I almost sprang on her, believing wrongly that I could move faster than she could pull the trigger, except she was a fairly old vampire herself, and I would be dead before I took a step.
The fire in her eyes flared brightly.
I turned my shoulders as a shot rang out. Pain blasted my shoulder as the sound of the gunshot split the air. Mary Lou screamed. Even Danny made a noise. Most interesting was the noise I heard in the next chamber, the sound of something growling and the bellow of something dying.
But that all seemed very far away from me now.
“You are fast, Samantha Moon,” said Hanner, approaching me, holding the gun out. “I’ve never known how you could anticipate another vampire. Then again, maybe it’s something in your blood. Maybe it’s something that’s in your sister’s blood, too. Something we can dig out, understand, and perhaps use.”
I stumbled away from her, holding my shoulder, as her eyes flared again. The next shot shattered my elbow and I felt my right arm drop limp. I cried out for the first time in a long time. Mostly from the burning, the unending, goddamn burning.
She stepped around me, still holding the gun before her. She was smiling, but her eyes were dead...when I saw the slight change. The deadness was replaced with something close to compassion.
“I’m sorry, Sam,” she said, the lilt in her voice gone. “I’m sorry it had to be this way. I liked you. I really did. I thought we could be friends. I thought we could be friends forever. But you wouldn’t play by the rules. By their rules. Just know that I didn’t want this for you.”
She paused, and the deadness returned, replaced by the spark of fire just behind her pupils.
“Enough,” said the accented voice.
She raised the gun, aimed it at my chest, and that was the last thing she ever did in this world.
The silver tip of Fang’s knife blade appeared through her chest.
The bloodied silver tip.
Chapter Forty-five
I was all alone with Danny.
“Allison has gone for help for you,” I said. His head was on my lap as we sat together on the dirt and rock floor. My arm was messed up, but already healing. I kept it at my side. I could literally feel my bones moving, finding their way, forming and reforming.
“Who’s Allison?” he asked. “Never mind.”
I almost smiled. Indeed, a fat lot of good it did him to learn the name of one of my friends, especially if his condition didn’t improve.
“I don’t feel so good, Sam.”
“I know you don’t, you idiot.”
With Fang’s help, we had done our best to staunch Danny’s bleeding.
Fang...he’d been released from his compulsion the instant that Kingsley had killed the old vampire. And when I’d said killed, I meant he could have been killed many dozens of times over. The old man was now nothing but chunks of bloody meat scattered around the cavern. Kingsley had stated that the old man had finally given up, and had just stood there when Kingsley had come for him. He was now certain the old man had wanted nothing more than to finally die. Kingsley had very much given him his wish.
And thus, he’d released Fang from his compulsion.
Instantly, Fang had sprung into action to save me.
Kingsley was now wearing my sweater around his waist, which now looked more like a loincloth. Truth was, with his scratched chest and thick shoulders and wild hair, he looked more like Conan the Barbarian than Orange County’s most prominent defense attorney.
I shook my head at the absurdity of it all and returned my attention to my mortally wounded ex-husband.
“Why did you do it, you big idiot?” I asked.
Danny coughed and as he did so, more blood appeared around his bandage and from the corners of his mouth. “I hated you, Sam. You always seemed to get the better of me.”
“I wasn’t trying to get the better of you, you big friggin’ moron.”
“Do you mind not calling a dying man names, Sam?”
“You’re not dying.”
“You, better than anyone, could see that.”
He was right, of course. I could see the aura around his body had darkened considerably in the last fifteen minutes, fifteen crazy minutes during which all of us were doing our best to make sense of what had just happened.
When Allison had finally released the two hunters, they’d dashed off, leaving behind their ruined crossbows and silver-tipped bolts. She was certain they had been compelled by Hanner. For as soon as she’d died, her control over them had vanished, as well. Yes, Hanner, my-one time drinking companion, was dead. The demon within her wasn’t dead, of course. No, I had seen the black shadow pour from her dying mouth, to disappear into the ether, to one day find a new host.
Now Allison was off seeking help for Danny, and keeping in telepathic contact with me, too. At the moment, she had just made it to the parking lot, but she didn’t have cell reception there either. I had given her my keys. She was just now getting into the minivan.
“I made so many mistakes, Sam,” Danny said.
“I know.”
He coughed. “Jesus, you didn’t have to agree so fast.”
“Well, you were a jerk and a moron and—”
“No name calling, remember? I know I screwed up.”
“Royally,” I said.
“I was afraid, Sam. Afraid of you. Afraid for my life. I mean, I had no idea that such things existed.”
“I’m not a thing, Danny. I was your wife. That was always your problem. You made me into a monster. I wasn’t a monster, and you know it. I was fighting it and winning, and you abandoned me, abandoned us.”
As I spoke, I couldn’t help but notice his aura had darkened some more, and a deep, rich blackness was creeping through what had once had some color.
He coughed harder than before. He kept on coughing, and as he did so, the darkness kept spreading.
“Ah, Danny. I’m sorry this happened to you.”
“I asked for it, Sam. And don’t you dare save me. Don’t you dare make me like you. Please.”
“I won’t, Danny.”
He coughed harder than ever, and then lay back, wheezing. “I didn’t know what I was doing, Sam. Hanner promised me she would help me get the kids back.”
“You don’t want the kids, Danny. They would only get in the way of your new...playboy lifestyle.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Sam. I love them more than you know.”
His eyes closed and the darkness surrounded him completely.
“I know you love them, Danny,” I said.