And he would protect me as much as he could. I knew that. But I also knew he was just one against a possible frenzy.
“You do not have to be there in the flesh.”
I frowned. “But you warned me against taking Aedh form too much because it might attract the wrong sort of attention.”
“It might, but if you do not want to physically wait at Dark Earth, then we are left with Aedh form or watching from the gray fields.”
“In the gray fields we’d at least have the Dušan to guard us.”
He nodded. “But the Raziq prowl there. There is a greater chance of discovery if we step onto the fields for any great length of time.”
“We risk that no matter what we do,” I muttered. “Any idea how long it might be before the Rakshasa feeds again?”
“The five victims have all died within a week. From what I have been told, their feeding cycle lasts a month, and then they will go into hibernation again.”
“Spirits hibernate? That’s a new one.”
He ignored my comment. “After the initial frenzy, the hunter will space her kills more evenly. We may have a couple of days before the agony and fury of the lost ones call to her again.”
“I really don’t want to be hanging around that club night after night waiting for a spirit that may or may not appear.”
“No.” He hesitated. “I am attempting to get more information. It might also be helpful if we had greater details about the time and date of the deaths. There might be a pattern we could use.”
If there was a pattern, surely Hunter and the Directorate would have seen it. “I’ll ask Hunter to send the information to me.”
He nodded. “Once we get that, we can decide the best way to proceed.”
The best way to proceed—or rather, the sanest way to proceed—would be to run a mile in the other direction. I mean, a flesh-eating, shape-changing spirit with poisonous talons wasn’t exactly something anyone with an iota of sense would want to tangle with. But it wasn’t like I had any real choice, because right now I was stuck with two millstones hanging around my neck—the agreement to help Hunter and a vampire council still debating whether or not it would be better to kill me. A wrong step might be fatal in more ways than one.
“I’ll see you at the Brindle.” I didn’t bother waiting for an answer. I just shoved my helmet on, fired up the bike, and raced into the street.
Unfortunately, it was peak hour and all the main roads were playing parking lots again. Frustrated, I swung into a side street and took the more roundabout but better-flowing route to the Brindle.
Only trouble was, I didn’t get there.
Chapter 5
One moment I was cruising down the street behind a belching truck; the next I was hit side-on. The force of the impact ripped me from my bike and sent me flying toward a light pole. It happened so fast I didn’t even have time to try to protect myself—I just hit the pole and wrapped around it like an old bit of rubbish.
Then I slumped to the ground, battling to breathe and struggling to ignore the pain stabbing into my brain as well as the gathering tide of blackness that threatened to wash away consciousness.
I couldn’t let go. I just couldn’t.
It was a thought that made no sense, but one that had me struggling to rise nevertheless. I made it to my knees—the pain was too great to go any farther. Although getting even that far meant I hadn’t broken anything major. Yay for the strength of werewolf bones, I thought fuzzily.
Something warm and sticky gushed down the side of my cheek. I swiped at it and hit the visor instead. It was half hanging off, and swinging back and forth with my movements. I swore and wrenched it off completely. It clattered to the ground, though oddly made no sound. In fact, the whole world seemed to be silent. Or maybe I just couldn’t hear through the roar that seemed to be filling my head.
I blinked and looked around. Saw my bike lying on her side, hydrogen leaking from her tanks. It looked surreal, like blood, and I hoped like hell her wound wasn’t fatal.
That odd roaring got louder and I suddenly realized what it was. It was Amaya, screaming a warning, screaming for blood.
It was then that I saw them—Ania. And this time, there weren’t only six or so. This time, there were so many that it looked like an ethereal tower of white speeding toward me.
A hand wrapped around my arm and yanked me upright. My heart just about jumped out of my chest, even though instinct and something else—something that was infinitely deeper and decidedly scarier—told me it was Azriel.
Power surged as he pulled me close and wrapped his other arm around my waist. Valdis blazed at his back, as eager as Amaya to fight, but neither sword was getting its wish today. Azriel’s power burned around me—through me—sweeping us both from flesh to energy. A second later we were on the gray fields, but they weren’t the fields that I knew. My gray fields were a place of shadows, a place where things not sighted in the real world suddenly gained substance. But in Azriel’s arms, the fields were vast and beautiful, filled with structures and life that were delicate and unworldly.
Then the brightness and warmth of his world was gone, replaced by a darkness that felt damp and smelled faintly of rot and excrement. The sewers, I thought dazedly. Why the hell were we in the sewers?