29. Scotty
Scotty
EVERYTHING I DO (I DO IT FOR YOU)
“Jules!” I roar. It took me forever to climb up these fucking cliffs, and my arms are going to be bitching at me tomorrow.
That’s if I survive any of this shite, which isn’t looking likely.
After disturbing every harpy nest on my way up here, I finally reach the top only to find my girl in the claws of her old master.
Thanks to that gruesome painting of hers, I’d recognize his face anywhere.
The rain pelts me in the face, making it more difficult to see. I flex my hands at my sides as I stare Dante down. The harpies swirl around the two of them, angrily pecking at the ancient vampire.
“Walk away, child,” Dante says. The harpies pull at his cloak and hair, but he doesn’t even deign to look at them. He swats at one as it tries to scratch his face, sending it straight into the mud. “You are outmatched.”
“Yeah,” I say as I stalk forward. “I know that. But you have my girlfriend, so frankly, I don’t give a fuck.”
Juliette winces when she sees me. “Scotty … run.”
“Sorry, Jules,” I say, smiling sadly. “But I can’t do that.”
The harpies finally realize I’m there and start to attack me, too.
I shield my face with my arms, and I’m thankful for my leather jacket.
Dante dissipates, along with Juliette, in a thick cloud of mist. No.
No, no, no. If they disappear … I won’t be able to find them.
I can’t track them down. There’s no way.
The harpies screech in confusion and continue grabbing at my hair and clothes.
“Stop!” I cry. “Gods, please!”
The harpies knock into me, sending me into the mud on my ass.
“Intruder!” one of the harpies shrieks.
“Murderer!” another one cries.
Wait, they can talk? I didn’t know they were capable of speech. I kind of figured they were like regular birds, but with human faces. I uncover my face for half a second and wince.
“Wait!” I yelp. “H-Hey! Come on! I didn’t know you were sentient!”
One of the harpies bites at my hand. “Murderer!”
I pull my hand back before it can be turned into a bloody stump. “Stop it! Maybe we can work out a deal?”
The harpy who bit my hand stares at me with her angelic lady face. Gods, this is too weird. Up close, they really do look human … save for the claws and feathers, of course. She continues to scowl at me while a few more harpies land beside her.
“A deal?” she says, and I nod.
“Yeah. A deal. You help me, I help you. That sorta thing,” I say, already regretting my choice of words. The werebears are not going to be happy if they find out I struck a deal with their enemy. But right now, I don’t exactly have a ton of options, do I?
“Listening,” the harpy says.
“Listening, listening,” the others repeat in unison.
“Help me get my girlfriend back from that old vampire, and we’ll help you out with the shifters,” I say.
The harpies go silent for a few moments and stare at one another. Occasionally, they blink. Then the one who bit me says, “Yes. Deal. You make the shifters stop hunting us. We help.”
That’s about as good as I’m going to get, I think. I hold my hand out for them to shake, then roll my eyes at myself. They don’t have hands. Or our cultural norms. Dammit, Scotty. Your mom was right. You’re stupid.
“Uh, deal. Do you know where they went?” I ask.
“We will take to the skies and hunt them to the ends of the earth, vampire,” the harpy says.
She jumps into the air and grabs on to my shoulders with her talons. We fly above the trees and cliffs and even the clouds until the storm is below us. And in the distance, I can make out the dark form of something flying toward the crescent moon.
“There!” I yell, pointing. “It’s them!”
The harpies swarm together as one ferocious flock. It’s almost as though they all share the same brain cell, because they’re completely in sync with one another as they rush forward. Dante is fast as a bat, but the harpies are faster.
“We are the queens of the skies,” the harpy says as she carries me swiftly to our target. “He will not escape us. And then we will feast on his rotted flesh!”
I cringe. “Gross, but fair. Do whatever you want to him, but don’t touch the woman.”
“Do you hear that, sisters? Kill the ancient one, leave the female!”
The harpy screams, and her flock races forward until they’re practically on top of Dante and Juliette. Dante tries to dissolve into mist again, but one of the harpies knocks into his side, tossing him like a ragdoll in the air.
When he loses his grip on Juliette, I scream.
“Jules! No!”
Juliette drops down, down, down toward the ocean … but a harpy snatches her out of the air and carries her back up toward me.
The harpy carrying me nods. “We have secured your mate,” she says. “Now to deal with your nemesis.”
The dozen or so harpies screech in unison again as they hit Dante over and over. His wings are nothing but tatters at this point. I’d almost feel sorry for him, if he wasn’t … him. My throat tightens as they unleash their vengeance on him.
Dante begins to slip out of the air, too weak and injured to fly. One of the harpies grabs on to his wings, and I let out a whimper when I hear the crunching breakage of his bones.
Minutes later, we land back at the tops of the cliffs. Juliette is deposited safely in my arms, where she belongs.
I run my hand along her palm, then brush my lips against hers. “Jules,” I murmur. “Sweetheart.”
She lifts her hand and pushes my wet hair out of my eyes, then smiles. “Scotty. You came for me.”
I lift her hands and kiss her knuckles. “Always.”
The harpy who carried me hobbles toward us. “I hate interrupting, but the ancient one still lives.”
Nodding, I set Juliette down in the grass beside two gigantic harpies.
When I approach Dante, who’s lying in the grass and still in his bat form, I realize just how …
small the guy actually is. The way Juliette spoke of him, he always seemed larger than life itself.
This towering menace with all this power.
But now all I see is a pitiful ancient vampire who can’t even move his wings. Not so powerful anymore, I guess.
I kneel beside him in the grass and shake one of his broken wings. He lets out a gurgled cry.
“Yeah, I know it hurts,” I say. “That’s why I did it. Because you’re an asshole who deserves that and more.”
His yellowed, hateful eyes linger on mine, but he says nothing.
“And I’d love nothing more than to drive a stake through your chest. Watch as you crumble into dust and blow away in the wind. But unfortunately, that’s not my call.” I look over my shoulder at Juliette, who is now sitting up on her own. Good. She’s already healing. That’s my girl. “Julie.”
Juliette pushes herself up and wobbles forward. I hold out my hand to her, and she takes it eagerly.
“What do you want to do with him, love?” I ask. “It’s up to you.”
She frowns at me, then at the heap of bat in the grass. She kneels next to him, then runs her hand across the top of his head. “Dante.”
Dante lets out a hacking cough as he regards Juliette with his bat-face. “Little dove. You’ve returned to me.”
She shakes her head. “I will always be grateful to you, for saving me from the fire. From taking me away from the Nosferatu raid. For turning me.”
Dante’s chest heaves as he spits up a blood clot. “I knew you would see reason, little dove.”
Her eyes narrow into slits. “I am only grateful for those things because it gave me the chance to meet him.” She looks at me and nods.
“Scotty. The one who taught me what real love is. What it’s supposed to feel like.
You see, for centuries, I thought you—and only you—loved me.
Probably because my own mother treated me worse than horse dung.
I see now that only made me an easy target for you. ”
Dante says nothing. He simply stares at her with pure venom in his eyes.
“You broke my heart. Made me eat my mother’s,” she says. “Now I’m going to break yours.”
Juliette sends her fist flying into Dante’s back.
He lets out a strangled moan as she rips his heart from his rib cage and holds it in front of her face.
She watches it let out a few last beats in her palm, then allows it to drop to the ground with a wet thud.
But vampires can’t be killed this way. They need to be burned, staked, or decapitated. Surely, she knows—
Juliette nods to one of the harpies. It lets out a mighty screech before removing Dante’s bat-head clear from his shoulders. Another harpy flies forward to catch it in their beak before it can hit the ground. I look away as the harpies descend on the head in a hungry frenzy. Gross.
“It’s done, then,” she says, and plops down in the grass next to me. “It’s over.”
I throw an arm around her shoulder and pull her against my chest. No other words are needed.
Rob leans against the reception counter as he strokes his beard. “And they said they don’t want to attack us, but their food supply is being fucked with?” he asks.
I nod. “They said something in the swamp is eating everything, so that’s why they started coming after you guys. But they said they’d stop if you could help them out with their food shortage.”
Rob regards me cooly for a few moments, and I’m worried he isn’t going to believe the tale.
Fuck it. I probably wouldn’t. If I were him, I’d assume Julie and I were trying to get out of hunting duty.
But then he hums thoughtfully and says, “Fine. We’ll take a look in the swamp.
See if we can’t find the source of the issue.
In the meantime, tell them we’ll bring ’em some leftover meat from the butcher. Sound good?”
I give him a thumbs up. “Sounds great.”
“Which means if you want to keep living here with your girlfriend—”
Dammit. I knew that was coming. “You want us to look into the issue in the swamp.”
He nods.
“Okay. We’re on it.”
I go back to the room and relay everything to Juliette while she watches another episode of The Price is Great with the blanket up around her nose.
She’s still afraid of the television even when there’s nothing violent or gory on, it seems. I kick off my boots and flop down on the mattress next to her.
“Sooo … what do you think?” I ask.
“I think we need to remove this Hell box from the room,” she says as she points at the television.
I lift her hand to my lips and kiss her knuckles. “Not what I meant, Jules. Try again.”
Juliette rests her head on my shoulder. “I think … I think that so long as I am with you, I do not mind what we do.”
I run my palm across the top of her head and kiss her forehead. “My little mind reader.”
“I didn’t read your mind that time,” she says. We look at one another for a long, long moment before we erupt into laughter.
“Oh, not that time, huh?” I run my fingers up and down her sides, tickling her. Juliette lets out shrieks and giggles as I attack her. “So that means you were reading it before! I knew it!”
Juliette continues to laugh until bloody tears streak her cheeks. But this time, for the first time in centuries, they’re tears of happiness.