The Immortal Coil (26 page)

The fourth one had its fangs in Noah’s wrist, drinking out what was left of his blood with the others. It wasn’t easy witnessing his downfall. I felt cruel just standing there as signs of consciousness faded from his body. This wasn’t me. I’m not like them. What would my father have done if they were patients of his? He’d never have let someone die on the operating table for a crime they might commit in the future, or who they were in the past. It was a sense of honor I had trouble understanding, but that changed here.

There was no way to detach all of the Carpathians from Noah without risking them ripping off whatever body part they were fastened to. I had to distract them first and it had to be fast. There was a fire hydrant on sidewalk. If I could unscrew the metal grating on a window I could do this. It was taking a lot less effort than I thought it would with my concentration divided, but I still had to hurry.

A pain worse than anything I had felt before shot through my body. One of the Carpathians had broken off from the group around Vivi and was biting into my neck. The feeling ended as suddenly as it began. An eruption of energy shot out from me in response to the pain, turning the Carpathian to ash.

I channeled the remaining telekinetic adrenaline rush to tear the cap off the hydrant. A powerful stream of water sprayed out, scattering the Carpathians in the street. Throwing Noah to safety first, I pulled the power lines down from above, electrocuting all four of the soaking wet attackers and strangling them with the wires until their heads came off.

“Are you going to be okay?” I asked after making a lofty jump over to Noah. The sizzling pool of water between us was turned black from the Carpathians’ ashes.

“I need … blood.” He limped over to me, pulling the sword from his shoulder and clutching his arm. His body was so horribly mangled it was excruciating to look at. He had lost so much blood that his wounds weren’t even bleeding anymore.

I couldn’t open my mouth fast enough to argue against him taking my blood. He was already behind me, grasping my face to expose my neck.

“Relax, it’s not gonna hurt. Just don’t be weird about it and enjoy yourself too much.” There was a slight pinch as his fangs penetrated the skin. I grabbed his arm in panic, but even though badly injured he remained steadfast. A warm numbing sensation spread rapidly throughout my body. Mixed feelings of intoxication and sedation lulled me into an almost inappropriately satisfying dreamlike state. The encroaching chaos around us melted away, leaving only pleasure now as he drained out my life to restore his.

What must have only been minutes felt like hours until he was done drinking and released me. Weak in the knees and delirious, I nearly fell to the ground, but he caught me. While I watched his wounds healed, my own regeneration kicked in to replenish my veins with blood again.

“Oh, you’re still alive,” he said as I came to my senses. “I thought I took too much for a second there. You make a pretty good blood bag, kid. A normal human would’ve died losing that much blood.”

Slightly reinvigorated, Noah plowed through the Carpathian army in a blur of death. Vivi rejoined me as we fought together to clean up his scraps.

“He won’t admit it himself, but Noah has gained respect for you, and that’s saying quite a bit.” She tried speaking loud enough over the clashing of bone and blade without letting him overhear.

“Why don’t you tell him how you feel so he can stop trying to impress you?” I asked.

“Impress me? Do not place blame on me for his ego!” she laughed. This was such an inappropriate time to be having this conversation, but it was all-or-nothing and possibly the last time either of us would ever get to speak our mind.

“It’s pretty obvious you love him, and he’s always showing off to get your attention. You’re really the only one he trusts. With both of you protecting each other you could make it work.”

“Unlike him, I have no issue declaring that love is a wonderful thing, but we have also both seen and felt so much misery caused by love used as leverage.”

“You sound scared to try. Noah was always preaching to me about overcoming fear. He even has a tattoo about it. There’s no reason the both of you can’t.”

“It is mostly guilt, not fear, for me. By saving his life tonight, even you did what I could not. I am reminded of it every night.”

“You need to let that go. You could be free together. I don’t think he blames you, but that’s a conversation the two of you should be having.”

“Maybe you are right,” she said, looking over at him. “I may have finally found something to make these wretched nights a little more bearable and it was right in front of me all this time.”

“I’m going after the hunchback,” I yelled to the group.

“
Non
! Only an Ancient can kill an Ancient,” Vivi insisted. “Our best chance is to eliminate his army. Let Noah and I deal with him and force his retreat.”

“I was made for this, Vivi.” I flew over the mob, searching for the man in the mask. It didn’t take long to spot the big hat. Nothing could have made me angrier than seeing him stroll through the crowd, spinning his cane like this was a leisurely walk in the park. I got an idea immediately upon seeing a car along the street. I gave it everything I had in me and rolled the car on its side, sending it bowling through the infected and into The Blighted One.

“Tell me what crevasse you plan to crawl into should you succeed? Humanity will never accept you as the monster you are now.” His voice came from under the car.

I landed on the sidewalk, waiting for his retaliation. The car budged, then flipped through the air toward me. I blocked my face with my hands and the car collided with an invisible wall erected by my powers. The Blighted One stood watching me through the soulless portholes in his mask.

“Your fight to protect the humans that will never embrace you for who you are is laughable. Do you think your Archios allies will welcome you in? No, they will bury you to keep up their charade.”

The more he talked the more empowered I felt to shut him up. I threw the car back at him, but he halved it with his right arm, which had mutated into a long blade. He walked toward me, knocking half of the car away with ease. Something wriggled under the leather duster he was wearing. It tore open, revealing two sickle-like appendages sprouting from his back.

The bony mask protecting his head was too thick for me to crush. That was the most effective thing I had learned up to now. I was out of tricks sooner than I had hoped. His new sword-arm looked the most dangerous, so I focused on trying to remove it. We were caught in a tug of war, but I prevailed and yanked it from his body.

I turned it back around in the air and tried impaling him with it. The sword stuck straight through his chest and melted into him, reforming at his side. Alarmed, I flew back to rethink my strategy. Our fight traveled into Central Park and was now between just the two of us. My strongest hadn’t done much but stagger him for a second and I was running out of ideas already.

The Blighted One dropped on all fours and scuttled across the ground. He climbed up a tree with the help of his extra appendages and pounced with his blade out. It missed, but on his way down the blade transformed into some sort of barbed tentacle and wrapped around my arm. With a jerk it tightened until I screamed.

I crashed to the ground and crawled away from him, feeling faint from blood loss as I left a trail behind me. He absorbed the blood from my arm just like the blade. My powers still weren’t enough to throw him back, and every attempt I made didn’t seem to bother him. He stopped following me momentarily and gazed at the sky. A deafening noise that reminded me of a cicada echoed from his throat. Once he was done, the sound of many feet trampling the grass came from all around. I saw infected stampeding through the trees to us and knew I wouldn’t be able to do this on my own.

“The parasite may not discriminate in choosing a host, but I no longer deem you worthy of such a gift.”

One of the bladed appendages from the Blighted One’s back pierced between my ribs. I could no longer hold back the tears and began to choke. They mixed with the blood gurgling up in my throat and prevented me from pleading for mercy. An agonizing suction wreaked havoc inside my body. The bone scythe stuck in me rent my vital organs from their connective tissue.

“That robust flavor, I would recognize it anywhere. Bloodlust and rage, the final emotions of the oppressed. This is no work of the parasite. These are your true feelings. You want to hate, to lash out and destroy what stands in your way. You may not be human, but you are every bit as wicked.”

I fought my body’s urge to shut down and give in to unconsciousness. I collected myself just enough to tear the appendage from him and push him away. He recoiled, but I was still surrounded by infected bearing down on me. Before they could move in, I turned my attention to the trees above me and pulled down large branches to crush them and block their path even if only for a moment.

The Blighted One regrouped quickly and reattached his severed limb to continue his quest to harvest my insides.

“Ah, you have synergized so well with the parasite. I can taste the otherworldly energies from the Rift coursing through you. It is such a shame. You would have made an ideal successor and a wonderful instrument of destruction. It wouldn’t take long before you turned that anger on mankind once they shunned you.”

My heart beat erratically, traumatized by my organs rupturing. My senses failed. I held on for as long as I could, hoping maybe I was at least buying the others time to go through with their plan before I died. As my sight darkened, I had one last shot at taking the plague doctor out. Staring into his mask, I cracked the glass covering his eyes and sent the shards inward. The blood leaking from the holes let me know I was successful in bringing him at least a little more suffering. While he was definitely hurt, he still managed to heal by ingesting more tissue from me.

Vivi leaped down from the night sky, cutting off the Carpathian’s siphon and removing it from my body. “Noah, keep him busy!” she shouted and carried me off to a safe place in the trees.

“I can still fight,” I told her as my body started patching itself up.

“You’ve done enough. Take Monsieur Turner with you and leave here. I will erase his memory of everything that happened this week, including everyone he has met.”

“Everyone?” I had only known him for a few days, but without Lyle I had no one left. We became friends quicker than I opened up to most people under the circumstances. I didn’t think I’d have to walk away as if I never existed.

“It is for your own good as well as his. I strongly advise you continue to keep your secret and move on with your life.”

“If I can’t do what I was created for, then who am I? What purpose does my life really have?”

“Your life is not defined by how it began, but the paths you take along the way. It is too soon for you to end that journey so recklessly.”

Vivi left me to rest away from danger and took up the fight against the Blighted One alongside Noah. My missing skin and organs were growing back now and I could feel my strength returning.

I floated to my feet when I heard a woman scream. I shot through the trees, smacking into branches as I flew past.

“NO!” Noah’s roar boomed loud enough to be heard across all five boroughs. The Blighted One’s rib cage had burst through its torso and engulfed Vivi. By the time I got there only her face and hand were visible as she desperately reached out to Noah.

“So much for your legendary speed!” The Carpathian laughed at Noah’s frustration. He dropped his swords to try and pull Vivi out, snarling with his fangs bared and punching with all his strength. A few of the remaining infected were stabbing him in the back with their bladed arms, but he shrugged off the pain in his frenzied state. My heart sank, hearing her bones crunch and pop as she was assimilated into the monster.

“GIVE HER BACK TO ME!” he bellowed.

Noah had gone berserk with rage, and was clawing and punching to get to Vivi. He picked up one of his swords to try and cut her out, but it couldn’t scratch the bony carapace protecting the Blighted One. In his anger, Noah failed to notice the mutated appendages make their move to consume him next. The two from the Carpathian’s back stabbed into Noah’s shoulders, holding him in place while the tentacle arm wrapped around his torso. The rib cage sprang open again like a crab’s legs and extended to drag him in.

He should have transformed into mist, but he was so blinded by fury, all he did was strike senselessly at the body. I threw off the infected as soon as I flew in close enough and smashed them to bits.

Lyle ran up shouting as soon as he saw Vivi’s
katana
on the grass and figured out what had happened. I pried Noah from the Blighted One before he was lost too, but he shoved me away so hard I almost broke my neck when I hit a tree. Noah dove right back in, trying to attack with the same results. I went to pull him away again, but he snarled menacingly at me to back off.

His crazed punching cracked the mask, but he was also about to be consumed. I warned Lyle to stay away. My anger was well past the boiling point so I could just imagine how Noah felt. I ripped off the Blighted One’s appendages holding him. I sure as hell wasn’t going to lose someone else.

The Blighted One let out an insidious chuckle from behind the broken mask. I helped Noah break the rest of the mask off, revealing the grotesque face it hid. A razor-toothed maw and two beady eyes greeted us. There was no skin, only raw muscle and bone covered in black veins, which made me think the mask actually
was
his face. Noah went to impale the hideous Ancient, but stopped before the sword struck. The Blighted One ignited in a baleful green blaze. Vivi’s body fell from his chest cavity and disintegrated before it hit the ground.