Slashback (Cal Leandros, #8)(15)

“What? You afraid?” I was more incredulous than anything else. Ivar was a Kin Beta. Admitting he was afraid, or insinuating the rest of the Kin were, would have ended up with him dead a long time ago. The Kin took their reputation seriously.

“We want no part of this trouble,” he repeated flatly. “No Kin will speak of it. Don’t bother asking. Don’t bother us with anything right now or we’ll decide we want you as dead as Delilah.”

I didn’t like having the Kin put me in my place, but if the word was out to keep quiet, they’d die before they broke with the edict of the Alphas. Whatever this thing was flinging bodies around, it had to be one truly evil, badass son of a bitch to have the Kin lying low.

It was annoying. As was having to go through an “interview” for nothing. Okay, the second wasn’t true. I had liked the fighting. What was life without your daily dose of exercise? And this exercise was more enjoyable than Niko’s preferred ten-mile run. It put me in a good mood for the rest of the day.

The night was a different story.

*

I’d brushed my teeth, for the third time. That onion breath was persistent as hell. The towel covered the bathroom mirror as always. I could manage quick glances when I needed to. That was enough for me. It was a phobia I’d come by honestly. I didn’t waste time trying to overcome it or being embarrassed by it any longer. Life was too short.

One last rinse and spit of toothpaste and I was in my bedroom. I changed into sweatpants and flopped on my back on the bare mattress of my bed. I’d been forced two weeks ago to wash my sheets and blanket at knifepoint, Niko’s knife, but I’d forgotten them at the Laundromat. I had a short attention span if carnage wasn’t involved. I’d wandered off to find some. By the time I remembered what I’d been doing, the sheets were long gone. I’d have to end up buying new ones. Whenever I got around to it. Or I’d wait for my birthday. Nik was a practical gift giver.

It was late, hours past midnight. Not that it mattered. Early, late—I could sleep anytime, anywhere. A lifetime on the run taught you that—among other less legal skills. Ten seconds after I hit the mattress I was gone.

A medium-length pornographic dream following that, I was catapulted to consciousness by the shattering of glass, something slicing into my stomach, the sharp spiking stench of ozone in the air, and fingers or something like fingers fisted painfully tight in my hair. And a voice, one that bubbled and flowed thick as tar, words from lungs dead and drowned. “Black hair. Like the dark within you. I covet it. I covet the skin that binds it within you.”

Our skin-loving serial killer hadn’t waited long at all after dumping that body on us. Serial killers are bad, but impatient ones—they’re the worst.

“I’ve waited for you and your skin,” the voice spilled on. “I shall take your darkness, wicked creature. I shall save you.”

Lying in the warmth of my own spilled blood, I gathered his understanding of “save” was a hop, skip, and a f*cking minefield away from my definition. Unless he meant save a chunk of my flesh like a nowhere mint condition stamp—a trophy of his raving psychosis. It was a good guess. Those who mixed their raving and their potpourri bag of psychotic issues loved trophies.

I may have misheard though. Save was only my best guess as to what the jackass said. I had to catch the words between the sounds of the breaking glass. The window was gone, but impossibly the sound went on and on all around me—an endlessly flowing, then crashing, waterfall of fracturing crystal. Amidst that were the gunshots of the Glock I kept under my pillow. The gun had a silencer, but they’re not as quiet as they make out on TV. The shots did get louder as I neared the end of the clip. Nothing happened other than my running out of ammunition. He didn’t move except to keep cutting me and slamming my head up and down by my hair. With my left hand, I pulled the combat knife from under my mattress and took a swing. Other than a shimmer running through blackness, I would’ve sworn he didn’t move, but the knife didn’t connect. He was quick, too damn quick for me and that was quicker than most.

Son of a bitch.

The thing wasn’t made of mist, no matter first appearances—more like surrounded by it, concealed by it. The pounding in my head and the pain in my stomach would’ve made the inner solidity clear alone, but I could see, as well. The room was dark, and what squatted on top of me almost as dark, but inside of the smoke I could see serrated razors of midnight obsidian slicing through the haze. A multitude of overlapping angles, sharp and deadly, just barely visible, but they were there.

Hell’s own geometry.

There were shards upon shards stabbing out from the core, each two to three feet long. Hundreds of pieces of volcanic glass come to life. Jagged pieces of . . . what? How had my knife missed him, a hunchbacked creature practically made of primitive blades?

Then there was a hint of movement, a shadow growing within the shadow, as if the crystalline daggers shifted in unison, spread, and fanned out above me like wings. There was a sound that set my teeth on edge, the hollow chime of shattered glass pieces scraping and breaking as they ground ominously against one another. It had me gripping my own useless knife even tighter against the threat of the phantom blades articulating in the murk above me.

A clot of the shadowed mist came up and electric blue-white eyes flared to life, studying the blood, my blood, that dripped out of the sharp-edged darkness. There was a hiss and if hisses could be disappointed, this one was. “You are not mine to save. Not of my keeping. You are not of the Flock.”