Kiss of Steel (34 page)

“You ought to stay inside till it’s caught,” Will said.

Lena looked around. There were two men in the distance, watching the rookery.

“But I have you fine fellows to protect me,” she said lightly, sending him a flirtatious smile. It never hurt to have a man in the palm of her hand. “Whatever harm could befall me?”

“I could wring your neck,” he muttered, almost too low to be heard.

“I daresay that’s not the only place you wish to put your hands.” Lena let her smile deepen and stepped past. Her lips curved at the dark look on his face. He didn’t like that. “I believe I should like to take some air. If you would just go that way a little bit…” She wrinkled up her nose as if he smelled bad. “You can still keep watch and I can get some
fresh
air.”

Will stepped forward to grab her, his nostrils flaring. His hand locked around her wrist. “That’s not me…” He barely had time to turn his head before something pale and streamlined flew out of the shadows and smashed him up against the wall.

A wretched scent filled the air, and Lena gagged as she sought to make sense of the blur of movement. An arm slashed and blood flicked across her face, warm and salty. Lena gasped, patting at it in shock. Will cried out, and her vision finally caught up with the fight. The stranger—a pale, balding creature—had its teeth in Will’s throat and an arm buried up to the elbow in the man’s stomach.

“Blade!” the Irishman yelled, leaping over the rooftops with a pistol flashing in his hand. “Blade!”

Will turned and with great effort smashed the creature up against the building. Its back legs raked up between them, forcing him back, and he fell, his knees giving way beneath him as though he’d lost the strength to use them. With her back pressed up against the wall, Lena could do nothing but watch and scream as the two rolled toward the edge of the rooftop, blood spraying everywhere as the creature—the vampire—tore its way through the burly youth as though Will was merely human and not superhumanly strong.

Somehow Will grabbed it by the throat, his teeth clenched in pain. Blood dribbled from his lips, but he met Lena’s eyes. “Run,” he said with a weak gasp. Holding it away from her so that she could get away.

Lena wasn’t a brave girl. People had told her that time and time again. But they’d also told her that she was foolish enough to have some form of courage. Perhaps it was that, then, that made her launch herself at the monster, tearing futilely at its face with her nails. Her finger sank into something soft and squishy, and the creature screamed, a high-pitched ache in her ears almost at the edge of hearing.

Reflex had it arching backward, away from Will. It hit Lena in the chest and she stepped back, her foot finding nothing but air. With her arms windmilling, she screamed again, grabbing frantically for anything—even the vampire—to keep from falling.

For a moment she clung to its filthy shoulders, staring into the sightless, filmy eyes. She almost thought that it grabbed for her, its claws raking through her skirts and tearing through the cotton. Then she was falling, and the vampire was coming too.

***

A scream tore through the air.

Inside the flat Blade pushed away from Honoria, his head cocked as though he was listening to something she couldn’t hear.

“Blade?” she asked, licking her lips and struggling to find her feet. Her knees shook. If there’d been an inch of privacy, she would have done something reckless, she was sure of it.

His nostrils flared and he held a hand out toward her. “Stay here.”

“What’s happening?”

He shot her an intense look. “Stay here. And fetch your pistol. I can smell the vampire.”

Honoria’s blood went cold. Blade started toward the door, but she grabbed him, a horrible feeling of dread running down her spine. “Be careful.” She grabbed his face in her hands and kissed him, a brief, furious press of her mouth to his, trying to tell him everything that she didn’t have time to put into words.

Blade stepped back and nodded. “I’ve got to go.” And then he was gone.

Ducking into the bedroom, she hurriedly loaded the pistol, her hands shaking. She’d seen Blade fight the vampire before. It was quicker than him. Stronger. “Damn it,” she swore, dropping one of the firebolt rounds. It rolled beneath the bed and she ducked down to search for it. Shoving the round into the chamber, she cocked the pistol and then hurried to the window. It was half open, a cool breeze stirring the curtains.

Outside, Will lay on the slope of roof near the window, trying to sit up. Black shadows stained his shirt and pants, and he was trying to stuff something back inside his stomach. His throat was a mess. Beyond him, Blade grappled with the vampire, trying to force it off a prone shape on the rooftop below. It was tearing at the throat of someone on the roof, but she couldn’t see who it was. Another man lay nearby. Too late.

At least Charlie was safe in bed, Honoria thought, and Lena…Where the hell was Lena? The warmth drained from Honoria’s face. Her gaze traveled unerringly to the half-opened window. Lena always liked to sit on the roof.

Yanking the windowpane up, Honoria hooked her leg over the edge. Will had managed to drag himself into a sitting position, panting hard as he held his arms over his abdomen.

His eyes met hers, then his lips peeled back from his mouth. “Don’t.”

Honoria knelt beside him, her shoes slipping on the tiles. “Where’s Lena?”

He nodded toward the tableau below, sweat dampening his hair. His body was starting to tremble, and when she pressed a hand against his cheek, his skin was burning hot.

“Will you be all right?” she asked. So much blood. And worse…his exposed intestines gleamed in the pale moonlight. She glanced nervously around for Lena, but she couldn’t just leave him here.

“Go. I’ll live.” Will flashed a grim smile at her, his teeth stained with blood. “Ain’t the worst I e’er got.”

Honoria handed him her shawl and helped him to put it in place against his stomach. “Hold here. Tightly. I’ll be back.”

She peered over the edge. The other rooftop angled in sharply beneath hers, almost touching the sides of the wall. That was how they built houses here, pressed up against each other like bodies seeking warmth on a cold night. She saw Lena huddled on the edge of the rooftop, blood splashed across her pale face and her wrist bent at an unnatural angle.

“Lena!” she hissed and glanced toward the vampire. Blade had thrown it off, but it was clear that it was too late for his man. The curly-haired Irishman, she noted with a stab of sorrow. O’Shay. His throat had been ripped open, the bone inside gleaming like teeth in the mangled flesh.

Blade circled the vampire. He shot her a dark look, then turned all his attention to the creature. It paced the rooftop on all fours, snarling at him silently. Blood dripped from Blade’s side.

The pistol was a heavy weight in Honoria’s hand. She slipped her legs over the edge of the roof and then dangled, trying to soften the fall. She landed with a jarring thud and tumbled onto her back. The pistol slid across the roof tiles, stopping a few feet away.

The creature screamed in rage, a high-pitched whine that shot through her ears like a knife. Blade cried out and clamped his hands over his ears, his knife dropping from his hands.

“No!” she screamed as it attacked him. They went down together in a vicious whirl of action, blood flying.

Honoria scrambled for the pistol then stopped when she saw the vampire bulleting toward Lena. She would never reach it in time. “
No!
”

Somehow she caught its ankle as it leapt past. The vampire spun with blurring speed, its claws raking across her arm like white fire. Honoria cried out and it stopped, hissing in her face. She couldn’t move, every muscle in her body paralyzed in fear as she stared into its sightless eyes.

Its breath stirred across her face, thick with the coppery scent of blood. With Lena forgotten, it hopped toward her, reaching out with its claws as though to touch her face.

Honoria couldn’t take her eyes off its gnarled hand, coming closer and closer. Oh, God, what was it doing? Would it go for her throat too? Fear curdled in her stomach, freezing her lungs. Her breath came in short, sharp, painful gasps.

“Lena,” she whispered, trying not to draw its attention. “Lena, you have to move.”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be…” The creature stopped in front of her, and she felt the first stroke of its claw against her cheek, strangely gentle, and shuddered. “I’ll manage.”

“Don’t move,” Blade called. “It’s attracted to movement.”

Beyond the vampire’s shoulder, she could sense a shadow dissolving in the moonlight. Blade. Daring to take her eyes off the creature for a moment, she saw him easing his way across the roof toward the pistol with a grim expression on his face. Their eyes met. Fear turned her spine to ice.

The vampire’s hand curved around her face, its claws scraping along the soft underside of her jaw. Honoria swallowed. It lowered itself toward her, face-to-face, until she had no choice but to look at it.

Thick, ropy scar covered its throat. This close she could see the sloughing scales that covered its cheeks and its coarse white eyelashes. Its eyes were clouded with film. As she watched, it leaned closer until she could almost taste its breath on her tongue.

Its mouth opened. Wicked, needle-sharp teeth gleamed, the canines predominant. A scream curdled in her throat. The vampire’s jaw worked, a faint hiss coming through its teeth. Heart thundering, she stared at it, a frown growing between her brows.

“Stay still,” Blade hissed with urgency. “I’ve nearly got the pistol.”

Honoria barely heard him. All she could see was the vampire’s mouth, its jaw working awkwardly.

“Got it,” he said. “Don’t move, Honor.”

She could barely hear for the pounding of her heart, but somehow she managed to hold up a hand. “Wait,” she whispered, knowing that she was taking a deadly chance. And yet it seemed that if she watched the creature’s lips moving, she could almost make out the shape of words. The vampire was trying to talk to her.

“Honor,” Blade growled in frustration.

“If it had wanted to kill me, it would have done so already.”

Its lips curled back off its teeth, and it snarled over its shoulder at Blade. He aimed the pistol, but the vampire was directly between him and Honoria. If he missed, he would hit her and he knew it. Frustration flickered over his face, and he paced to the side, trying to draw the vampire away. It followed, keeping its body between them at all times. Blade thumbed back the hammer.

The vampire gave one last snarl and then fled, blurring over the rooftops and vanishing toward the tunnel into Undertown. Honoria stared after it, confusion flooding through her. If she had understood that right…Finding her feet, she realized that her hands were trembling. Everything she knew was spinning through her head like a whirlpool.

“Are you insane?” Blade yelled, grabbing her by the arms and shaking her. His eyes were wild but hadn’t descended to the demon-dark pools of his hunger. This was entirely human—furious and frustrated and, most of all, afraid. “It could ’ave killed you.”

“I don’t think it wanted to,” she blurted.

“They don’t think, Honor. They ain’t rational. It’s only ’unger, constant and maddening. The only thing they can think ’bout is blood.”

She opened her mouth, saw Blade’s face, and shut it again. He was in no mood to listen to her explanations. Cupping her face, muttering under his breath, he stroked his thumbs across the plane of cheek beneath her eyes.

“Bloody ’ell,” he muttered. And then he kissed her, his mouth slashing across hers with an almost violent need. It wasn’t lust. It wasn’t hunger. It was fear, driving them together.

Honoria sank her hands into his hair, wrapping herself around him. Seeing him there, over O’Shay’s body, the vampire ripping into him…

She pushed at Blade’s shoulders, breaking the embrace, and tore his coat open. “You were bleeding. Are you all right?”

He caught her hands, an odd, purring rumble deep in his throat. “Torn up a bit. It’ll ’eal. What ’bout you? It didn’t scratch you?”

“No. It…it wasn’t trying to hurt me.”

His face darkened. “Aye, it were tryin’ to talk to you, that’s all. A creature as ripped O’Shay apart like ’e were made o’ cotton stuffin’.”

But
it
was
. She turned without saying anything, to where Lena was crying by the wall, limply holding her wrist in her other hand. Honoria would think of it later when she was alone with her thoughts. “Will was injured. Badly.”

Blade blew out a deep breath. “Aye,” he said, and jumped up, grabbing the edge of her roof with his hands and dragging himself up.

As she knelt by Lena and examined her for injuries, she couldn’t help seeing the vampire’s face in her mind, silently trying to mouth words it could no longer give voice to. It would haunt her dreams at night.
Please. Help me
.

Chapter 21

Blade knelt by O’Shay’s body, a rush of warmth swimming behind his eyes. No tears, though. Never any damned tears.