The Thief (Black Dagger Brotherhood #16)(94)

1. That thing wasn’t alive. Whatever it was, it was still dead.

2. This wasn’t no Weekend at Bernie’s, chillin’-with-the-stiff comedy sketch. What might have once been a stand-up guy now had pupil-less white eyes and fangs that were dropping down like it was ready to attack.

Annnnd 3. There were oxygen tanks in here and the engine ran on diesel. So V couldn’t use a gun, not unless he wanted to run the risk of blowing them all sky high.



“Qhuinn! Stop!” V shouted.

But the brother was already stomping on the brakes because of Jane’s scream, everything jerking forward from momentum—and that included the dead male.

As the corpse’s torso slammed back down to the exam table, Vishous put himself in front of Jane, shoving her away.

“Get out of here,” V hissed. “I don’t want to worry about you.”

“You don’t have to, remember?”

The patient had been tied down at the waist and the ankles for transport, the chest band having been left free so they could work on him. And this was a bene. That dead sonofabitch made like he was going to come at V—only to find that he was stuck.

An unholy screech came out of that throat, and then the thing was tearing at the binds that kept it in place.

Just as Qhuinn jumped into the back with his guns drawn.

“No bullets!” V yelled. “No fucking bullets! Oxygen!”

Before Vishous could marshal an attack, those heavy, nylon straps got torn off and that corpse came at him like something out of Evil Dead, head shaking back and forth a million times a second, the body moving all wrong as if its joints were frozen.

As V got pile-driven toward the back doors, he wrenched around and caught the latch, releasing the lever so that he and the patient fell out of the surgical unit onto the snow together.

The thing landed on top of him, and talk about strong. The kid had been built okay when he’d been alive, but whatever this shit was had given him superhero powers: V couldn’t hold off the attack long enough to get his daggers out—or a gun, now that they were free of the van.

That snarling face was way too close for comfort, those jaws snapping, the teeth clapping together like in its head it was already tasting V’s brains after it made an egg cup of his skull. And goddamn, a foul stench came out of its mouth, as if it were already rotting from the inside out, the digestive tract spoiling, the organs liquefying, the bones the only thing that stayed.

Enter Qhuinn the Magnificent.

All at once, V got a reprieve, and for a split second, he had no fucking clue why. But then he saw Qhuinn’s arms around the chest, the brother’s face grimacing as he hauled back with all of his strength.

The dead guy went crazy, letting out another of those howls, and he thrashed that head around, trying to bite at Qhuinn’s face.

V instantly knew that was a bad idea. “Don’t let him get you with his teeth!”

Qhuinn shifted his grip, slapping one of his palms on the patient’s forehead and pulling back to expose the throat.

Fucking perfect.

Except as V went to unholster both his daggers, something entered his head and would not leave.

He bit off his lead-lined glove, unleashing his curse.

“Release!” he ordered Qhuinn.

When the brother didn’t comply, V nearly slapped the guy. “Fucking let him go!”

Qhuinn caught the gist, and still hesitated, but then the thing nearly got him as it jerked its head and teeth forward to bite.

“On three!” Qhuinn hollered over the snarling and the screeching. “One, two—three!”

The brother went hands-free, jumping out of range.

And Vishous hit the chest of the patient with a nuclear defibrillator, his glowing palm going right on the sternum—

The shrill noise was so loud, V went deaf—and talk about your shakedowns. The body of the patient slapped, flapped, kicked, bucked—and took Vishous along for the ride; the energy exchange forming a lock between the body and V’s palm.

Just when he thought his arm was going to be ripped out of its socket, there was a pop, like a balloon, and the patient was no more, a soft rain of particles falling on V. But that wasn’t what he focused on. An entity seemed to escape into the night—and it was a shadow.

Or a part of one of those entities.

Something had transferred to the civilian during the earlier attack. And either it killed the kid, or was harbored within him to be released when the second “death” came.

In the silence that followed, there was nothing but his and Qhuinn’s harsh breathing in the cold air.

“What the fuck was that?” Qhuinn asked.

As Jane appeared beside them, Vishous stripped off his leather jacket, his movements jerky and uncoordinated. The second his left sleeve was down, he wrenched his arm around, and his heart started to beat hard.

Looking at his skin, he measured the angry red stripe that the shadow he’d fought before had left in his flesh.

Had the wound faded? It seemed like it had faded. Did that mean he was safe?

Or had some of that gotten into him?

Jane knew exactly what was going through his mind, even if Qhuinn didn’t. She leaned down and discreetly inspected things.

“It’s definitely improved,” she whispered. “I can tell. I remember exactly what it looked like.”

A cell phone went off. Ringer, not a text.