But they didn’t begin to decompose.
Besides, if this . . . thing needed to feed, why wasn’t he feasting on the witch’s tangible fear? Or even his own fury?
“No.”
“No, I don’t need to feed?”
Santiago narrowed his gaze. “It’s more than that.”
Without warning Sally took a step forward, her arms wrapped around her slender waist. “The book,” she said.
Santiago jerked his head toward the gaping hole in the wall where Gaius and this witch seemed to be convinced a book was hidden.
“Of course.” He grimaced. He should have suspected the book was the culprit from the minute he noticed Gaius’s impression of a zombie. If the bastard was willing to risk everything to get his hands on it, then it was obviously his kryptonite. “It must be draining him.”
Gaius didn’t bother answering. Instead his attention shifted to the sound of footsteps outside the door.
“Go away,” Santiago shouted as the steel door shuddered beneath the impact of Styx’s size-sixteen boot. There was another shudder, before the cement above the door began to crack and buckle.
Roke.
It had to be.
There was no other vampire who had his particular effect on physical structures. The powerful vampire was a walking, talking (okay, not so much the talking) earthquake machine.
“Dammit, go away,” he shouted again, sensing Gaius’s seething anticipation.
“Santiago, what the hell is going on?” Styx called through the door, his own power making the lights flicker.
Another crack appeared along the side of the door, making Santiago curse at Roke’s persistence.
He had to keep them out of the room. Gaius wouldn’t dare take one of them as a host when it might mean he was trapped on the other side with no way to reach Sally or the book.
He glanced toward the witch, who was studying the crumbling wall with an odd expression.
“Do you have a phone?” he demanded.
She blinked, glancing down at her clinging outfit that clearly had no place to hide the clichéd thin dime let alone a phone. Thankfully she resisted the urge to point out the obvious, and instead caught him off-guard when she squared her shoulders and tilted her chin. “I can reach them.”
He frowned. “A spell . . . oh shit.” He blinked in shock as she turned her arm over to reveal the distinctive tattoo that crawled beneath the skin of her inner forearm. “Who?”
A blush touched her cheeks. “Roke.”
Taciturn, I-am-an-island-so-don’t-screw-with-me Roke mated with a witch?
Fairly certain the entire world had gone mad, Santiago gave a nod of his head. “Warn them to back off.”
“I’ll try.” She rolled her eyes as yet another crack appeared. “They haven’t listened to me yet.”
Trusting that the witch could convince the vampires to halt their assault on the door, not to mention Roke’s seeming determination to bring the roof down on their heads, Santiago turned back to Gaius.
He hid his stab of shock as he realized that Gaius was a shade paler and several pounds frailer. Mierda. Even his hair was beginning to fall out.
Like he was a dog with mange.
“What’s in the book?” he rasped, resisting the urge to reach up and make sure his own hair wasn’t beginning to shed.
Surely he would sense if the book was starting to make him rot?
With a slow, deliberate motion Gaius turned back to study him with his glowing gaze. “Do you know who I am?”
Santiago shrugged. “Don’t know, don’t care.”
“There are some who claim I’m your god,” the creature informed him with an arrogance that he’d clearly bestowed on his children. “Without me you would never have existed.”
Santiago was sublimely unimpressed. “God or not, we’ve done just fine without you for the past few millennia,” he mocked.
“Not without me—I’ve been sleeping,” the creature corrected him. “But what if you destroy me?”
“Can a god be destroyed?” Santiago demanded with a lift of his brows.
There was a low hiss. “The Dark Lord proved it’s possible.”
Santiago made a sound of disgust. “He was never a true god.”
“Maybe not to you.”
“And neither are you.”
There was a calculating pause as Gaius no doubt considered the best way to manipulate Santiago into destroying the witch. The fact he wasn’t using his ability to provoke Santiago into a bloodlust spoke volumes about the power of the book.
“But I am your creator,” he at last said, his voice the dry hiss of a viper. “Can you be certain that my end won’t also be the end of all vampires?”
No. He couldn’t be certain.
Which was precisely why he wasn’t going to let himself consider the possibility.
For now he wasn’t going to concentrate on anything beyond destroying this monster and getting Nefri safely back to his lair.
“Sally.”
He could smell the female’s terror, but with an admirable display of courage, she moved to stand at his side.
Maybe Roke hadn’t completely lost his mind in choosing this female.