Cold Reign (Jane Yellowrock #11)(112)

I leaped to my feet and raced to the hallway. I grabbed Eli and yanked him into the Gray Between with me. I tossed him over my shoulder, raced out the garage door. He shouted something, but I ignored it. Sprinting through the sleet, my claws gripping the asphalt for stability. I leaped over the fence. Landed on the roof of a car parked in the street. Slid off. Hit the ground hard, knees buckling, paws sliding. Eli lost all breath. I skidded across the road’s ice-hardened surface, caught my balance. Set Eli down and raced back inside. Leaving him alive. Back in time.

In the Gray Between, I sprinted to the bricked room. Sabina was draining a woman on one of the beds, one of the long-chained. I remembered Eli’s comment about wasted protein. Beside her stood Gee DiMercy, the Mercy Blade of the NOLA vamps. There was a knife in his hand, the misericord, the blade of mercy. It was blooded. On the upper bunk was the body of a dead man, his head removed and hanging from the fingers of Gee’s other hand. When Sabina was healed, Gee would kill all the scions who had not recovered from the devoveo. It was his job. It was his nature. I gathered the silver chains and left them to it.

In the hallway, I chained Louis le Jeune. He had drunk enough ancient blood that his wounds were almost healed, all but the silver head wound administered by Eli’s guns. That might take a while. I stuck a silver stake into the head wound to impede the healing and made sure the silver chains were too tight to break, even if he had an immunity to the poison. Now that Louis was stable and out of commission, I needed to take him to the SUV, but first things first.

I looked down at my chest. The star of energies was a slow-moving pattern of red and silver. Controlled by or controlling my half-form. The lowest angles of the star bracketed my abdomen, passing through my hips and to my feet. I had a feeling that the magics were currently protecting me from blood loss and nausea. Woo-woo stuff.

In the main room, I positioned an arm around Grégoire’s neck. I jerked back, bringing him into no-time with me. He gasped and kicked, struggling. Into his ear, I said, “We’re gonna bargain, you and me. Do you want to kill your sire?” His struggles stopped. I eased off on the throat pressure. “Yes or no?”

“Yes. What bargain do we strike?”

“You will tell not one single person what I can do. Not in spoken language, not in written language, not in paintings, not in music, not in pantomime, not in sign language. Not when you share blood with any other creature. If you can’t promise me that, I’ll let Le Batard go and hope to kill him some other time.”

“That monster raped me for forty-two years.” Grégoire stopped and just breathed for three tortured breaths, human breaths he no longer needed, except for the pain he had endured, the memories he carried. Softer, he continued. “Then he sold me to his friends. I would cut off my arms and give them to you for the chance you offer.”

I didn’t tell him that it would be hard to kill Le Batard without arms. Instead, because I knew vamps and how they thought, I said, “And?”

Grégoire laughed softly as if he had read my mind. “I offer my word and a boon.”

“Done.” I set the small man on his feet. “Hold my hand.”

Grégoire placed one hand in mine. With his other, he drew his sword. We moved back into to the hallway, where Grégoire saw his tormentor, his sire. Grégoire vamped out so fast, if I’d blinked I would have missed it. In the small warrior such a fast transition wasn’t a sign of loss of control, however. It was deliberate. Focused. A controlled speed.

“He has been wounded,” Grégoire growled around his fangs.

“With silver. Like you. Eli cut his throat and shot him. Don’t tell my partner, but the wound wouldn’t have been lethal. It entered the temple, missed the brain, and came out the other side. It blinded Le Batard, but his optic nerves will probably heal in seconds. Throat too. He’ll be hungry.”

Grégoire laughed and the sound traced along my spine like jagged sleet from outside. A glacial hatred centuries in the making. “So long as he can see me when I kill him, I will be happy.”

“I’m leaving you in time. I’ll be slipping out. Don’t play with your supper too long. Leo is under attack at HQ. We could use you and Sabina and Gee there.”

“Attack? Our enemies are here.”

“Factions?” I asked.

Grégoire snarled, “Oui. And Titus would use them all.”

I dropped Grégoire’s hand, leaving him in real time, staring at his tormentor. I hefted Louis’ body over my shoulder. I carried him through the warehouse, pausing for a moment over Bruiser, knowing he was alive, seeing how well he was healing, and then trotted into the night.

Back at the SUV, I spotted Eli, his legendary badass calm long gone. His mouth was contorted in fury as he shouted. Droplets of spittle hung on the air; his breath was a cloud of condensation in front of his face. I was pretty sure he was cursing me.

I dumped Louis on the ground and went to stand by Eli. I touched him and he whirled out of time, into the Gray Between. I caught his arm as he finished his scream, which was inventive and foul. “No pizza for you tonight,” I said.

“Son of a bitch!”

“Neither.” I opened the front door, which may have warped it in its frame as it pulled too fast through time, deposited him in the car, and slammed the door. Sometimes I loved the incredible strength of my half-form. Okay. All the time.