Using the fury that boiled through him at being forced to hurt the female he loved, Santiago turned and charged Gaius. With a roar, he pinned the vampire to the wall by the simple process of shoving the rebar through his heart and into the brick wall. Then with a twist he bent the rebar so it would be damned painful for Gaius to pull his way free.
Without missing a beat, he’d raced to slam shut the steel door that was the only entrance into the room beyond the windows covered by thick boards. Then, grabbing the handle, he yanked it upward, feeling the lock twist until it was jammed.
Only then did he spin on his heel to return and glare at the creature who’d caused nothing but pain and misery since its arrival in this world.
Pinned against the wall, the . . . thing seemed impervious to the rebar that was stuck through his heart, his eyes glowing with a hectic light even as the sluggish blood dripped from the hole in his chest.
But Santiago didn’t miss the grayish hue of his skin and the way his clothes hung on his limp frame, almost as if he were shrinking with every passing second.
“Brutal, yet efficient. You make me proud,” Gaius taunted. “Unfortunately, it will do you no good.”
“I’m not done,” Santiago growled, reaching behind his back to pull the pugio from where he’d shoved it into his jeans pocket.
Gaius’s face remained slack, but Santiago sensed his surprise at the sight of the ancient dagger with its lethal silver blade.
“You can kill this host, but I’ll simply take another,” he warned.
Santiago’s lips stretched into a humorless smile as he pressed the tip of the dagger to the center of his chest. “I’m betting that you can’t take control of me before I stick this in my heart.”
Gaius hissed, the glowing eyes narrowing at Santiago’s threat. “Harm yourself and I will simply use the witch.”
“I doubt it. You need her dead.” Santiago shrugged. “Not the best qualification for a host.”
Gaius shifted his head to stare at the mutilated door, his frustration battering against Santiago’s emotions. “Your fellow vampires are swiftly approaching. Once they realize the door is blocked they’ll find another way in.”
He clenched his teeth against the swell of irritation, savagely reminding himself he was being manipulated. “But soon enough?” he managed to rasp.
“Time is meaningless,” the creature smoothly countered. “We have an eternity.”
Santiago gave a slow shake of his head, his gaze lowering to where the flesh around the rebar remained a raw, bleeding wound. It should have been healing by now.
“I don’t think so. You’re starting to fray around the edges,” he said. “The question is . . . why?”
The hesitation was so brief that it would have been easy to miss. “I need to feed.”
Santiago gave another shake of his head. Vampires might take longer to heal when they needed to feed. And even begin to look skeletal if they’d been starved long enough.
But they didn’t begin to decompose.
Besides, if this . . . thing needed to feed, why wasn’t he feasting on the witch’s tangible fear? Or even his own fury?
“No.”
“No, I don’t need to feed?”
Santiago narrowed his gaze. “It’s more than that.”
Without warning Sally took a step forward, her arms wrapped around her slender waist. “The book,” she said.
Santiago jerked his head toward the gaping hole in the wall where Gaius and this witch seemed to be convinced a book was hidden.
“Of course.” He grimaced. He should have suspected the book was the culprit from the minute he noticed Gaius’s impression of a zombie. If the bastard was willing to risk everything to get his hands on it, then it was obviously his kryptonite. “It must be draining him.”
Gaius didn’t bother answering. Instead his attention shifted to the sound of footsteps outside the door.
“Go away,” Santiago shouted as the steel door shuddered beneath the impact of Styx’s size-sixteen boot. There was another shudder, before the cement above the door began to crack and buckle.
Roke.
It had to be.
There was no other vampire who had his particular effect on physical structures. The powerful vampire was a walking, talking (okay, not so much the talking) earthquake machine.
“Dammit, go away,” he shouted again, sensing Gaius’s seething anticipation.
“Santiago, what the hell is going on?” Styx called through the door, his own power making the lights flicker.
Another crack appeared along the side of the door, making Santiago curse at Roke’s persistence.
He had to keep them out of the room. Gaius wouldn’t dare take one of them as a host when it might mean he was trapped on the other side with no way to reach Sally or the book.
He glanced toward the witch, who was studying the crumbling wall with an odd expression.
“Do you have a phone?” he demanded.
She blinked, glancing down at her clinging outfit that clearly had no place to hide the clichéd thin dime let alone a phone. Thankfully she resisted the urge to point out the obvious, and instead caught him off-guard when she squared her shoulders and tilted her chin. “I can reach them.”
He frowned. “A spell . . . oh shit.” He blinked in shock as she turned her arm over to reveal the distinctive tattoo that crawled beneath the skin of her inner forearm. “Who?”
A blush touched her cheeks. “Roke.”
Taciturn, I-am-an-island-so-don’t-screw-with-me Roke mated with a witch?
Fairly certain the entire world had gone mad, Santiago gave a nod of his head. “Warn them to back off.”
“I’ll try.” She rolled her eyes as yet another crack appeared. “They haven’t listened to me yet.”
Trusting that the witch could convince the vampires to halt their assault on the door, not to mention Roke’s seeming determination to bring the roof down on their heads, Santiago turned back to Gaius.
He hid his stab of shock as he realized that Gaius was a shade paler and several pounds frailer. Mierda. Even his hair was beginning to fall out.
Like he was a dog with mange.
“What’s in the book?” he rasped, resisting the urge to reach up and make sure his own hair wasn’t beginning to shed.
Surely he would sense if the book was starting to make him rot?
With a slow, deliberate motion Gaius turned back to study him with his glowing gaze. “Do you know who I am?”