Dark Prince - Feehan Christine - Страница 66
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“Raven?” Edgar Hummer touched her forehead, finding her ice cold. Her skin was so pale, she seemed nearly translucent, her blue eyes sunken, like two bruised flowers pressed into her face. “Can you talk? Is Mikhail alive?”
She nodded, surveying his swollen face with dismay. “What have they done to you? Why would they beat you this way?”
“They say they’re certain I know where Mikhail keeps all of his spare coffins. According to Andre...”
“Who is Andre?”
“The treacherous vampire in league with these killers. He is a true undead, feeding on children, destroying all that is holy. His soul is lost for all eternity. As far as I can tell, Andre appears to be deliberately perpetuating the vampire myths. He claims that Mikhail is the head vampire and if they succeed in killing him, those under his influence will be returned to mortal existence. He must have established a blood bond without their knowledge and he uses it to give them orders.”
Raven closed her eyes weakly. Her heart was struggling to pump without necessary blood; her lungs cried out for oxygen. “How many of them are there?”
“Three that I’ve seen. This one is James Slovensky. His brother Eugene is their supposed leader, and their muscle man is Anton Fabrezo.”
“Two of them stayed at the inn with the American couple. We thought they had left the country. This Andre must be a lot more powerful than anyone suspects.”
Her voice was fading, her speech slurring. Father Hummer watched as she tried to lift her arm to push her hair away from her face. Her arm seemed too heavy; her face seemed too great a distance away. He did it for her with gentle fingers.
Raven!There was anguish in Mikhail’s voice.
It was too difficult to answer him; it required far too much strength. The priest shifted so that her head could fall against his arm. Raven was shivering with cold. “I need a blanket back here for her.”
“Shut up, old man,” Slovensky snapped. His eyes continually searched the sky through his windshield. The sun was up, but heavy clouds dimmed the sky, hiding the light.
“If she dies, Andre will make you wish you had died too,” Edgar Hummer persisted.
“I need sleep,” Raven said softly without opening her eyes. She didn’t even wince when Slovensky’s jacket landed on her unprotected face.
Mikhail had to get out of the sun. Without dark glasses or any substantial protection from the rays, his skin and eyes were burning. He landed on the low branch of a tree and changed to human form as he jumped the remaining seven feet to earth. Jacques’s body lay in the sun, a cardigan covering his neck and face. Without looking to see the extent of his brother’s injuries, Mikhail lifted him and glided above ground toward the network of caves a mile away.
A huge black wolf burst from the clearing to join him, loping easily beside him, pale silver eyes gleaming with menace. Together they raced through the narrow passages until they found a large, steaming chamber. The black wolf contorted, fur rippling along muscular arms as Gregori shape-shifted to his true form.
Mikhail laid Jacques’s body gently on the rich soil and lifted away the covering. He swore softly, unshed tears burning in his throat and eyes. “Can you save him?”
Gregori’s hands moved over the body, the vicious wounds. “He stopped his heart and lungs so that he could conserve his blood. Raven is weak because she fed him. She mixed her saliva and the soil and packed it in tight. It is already beginning to heal the wounds. I will need your herbs, Mikhail.”
“Save him, Gregori.” Mikhail’s body rippled with thick, glossy fur, bent, stretched, took shape as he ran along the maze of passages upward out of the bowels of the earth. He dared not think of Raven and how weak she was. The heaviness was invading his body already, demanding he go to ground, that he sleep.
Summoning his immense strength and a will honed to iron over hundreds of years, Mikhail burst into the open at a flat run. The wolf’s body was built for speed and he used it, running flat out, eyes narrowed to tiny slits. Paws hit the ground; back feet dug into soil to leap rotting logs. He never slowed, racing through ravines and over rocks.
The overcast sky helped to ease the effects of the sun, but his eyes were streaming as he approached the cabin. The wind shifted, bringing the foul stench of sweat and fear. Man.The beast snarled silently, all the pent-up rage in him exploding into white-hot fury. The wolf skidded to a halt, body low to the ground, once more the predator.
The wolf kept downwind, gliding through thick brush to creep up on the two men waiting in ambush. A trap for him. Of course the betrayer would know Mikhail would rush to aid his brother. The vampire was cunning and willing to take chances. The betrayer had lain in wait, feeding Hans Romanov’s fanaticism. It was probably the undead who had commanded Hans to murder his wife. The wolf slunk low on its belly, crawled forward until it was within feet of the larger of the two men.
“We’re too late,” Anton Fabrezo whispered, half rising to stare down the trail in front of the cabin. “Something sure happened here.”
“Damn truck, it would have to overheat,” Dieter Hodkins complained. “There’s blood everywhere and smashed branches. There was a fight, all right.”
“Do you think Andre killed Dubrinsky?” Anton asked.
“That’s our job. But the sun’s up. If Dubrinsky’s alive, he’s somewhere sleeping in his coffin. We can check the cabin, but I don’t think we’re going to find anything,” Dieter said with irritation.
“Andre isn’t going to be happy with us,” Anton worried aloud. “He wants Dubrinsky dead in a big way.”
“Well, he should have provided us with a decent truck. I told him mine was breaking down,” Dieter snapped impatiently. He believed in vampires, and that it was his holy duty to exterminate them.
Dieter stood up cautiously, surveying the landscape carefully. “Come on, Fabrezo. Maybe we’ll get lucky and Dubrinsky will be in the cabin already laid out in his coffin.”
Anton laughed nervously. “I’ll drive in the stake; you cut off the head. This vampire-killing stuff is messy.”
“Cover me while I scout it out,” Dieter ordered. He took a step through the thick foliage, his rifle cradled in his arms. The bushes directly in front of him parted and he was face to face with a huge, heavily muscled wolf. His heart nearly stopped, and he froze, unable for a moment to move.
Black eyes glittered malevolently, streaming and red-rimmed. Sharp white fangs glinted, glistened with saliva. The wolf held him with those black eyes for a full thirty seconds, striking terror in Dieter’s heart. Without warning it lunged, jaws wide, head low, caught one booted ankle and crushed down with incredible power, breaking through leather and bones with a loud, sickening snap. Dieter screamed and fell. The wolf instantly released him and sprang back, regarding him with impersonal eyes.
From his position in the bushes, Fabrezo had seen Dieter Hodkins go down screaming, but he couldn’t see why. The terror in Hodkin’s tone sent fear spiraling through him. It took a minute for Anton to find his voice. “What is it? I can’t see.” He didn’t try to see either, sliding further down in the bushes, holding his gun up and ready, finger on the trigger ready to spray anything that moved. He wanted to yell at Dieter to shut up, but he remained quiet, his heart pounding in alarm.
Dieter tried to bring his rifle into firing position. Between the pain and the terror those black, venomous eyes were inducing, he couldn’t quite get the barrel around fast enough. Those eyes were far too intelligent, held rage and fury. That death stare was very personal. And it was the eyes of death that mesmerized him. He couldn’t look away, not even when the wolf lunged for his exposed throat. At the last he didn’t feel a thing, suddenly welcoming the end. The deadly eyes staring into his changed at the last moment, suddenly saddened as the wolf made the kill.
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