Almost Human (13 page)

She threw her head back and cackled. It was
so strange not to hear the sound. She looked at me, and I read her
lips.

“Braxus protects the body that brought him
to this plane.”

A transparent image of a red and orange
horned demon flashed over her. It was so massive that it filled the
room. I couldn’t hear its words, nor could I tell what it said from
its distorted mouth surrounded by long, sharp teeth, but the words
shook the room like the bass of a stereo.

Fallon stood and rushed toward Sherra,
ignoring the demon.

“No.”

Before I could finish screaming the word,
the demon had slashed Fallon with its claws. One caught him across
the face, one laid his skin open so you could see his collarbone.
The other two caught him across the chest and abs. Luckily, it was
shallow enough not to spill his guts on his shoes.

He hit the ground, mouth open in a scream I
couldn’t hear, but could imagine.

The beast’s hand arced toward him again. I
shoved myself to my feet and ran for him. I snagged his hand and
yanked him along behind me as I made for behind the couch. Agony
lit up my back as the demon caught the lower half of it with its
claws.

I made it to the back of the couch and
collapsed next to Fallon as his brothers took hold of him.

“That was a mistake,” I muttered to myself.
The cuts were shallow, but they were on fire. My best guess was
that Braxus had some kind of poison in his claws. I hoped it wasn’t
fatal. That was one of the many bad things about demons. Since they
dealt with other immortals, they’re poison could usually kill one.
It would drop a human instantly.

I managed to sit up. Alaric grabbed my chin
and I had to read his lips.

“What do we do? We can’t fight this.”

“Its power will lessen and it will leave,” I
shouted at him.

Alaric scowled at me and rubbed his ear.

“Fuck you. I’ll be lucky if I get my hearing
back.”

Why hadn’t the thing attacked? It could make
confetti out of the couch. I peeked around the side of it. The
demon had pulled the sword out of her shoulder, and the wound had
completely closed. It was working on getting the knife out of her
chest.

Hopefully that meant it was weakening and
didn’t think it would have time to eviscerate us and heal its
anchor.

Alaric tapped my arm. When that didn’t get
my attention, he shook me. I smacked him in the arm with the back
of my hand, but he didn’t stop. I turned toward him and focused on
his lips. He was talking too fast for me to understand. I shook my
head but he kept speaking.

I flapped my hands at him. “Shut up. I can’t
hear you anyway.”

I turned back to watch Braxus and Sherra.
The knife had been removed, but the wound wasn’t healing rapidly
and the dark, congealed blood of the dead clung to the blade. No
weapon had made her bleed before.

As suddenly as it appeared, the demon
vanished. The knife dropped to the ground. I turned back around,
searching for the knife Fallon had.

Alaric vaulted over the couch, knife in
hand. I moved to follow him. The flex of muscles made the pain in
my back scream to be noticed. Misha grabbed my wrist and shook his
head.

Fine, I’d wait. I wasn’t sure I could get up
anyway. In fact, I was glad that vampires couldn’t bleed to death.
The whole back of my shirt was soaked in blood and it was oozing
down to saturate my jeans.

I heard Sherra shriek distantly and turned
back to watch the fight. Vampire healing was bad ass if I was
already getting my hearing back.

Alaric slashed her arm. The cut was deep,
all the way to the bone.

Something was pressed to my back and I
jumped, glancing over my shoulder. Misha was holding his t-shirt to
my lower back to stem the bleeding.

I mouthed a quick “thank you” before turning
around again.

Sherra reached for Alaric, but he danced
gracefully out of the way. An impressive show of vampiric agility
and seven or eight centuries of practice. She plucked a discarded
knife off the floor and a little tremor of fear went down my spine.
She was fast, and now she was armed. I wasn’t sure Alaric could
beat her. No, I was positive he couldn’t. It was time to retreat,
but I didn’t want to say anything to him and distract him. It was
one sure way to get him killed. So I watched, because I could risk
nothing else.

Sherra swung high, aiming for his throat,
but he dropped back. He must have known the situation was not to
his advantage, but he still looked for a way under her guard. He
would probably only get one shot at killing her and he knew it. She
swung the knife again and he blocked hard with his forearm,
striking her hand. The blade went spinning. I glimpsed the flash of
red that engulfed her arm before she slammed her clawed hand into
his chest. Alaric rammed his blade straight into her neck.

She withdrew her bloodied fist and smacked
it into Alaric’s jaw. The blow would have snapped the neck of any
human, if it didn’t make their head go flying across the room.
Alaric flew into the wall behind us. The impact shook the whole
house. He fell to the ground and didn’t move. I grasped his
shoulder and turned him onto his back. There was a bloody hole
directly over his heart.

My chest tightened. He had to be dead. There
was no way he wasn’t. I listened for his heartbeat and heard an
unimaginable pitter patter. It was soft and faint, and then it was
gone. I reached out with my magic, searching for the tiny spark of
life that animated him. I found it and wrapped it in my power,
effectively putting it on a leash so it couldn’t flee his body.

Yeah, but what are you going to do with
it now?
It didn’t matter. As long as the spark of life was
there I could figure out something.

I spun and watched Sherra. She was on the
ground face down, but I could feel her dark power prickling across
my skin. She wasn’t going to stay down. Damned zombies.

I turned to Misha. “We need to retreat. Now.
We need a new plan or we’re going to die.”

He nodded and grabbed Fallon under the
arms.

“Jairdan, grab Alaric.”

Both he and Misha froze before he whispered.
“He’s dead, Kori. Taking…” His voice broke. “Taking his body with
us now will slow us down.”

I shook my head. “I can fix this. Grab
him.”

Jairdan grabbed the back of my neck and
squeezed before running his thumb over my cheek. It came away wet
with tears. “Your emotions are clouding your judgment.”

I grasped his jaw and dug my nails in. He
hissed, but I didn’t release him. If he’d treat me like a child, I
had every right to treat him like one.

“No I’m not, and I don’t have the
concentration or energy to argue with your stupid ass and hold onto
his soul. Grab him, because if he does die, I’ll be sure to kill
you.”

Jairdan released me and slung Alaric over
his shoulders in a fireman’s carry while I led the way toward the
garage.

“We’ve got more cars, right?”

Misha nodded. “And we have safe houses.
We’ll have to go to one of them. We’ll call Casey when we get there
and give her directions. She hasn’t been with us long enough to
know all of them. I hope she and Dagger are okay.”

I snorted. “Dagger is a pain in the ass.
Even half dead, I almost trust him to keep her safe.”

I held the door to the garage open and the
boys carried our wounded through.

“The keys are hanging on the hooks there.”
Misha pointed to the wall above the toolbox. I snagged them as
Misha and Jairdan dumped Fallon and Alaric into the back seat.

I clambered into the back seat between
Fallon and Alaric as the garage door rose slowly. Sherra’s power
washed over me like a wave of white hot needles digging into my
flesh. I collapsed into the backseat holding onto Alaric’s soul
with everything I had. I didn’t know how I knew, but I was positive
she had reanimated and was on her feet.

“We have to go now.”

The boys dropped into the vehicle at my
shout. Jairdan started the car and we took off.

I turned as Sherra came through the door to
the garage. She moved slowly, as if she wasn’t completely healed.
Good, she’d never be able to come after us.

I spotted the ball of fire gathering in her
hand and tensed.

“Jairdan. Drive faster or we’re going to get
hit.”

He must have stomped on the gas, because we
spun into the street, almost landing in the ditch, and then shot
off down the road.

I placed my hand over the hole in Alaric’s
chest. His heart had been hit, but barely. If I could shove enough
power into his body, I could heal it. I hoped I could manage to do
it. I wasn’t a healer. I would have no idea how to direct the
energies to do something like that. Well, I had the theory of it,
but using magic was different for everyone, and something you had
to do yourself to learn. Theory only took you so far.

I’d have to jump in with both feet and pray
I could do it. It was a dangerous thing to do. Healing spells could
go horribly wrong, especially with life-threatening injuries. You
could accidentally give too much of your energy out and kill
yourself, or if the person’s will was strong enough, they could
suck you dry when they were alive enough to do so. I’d have to hope
that hundreds of years being a vampire would give Alaric some
restraint when it came to sucking the life out of people.

Jairdan snorted and glanced at me in the
mirror. “So what’s your big plan for his body, vampire hunter?”

I ignored him. I didn’t have time to argue
with him. “Misha, please come back here and tend Fallon, but try
not to bump me.”

I closed my eyes to block out visual
distractions and focus my power as Misha clambered into the
backseat.

I sent out a tiny tendril of power to start
healing the wound to his heart. Starting out small was better than
flooding him with energy, having no effect, and killing myself in
the process. My small bit of power had no effect and I frowned.
Something should have happened. Some small bit of tissue should
have mended.

As I reached out with a bit more power,
Jairdan broke my concentration again. “Seriously, what are you
doing?”

“Will you shut the fuck up?” Fallon rasped
next to me. “Let the woman work. I’ve just been welcomed back into
the family, and I don’t want two of my brothers to die before I get
to spend any time with them.”

“Two? Do you know how to count?”

“Yes, I know how to count. If Alaric dies
because you’ve ruined her concentration, I’ll kill you,
brother.”

“I’m concerned. What if she creates another
zombie? That’s something we don’t need.”

I glared at him. “This is different. Even
humans can be revived after a short while dead. And if you vampires
are to be believed, then that’s how you’re made. Didn’t Alaric tell
me you weren’t dead? Just revived? Well that’s what I’m doing. So
shut it.”

Jairdan thankfully didn’t respond and I
reached out with twice as much power as I’d used the first time to
try and heal Alaric. Nothing happened. I could feel his soul fading
as I held it captive. I had to do something quickly or he was gone.
My heartbeat sped up as my mind scrambled for an answer.

“Damn it.” I rubbed my face with my hands.
“Think.”

“Kori,” Misha whispered, as if afraid to
break my concentration. “I need to doctor your back. You’re
bleeding a lot.”

I took my hands off my face. “Blood.”

“Yeah. We can’t die from blood loss, but it
can weaken us. Let me—” He pressed a cloth to my back and I knocked
it away. He stared at me like I’d lost my mind.

“No. I need this.” Blood was the answer.
It’s what vampire’s thrived on. I reached for my back with my left
hand and nearly screamed as I ran it up the bleeding scratches. My
hand came away drenched with blood. “Yikes, that looks bad.” But I
finally felt Alaric’s power reach for me. I was almost overwhelmed
by the need to start the healing process.

“Yes, that would be why I need to doctor
it.”

I nodded. “Get on it, because he’s going to
need to take my blood, and giving it to him from my back would be
hard.”

“But what about distracting you and
interrupting the ritual.”

I shuddered, trying to maintain focus on
finishing my conversation with Misha. “I don’t think you’ll be able
to if you tried.”

I laid my bloody hand against Alaric’s wound
and shoved my power and his soul into him. It was risky. If it
didn’t work, his essence would escape me before I could do anything
about it, and he’d be gone for good. But I was about to lose him
anyway.

The hole in his heart knitted instantly, but
it still refused to beat. I continued to push my power into the
wound, but I was cutting into my reserves, and soon only the power
that was keeping me alive would be left.

You need more blood.
I nodded
absently to myself. That always seemed to be the answer with
vampires. I lifted my right wrist to my mouth and scraped my teeth
over it to break the skin while keeping my other hand over the
rapidly healing wound in his chest. I pried his jaw open and placed
my wrist in his mouth. When the first drop of blood hit his tongue
his whole body convulsed. His heart stuttered to life, but then
hesitated.

I distantly heard the startled cursing from
the other men in the car, but paid them no attention.

I was weakening. This shouldn’t be this
difficult. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t detect what it
was.

Suddenly his heart rebounded. The pounding
was so strong I could feel it in my head like a jack hammer. It was
so loud. Too loud, and I couldn’t shut it out. I screamed, and
tried to move my hand off his chest, but it wouldn’t budge.

His fangs pierced my wrist and the pain
trebled. There were hands on us. Trying to pry us apart. They
didn’t manage before I passed out.