[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
of blood.
Then, without another word, he stabbed Cyrus in the heart. There was no rush
of wind, no spectacular flame. Cyrus's second vampire life ended in an
inconsequential burst of ash.
Crippling pain grippedme, almost exactly what I'd felt when I'd sired him.
But that pain had been a sort of stitching together. This was an agonizing
rending of the fabric that had bound us. And the last thing I heard through
the blood tie was his scream of terror.
I collapsed to the floor at the same moment the Soul Eater did. He clutched
his chest as though his hand could stop the blood that poured from him. A ball
of blue flame shot upward from the wound, but still he didn't burn.
"It's not his heart," Nathan whispered, staring in horror.
The doors flew open. Dahlia rushed in, screaming.
Kill me. Let her kill me. When it seemed I couldn't stand another second of
the pain, it doubled, tripled, multiplied into oblivion. I stared at the spot
where my fledgling had stood, rocking with my knees drawn up to my chest.
"No!" I'd never heard Dahlia sound so crazed, and for her, that's saying
something. But it didn't register with me immediately. Not until Nathan was
pulling on my elbow how long had he been doing that? urging me to my feet.
When I didn't stand, he swept me up in his arms, cradling me to his chest, and
charged through the window. A flash of light illuminated the study probably a
spell of Dahlia's intended for us and then we were slipping down the lawn the
way we had the night Nathan had lost Ziggy in the very room I'd just lost
Cyrus.
The irony would have been more poignant if I hadn't been losing my mind to
grief at an accelerated pace.
Once we were off the grounds and hidden for a moment, he slowed. I noted from
Page 190
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
a faraway place the blood streaming down his face from cuts left by the
shattered window glass.
"Carrie, are you all right?" He shook me. "Carrie, say something. Say
something!"
I turned my eyes to the sky. "I can't see the stars."
And then I couldn't say another word.
Chapter Twenty-Five: Bite
It only took a second for the kid to make up his mind. Max saw the
decision-making process in slow motion: recognition, realization that the plan
must be changed,new plan taking shape.
Ziggy lifted his arm as if he was going to drive the stake into Max's chest.
Bella screamed. The kid spun and let the stake loose. It punctured the
Oracle's chest, fast and clean, but she didn't burn.
She laughed. The laughter grew louder as the guards approached them, stakes
drawn. Without hesitation, the kid slipped two from his sleeves straight into
his hands, and let them fly in quick succession. This time, the strikes hit
home. The vampires exploded into dust.
Ziggy turned to the Oracle. "Hold still, bitch, unless you want another
abnormally large splinter."
"You think you can kill me?" The Oracle laughed again, twisting the stake
free from her chest. "You think you can cause me pain? You have no idea of
pain. No concept!"
"Oh, lady.You have it so fucking wrong." He reached into the back of his
shirt and pulled out another stake twirling it in his hand as he raised his
arm.
Max had worked with a lot of assassins in the past. The Movement had the most
specialized hand-to-hand training program outside of the Israeli military. But
Max had never seen reflexes like this, let alone spatial accuracy in the blink
of an eye.
But the kid didn't get a chance to use his mad skills. Without warning, the
Oracle burst into flames, from the feet up. Fire shot from her eyes and mouth,
her fingers melted and flames licked up her arms from the stumps.
"Looks like the Soul Eater had the balls to do it, after all! This one is
gonna be bad," Max called to Ziggy, dropping to cover Bella. "Grab something
and hang on."
The Oracle screamed no, roared was more like it as the flames burned her
body. The skin dissolved slowly, leaving her a creature of raw muscle and
tendons for a split second before they flaked away to ash, leaving nothing but
a skeleton suspended around a ball of blue flame. When the flame extinguished
Page 191
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
and dropped to the ashes on the ground, the wind came.
The shutters tore from the windows. The sun had set at least that was in
their favor but being sliced in half with a piece of metal would be just as
bad.
"Keep your head down," Max shouted over the howl of the wind. The last word
had just left his mouth when a chunk of debris whacked him in the back of the
head. His arms gave out and he fell onto Bella. A sharp pain in his shoulder a
second later indicated another piece of flying something had taken a chunk out
of him."Son of a bitch!"
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]