Nightlife (Cal Leandros #1)(7)

It looked like its shadowing days were over.

There was a sound at the window. It wasn't terrifying; it wasn't supernatural. Hell, it wasn't even scary. It was just a polite tap. One-two. Light and restrained. Your friend for the summer, your best pal from school… just passing by, you know? Maybe you wanted to sneak out and smoke a cigarette or watch the stars. It was a rapping rich with familiarity and goodwill. Hey, buddy, whatcha up to?

So I looked up without alarm at the window that hung at the head of my bed. For a split second I forgot that I didn't have any friends since we'd moved. I didn't know anyone out here and no one lived close enough to be merely passing by.

Nobody but family.

The Grendel hung outlined in the window by a scrubbed and shining lunar light. One hand was splayed on the glass with long thin fingers and skin as pale as the moon. A narrow, pointed face grinned at me with a thousand needle teeth and the predatory cheer of a fox in a henhouse. Slanted almond-shaped eyes glowed with sullen reds, scarlet as blood. Tapered ears pressed flat to the skull, and long hair as fine as milkweed shimmered in the air like a corona. The finger tapped again, the nail a metallic ticking against the glass, and a voice spoke. It was a serpent's hiss wrapped around the wet crunch of gargling glass. One word. Just one. It was enough.

"Mine."

The roiling-lava eyes looked down at me with more pride than I'd ever seen in my mother's. Or maybe it wasn't pride so much as rabid avarice. I'd seen Grendels before, more times than I could count, but never like this. Never so close I could see the naked greed in the eyes, the poreless texture of the skin, hear the utterly alien whisper.

Jesus Christ, my mom had f*cked that?

I tried to swallow, but the saliva pooled in my mouth as all my muscles gave up the ghost and turned instantly to overcooked spaghetti. My eyes were locked to the ones staring at me through the window as air stuttered in and out of my lungs. Breathing was pretty much all I was up for and even that was shaky. The Grendel tilted its head and rasped again, "Mine." Gloating and complacent.

And still I couldn't move. This thing, this monster, was claiming me as its own and I couldn't move a muscle, not a goddamn finger. That is, not until a pallid hand burst through the glass and wrapped around my neck. Sharp nails sank into my flesh, fastening tight like barbed hooks. That was when I rediscovered movement in a big way. Yelling bloody murder, I threw myself back desperately. Flowing like water over the jagged broken glass in the window frame, the Grendel followed suit. It landed hard on my chest with a weight that belied its slender frame. It easily weighed as much as I did. Tiny slits flared a bare inch from my face as it inhaled deeply. It was sampling my scent, smelling me.

"Blood of my blood. Flesh of my flesh. Breath of my breath." I felt the warm trickle of liquid on my neck as the shredding smile moved to my ear and murmured, "Time to go home."

I didn't yell this time. I screamed. It was with pure, wordless terror as I tore at the hand at my throat and raised my knee up to push the Grendel away. I didn't budge it, not an inch. In fact its other hand snared my leg, and it felt like a bear trap. Suddenly, I was lifted into the air and then I was flying through it. I went through what was left of the window, glass and metal slashing at me. Hitting the ground hard, I felt the smothering sensation of the air being forced from my lungs by the blow. I gasped, trying to suck in a breath, as I managed to roll over on my back. The stars were out, dancing a duet with the brilliant moon. For a moment I lost myself in it, my thoughts slow and thick as molasses.

Then I heard Niko call my name. His normally calm voice had knotted into a barbwire ball of anguish and fury. That cut through the fuzziness like a knife, and I managed to get my hands under me to push up to a half-reclining position. The world spun lazily, but I could still see the trailer. Yeah, I could still see and I would've given anything at the moment to have been blind.

She stood in the doorway, Sophia… my mother. For one second, one moment outside time, she was as coldly beautiful as she'd always been. And then she was a bonfire. Her nightgown burned on her, a leaping red-and-yellow silk. Her flesh began to melt and blacken as her hair ignited in a glowing aurora. I think she was screaming or maybe I was. Then she disappeared, falling back into the raging inferno of the trailer. The screams remained; they must have been mine. Sophia was gone, but Niko… Niko, I didn't see. I couldn't see him, and I couldn't hear him anymore.

I tore at the grass and dirt under me and managed to flip over onto my knees. I couldn't walk, but I could crawl. And I did. I'd gone barely a few feet when hands on my arms and legs and in my hair jerked me back. Grendels, they were everywhere, on me, loping away from the burning trailer, ripping a hole in the velvety night. I kicked and swung my fists at the ones holding me back from the trailer; I yelled for Niko until my voice cracked. Beside me two Grendels had done something to the air itself. It had split longways, a ribbon of pulsating, corpse-gray light. It widened, stretched, and elongated until the night itself had a ragged hole in it. I was still screaming Niko's name as they dragged me towards it. Screaming his name even though I knew he was dead. Knew my brother, the only one who'd ever loved me, ever gave a shit about me, was gone. He'd died not only for me, but also because of me.

I gave up. There was no reason not to. I'd tried; I couldn't fight them. I couldn't get away. And now… now I didn't even want to. "My blood," came the crooning at my ear as I was pulled along. "My spawn. Mine." Skin as cold as bone pressed against my cheek as nails sank deeper into my arms. It wasn't a hole after all. It was a door, a door to hell.