High Voltage (Fever #10)(30)

“Don’t bite my hand off,” I said sternly as I drizzled more blood on his muzzle. I’d seen what those deadly fangs could do in the heat of battle. I needed at least one good hand.

    He still didn’t move. I’d just begun to contemplate how I might force apart his mandibles and feed him with only one hand when he twitched weakly and licked the blood with a long black tongue.

I dropped the beef back into the bowl and scooped up only blood. He could barely lick; he certainly couldn’t chew. I couldn’t imagine the formidable strength of will he possessed to manage to shatter my door in his condition.

I scooped and repeated again and again as he lapped weakly.

By the tenth cupped handful of blood he was licking with a whisper of animation and a murmur of life flickered in his crimson eyes. By the twentieth fistful the bowl was empty, but the beast was deeply exhausted from his meager effort.

Still, when he dropped his head to the floor this time, it met the tile more gently.

“I’ll be back with more,” I promised as I hurried back to the kitchen.



* * *



π

Two hours later I’d rehung my door on its frame, fortifying it with drill, screws, and the addition of two leafs from the dining table that had never been used, and the beast was unconscious in my bed, a limp puddle of black skin and bones against a white fitted sheet.

I’d gotten three bowls of blood into him and was going to have to head out to raid my other flats. The butcher wasn’t open on Tuesdays, and breaking in would shatter the fragile trust we’d attained. He makes no effort to hide how disturbing he finds my frequent purchases and I don’t explain.

I couldn’t bear to leave the beast passed out in the foyer with his ribs jutting into the floor so I’d hefted the unconscious creature onto a comforter and lugged him to my bedroom. Though starved, his hide was glossy black velvet, his body warm, and I felt a solid though infrequent pulse in his leg.

    I can lift a staggering amount of weight, but not even I can haul nine feet of limp beast in an upward direction with a single hand (two hands would have been a breeze), so I dragged my mattress down to the floor and rolled the beast onto it. Then I tucked the comforter around his body, burning with questions. What was going on? What villain was powerful enough to capture one of the Nine and contain him, and why starve him to death? How had he escaped?

I stared at him a long moment, releasing a pent breath I felt like I’d been holding for two long years. Then I inhaled a deep, enormous breath that felt like the first to fully expand my lungs for an equal amount of time. Sheep are social by nature. Deprived of sheep companionship they’ll flock with dogs, goats, cows, whatever’s available.

As will I.

But this was my kind of company. And I was bloody well keeping it.

There was no way he was dying on me. Sure, he’d come back—but where would he go? I highly doubted he’d return to me. The Nine are irritating like that, master of their own sea, they chart their course and don’t consult.

I sleeved, gloved, and weaponed up, then glided out into the night, hoping to kill two birds with one stone before returning to Sanctuary.





    Chronic town, posters torn, reaping wheel





NIGHT IN DUBLIN BEYOND the TBD, or Temple Bar District, is a graveyard: solitary, eerie, and silent.

No people walk these sidewalks, there’s no blat of angry horns, no screech of tires in the streets. Few in Dublin have a car. Fewer still live on this side of the river, which lends the empty alleys and lanes the disturbingly surreal ambience of an abandoned movie set. Most of the population clusters on the south side of the river, clinging to the normalcy of rebuilding the city and reporting to various jobs as if they don’t live in the midst of invaders with astronomical power that would delight in erasing us from the face of our own planet.

Without Ryodan and the rest of the Nine who are feared even by the Fae, only I stand between the imperious, immortal Court of Seasons and what they want. Their desires are as bottomless as they are ancient, and I’ve been neutered by Mac.

The Fae are blatantly contemptuous of mankind. They see us as puny and inconsequential, marching from birth to death in the blink of an eye. They slake their twisted desires in our world, with no one to fear.

    Not. Even. Me.

For Mac, I’ve turned my back on them, forced myself to pretend they don’t exist. I’ve never been inside Elyreum—not once. I watched it being built, hands fisted, jaw clenched, and did nothing. When queues of sheep spool around the blocks waiting to get in, I detour around them, don’t spare them a glance.

If I did, I’d be in trouble. I’d see their pending deaths and my wires would get crossed and sparks would fly because that’s what happens when my wires get crossed, and I’d end up starting a war all by myself. Knowing my luck, Mac would have just negotiated peace and I’d be the one who blew it all.

So, like a good little soldier (who doesn’t have a single ounce of meaningful backup) I fist my hands and Kevlar my heart and give it a wide berth. I focus my efforts on the differences I can make in this world, while staying alive. Dead, I’m no good to anyone.

I figured out a long time ago that if enough sifting Fae came after me, I could lose. If they’ve figured that out, too, they’ve accepted my truce. Perhaps they also realize that if they killed me, Mac, and many of the Nine, would rain down hell on their race. We exist in a chilly, volatile détente.