She hissed, bloody mouth open like a cat. Lifted herself off me and stumbled into the corner, against the wall. Away from the office and the sofa that hid Bliss and Rachael. I was happy to see my blade still buried in her, the hilt in her right side, where her liver had been when she was human. The point tented her clothes on her left side, poking through between her ribs, under her arm. I had missed her heart, the thrust too low, but I smelled scorching blood, the silver on the blade burning her. Poisoning her. Though not fast enough. I remembered my words to her at the gather. “Hello, dead woman. I’ll have your blood on my hands soon.” I’d been right.
I reached across my body and lifted my own hand. Pulled my damaged arm to me, feeling/hearing broken bones grate against each other. My breath was fast and shallow, my heart sprinting. But no blood spurted. It just ran down my arm and off my fingertips. The pain was already starting, a throbbing, distant gong echoing through me, like a great bell of pain, gathering and building, but still distant. I set my face in emotionless lines as I tucked the numb hand into my waistband. It was cold and bloody. I needed to shift. Beast? I asked. She didn’t answer, but I felt the skin beneath my fingers ripple and bristle. Pelt was forming on my numb hand. Intense pain flashed through my arm, lightning hot. My eyesight tunneled down, black at the edges. I was close to passing out.
It’s never smart to show weakness to a vamp, and fainting from blood loss probably fell into the category. I huffed a laugh at the thought. With a foot, I flipped up a stool that had found its way into the foyer from elsewhere. I sat a hip on it. My eyesight widened. I managed a single deep breath and my field of view widened again.
At his side, Eli’s hand was pointing. In his other hand, hidden in the shadows, he held a fragmentation grenade. I clamped my teeth against a pained breath and huffed a laugh. “Yeah, that’d do it, but it’s sorta overkill, dontcha think?”
Shoffru looked confused and then dismissed my comments. “Give me the blood diamond.”
“Let him go, heal him, and we’ll chat.” Eli, trusting me to get him out of this, tucked the grenade back in a pocket.
“You have nothing with which to bargain,” Shoffu said.
“He dies, and neither do you,” I said.
Evan stepped up to me, his music playing. In Beast’s vision, I could see Evan’s magic pushing back on the directed death-magic. Molly’s magic. And I knew the moment he realized that the magic was familiar. Was his wife’s. His music nearly died as he breathed it in, but he played on, with only that single hitch in the melody. His scent changed, though, and I smelled the panic flooding through his body. Fight or flight. And with Big Evan that always meant fight.
“I have your friend.”
“Not with you, you don’t. See, I’m not human, and while I smell her magic, I don’t smell Molly. You have her somewhere safe. But not here.” My words were spoken to Shoffru, but were meant for Evan, to keep him from doing anything stupid.
To my side, Adrianna slid to the floor, leaving a long smear of blood on the wall. Sitting, she gripped the blade and pulled. It dragged from her body with an awful sound. She moaned softly, like a child in pain, holding the knife out. Her blood poured from both sides, bubbling and dark as the silver poisoned her. She had started the night dressed in white. Now she looked like death served cold. Her arm slowly dropped, until the blade touched the floor. Her fingers went limp and released the hilt. She took a breath, released it, and went still. She wasn’t exactly true-dead. She could be brought back if a master vamp was in the mood to save her. Or she could rise as a revenant if no one took her head. But for now, she was no danger to anyone. At most she was a bargaining chip, though I had little reason to suspect that Shoffru cared for her.
Through the busted windows I heard more sirens far off, growing closer. Someone had figured out where the problems were. Big Evan played on. He knew we were in trouble, big trouble, and he wanted me to know he wasn’t going to fly off the handle, that he understood that Molly wasn’t here. Wasn’t just outside, in need of his help. I turned my attention back to Shoffru. Eli was pale and sweaty in his grip. His black camo was wet and even blacker, drenched with blood. “I’ll let you take Adrianna. In return, you let Eli go.”
“I bargain for only one thing. The blood diamond.”
Eli’s eyes rolled back in his head. He wasn’t breathing. His knees turned to water as he went limp. I wasn’t sure Shoffru even noted the extra weight as the Ranger passed out. Panic shocked through me and I saw Shoffru sniff as my fear pheromones charged the air. I had to keep Shoffru from killing him. I had to keep the people in the house safe. I had to find Molly and save her. The goals could not be merged. “It’s not like I carry it around with me,” I snarled as Eli’s dark skin went ashy gray.
“Pity,” the pirate said. “It seems our rapiers are locked.”
I made sense of that metaphor. He was talking about dueling with swords. “Yeah, life sucks that way sometimes.” I jutted my chin to the nearly dead vamp on the floor to my side. Using the gesture to hide my other action, I palmed a throwing knife. “So what about your girlfriend?”