Incendiary (The Premonition Series (Volume 4)) (56 page)

Anya must’
ve seen
the ho
rror on my face, ‘cuz she turns
back and tries
to raise
her bow, but her fingers fumble
on the string
and the arrow slips
from it.
A
c
lick
resonates
in the hallway while
the fangs of this
fresh-
turned
Gancanagh en
gage
in her mouth. The flash of white
from their
syringe-sharpness
tr
iggers me. I
disregar
d the onslaught of other
undead
females comin’ at us from inside the tower doors
at my side
.

In t
his
moment, I finall
y understan
d the problem
viscerally
: this
illness
is
terminal. One touch will
render all of my patheticall
y conceived plans to protect
Anya obsolete. She’
ll
respond
only
to
them and she’
ll
never
be mine again
—
not once, not ever
.

With a risin’
tide of feminine
Gancanagh
crestin’
the thresho
ld of the Harem tower, I ignore both
the
ir ambush and
the fact that gettin’ t
o Anya i
s likely
a
doomed effort. The
beautiful blood
sucker i
s almost on top of her.
I sprint past Zee, who blocks
a slue
of reekin’ killers from gang-swarmin’ me. He uses
his broad sword in a sweepin’
motion, carvin’ a sprawlin’ tideline
of
b
lood as
heads flail
from
bodies.

Reed i
s a
lmost invisible the way he moves
through the Gancanagh; he’
s
a shadow
y
silhouette leavin’ a trail of dead corpses
littered on the floor. I brush
past Sorin, Tycho
,
and Elan, all locked in battle with the nearest enemy.

R
ed
,
polished
nails reach
out toward Anya’s face
as a girlish
lee
r
liv
e
s within
dead e
yes
. T
he irony of this moment is that
my illness is just as termin
al as the one that destroyed the
soul of
this
stark-white killer.
I know
that if she touches Anya
, I’ll be
as good as dead inside
, too
.
I understand now
that Anya
is
what she says she is
:
she is
my
aspire
.

As I ackno
wledge
that fact, I surrender to the darkness that gro
w
s ‘
round me in my
need to be fast enough—
to be the wall that stops the
toxic
fingertips from reachin’ the
delicate skin of my angel
.
Cold-black emptiness surrounds
me at once
as I beco
me blind and deaf in
less time than a heartbeat.
In an empty
,
torturous ache
of
utter
nothingness, I'
m pulled through
darkness
to materialize in front of Anya.

The
cold
hand of the undead
touches my neck
.
Shock registers
in her l
ackluster eyes when she realizes I’m
the recipient of the soft
caress
meant
for Anya’s
cheek.

“T
hat’s
my
angel,” I growl while my red wings block
her from Anya.

Sh
e spares
one glance to where I had been a second ago, several yards away, and like me, she doesn’t really know how I got here. Placin’ my hand on her
icy
forehead, a glow of light issues
from it, liftin’ her off her feet and throwin’ her back
ward. She lands
in the middle of
the corridor, now complete
ly dead.

Scr
eams come
from the other
Gancanagh amassin’ in the
east
corridor, but they’
r
e more like
shrieks of horror at what I’
ve
done to their friend
than war cries.
These are not
hard-edged f
aeri
es who met their
un
deaths fightin’
for their lives. They we
re
human wome
n, many of which
are
teenagers, who succumb
ed first to the seductive
intoxication
of the Gancanagh
skin
, most
likely becomin’
a meal for one or more of the fel
las, and then
turned into
vicious killers and
were
left,
much
like a r
odent problem
,
for the new tenant
s.

A ripplin’ murmur of feminine voices
permeates the air, while I reach back and pull
Anya
protectively
into my arms.
My wing
s
curve ‘
round
he
r instinctually as phrases like
“
The
Red Menace” and “The Other”
a
re spoken i
n dread-filled whispers
. The
Gancanagh
nearest us
in the east corridor
attempt
to retreat by turnin’ and pushin’
each other
as if we’ve
dispensed tear
-gas on a crowd of protesters. But, s
omewhere at the back of them, co
me
s
a barkin’ command for attack.

“OY! Da o
ther
is nu
t
ing,” a clipped,
masculine voice says
. “Ye’
re powerfu
l now—i
mmortal and he is merely
lunch
.”
It’s apparent by their continual
shovin’ to get away fro
m me that they aren’t buyin’ Declan’s
lie
.

“Ah, no,
y
ou
gotta be kiddin’ me,” I breathe
, seein’ Declan and Faolan standin’ behind th
e females, urgin’ them on. “You’
r
e
hi
din’ behind girls now?” I call
to them. “I thought I smelled the stink of cowardice.”

“
’
Tis na cowardice
,” Declan calls
back, soundin’ offended
. “
’
Tis strategy.
We’re teaching dem domination t
rough war…and we’re teachin’ ye dat when ye kill us we’ll jus make more.”

“You’
r
e
hidin’
behind their skirts,” I taunt
them. “And y
’
a
ll
know that they’re not powerful.”

“Ahh, but dey’
ve a powerful e
ffect on ye
, do dey na?
’
Twould hurt ye ta kill dem, especially since de
y were once so very human,” Declan e
xplains
with
a
calculated
grin.

“Whah
would hurt him more is takin’ his
aspire
from him,” Faolan says
in a conversational tone
to Declan. “Ye know, since being
wi’ ou
r queen, I’ve had a real craving
for
a
i
nge
a
l
,
and her dark wings
are
terribly sexy.”

Faolan’s fangs sho
o
t forward in his mouth with a decisive
click
as he smiles
coyly towards Anya.
Anya growls at him as her eyes narrow
to slits. With the sound of fightin’ still goin’ on behind us, I know that I need to keep them at bay for now.

“Fay,” Declan asks
, “would ye say dat
’
tis a mite greedy ta try ta keep two
aingeals
?”

“
’
Tis, Deck.
’
Tis really v
ery greedy, da o
ther,” he agrees
, shakin’
his he
ad at me, while
several undead females
plow past him
in the other direction
. “Whah do ye say
ye give us Genevieve and ye ca
n keep da other one?” he asks
, lookin’ at Anya.

I stiffen
.

“Would dat make her da o
ther’s other?” Declan asks
Faolan
with a grin
.

“
’
Twould,” Faolan agrees
with a nod
.

“
Anyway,” Declan smiles
at me, “
w
e’re already very partial ta our queen
—
n
o offense—
ye’re really quite lov
ely
and under different circumstances, I’d luv ta taste ye
,” he
adds
, shruggin’ at Anya.

“Look here,”
Faolan
smiles
, “
w
e’ll trow
in da house for ye—
s
orta a weddin’
present.”

“
’
Tis more yer s
tyle now
,
anyway—
whah wi’ all da
destruction
,
’
tis
much more like da
trailer park
dat
ye’re used ta,” Declan
says
smugly, and th
en his face takes
on a grim
visage
. “No
w, where is our queen?” he asks
me between his gritted teeth.

“You
lo
ok dead-serious, Declan,” I say
, smilin’. “Red said y’all have a tendency to turn mo
ody all of a sudden—i
t could be
from all those female hormones
a
ll y’all
been drinkin’. It makes you
edg
y.”

Without even tryin’, Decla
n creates a fireball and thro
w
s
it
at me. I tense
, pullin’ energy to me and let
tin’ it pulse out of my hand.
My magic
stops
the fireball midway between him and me.

“You
r elf dart looks like it
has lost its way,” I say
, allowin’ the fire to shimmer in stasis for
a few seconds before I
shatter it in flaming shards of fire and spew
it back at them.

The fire misses them as Declan deflects
it. It hit
s
several of the fleein’ Gancanagh females, catchin’ their clothin
’
and hair on fire, but althoug
h they scream
in terror, it’s apparent when the flames die
out almost in
stantly that their toxic skin i
s unharmed by it.