… I will find you.
Sure, easy for him to say. She was, as usual and as always, on her own. The thought that this creature might try to hold her down and—
No. She couldn’t think about that. Bad enough she was almost missing Max, in some weird way, but this guy, this thing with its red-flashing eyes was somehow completely alien in some essential fashion, as the monster who had killed her team seemed not to be.
It wasn’t just the lizard-twitching or the mad flat shine in its eyes when the red light faded, or the jittering, shivering force only barely controlled.
It was the singsong voice, the idea that it was wrapped in a world all its own and its intense, casually terrifying power could strike out at any moment, doing something completely unexpected.
Not to mention fatal.
Is this what bit him? Trying to imagine Max being infected by this crazyass thing, living with its moods for hundreds—no, thousands of years—was horrifying, but she couldn’t waste time on that.
Layla twitched, attempting to slide sideways along the wall, maybe buttonhook and bolt for half-open doors at the far end of the ballroom.
Wham. The creature’s fist punched through paneling a bare inch from her shoulder, effectively barring escape.
Its body heat was a simmering wave, and its rough musky non-cologne wrapped around her as if trying to drown her own scent.
It was disorienting to not even smell herself, very much like vanishing.
The old biter clicked his tongue a few times, as if admonishing a naughty pet. “Now, now. Let’s see. I will name you Pandora, perhaps, or Philomela, though I do not wish you to sing. No, no. You will be Psyche.”
What. The hell. Layla lowered her hand from her mouth, slowly; the creature watched, its smile stretching, cheeks bunching up. The effect was at once angelic and deeply, utterly creepifying.
How could Max ever call this being Father?
“She wants to speak,” it crooned, and did another round of huffing at her hair, snuffling against her cheek with dry feverbreath. “So good, such a sweet little piece. I’ll allow it.”
This thing is completely fucking batshit. The terror was deep, wine-red, and so overwhelming her legs went rubbery. If this was a father, she was deeply glad she’d never known hers.
“Yes,” it continued, and trailed off in some other language, rolling and rhythmic. But the red gleam lit its eyes once more, and she sensed it was working itself up to something. A coiled spring, winding tighter and tighter until something snapped.
Layla had the distinct idea she wouldn’t like whatever it had planned.
I thought they weren’t supposed to hurt lee-mons, she thought, inconsequentially, and a single spark lit in her midriff, exploding like the oil tank Max had yanked her away from.
Fuck this. I’m going down fighting. She lashed out, blurring-quick with every inch of her newfound strength, and felt her fingernails shear through cloth.
The creature gave a titanic, world-ending yell.