He moved slowly, his feet shuffling in the underbrush. He shouldn't even be able to walk yet, or at least not without that zombielike lack of coordination. It took the newly risen a lot longer than this. A lot longer. Yet the girl who had risen in the park had been a typical young-rogue vamp and she had been under this same spell. Why not this guy?
Because of Ada and all the ambient energy she had brought ashore. The lightning had disrupted the stasis spell.
Near me, LeShawn paused and raised his head, that weirdly snakelike move they all had, and sniffed. "You smell good. Like meat and . . . sex."
"Move along or you'll smell like dead meat."
He laughed. Crap. He laughed. That totally human laughter that took most of them a decade to relearn. He looked back at me, the grin still on his face. His eyes were human, brown irises with night-wide pupils. On my chest, the crosses decreased their glow. His eyes lit on my neck just below my jaw, the sliver of unprotected skin, and he breathed deeply, closing his eyes. "You smell so . . . good."
My crosses brightened, a weird fluctuation I'd never seen before. "LeShawn. Snap out of it or I'll stake you and you'll be true-dead. LeShawn."
His eyes opened and he was partly vamped out. "They killed . . . me . . . already."
"Who killed you, LeShawn?"
He shook his head and gripped his middle, whispering, "It was dark. Hungry, hungry, hungry." But he turned and went where I pointed, back south, his bare feet noisy in the underbrush. I kept fifteen feet or so between us, and my shotgun up. I hoped it was enough space for me to react if he vamped out and came at me again.
This vamp was the key to understanding the kidnappings. To finding Angelina and Little Evan. This vamp could talk. Hope soared through me, but I wrestled it down alongside the fear.
It looked as though we'd make it. I could see the chapel through the trees, glowing whitely in the rising moon. LeShawn slowed, his back to me. He put out a hand to steady himself as he stepped between two trees. His claws were out, sharpened and two inches long. They pressed into the dry white wood of a dead tree with small snaps as he tightened his grip. With his other hand, he gripped his middle. Stopped. My crosses began to glow again, making me blink against the brightness.
He was breathing hard, the reek of dead tissues stinking on the night air. I kept my voice steady, not reacting to the fight-or-flight impulse flooding my system. "LeShawn? Keep it together, man. Keep moving."
He turned, allowing me a half-profile view of his face, and dropped his head. "Can't. Can't do it . . ." His hand on the tree made a fist. Cutting his palm. I smelled vamp blood, like dried sage on the air, sharper than the stink of death. He held out his hand, seeing the thin blood there. He put his palm to his mouth. And sank his teeth in. Sucked.
"LeShawn?" I took a single step closer.
"Hu . . ." He quivered. Fell back against the tree, facing me, pressing his jaw into his palm. Sucked hard at his own torn flesh. He sobbed with frustration. "So . . . so hungry. Hu . . . huuu . . ." In a flash he leaped at me, eyes insane with bloodlust. Vampy rogue insane. Time did that little shift and he seemed to slow, hanging in midair. Snarling. I raised the stake, gauging his arc. And he came down. At me. Onto the tip of the stake.
I watched it puncture his shirts. And knew my mistake even as I felt the silver tip slide between ribs. He crashed onto me, his claws closing reflexively on my upper arms. Time juddered and resumed its slow pace.
"No!" I hit the ground with the force of his leap, LeShawn above me. Shock on his face. Too late, I jerked at the stake, pulling it back. His eyes bled back to human. We bounced. I used the bounce to twist from beneath him. Yanking the stake. It caught on a rib and held. We were no longer at the proper angle for it to slide free. Time slowed again, flashes of reality painted across the dark of the night.
Twisting, the stake hung on the back of his sternum, trapped between ribs and the hard plate of bone in the center of his chest. His claws brushed across the metal of my jacket sleeves. Tiny clinks. The motion threw him farther to the side. Down. Hard. The landing shoved the stake into his heart with a little give. A small reduction of pressure as it entered the heart chamber. And all the way through, rubbery on the other side.
The sharpened silver tip cut through his shirt at the back. Stinging vamp blood splattered up in a thin fountain. Small droplets splashed my face. The vamp sighed. Died. Shock stabbed through me. "No. No!"