CHAPTER SIX - CRAVING

Ryder felt Grayson tense against him. That lithe body was coiled like a spring now. He had stiffened whenever Ryder had touched him, but like a wild stallion who just wanted to be calmed by a steady hand, had relaxed after a time almost as if against  his will. Though Grayson was smaller than Ryder was, the young man was nicely muscled. He had the body of a natural athlete, not one pumped up in a gym like an over-inflated balloon. But every one of those muscles had gone rock hard hearing the female Vampire’s voice.

Fight or flight. Yes, he’s met her before. He didn’t lie about her, Ryder thought.

Ryder turned his head and accidentally drew in the young man’s scent. There was the tart smell of fear. Some Vampires loved that scent. It was what every prey gave off when cornered. But it spoiled the blood in Ryder’s opinion. It made it acrid and bitter somehow.  

But there was another scent beneath that coming from Grayson, a scent that began to overwhelm the one of fear. It was a cold, icy smell. It was one Ryder had smelled around true warriors before a battle. They turned their terror into fuel. They turned their rage into power. They turned their power into death for their enemies. It was not a scent he had expected to smell on this modern young man.

Grayson’s fierce response to Demos and Ryder himself, knowing they were Vampires also, pointed to a warrior spirit though he had thought it foolishness.  But he had  been wrong.  Grayson was not a fool.  And perhaps that and the warrior  inside explained how he had survived an encounter with these other Vampires. 

But Grayson was still a human, warrior or no. Fragile. Easy to break. 

“How many?” Demos growled as Ryder’s senses were better than most anyone’s.

“Let’s hope there are only three still. She’s had time to bring some friends,” Ryder answered as he cocked his head to the side and unleashed his vampiric hearing. 

At first, he could just hear their heartbeats in the hallway. Demos’ was steady and strong as always before a fight. His was a faster beat but still slow even as he prepared for battle. Grayson’s though sounded like the frantic beat of butterfly wings. He listened more closely to that delicate thump.

That was a mistake.

He must not have fed enough that night, spending more time flying than feeding, because his pupils expanded and his fangs ached. Grayson was beautiful. One would have to be blind not to notice that. But there were many beautiful young men in the world and they were about to be attacked. Now was not the time to be distracted, though the predator in him disagreed. Now was the perfect time it seemed to think.  

Almost against  his will, itt was like Grayson was the only person in existence. Ryder’s senses narrowed down to just him.  The predator in him swarmed to the surface as he focused in on that human heart, the whoosh of rich blood through Grayson’s veins, and the rasp of his frenzied breathing. 

Grayson was in full flight or fight mode. Perspiration coated his silky skin. There were scrapes on his right cheekbone. A delicate beading of blood which was the only kind of makeup that drew a Vampire like no other. 

Draw away, he thought, but he didn’t.

Hunger for this young man was suddenly bright and blooming inside of him like  fireworks. It was so unexpected that he was paralyzed by his own desire. They were about to fight! They did not need this distraction! But the predator within betrayed him again! He fisted his hands. He held himself very still. He needed to know how many more Vampires--competitors, his predator self snarled--were nearby. 

“Phone suddenly has no signal. No backup is coming that way,” Demos grimaced as he slid his back in his pocket, waiting on Ryder’s report on what they were facing, not realizing the hunger was trying to take over. Demos nodded his head at Grayson. “Guess you weren’t lying about that.”

“I wasn’t lying about anything!” Grayson hissed. “What are we doing? If they’re out back then let’s go out front!”

“Ryder?” Demos asked, wanting to confirm that they weren’t heading into yet another trap.

Ryder felt his fangs come out as his gaze rested upon the pulse point on the right side of Grayson’s neck. It was such a lovely neck.  Long and supple. He imagined how it would feel to let his fangs sink into that sweet flesh and taste the first, fresh draw of Grayson’s blood...

“Ryder!” Demos hissed as he saw where Ryder’s attention actually was and it was  not on their enemies. 

Demos struck Ryder’s left shoulder. It was a blow that would have crushed human bones, but just got Ryder’s attention.  Ryder whipped his head around towards his Blood Brother, fangs bared, and… he stopped. This was Demos. They were in a church surrounded by enemies.

What am I doing?  

The sound of Grayson’s heart was gone from his ears and he was free of its malign  influence. Even as Demos stared at him in consternation his senses finally obeyed him and swung outwards.

“Can’t leave the front way either,” Ryder finally said. “Two more out there.”

He had heard one of them scraping his foot along the pavement, stubbing out a cigarette. The other was tapping a fingernail against their leg. He focused on where the woman’s voice had come from. For a moment, his hearing had once more flowed over Grayson, but he dragged his senses away from the young man. Sweat beaded his upper lip.

What is wrong with me?

“Three out back, including the woman,” Ryder got out and turned his head away from Grayson and Demos as he wiped the sweat from his face. It was cold and his hand trembled.

What the Hell happened? I haven’t lost control like that since I was the newest of fledglings on the hunt. Then another thought occurred to him. Maybe it isn’t him at all. Maybe Grayson is the cause of this. 

He turned back to face them and some of his suspicion must have shown in his eyes as the young man retreated a step then, defiantly, crossed his arms over his chest and remained where he was.  Ryder’s eyes narrowed further. While Grayson  hadn’t been lying to them about the Vampires chasing him, he was definitely hiding something. 

Hiding things that make him dangerous to Vampires? Ryder wondered. But Demos  seems completely unaffected by him.

“Five,” Demos grunted. “Not good.  But not terrible.”

“We’ve handled more loads of times,” Ryder said.

“Two against five doesn’t sound like good odds to me,” Grayson said. “Isn’t there any other way out of here?  Maybe we can get up onto the roof and jump to the  next building?”

That icy, warrior scent rose up from Grayson. Ryder swallowed thickly. “They’ll  be on us from both sides before we make it halfway across.”

“You said she was fast, right?” Demos pointed out. “She can jump high too. Vampires are the best acrobats you’ve ever seen.”

“So there’s no way out?” Grayson’s heart was thrumming again.

Ryder grimaced and swallowed again. “We can handle them.  You need to let us take care of this, Grayson.”

“Right. Sure. I can’t… do much against Vampires,” Grayson said with a shrug, but that icy smell was so much stronger. 

“Grayson,” Ryder put a note of warning in his voice, “whatever you did before to get past these Vampires won’t work twice.”

“Okay,” Grayson lied again as the scent had Ryder by the throat.

He glanced over at Demos. His Blood Brother showed no sign of smelling that  odd scent.

Am I going mad?

Ryder grimaced. Demos’ expression was shrouded. He hadn’t bought Grayson’s story of Sect of Dawn Vampires, but it looked to be true. Yet like Ryder he sensed something was off here.

But he’s not being affected by it like I am.

“Where’s the plan?” Demos asked. “Like that time in Egypt?”

Ryder grinned. “I was thinking more about Brazil.”

Demos’ eyebrows rose. “Brazil? Well, well, well, someone’s intent to turn this evening around.”

“Egypt? Brazil? What are you guys talking about?” Grayson asked.

“We’ve been getting out of tough spots for a long time,” Ryder explained. “This is no different. We encountered situations like this in those places.”

“That Vampire out there she’s… she’s different,” Grayson said and swallowed.

The fear in his eyes had the opposite effect of the scent and the heart. Ryder felt a flush of shame. This boy was terrified. He was… was in need of protection. And that’s what Weryns offered.

At least now we do.

“We’ve dealt with crazy before, Grayson. It’s been sort of our bag,” Demos answered.

Grayson frowned, but neither of them explained. The Immortal War had needed soldiers. Each Bloodline had made Vampires based on their level of aggression, no other trait was necessary.  The crazier the better.  While they had been ideal as foot soldiers, they couldn’t be trusted afterwards to keep the existence of Vampires a secret. 

They killed without compunction and mostly just for fun. They were sloppy leaving drained bodies like party favors strewn across cities. And he and Demos hunted them. They called these lost Vampires the Broken.  Lawson had called Balthazar a Master-killer, but from all Ryder had seen, Roan Tithe had been one of the Broken. He had just hidden it better than others. Maybe this woman and her minions were Broken. That would make sense though bringing the Sect of Dawn into it was odd. But that was just one more odd thing about this night.

“Are you down with Brazil?” Ryder asked.

Demos nodded and strode past them towards the front of the church.

“Where’s he going?” Grayson asked, eyes widening and breathing becoming heavy once more.

“Don’t worry about that. We’ve got this,” Ryder said.

Ryder grasped the young man by the upper arms and bodily carried him to a closet he had glimpsed on their way back here. Grayson let out the same squawk he had earlier when picked up. It was almost cute. Okay, it was cute. He held Grayson in one arm while opening the closet door with the other. He placed Grayson inside. The young man immediately tried to dash out. Ryder put up a hand to block him.

“What are you doing?” Ryder asked.

“What are you doing?” Grayson demanded.

The fear smell was back in full force.  Ryder hoped it would be enough to stop the craving. It was. But more than that it was the sheer terror in Grayson’s eyes. But it wasn’t terror of the unknown or just Vampires. It was the terror of having seen things, experienced things, that most people did not. This kid was a survivor if nothing else.

“You’ll be safe in here,” Ryder said.

“Safe?!” Grayson let out a sharp laugh and tried to duck beneath Ryder’s arm.

He caught the young man and gently, but firmly put him back in the closet and blocked the way out with his body.

“You’ll be out of the way, which is as safe as we can make you until we take them out,” Ryder amended. 

The young man had a good eye for odds and fighting. Again, survivor. Warrior. Something else. The full scent of him was in Ryder’s nostrils as they were both in the small space of the closet. Ryder licked his lips and swallowed. The predator wanted to come out. 

Good. Use it on our enemies. But leave this boy alone.

“We’ll come get you when it's over,” Ryder said.

“No, I--I don’t want to be in here! I need a way out!” The young man looked ready to climb the walls.

“This is the only way to keep you safe,” Ryder said even as he wanted to respond to that fear with something other than these harsh words. “Keep it together. You’ve done well all evening. Don’t fail now.”

He hadn’t expected his words to have any real effect on Grayson, but they did. The young man drew in a deep, shuddering breath and held himself in a tight embrace.

“I can do this. I can. It’s not the same… not the same,” Grayson said, but Ryder wasn’t sure if he was speaking to Ryder or  himself.

“I’ll be back,” Ryder said and shut the door.

“Promise?” Big eyes stared at him.

Ryder nodded. “Promise.”

He then pulled it towards himself until there was a crunching sound as the door was crushed against the door jam, wedging it closed. Only a Vampire could release  him. And he was just in time.

“Oh, you fools, you’re making me repeat myself,” the woman sounded truly aggravated, but then there was a lilt of laughter in her voice as she said, “Not that we were going to let you live your Second Lives anyways.”

Thunder rumbled above them. Lightning streaked through the sky, illuminating the church in a silvery glow for a moment.

Horys Bloodline. Can control the weather, Ryder thought. 

Ryder shifted into his treachery of ravens form. His clothes dissolved and his cellphone thudded to the ground. With a soft flutter of wings flew to the roof where he had seen an open patch. Dark as night he flitted through the opening into the air. No Weryn, but him could do what he did next. He divided himself into two large treacheries of ravens. One group went to the front while the other group headed to the back. His vision was split up further than simply amongst the individual birds, but also the two treacheries. But Ryder had been practicing this.

There were only two Vampires in front just like his senses had alerted him. One was a whip thin Asian woman with her long black hair coiled like a serpent on the back of her head. Her lips were a scarlet slash. She was a study in starkess in her black and white outfit. Only the lipstick gave her any color. Beside her was a man dressed all in white. Even his hair was white. He too was thin as a reed. He was the cigarette smoker. He ground out another butt beneath one heel. 

Ryder also saw the Vampires at the back of the church at the same time as the ones at the front. In the back, he saw the woman--their leader--standing with her two Vampire companions on either side of her. Her hands were lifted to chest height in front of her. Lightning played between  her fingers. There was another crack of thunder and the air shivered. Cold wind brushed his feathers.

The silvery white light of her gift revealed that her chest was covered in blood. Her shirt was wrenched open. That blood on her shirt was not human, but Vampire or mostly Vampire. 

How did that happen? Ryder wondered. For a brief moment he considered, Grayson? Could he have done it? No. There would be no way.

He wasn’t surprised at her anger and recklessness at that moment though even if Grayson wasn’t the cause. Her aggression was up because she’d been badly injured. She’d likely drunk enough to heal herself quickly, but he was sure she was still craving and Grayson was the nearest source of blood.  His own predator nearly had him issuing a screech of challenge. If anyone was drinking from that boy it was him! 

But he shoved that down and told himself to think. Why would she chase the boy merely to drain him? She wouldn’t. She had to know that Grayson could have spilled all he knew to them already. So she couldn’t be here simply to keep what he knew from getting out. Though she said she was going to kill Demos and him. But the phones had worked until recently.

No, something more is going on here. She wants Grayson in one piece, I think. All  the more reason to take him to the Ever Dark and not let him out of my sight!

Even before he saw the shadow of Demos’ big cat form leaping towards the church window from inside, he was already diving at the Vampires. He hadn’t made a sound in his bird form so they didn’t see him coming until they were being dive bombed by dozens of birds.

The leader let out a shriek as he pecked at her face, going for her eyes.  She blindly thrust out her hands and lightning arced from her fingertips and hit the asphalt--shattering huge chunks of it and spraying the air--and the back of the church--two windows shattered and glass rained down. She also struck some of his bird bodies who let out a caw! And then burst into feathers that fluttered down to earth. He felt their loss like body blows, but they didn’t incapacitate him in any way.

On the front side of the church, he had dive bombed the whip thin Asian woman and the old man. Both had ducked down to cover their faces. His talons drew blood and ripped strands of hair from their heads. He heard the old man curse with a British accent.  The air pressure changed just before a wave of wind sent many of his bird bodies slamming against the church’s facade.  Pain rocketed through Ryder, but he kept on attacking them.

The large front window of the church exploded outwards as Demos jumped out of it in his panther form. His massive front paws landed on the Asian woman’s shoulders as he took her down. She got out one shriek before Demos’ jaws closed around her throat and ripped it out. There was a gurgling sound and the older man shouted, “No, Ana!”

The old man leaped on Demos’ back as he sent another wind wave that had all of Ryder’s bird forms on this side of the church splatting on the ground, broken and then bursting apart. Ryder was now only in the back of the church. Demos would have to hold his own.

He saw the leader and her two followers join hands just before they brought the whirlwind. Trees, branches, debris of all sorts gave the whirlwind its funnel-type shape. It ripped his bird bodies out of the sky and then shredded them in the blender of air. Ryder only stopped from passing out by disengaging his consciousness from those forms. But soon he was down to only a handful of ravens.

“You fucking stupid Weryn! Think a flock of birds can end us?” The leader laughed. “Now you DIE!”

But that was the thing about Ryder. Unlike the Weryn they were used to, he was not limited to one form. He flew a single bird body behind them while they picked off the rest, thinking that they were killing him.

And then he shifted again behind them into his new bear form.

He rose up on his hind legs. He lifted his two front paws on either side of the minion’s heads. Then he smashed their skulls together. They went to jelly in his hands. Brains and blood squished between his claws. The headless bodies slumped to the ground. 

But he only had time to look up from his handiwork before a lightning bolt struck him in the center of his chest. He was thrown back over twenty feet. His bear body hit the ground and kept sliding. The pain was indescribable. He couldn’t breathe, but he could smell burnt bear fur and flesh. He couldn’t hear his own heartbeat. 

I should be dead. I should be dead…

Then he saw the leader come into view. She had a rictus of  a grin on her face. Blood streaked her cheeks. Her eyes were bright with malice. Her hands glowed with lightning. 

One more strike… 

But then she wasn’t grinning anymore. Wood splinters as large as stakes stuck out of her torso as if she were a pin cushion. Blood flooded down her chin as she stared in horror at the mess where her chest once was. She went down onto her knees and then fell completely over.  He realized then that the “wooden stakes” was the church’s back door that had been shattered and then sent flying towards her at incredible force. 

Ryder heard footsteps. He smelled the cold, icy scent that he now recognized as Grayson’s. The young man hove into view. He was swaying. His face was pale as milk. 

Grayson? Grayson, how did you do that?

But he was still in his bear form and the words didn’t come. He managed to just catch Grayson as the young man collapsed in his arms.