Biting Cold (Chicagoland Vampires 6)

I was just about to launch my attack, hopeful Ethan was right about Dominic, when I caught a new trouble blooming.

Malory was standing again, her hair spread out around her like a static halo, and a gleam of dark magic in her eyes.

I sighed, my stomach curling with the fear that she'd never be able to come back from her addiction. Not if a little demonic filtering took her out.

But she looked at me, and I saw the fight in her eyes.

She wasn't succumbing to the dark magic. She was just trying to hold it in.

"Paige, Catcher. Help her. She needs to let the magic go!"

When they rushed to her aid, I turned back to Dominic and Seth. I blew out a breath.

"Now or never," I muttered, and caled out his name.

"Dominic!" I twirled the sword in my hand once, then twice.

Dominic glanced back at me, grinned maniacaly, then stood up. Seth was stil in the mud, and he didn't move. There were bleeding gaps in his wings, and a deep red gash across his shoulder.

If this was going to happen, I was going to be the one to do it.

"Helo, Balerina."

"You don't have the right to cal me that." I backed up a bit, moving the fight away from everyone else.

"Don't I?" he said. "I was there for al of it. I saw everything that he did, al of your interactions."

One of his wings shot out, and I roled across the ground to get away, popping up muddy and bruised again.

"You weren't invited," I pointed out. "You were a spy." His other wing whipped out. The claws at the edge of this wing grazed the ground, and I jumped into the air to avoid it, popping down in a crouch on his other side.

"You're al flair," he said, turning to face me.

He thrust out with his sword, and I silently apologized to my katana for any nicks I was about to create, and met his thrust directly.

The jolt sent a wave of pain down my arm.

Dominic laughed and thrust down. I parried, pushing his sword to the side, and used the momentum to swing myself into a butterfly kick. I managed a punch to his kidney, but his wing dipped forward. I stil caught the tip of a claw, and it ripped a gash in my calf. The pain was sudden and intense and carried a nauseating sharpness that had to be magical in nature.

I stumbled away, regripping my sword, and turned to face him.

"Hurts, doesn't it?"

Water dripped into my eyes from my ratty, muddy bangs. "It doesn't feel like purring kittens," I admitted. The pain be damned, I ran forward, slicing down with a shot that put a four-inch gash in the top of his left wing.

He screamed out and tossed me away like a dol. I landed on my back again in a puddle of cold water, promising myself a hot bath if I'd only get back on my feet.

One hand behind me, I arced my body and popped up again.

His wing gashed and bleeding, and obviously in pain, Dominic limped toward me. "You don't know when to quit, do you?"

"I'd say the same for you." I regripped my sword.

He was tired and injured, and his next shot was sloppy but stil powerful. A forward thrust I had to drop down under. I roled across the ground, clenching my sword to keep from losing my muddy grip, and kicked his leg out from under him, knocking him onto the ground. I scrambled away, but he caught the hem of my pants.

"We weren't done," he said, dragging me backward again.

"We were totaly done," I assured him, kicking his brick-solid chest until he reflexively let me go again.

Now breathing a little harder than I did in my practice sessions, go figure, I made it to my feet again. I could keep fighting for a while, but he was going to nail me in terms of brute strength and endurance. I would lose a war of attrition against him.

I remembered what I'd said earlier. Change the odds.

While Dominic got to his feet again, I looked around...and spied something useful.

Sword in front of me, I faked a limp and hobbled backward.

Dominic, the gleam of success in his eyes, stalked me like prey. I caled on my musical theater background and made some pretty convincing noises of pain.

He grinned devilishly, then lifted his sword, and, when I faked a backward stumble, ran forward into the tangled skein of swing-set chains.

That was my chance.

Dominic may have been back in human form, but I wasn't. I stil had vampire speed and strength, and I was sure as shit going to use them now. I dropped my sword.

With speed so quick my motion was blurred, I ripped the chains from their moorings. The links were stil solid, but as I'd hoped, their connections to the swing set had rusted through. I ran around Dominic, and as he tried to stumble back to his feet, his wings caught in the side supports. I wove the chains around him until he was good and caught and roaring with the indignity of it al.

He was realy big on the roaring.

I picked up my sword and stood in front of him, arms raised, sword pointed down, ready to finish this.

"Then do it," Dominic said. "Suffer your witch to live, and put an end to me."

"I don't take joy in it," I told him. "That's the difference between us."

"Are we so different, Sentinel? You kil because you believe it's right. As do I."

"I kil to save the lives of others. Unlike you, I have no ilusions it makes me a better person." My hands trembling, I prepared to strike.

"No!"

I froze and glanced back. Seth limped toward us, stil holding his wounded arm, one wing dragging on the ground patheticaly.

"Stop, Merit. This is not your task."

Wincing, he held out his good hand. "I'l do it," Seth said. "I wil end his life."

I looked back at him. "You've never kiled before. Are you sure you want to start now?"

"He was part of me for centuries. He is, for better or worse,my brother. His blood shouldn't be on your hands, but mine."

I wasn't sure how to argue with him. I wasn't keen on the idea of kiling a man already down, but there was no question he'd keep kiling if the opportunity arose. On the other hand, Seth was already racked by grief, and I didn't want to add to his burdens.

"It would bring me peace," he said, "to know that you weren't forced to take another life at my expense. It would help me atone for the trouble I have already caused. For the pain. For the suffering."

There was no doubting the earnestness in his gaze. He was a grown man - wel grown, as it turned out - so I handed over the sword.

He nodded, and as he closed his fingers around the handle and his eyes slipped shut, I'd have sworn he shivered. "The blade was tempered with your blood."

I nodded.

Seth bowed, his shoulders dipping forward over the gleaming steel of the blade. "I am honored, Merit of Cadogan, to use a blade you have so honorably prepared."