Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 82480 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82480 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
“Good.”
Darius released his hold and straightened. Then he looked around. The apartment was navy blue and nasty neat, everything in its place, not a newspaper on the coffee table, a stray dish in the galley kitchen, a pee spot on the rug from the dog—
He went over and picked up the photograph that had fallen off its shelf. It was an artsy shot, a black-and-white of a snowed-in field.
“You took this picture?” Darius asked.
The guy pushed himself up a little. Slipped as his hand skidded out from under. “Y-yes. I did.”
“You like photography, then.”
“Ah, yes—”
Darius snapped the frame in half, the glass shattering in his grip and cutting into his palm. Letting the fragments fall to the carpet, he shook out the fragile, glossy print.
The apartment wasn’t all that big, so it was a short trip over to the four-top of gas burners in the kitchen. Cranking the one in the front right on, he glanced back at Bruce Allen McDonaldson Jr.
The guy was just sitting on his ass, his suit jacket wedged up under his armpits, his pink tie over his shoulder—his eyes blinking myopically at some middle distance in front of him. Which was what bullies did when they picked on the wrong person and got their nuts slapped by someone bigger and stronger than they could handle.
“Hey, Brucey,” Darius called out as he snapped his fingers.
The guy’s head came up and around like he’d been trained.
Even with the counter and the sink between them, Bruce had a clear visual shot to the stove, and as his eyes focused properly, Darius lowered the picture into the flame. When the thing was properly burning at the corner, he brought the Kodak-candle back over to the amateur Helmut Newton.
Dropping down onto his haunches, he squared up the photograph between their faces so that he was staring through the hungry curls of orange and yellow. Then he unfurled his dagger hand and put the little bonfire in his open palm. The pain as his skin burned along with the image was a sweet sting that sharpened his purpose, his commitment.
Not that he needed help with that.
On the far side of the tiny fire, the human’s eyes were bugging again—and then there was nothing but gray and black ash, and the smell of chemicals and flesh.
Still maintaining eye contact, Darius put his fore- and middle fingers into the ashes, pushing the soot around until the pads of both were black as night.
Meanwhile, Bruce looked like he was going to piss himself—
Oh, wait. He already had.
Darius switched into the Old Language: “Upon my honor, and the honor of mine bloodline, I mark you as my prey and no other’s, barring the will of the King I serve.” He drew an X over one of the man’s fluttering eyelids. And then the other. “Should you violate your vow unto me, you shall know agony the likes of Dhunhd and beyond under mine hand and mine dagger. So I voweth this night and evermore, in the name of the great Virgin Scribe.”
Darius marked an X over the man’s mouth as well, and went back to English. “I will come for you, out of the darkness. You won’t see me until it’s too late. And I’m going to make you suffer.”
That last word was drawn out until it was a growl, deep in his chest.
Rising to his feet, he loomed over the man. He would have taken the sonofabitch’s life right then and there if he could have. He wanted to see those eyes go dark as the inside of a grave. But he knew Anne wouldn’t approve of the killing. She would want the man to be given a chance to go in peace. Besides, if Bruce were to disappear tonight, she would know who did it and blame herself.
And someone would need to take care of the dog—
“That’s her fucking shoe,” Darius said abruptly.
The errant loafer was on its side, by the dog’s water and food bowls. Teeth marks punctured the leather of the upper part as well as the sole, and the penny was missing from the band in the front.
Darius picked up her property and went over to the door. Opened things back up. Took one last look at the terrified bag of carbon-based molecules who had three crude Xs on his pasty white face.
Sprawled there in his disarrayed, Don Johnson duds, Bruce looked like he’d been in a bar fight. And had lost.
“Try me,” Darius said softly. “Please. I want to kill you so badly right now I can taste your blood on my tongue.”
Stepping out of the apartment, he made sure the door closed quietly. Because really, once you’ve marked a man for death, did you have to be loud about your departure?
Descending the stairs, Darius fantasized once again about ripping the throat that had been in his palm open with his fangs. The specificity of the vision and the relish that accompanied it belied his fundamentally pacifistic-leaning temperament. Unlike so many in the Black Dagger Brotherhood, he was a vampire who was violent only when necessary.