Chapter Twenty-Four
The one thing that L.W. freely admitted to sharing with his father was impatience.
As he stalked the slayer ahead of him, he hated the delay.
He wanted to run up on the fucker, break the neck to incapacitate the arms and legs, and then drag it into some quiet, dim corner or alley so he could get to work.
Instead, he had to make sure he was far enough away from all the humans huddling their way through the cold—without also getting too close to where the Brothers did their usual field work.
Navigating the sweet spot of incognito was fucking annoying, and the longer he had to wait for a takedown while remaining on this south and east tack, the more enraged he got.
Which, granted, wasn’t a hard lift.
Another thing he and dear ol’ Dad had in common.
The slayer stopped up ahead and took out a cell phone. There was so much ambient light from all the buildings that the moon hadn’t needed to fill in any details: Short and stocky. Dark hair, so it was a new recruit. Jacket was shaggy and ill-fitting.
There were weapons under there, though. Lash clearly didn’t care about wardrobes, but he was arming his undead well these days.
L.W. stepped back into the shadows of a doorway, but he didn’t think the fucker was going to bother to look over its shoulder.
Out alone. No backup. Untrained.
Not much of a challenge. Then again, he himself was at a disadvantage with all his lingering injuries.
As he was forced to wait some more, his upper lip peeled up on its own, the cold tapping on his fangs and making them tingle. He wanted to take out his phone so he could yell at Rhamp again just to work off his frustration, but he didn’t want to give away his position….
He glanced around as the delay continued.
Fuck it. Closing his eyes, he took a slow, deep breath—
And willed himself right behind the slayer.
“Boo.”
The undead bastard wheeled around, his eyes going peeled-wide.
“I’m gonna make you hurt,” L.W. growled as he clapped his hands on both of those ears.
With a jerk, he twisted the head, and the snap of the cervical vertebra was oh, so satisfying, as was the instant deadweight. Releasing his hold, the slayer went facedown into the dirty snow like a bag of sand, and yet the piece of shit stayed alive.
Fine, animated.
L.W. planted a shitkicker on either side of the torso and rolled the thing on its back. There was fear in those peepers, instead of the usual defiance, and the mouth was working like it was trying to talk, but oops—the voice box had been reduced to pulled pork.
“Don’t tell me this is your first night out,” he said to the thing.
With what was left of the muscle control on the side of its neck, there was a little nod and a lot more lip movement.
“Well, ain’t that a bitch—”
As a tear eased out of one of those eyes, L.W. felt a fresh shot of rage. “Now you’re crying. This bargain with Lash not turn out how you thought, huh?”
He put his face right into the lesser’s. “Did you get double-crossed? Were you lied to about what you were getting into?”
The way the tears increased, he took that as a yes.
Inside his coat, his phone went off with a vibration. When it immediately stilled and started up again, that was the signal that it was either Rhamp or Shuli. But now was not the time for interruptions.
“Sold on a lie, and your soul was taken.”
More tears, so many that they mixed with the black, glossy blood that had been pumped into the body after it had been drained of everything that made it human.
“I’m so sorry.”
On that shot of sarcasm, he bared both his fangs, hissed, and bit the flesh off the cheek. Spitting the chunk out to the side, he knew a fury that transformed him in ways that should have scared him. Instead, he took the black emotion down deep, like it was the last breath before he submerged.
As his phone went off once again, he ignored it and unsheathed a dagger. The slayer’s eyes got even wider as he put the tip right under the jaw.
“We’re going to have a nice little chat, you and me.” He might have fucked its voice, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have a conversation. “You’re going to blink once for yes, and twice for—”
“Hey! What are you doing!”
The frantic shout came from behind him, and L.W.
twisted around. Two human men were standing at the corner of the previous block, and unlike the types he’d run into back when he’d been allowed in the field proper, these were not the drug-addled, stay-to-themselves variety.
Dressed in weather-appropriate clothing, with clean hair that was cut and backpacks that suggested he was close to SUNY Caldwell’s downtown campus, they were far, far too alert.
Fucking college students. Who had nothing better to do than save the world and share it on social media.
And the one next to Mr. Bullhorn was already taking out a cell phone.
L.W. set on the pair before he could stop himself, before higher reasoning stepped in and got him to fucking chill.
Halfway across the distance, it dawned on him that he still had the knife in his dagger hand, and he was prepared to use it—which should have shocked him.
All of this attack should have shocked him.
But he hadn’t been right lately.
Hell, he hadn’t been right for a very long time.
The SUNY Caldwellers took one look at the freight train heading their way and rethought their commitment to what they assumed was their fellow man. Tripping over their own feet, they bolted into a retreat—
Bright light.
Realllllly fucking bright light—
L.W. was suddenly blinded, and he threw his arms up over his face as he braced for impact.
Except there was no car coming at him, no flashlight in his face, nothing that he could block or get out of the way of.
Literally one second he was seeing fine, and then everything was fucked, as if he’d had some kind of stroke or seizure.
Blinking to try to clear his vision, he saw only a white field of nothing.
And then it was stars.
Not the celestial kind. The shit that came when you ran into the side of a building.
Pain now. A fuck ton of pain.
Fucking wonderful.
Misdirected momentum being what it was, he’d slammed into something concrete, and it was like having a tank as a chiropractor, every bone in his entire fucking body screaming.
The fact that there’d been some kind of crack in return was hardly a point of pride, especially as a wild vertigo sent him into the kind of spin he couldn’t get his feet under.
As he hit the ground, he bounced on the snow and got chunks of ice in his face.
For a minute, all he could do was just check in on what else might be wrong: Breathing, yup. Heart rate, high but steady. Arms and legs, fairly good to go. But his eyes were just not functioning.
Get up. Get the fuck up—
The voice inside his head that usually rode him about what a piece of shit he was started going drill sergeant and he didn’t disagree with it.
There was a messy, unresolved problem to clean up after about twenty feet behind him, and those humans were absolutely going to be dialing for help the second they realized they were no longer being chased by a madman with a dagger.
Everything was sloppy seconds as he got to his feet and started to slip and stomp back to the lesser. As sirens busted out, he hated that he was right: Those two busybody assholes had gone to the nearest Public Safety Response call box and summoned the CPD cop-bot brigade.
Still seeing nothing but a glaring white expanse, his nose guided him back to the stink. Or at least what seemed to be in its vicinity. Falling down to his knees, he patted around with his free hand—
Thank fuck he ran into a leg. Feeling up the lesser’s body, he located the center of the chest by pressing into the flat pecs until he hit the hard plate of the sternum.
Setting the dagger point right there, he locked both hands on the hilt, hauled straight up, and sent the weapon down like he was starting CPR.
There was an instant blast of heat. No flash of light registered, though, because it was like he was perpetually staring into one.
Meanwhile, the damn sirens were getting louder.
Lost in his whiteout, he realized…
He might just be cooked.