Running in the Dark (16 page)

I pulled my knife from my pocket, flicked the blade out and turned just as a sucker fell on me. I got one knee up, keeping some of his weight off me, then froze. It was Bren. One of his eyes was milky blue, the bone around it crushed, and his torso stuck out at a crazy angle from his pelvis, but it was the same sucker who’d been in the car with me. And he was furious.

He pinned my right arm with one hand, dropped his other forearm across my tucked chin and pressed down. Bloody drool ran from his chalky mouth and dripped onto my face.

I tried to kick him off, grunting with the effort even though I barely moved him. Warmth spread across my belly. He was bleeding badly, judging by how quickly he was soaking my clothes.

He stared at me, wet eyes in a chalked face. I couldn’t breathe. A vampire was on top of me, heavy and hungry, and I couldn’t fucking breathe. He licked his lips and I let out a choked cry as I struggled against his hold.

And then he was gone, tossed back and tumbling down the stairs. Malcolm pulled me up and I crashed against his chest. I stared at his fangs, a deep gash in his biceps that oozed blood. My hand trembled around the knife.

“Next time I will tie you up,” he snarled. “I need to get you out of here. How did you even manage—?”

Vorster landed on the mezzanine in a crouch, eyes blazing blue, his light hair clotted with blood. Malcolm shoved me against the wall behind him, where I was promptly crushed when Vorster charged into him. I wormed to my right, then screamed when Vorster’s hand raked my face. Why the fuck would a man have nails that long?

Malcolm shifted and I bounced between his broad back and the wall. Vorster reached for me again. I raised my knife and drove it into his hand. It went straight through the back of his palm, and Malcolm twitched when it stuck in his shoulder.

“Oh shit, oh sorry, oh fu—”

Vorster pulled and twisted, dragging Malcolm away from me. They tumbled over the edge, leaving me gasping and shaking. I shuffled toward the opening in the rail, my pulse pounding in my ears. The sound almost hid the mumbling growl coming from the stairs. I turned. Bren crouched, snarling, both hands pressed to his wounded stomach. I spun, desperate for another way down.

An explosion from below pitched the floor another fifteen degrees. I crashed against the railing, scrambling for a hold, eyes darting. Farther around the mezzanine, fire climbed a roll of textiles. The second set of stairs was ten feet beyond that, but the flames jumped when they hit spilled chalk, cutting me off.

The chains of the crane swung in front of me. It was a simple device, wheels on a track, and the track was clear. The electricity might be out, but enough momentum would get me over the pile of machine parts. I could climb down. Right into a pit of suckers, but at least I’d have a couple more options than I did now.

Bren staggered toward me, spewing energy and dripping blood. I was out of time, and everybody else was busy. I dropped my hand into my bag and felt around until my fingers brushed the cool, sleek body of my Zippo.

“Fuck the high ground.” I closed my eyes when I lit it, then opened one eye. I hadn’t exploded. I set it down, angling the top to protect the flame, and slid it toward my shuffling attacker. Covered in combustible dust, he went up fast.

I darted back to the exterior wall while Bren flailed and screamed—a sound I never want to hear again. He ran toward the stairs and straight into the broken crate. It flared, and the resulting smell was horrific.
Ignore it, ignore it, ignore it.

I concentrated on the chains. The floor angled downward. The chains were moving, at least six feet from the mezzanine. The drop was closer to twenty. I didn’t know the math on that, but it didn’t seem easy. Bren dropped to the ground, rolling in a series of quick jerks, extinguishing flames with each movement and getting closer and closer.

When in doubt, go fast.

I ran. Another flash of vampire energy burst below just as I jumped. I held my breath, arms rising out in front of me in slow motion, and the crane fucking
moved.
It rolled, an essential few inches farther away. My hands scrabbled, fingers sliding along the chain as my body dropped, gravity trying to suck me back down to where I belonged. I screamed, caught my left wrist in a loop of chain, then screamed again when the loop jerked closed around it.

The chain in my right hand slipped another couple of terrifying links before I caught hold. Smoke enveloped me, staining the tears running down my face and burning my eyes. I tried to pull myself up, crying out at the agony that brought on. I was so not winning.

I pulled until I could slide my left arm farther through the loop. My elbow finally hooked over and I hung, panting. The debris pile was still a couple feet away. I might be able to make it if I could get swinging, but I’d have to jump—fall, really—to reach it. The floor…the floor was very far away.

The blood drained out of my limbs as I hung there, just breathing. I felt Malcolm. His rage. His pain. His desperation. He was somewhere to my right, but all I could see was smoke, blood and…parts of people.

I swallowed, coughed and slipped again. His energy slid into my skin, warm and chaotic, and I focused on it over the pain and panic. It soothed me, even as it filled me with energy. Energy he goddamn needed. I was a bird on a wire because I’d put myself there, and it very much felt like he was directing power toward me.

“Let go.” Soraya’s voice, behind and below me. My arms trembled, and sweat and smoke stung my eyes. “Let go. I will catch you.”

“Always telling me what to do,” I gasped. “Move faster. Circle. Let me in. Let go and fall two stories.”

“You’re in shock. I will come and get you.”

“No.” I caught a glimpse of Bren, smoking and no longer whole, lurching toward the opening in the rail. Looking to devour the human, now hung like an offering, who’d hurt him. Fuck.

“Sydney, let go.” The slightest influence behind Soraya’s words.

Bren groaned as he crouched, preparing to leap.

I let go.

Chapter Seventeen

I was too damn stupid to live. That was all I could think while I fell. No life flashing before my eyes, just that singular epiphany. I crashed into Soraya, my chin cracking against her shoulder. She tossed me behind her. I stumbled, righted myself, and promptly ran diaphragm-first into the handle of a rusted pallet jack.

Bren fell on Soraya, and new flames sprouted up on his back. She rabbit-punched him and shoved him away. He rebounded off a solid piece of metal and she snatched up her remaining sword and swung. His head thumped onto the ground. It might have bounced. I couldn’t be sure, too busy fighting nausea and trying to regain my ability to breathe. His body wavered for a moment before crumpling.

The vampiress turned toward me, her right arm curled in front of her. I lay there, making weird little noises as my body tried to get air. She took a sliding step, and another vamp streaked up behind her. I opened my mouth to warn her, but nothing came out.

Soraya turned, but she was slow, too slow. A blade sprang out of her back and she stopped, completely motionless for thirty seconds while the sucker stared at her, his expression at first uncertain, then victorious. The idiot. Soraya screamed. She kicked him away, tossed her sword behind her and pulled the blade from her belly. The vamp scrambled to his feet as she dropped low, sidestepped, and plunged his own knife into him, slitting him from groin to neck. His legs kicked spastically as all kinds of horrible shit poured out of his body.

Soraya staggered, slumping to her knees as she neared me. I reached for her, but her head cracked against the cement floor as she landed. She rolled halfway from her back to her side, then fell still. One curved sword lay beside her and…her right hand was missing. I glanced at the twisted blue and red mess of my left hand.

She could heal almost anything given time. But we didn’t have time. I could heal, too, given enough energy. Eladio stepped out of the smoke, blood squishing out of his shoes as he walked, a gnarly serrated sword in one massive fist. He scanned us out of the one eye that remained open, then turned to face two vampires slinking in from the shadows.

Guarding us. Putting his undeath on the line even though he despised me. Because he and Malcolm had a pact, and that arrangement extended to me. Finally able to breathe, I shoved myself onto my side, cradling my bad arm, reaching for Soraya’s sword with the other. I wanted to not be fucking useless. To be able to make a mistake or a bad call once in awhile and survive it without help.

If I could just heal.

Vorster’s energy skittered over me. I shivered, then fixated on the feel of it. Like Malcolm’s, but not. It was colored by Vorster’s feelings, his drives and his fears. But under that, it was just energy. I could take it. I could accept his power, and my body would use it the same as it did Malcolm’s. At least, it should. All I had to do was open to him. I gazed down at Soraya, utterly still, at Eladio grunting as he was hit. Protecting us. I wasn’t going anywhere without their help, and they weren’t going to be able to get me out if I kept falling apart.

I had nothing to lose.

The vampires attacked together. Eladio dodged some kind of mace, punched the other vampire just over his ear. He kept circling, and they kept moving just outside of his compromised field of vision. I focused on Vorster. Cut the strings and the minions will flail, that’s what the vampire scientists always said. I didn’t know if he’d made these vampires, but he was their master for all intents and purposes. They were acting on his wishes.

I relaxed my defenses and opened to him. For a brief moment pressure built inside me, making my heart pound, my nerves twinge, threatening to overwhelm me. Then it was gone, like a release valve had popped. I tapped into his specific current, into a frigid pool of power. It actually stung as it slapped against me. I dropped my head and ground my teeth as it flooded me. In my peripheral vision, one of Vorster’s suckers fell.

My wrist flopped, things moving beneath the surface of my skin as it began knitting itself back together. The pain was so immense that I scrambled back, boots squealing on the floor as I tried to get away from my own arm. My teeth chattered. The lingering ache in my breastbone and shoulder faded. The throb in my cheek from the wood splinter eased. My wrist went numb, and my fingers twitched like crazy.

Eladio rose slowly from the last body, which he’d just…split. And then Vorster sped into the room, bloody and furiously happy. I stopped breathing. Where was Malcolm? Eladio charged him and the two swirled, too fast for me to track. Metal clanged, and the room shook from their efforts. Eladio’s sword broke, the end of the blade falling, the rest of it spinning away through the air. He fell back, rolled away from a slash, and grabbed up a length of pipe to replace his lost weapon.

I clutched Soraya’s sword, and stared at Vorster’s back, focusing solely on him. The room fell away, the noise, the dust, the fire and chaos. I
pulled,
dragging great drafts of power into me. I pushed myself to my feet, swaying, but not because I was weak. I should have been, but instead I felt amazing. Full and light and effervescent. And Vorster…staggered. Eladio lumbered toward him.

The South African recovered, too quickly, and stabbed Eladio twice in quick succession. The massive vampire fell and Vorster sank the blade in twice more before turning. I stepped over Soraya’s legs, putting myself between her and the sucker, and raised the sword.

He ran a hand through his hair, smoothing the blood-clotted mess. Then he laughed, a jarring sound that carried no joy “Oh, this is
precious.
Malcolm’s trained his pet to protect his prize.” The feel of his power changed, smoothing from rolling rocks to silk. I shivered.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said, my voice shaking even though my hands were steady. Surprisingly so. “You can still walk away, Hendrik. Just go…now.”

He paused, blue eyes widening between streaks of blood. I gripped the hilt, then forced myself to relax my hold. Not that my technique was going to matter against something so quick, but I wasn’t going to let him break me like he’d broken Tilde.

“You’re offering
me
a way out?” he murmured, before laughing. “Even if I’d thought to go before, I won’t now. I simply have to know what talents you’ve got locked up in that blood of yours. Because you, my dear, are priceless. The things I will do with you. The things you’ll beg me to do.” Influence saturated his words, spiking behind my eyes and drilling into my mind. The thought of Tilde, whimpering for his attention, broke loose from my memories, fueling a tide of anger.

“No.” I took a deep breath and dragged more power from him.

“What are you doing?” He frowned and rubbed his chest. He looked down at his hand, then turned it over, staring at the palm with confusion.

Malcolm appeared behind him. He was a mess, his shirt hanging in shreds, his hands stained red. He picked up the end of Eladio’s sword and caught Vorster around the neck. His rigid arm tightened beneath Vorster’s chin, then they jerked in unison. Vorster twitched, opening and closing his mouth like a fish. A bubble rose out of it, pink at first and then darkening as it filled. It burst red and blood ran down his front. Malcolm released him and Vorster took a few short, stiff steps, then shuffled to face him.

“What…did…you…do?”

“Stabbed you in the back, Hen.” His voice was as flat and brittle as shale. He put his hand on Vorster’s shoulder, steadying him. “What you’ve been accusing me of for years.”

Vorster’s hand flopped around behind him. The fat end of the bare blade stuck out of his back and dully reflected the remaining light. Vorster reeled back, then collapsed. Malcolm walked toward him, each step slow and steady.

“Turn away, Syd.” There was no influence behind the words, hardly any tone at all. I closed my eyes, listening to the pound of my pulse in my ears as a blade snicked through the air and clanged against the cement.

My eyes flew open. Malcolm moved toward me, his eyes hollow. He pushed my sword out of his way and pulled me tight against him. “You’re going to be the true death of me,” he muttered into my hair. I began to tremble. “Even though you may be the only person not actively trying to kill me.”