Madhouse (Cal Leandros, #3)(33)
"Sorry about that." I followed him. His hands were empty, but mine were not…one of them at least. I held the Glock against my denim-covered outer thigh. "I assumed you'd want to know you've been marked for death. I don't know what I was thinking."
"When it comes to murder and assassination, it is the thought that counts. I appreciate the effort." The words were sober, the expression anything but…until he moved on. "It's hardly the first time. Or the hundredth for that matter," he said absently as he looked back at me. "You're well? Before she left, Delilah said you were recovered. Do you have full strength in your arm?"
"Normally I'd flex, but after what I saw upstairs, I'm keeping the sexiness to a minimum." The stairs were concrete and slick from years and years of pounding feet. "And, yeah, I'm fine."
"Good—that's good, because your chest looked…" He grimaced. "Never mind." Hitting the landing, he paused to say slyly, "I think she was attracted to you, our wolf girl. The situation was too dire for the customary ass-sniffing and leg-humping that is so prized on the wolf social scene, but there was definitely a look in her eye."
"Do you want more than one person trying to kill you?" I drawled. "I don't really have the time, but the inclination is no problem whatsoever."
He didn't have time to take me up on the offer. Someone…something else spoke in his place.
"Give me drink."
Goodfellow had been about to move down another step. He stopped, set his mouth tensely, and held up a hand before I could open my mouth. I turned my head and looked up past the spiraling box pattern of stairs, then down past the same. There was nothing to see or hear other than a faint dripping sound and the flicker and buzz of elderly lightbulbs.
The words were raspy as sandpaper against rock and utterly devoid of humanity. And then there was a clicking sound…nails against concrete. A slow, patient tapping, silence, then the clicking again.
A rustling started…scales or feathers, I couldn't tell.
"Give me drink."
"Go." Robin grabbed a handful of my jacket and hurled us both toward the landing door. I didn't stop to protest or ask who was so damn thirsty. If Goodfellow said go, then going was a damn good idea. I slammed into the door and flung it open.
It was waiting for us.
It was a bird. Gray as ash, round black eyes, and the size of a half-grown German shepherd. It used jet claws to score the dirty tile, sending chunks of it tumbling aside. The black beak, sharp as a sword, gaped to show an inner maw the plague yellow of jaundiced flesh. "Give me—"
"Drink," grated the one behind us.
Identical to the other, it came up the stairs toward the door propped open by Robin. It didn't waddle like you would expect from a bird. It stalked with the smooth gait of a creature used to running its prey into the ground. The flattened head cocked to one side. There was red on this one's beak and staining the feathers of its chest black. Now I knew what it had a hankering for, and it wasn't lemonade. I turned. The one in the hall had snaked closer, one clawed foot held in the air like the weapon it was. The talons were four inches long and, if they were capable of punching through the floor, they were capable of punching through flesh.
"Bad?" I said over my shoulder.
"Bad," Robin affirmed tightly.
That was all I needed. I raised my gun and fired at the one in the hall. The gray head exploded, feathers filling the air. Some, coated with black blood, stuck to the wall and floor and me. The body poised motionless for a second, then fell sideways, talons still extended in either a last-gasp pursuit of prey or from postmortem pissiness. Take your pick.
I heard the scrape of metal against scabbard as Goodfellow pulled his sword. Following that was a gurgle of someone not getting the drink they so desperately wanted. I turned just in time to see the feathered head bounce down the stairs. "Bad," I commented, "but not that bad."
"Wrong." He started down the stairs at a run. I was starting to follow when I saw something stirring in the pool of blood that had spread from the neck of the bird I'd killed. No, it wasn't something in the blood; it was the blood itself. Thick and viscous, it crept along the floor, curled up into a ball, and began shifting from red to gray. Began to sprout feathers…began to grow and grow damn fast.
"Give…me…drink."
The faintest of whispers, a garbled croak from incomplete vocal cords, but I didn't wait around to hear it improve. I vaulted the other dead one on the landing and clattered down the stairs after the puck. "What the f*ck?" I yelled as he sprinted ahead, hit the next landing, then disappeared around the turn. Robin was one helluva fighter, but when it came to running for your life, he had absolutely no equal. I sped up, trying not to tumble my way into a broken neck. I did manage to shorten the distance between us … slightly. "What are those things?"
"Hameh. The story goes they arise from the blood of a murdered man and take revenge by drinking the blood of the killer. Blah, blah. Idiotic tale." The bastard wasn't even breathing hard as he bolted, taking three and four stairs at a time. "They actually arise from their own blood and attack whoever their master chooses. And as staying dead isn't a particular hobby of theirs, they're very difficult to escape."