Family.
His eyes were so blue, his grin so wide, his goodwill inexhaustible even though they had no warm food in their bellies and only raw dirt in a cave for their bed—
Here, take it.
His cousin’s invitation, spoken in the Old Language, was as clear as if it had been spoken to Balz right now, and he could see the fighter leaning forward, his hand outstretched.
And in the palm, the last heel of bread he had.
Are you no hungry, then? Balz had asked.
Nay, it shall be for you, Cousin. Take and feed yourself. I shall find something else.
Syphon had spoken the simple words over the growl of his own stomach and in spite of the reality that there had been no food anywhere in the cave—
Balz’s eyes flashed open, though he had not been aware they’d closed. And the smile that was in front of him, the smile of seduction, the smile of evil knowing that it had captured another soul . . . was nothing like his cousin’s had been.
Nothing like his cousin’s was.
“You know what you want to do,” the woman said. “You know you’re going to come with me—”
With a battle cry, Balz spun around and lunged off the top landing of the stairs, reaching for his cousin’s dangling legs as the shadow lifted the helpless male higher and higher, as if it was going to break out through the window mounted high above the entrance and take Syphon away.
“You fucking idiot!” the brunette yelled from the abyss. “You fucking asshole!”
Just before the shadow entity busted the glass and disappeared with its prey, Balz caught his cousin’s left shitkicker with a grasping claw—and he backed up that insufficient hold with a rock-hard grab at the ankle.
The shadow let out an unholy screech as the added weight dragged it down, and then something gave way, the entity dropping its load.
Balz’s back broke the fall, his body landing with a crack on the wooden steps and starting on a descent that was sure to put him in traction—and his cousin’s body was a horrible chaser, all that weight banging him even harder into the unforgiving, uncarpeted stairs. As his brain was overcome with pain, there was a moment of stunned paralysis, but the shadow entity’s quick counterattack meant there was no time to whine about the pain—or even check if Syphon was still alive.
Throwing a foot out to stop their jangling, tooth-loosening descent, Balz shoved a hand down to his hip holster and palmed one of his forties. Just as he brought up the muzzle, the shadow shot forward, snakelike tentacles lashing out, striking at his cousin, striking at him. When his forearm was hit, he cursed in pain, but he hit his trigger.
The autoloader did its thing, kicking out bullet after bullet—and thank fuck they worked. The shadow let out another one of those ear-killing screeches, recoiling as if it had been burned. Yet it came back.
So Balz outed a silver dagger. As one of the tentacles got too close, he stabbed it—and was rewarded by that high-pitched holler. But then Syphon, who’d lost consciousness, started slipping down the stairs again, and as Balz tried to grab him, they both ended up bouncing head over heels toward the bottom.
As his body blendered, he did what he could to stab and shoot at the shadow, making sure that neither any of him nor any of his cousin was in the way—
Boom!
They landed in a tangled heap at the base of the steps, their big bodies crammed up against the closed door. With a shove, Balz shifted his cousin to the side so he could keep shooting, but as the last bullet left his weapon, that was a moot point. And he couldn’t reach his backup clip or his other forty—
Syphon’s hand appeared in front of his face with a full magazine.
“Thank God,” Balz muttered. “Can you get me another gun?”
As he got a grunt for a reply, he swapped the clips and kept shooting—and like magic, another Sig Sauer appeared in his face.
Ditching the dagger—where it hopefully wouldn’t Swiss cheese them or be used by this entity—he went Deadpool, kicking out lead slugs from both autoloaders, driving the shadow back, holes appearing in its translucent body—or maybe it was more like the structure that held it together was beginning to fail. Now it was like a school of fish, the whole devolving into coordinated parts and undulating in a pattern that became increasingly erratic.
Another clip appeared by the side of his head, Syphon’s shaking hand punching through their heap of bad-angled limbs. And a third. All Balz could do was aim and shoot and reload—
“I’m out,” Syphon said in a hoarse voice.
At that very moment, as the last bullet left the second forty, the shadow exploded, the airborne shrapnel like the feathers of a raven, blowing apart and floating down on lazy currents.