Chapter Fifteen #2
Easy scrambled back to his feet…hooves…and turned to look at Shepherd. His face, still angular and bony, hadn’t changed, but when he opened his mouth, the tongue that flicked between his teeth was split.
“Don’t worry,” he said with a smirk. “It’s sterile.”
“Still gross,” Shepherd said.
Easy cocked his head to the side. “You’re very…lucid,” he said. He reached out and grabbed Kel’s head, fingers dug down through red hair as he wobbled his head around. “More than my boy here, and he’s got demon blood. You sure you’re human?”
“USDA-approved,” Shepherd said.
Easy stared at him. He looked puzzled. Either he didn’t get the joke, or he could smell that it wasn’t exactly a lie. It hadn’t been the USDA, but there had been a grading designation.
Whatever it was, Easy shrugged his unease off. He let go of Kel’s head and reached out to lift one of the sticking knives from the rack on the wall. A quick test against the pad of his thumb drew black, sticky blood and a ‘heh’ of approval from him.
“You do keep a nice home,” he complimented Shepherd as he sucked the blood out of the wound. “It might be your last good review, but I will tell Renfield’s that you gave five-star service.”
He wiped the knife on his robe and started to stalk around the worn edge of the well. His hooves clopped ominously off the old stone flags.
Clopped?
Shepherd hesitated for a beat as he tried to think of a more…ominous…descriptor. Then he shoved it aside for later. He looked across the dark pit at Kel. People had been trying to sacrifice him for years. No one had ever tried to protect him before.
Even the FBI raid had been incidental, about the fraud, not the murders.
“I really do like you,” he said.
Kel gave a choked, startled chuckle despite the situation. His mouth twitched into a smile. “What the hell would it take for you to admit you love me?”
“Get us out of this alive, and I’ll see,” Shepherd said. Then his smile slipped, and he gave Kel the most serious look he could. “Get yourself out of here.”
Before he could say anything else, Easy stepped in front of him. He was naked under the robe and…right at eye level.
“OK,” Shepherd said as he looked away. “That’s something I can’t unsee.”
Easy grabbed a handful of Shepherd’s hair and yanked his head to the side. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You won’t have to worry about it long.”
He pressed the point of the blade to Shepherd’s throat. Right against the old scar tissue. The slick ridge of flesh gave Easy pause for a second, but Shepherd was good at keeping things sharp. His skin parted—the pain duller than the first time—and blood spilled out.
Easy exhaled and licked his lips. A drop of blood ran down the knife and dripped onto the floor.
Down in the pit, someone rang a bell.
Easy stopped what he was doing and looked around. The sound got louder, bouncing off the grease-slick brickwork and rattling the room. The house groaned. Cracks appeared in the concrete walls, fracturing up towards the first floor and bleeding thin, gas-sharp blood.
“What the…” Easy muttered. His attention shifted back to Shepherd, who grinned up at him.
“You rang the dinner bell,” he said.
Easy looked blank, and then, as it dawned on him, he snarled in frustration. He dropped the knife and grabbed Shepherd by the throat. Blood slicked his hand as he bent Shepherd forward over the block.
There was an actual heat to his gaze as he looked Shepherd over. It felt like standing too close to a furnace. When he saw the old brand, scored into the skin over Shepherd’s hip, he gave a frustrated growl.
“Second-hand fucking goods?” he spat out. He let go of Shepherd and turned around to face Kel. The rumbling chime of the bell rolled on as the sickly sweet smell of silage and dead corn wafted up into the room. “You gave me someone else’s sacrifice?”
Kel braced long legs against the ground and shoved himself backward. He fell onto his back, landing hard, and the chair splintered under him.
“Don’t blame me if you bought a pig in a poke,” he said as he grabbed the wall to pull himself up. His knuckles showed white through the skin as he dug his fingers in, his nails leaving grooves in the concrete. “Buyer beware.”
Easy didn’t bother to walk around the pit this time. He crouched and leapt, robe flapping behind him. The floor splintered under his hooves as he landed. One of the bricks that lined the pit came loose and tumbled down, shattering under the rumbling low of the Lady’s approach.
“Fine,” Easy said with a frustrated gesture. “You win. I’ll kill you first.”
He grabbed Kel’s throat and shoved him back against the wall. The sharp talon of his thumb laid along Kel’s jugular.
“It’s not so bad,” he said as he squeezed. “Think of it as getting in touch with your roots, and I’ll put in a good word for you with my dad. Give it a few hundred years, and we’ll be laughing about this over a beer.”
He turned around and dangled Kel over the pit. Kel choked and pulled at Easy’s hand as he squirmed and kicked at the air, choking for breath. Blood ran down Easy’s hand and dripped into the darkness as obscene, corrupt words spilled off Easy’s split tongue.
Shepherd swore under his breath as he braced his feet against the rough stone floor and yanked at his cuffs. He twisted his hands and wrenched his body backwards. Sweat slicked his arms, and his wrists blistered as he struggled.
It didn’t do any good.
The bell from the pit deepened in timbre. It made the room rattle, the bulb above him swinging violently, and stirred up all the…chaff…from Shepherd’s upbringing. The dull, unthinking dissociation that could pass for peace weighed down on him.
“SHUT UP!” he yelled in frustration as he collapsed back, panting raggedly, onto the floor. He kicked at the block with his bare feet, even if he didn’t think it would get far. “SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
She did.
That was a surprise. It didn’t help, but…
The sound that jangled up out of the pit was a cacophony of farm machinery accidents and maimed animals, metal grinding and something mindless screaming. It worked sharp, thorn fingers into Shepherd’s brain and injected the panic straight into the meat.
The roof above him cracked.
A chunk of plaster dropped and landed with supernatural precision squarely on the block Shepherd was tethered to. The impact dented the metal ring. Nothing else happened for a second and then, with a sort of slow dignity, the block gently cracked in half and fell apart.
Shepherd stared at it for a beat, his jaw slack.
Maybe the house hadn’t missed Easy all that much after all.