Bitter Blood (28 page)

But the least I could do would be to try. Pennyfeather might come back, after all; he might not be done with me. Perhaps I had been gifted to him as some macabre toy. If that was the case, I certainly needed to be ready to kill him, quickly, before he could invent new horrible things to do to me.

It might be the only chance I had to survive.

A
t least the lights in the lab were on; that was something. I hadn’t thought to ask Claire if I needed a flashlight—I mean, there was a lot going on, and no time for leisurely Q&A—but when I squeezed through that icy/hot darkness that Claire called a portal, and I called
wrong
, it was decently lit up on the other side.

Myrnin’s lab was, as usual, a wreck, but I thought it was worse than before…probably because there were two vampires fighting the hell out of each other, and at the speed they were moving, it was hard to be sure which one was my friend. All I got was impressions as they shoved each other up and down the crowded aisles made tricky with spilled and slaughtered books. Claire would hate that—all the mutilated pages.

I was more worried about the blood, because there were smears
of it here and there, and it looked like someone was getting the worst of the fight.

And my guess that it was Michael was confirmed when suddenly the fight ended. It went from speed of light to full stop in one cold second, and Michael was on the floor with the creepy, androgynous Pennyfeather kneeling on his chest, eyes red and claws dripping the same color.

Oh, holy crap. It wasn’t Myrnin.
In a straight-out fight, Michael could have probably taken Claire’s boss, but Pennyfeather was something else—something worse.

Pennyfeather drew back for a blow that would probably have decapitated Michael, except that I leaped forward and planted a boot in his side, slammed him off-balance, and shot him with my newest, sweetest toy. It had been made to tranquilize big game animals, like lions and tigers, and I figured it would do just fine for vampires. Especially if, instead of using sedatives, the darts were filled up with silver in suspension.

And it worked. Pennyfeather thought he had me; he rolled up and focused his rage right in my face, and yeah, that was scary, but I saw the first flicker as it passed over his face. Confusion. Then pain. Then shock.

“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.

“Shane!” he yelled. “Hurry up. I can’t hold him!”

I was hurrying, and that was a mistake, because one of Myrnin’s stupid always-scattered books slid under my foot and threw me off-balance, and during the second or two it took me to grab my balance again, Pennyfeather heaved Michael off him and almost levitated up to a standing position. He was by no means well; he
was swaying in place, but somehow that made him seem more menacing, more inhuman, like some sinister demonic puppet with glowing eyes.

Instead of coming for me, he leaped backward, up onto a table, where he sent glass crashing and flying to the ground, and full-on hissed at us. He was still woozy, and maybe he really would come down for good from the silver, but not yet. Obviously.

Attacking a vampire who had the higher ground wasn’t smart, and I slowed my rush and stood shoulder to shoulder with Michael. If he decided to come at us from up there, we’d be fighting for our lives in earnest, and although the knife would help, it wasn’t enough. Not nearly.

“You know,” I said to Michael, “my girlfriend took him down with a broken tree branch.”

“Too bad she isn’t here,” he said. “Watch—”

He was probably going to say
out
, but Pennyfeather did something neither of us was ready for: he backflipped off the table to the floor, and ran, zigzagging through the land mines of Myrnin’s lab, off into the shadows.

“Dammit,” I said. “What the hell do we do now? We can’t leave him here, not if the portals still work. He could show up in our house. And where the hell is Myrnin?”

“I don’t know,” Michael said, “but definitely not here. We have to get him. Once and for all.”

“We may not have much time.” I pointed toward the black doorway, which was still shimmering. Maybe Claire was holding it open for us, but it was starting to get an uneven look to it. I looked toward the stairs, where the other, non-magical exit was, and for a long moment couldn’t figure out why I was seeing a wall. “Um, Mikey?”

“What?”

“Where’s the regular door out of here?”

He turned and looked, too, and saw exactly what I did: a rough-poured mass of concrete that filled and blocked the stairs that led up and out.

“What the—?” He didn’t waste time on it, though, just turned back to the portal. “That’s our way out. Our
only
way.”

“Like I said, time’s ticking, man.” I was watching the portal nervously, because it seemed to be vibrating, rippling like silk in a strong wind. Not good, or at least I assumed it wasn’t good. “Either we go now or we’re stuck here, and my odds aren’t so good with two hungry vampires and no blood bank.”

“He’s not going to be easy to catch with what we’ve got here. We need something else!”

I looked around. There was surely no shortage of crap here that could be dangerous, but it was all a hopeless jumble…and as I opened up the first drawer I came to, Pennyfeather glided out of the shadows about twenty feet away, and pounced.

I almost got the knife in place, but he slapped it away, and it took everything I had—and Michael leaping on the other vamp’s back—to wrench free of his grip before he could start ripping pieces off me. I grabbed blindly and wrapped my hand around a heavy, solid piece of—well, something. It looked a little like a fancy camera, only really cumbersome. I didn’t try to do anything clever with it, just whacked it into the side of Pennyfeather’s albino head as hard as I could. It was substantial enough that it didn’t even bend, and he weaved as if I’d done some damage, which I followed up with a kick that doubled him over.

And we
still
couldn’t get him, because he dodged free of Michael and circled around, and Michael stalked after him, intent and focused and with his eyes glowing with vampire power. He was more concerned for me, and I appreciated that, but I got the
distinct feeling that Pennyfeather wouldn’t mind adding Michael’s death to his scorecard, either.

I guess in trying to swing the thing I was holding at the attacking vampire again, I hit some kind of a switch, because I felt a heavy surge of energy crawl up my arm, and then I must have accidentally turned it on Michael, because he flinched as if something had hit him…

And then he just went
maniac
. He moved in a blur at Pennyfeather, screaming in fury, and Pennyfeather went down hard. Next thing I knew, Michael was holding him on the floor, punching him with vicious fury like I’d never known he was capable of feeling before. It was…scary.

I stared down at the machine humming in my hands and quickly, clumsily felt around for an off button. I pressed something that seemed switchlike, and the hum died.

Michael stopped, breathing hard, staring down at Pennyfeather with eyes that glowed so red they seemed to be swimming with hellfire. Pennyfeather wasn’t moving.

“Jesus,” I whispered, and put the weapon—because that was what it was, some kind of weapon—down fast on the nearest available table space. “Michael?”

“I—” His voice sounded rusty and strange, and he looked up at me with those fury-filled eyes, and I almost wished he hadn’t. “Give me the knife.”

“Um…dude…”

“Knife.”

I shook my head and put it away. “It’s not because I don’t want him dead. It’s because I don’t trust what you’re going to do with it right now.”

“He tried to kill Eve.” There was a kind of terrible eagerness to the way he said it that made me want to shudder.

“Okay, man, it’s great you got in touch with your inner serial killer and all, but no way.” I was serious. I wanted Pennyfeather dead; that was no problem at all. What I earnestly didn’t want was for Michael to wake up from this—whatever it was—and have the memory of what he was about to do. Besides, in the event he suddenly took an unhealthy interest in me, I wanted to be the one holding the knife.