Page 80 of Eternal Devotion

Men shouted. Instantly released from my suggestive influence, the two who had wandered into the trees ran toward my explosive yelp. More startled cries of alarm rose from underground. A clamor of running feet approached.

Disoriented and partially blind, I tried to flee, understanding the imminent danger, knowing the consequences of being caught by Valerius’s band of trained thugs. For all the times I’d wished for the final death, I wasn’t prepared to accept it. Not now.

A wafer-thin voice in the back of my mind suggested it had everything to do with the human in my bed.

I staggered to my feet and spun, coming face to face with the man I’d sent to circle the eyot. With a rageful growl, he lunged, thrusting his stake toward me. I jumped back in time to avoid being impaled, but he was determined and followed, jabbing the air two more times unsuccessfully.

I hissed and bared my teeth.

In the distance, someone shouted, “Be careful, Lou!”

The man, Lou, laughed. “He can’t do anything to me.” An oily smile filled his face as he stabbed the air again, advancing with fearless confidence.

In vain, I tried to summon a shift or raise a fog, but nothing worked.

He charged again, lunging with the weapon, and I dodged a nearly fatal blow before turning to run. My retreat was foiled by a wall of armed men who had appeared from belowground. Four of them, and another off to the side, who had come from the trees, blocked my escape.

The man who’d tried to impale me came up from behind and wrapped an arm around my neck, pressing a blade to my throat. “I hear,” he hissed in my ear, “that if I cut off your head, you’ll be dead for good. Wanna test it, boys?”

I snapped at his arm and flung my head to the side, biting air and doing all I could to sink my teeth into his tender flesh, but he lurched out of the way, laughing like it was a game.

“He’s a feisty bastard. Be careful, Lou.”

“I’m not afraid. He’s powerless under the lights. See?” he said to me. “We can do tricks too, you undead freak. We know your weaknesses.”

The men spread out, forming a circle and closing in. I was a toy. A cornered, frightened rabbit. A plaything they would eventually slaughter.

“I say we have some fun with him,” a burly guy with a full beard said. “Poke him like a pincushion and see how long he lives.”

“You can’t heal anymore, pretty boy. That’s gotta suck,” said another.

A man with a thick neck and a buzzed head dug inside the pouch at his waist and withdrew a vial. He unstoppered it with his teeth and flung its contents in my direction before I could move out of the way.

A stream of liquid splattered against my chest and sprayed my face. I screamed as it burned my skin and ate through my clothing to sear the flesh beneath. I stumbled and fell on my ass, trying in vain to wipe it off, but it was impossible.

The men advanced, weapons extended.

“That’s it. Burn, motherfucker, burn. Hurts, don’t it?”

I rolled to my stomach, fighting the pain, knowing I had to get away or I would die, but under the lights I was useless.

“We should fill his mouth with the Eucharist and watch him dissolve from the inside out.”

“Then we’ll cut your head off. How about that, buddy? You like that?”

One of them lunged with a knife, slicing a deep gash in my calf as I tried to crawl away. “Not so fast, vampy-wampy. We’re just getting started.”

I screamed, thrashed, and lunged to bite.

He jumped back, laughing.

Someone kicked me until I rolled into a fetal position to protect myself. When the assault calmed, I dared look.

I was surrounded. The wound in my leg wasn’t healing. Tar-like black blood seeped from the cut, a slow ooze with a thick metallic odor more pungent than human blood. The pain in my face and chest burrowed deeper, blistering and eating through layers of skin.

This was it. I was finished.

As I submitted to my coming death, wondering why I wasn’t more thankful, a strange buzzing sounded in the distant trees. It drew the attention of a few men who glanced around with perplexion.