Bitter Blood (The Morganville Vampires #13)(70)

“What—?” he said, and then he collapsed to his knees. He grabbed the dart I’d buried in his neck and yanked it out. I saw a wisp of smoke curl out from the blackened hole in his skin. “What did you—”

“You tried to kill my girlfriend and my best friend,” I said. “Suck it, fangboy.”

There wasn’t enough silver in the dart to kill him, but it was more than enough to make him deeply unhappy for a long time—and, most important, stuck right there, unable to move.

Just the way I wanted him.

I held out a hand to Michael, who hadn’t moved from where he’d landed, and he took it and managed to stand. His leg was broken, and I winced when I saw how not-straight it was, but he just shook his head, hopped on one foot, and kicked out, hard. The bones slid back together. He managed not to scream. I would have. A lot. But he did clamp his hand on my shoulder and hold on with brutal strength.

“You good?” I asked, which was a weird thing to say, admittedly; he’d just reset a broken leg, vampire-style, which was gross and cool at the same time.

“Nothing that can’t heal,” he said. “Damn, he’s fast. I mean, really fast. I was expecting Myrnin gone wild. Not him.”

“Want to go kick him a few more times?”

“With a broken leg?”

“Okay, fair point.” I made sure he could stand on his own, then went back to my dropped bag. It was full of interesting things. I sorted through, slowly, because I knew Pennyfeather was still conscious and watching me. “Hmmm. So, should I go with something fast, like the silver stake through the heart? It’s a classic, I’ll admit, but I was hoping for something he’d really appreciate. One thing I know about this jackhole is that he really likes his quality pain.”

“He’s not getting out of here again,” Michael agreed. “But you don’t have to go all Marquis de Sade on him, either. Just kill him. Or let me.”

“You’re not a killer,” I told him. “Fangs aside, I know you, man. You’ve got a nice-guy streak a mile wide. Now me…” I pulled out a big silver-coated knife, suitable for skinning deer, presuming I ever hunted any vampire deer, and held it up so it caught the light. “Me, I’m more of a ‘Welcome to the dark side’ kind of person.”

Michael’s leg was fixed well enough that he hobbled over to me and took the knife away. I let him, of course. “You’re not a stone-cold murderer,” he said. “And Pennyfeather’s just lying there waiting for it. You’ll kill somebody in self-defense, or defending someone else, but not like this.”

“And you will? Give me my knife.”

“Are you going to use it, or just pose for pictures? Because you know we can’t leave him alive.” Those last words were said quietly, in a voice that was a whole lot darker than the Michael Glass I’d known most of my life, the one who’d always had my back and been ready to kick ass if necessary.

But neither one of us killed. Not in the sense of cold-blooded murdering.

“He tried to kill Claire,” I said. “I guess—”

“He tried to kill Eve, too,” Michael said, “and wife trumps girlfriend just a little. So it’s my job.” His blue eyes looked dark now, almost like a night-sky color, and I would have actually felt better if he’d been vamping out in some way. But he wasn’t. It was just regular Michael, talking about murder, with my knife in his hand.

I didn’t know what to say to that. I stood up slowly, watching his face, and he nodded.

“Guess I’ll get it done.”

“Dude—”

Ignoring me, he limped over to Pennyfeather, who was still lying prone on the floor where the tranquilizer had taken him out. I had to admit, that one had worked way better than I’d expected.

Which raised the important question of why it had worked better than expected—because nothing ever did. In fact, I was always surprised when any of the things I invented worked at all. And Pennyfeather was one hard-to-kill fanger.

All of a sudden, I had a black, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Michael—”

“I’ve got this,” he said. He looked pale but determined. “He tried to kill Eve, and Claire, and if we let him go, he’s going to do worse. You know that.”

“Watch—”

Out, I was going to say, but I didn’t get the chance, because Pennyfeather wasn’t all that tranquilized after all. He wasn’t fully healed, though, and that was all that saved Michael from having his arm ripped off as the other vamp came up off the floor, grabbed his wrist, and yanked hard enough to break the knife free. It clattered to the stone floor and bounced, and I scrambled after it as Michael punched Pennyfeather in the face a couple of times to try to break his grip, without success. Pennyfeather’s eyes had gone full-on red, and his fangs were down; he was trying to pull Michael down into biting range, and managed to score a long red scrape down his forearm before Michael wrenched backward. I grabbed the knife and headed back, and Pennyfeather knew the rules had changed; maybe it was the look on my face, and the fact that however much I might hesitate at knifing a helpless enemy, I wasn’t even going to hesitate when he was a threat to my friend.

He shoved Michael hard into a table behind him, but Mike was ready for it; he bounced forward again, directly into Pennyfeather, and body-slammed him flat into the floor.