Clean Sweep by Andrews Ilona

Author:Andrews, Ilona [Andrews, Ilona]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy > Urban, Magic & Wizards, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy, The Edge Series, Science Fiction, Witch, Fantasy Contemporary, Genre Fiction, texas, Kate Daniels - Fictional Character, Magic, Ilona Andrews, Witches & Wizards, Kate Daniels World, Bestseller, Science Fiction and Fantasy, urban fantasy, Vampires, Paranormal, The Edge, Fantasy, New York Times Bestseller
ISBN: 9781625173430
Publisher: NYLA
Published: 2013-12-02T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

The magic tugged on me. Something skimmed the boundary of the inn's grounds. The pulse lingered, stopped, then flared and lingered again. Someone was knocking.

I glanced at the stairway. Sean had gone to the bathroom to wash the blood off because it "smelled loud" and made him easy to track. Lord Soren still lay on the table. I had sealed him in an oxygen tank that pumped in the optimal atmosphere. Vampires preferred twenty-four percent oxygen in their air. The tank was transparent and now he resembled a warped version of Snow White resting in her glass coffin.

The knock persisted. It didn't feel like a vampire come to rescue one of his own. This was insistent and rude with a kind of mindless efficiency.

I pulled the hood of my robe over my head, took my broom, and stepped out.

The night exhaled in my face, bringing with it varied scents: the damp grass, a hint of distant smoke, and something else. Something foreign. A kind of dry, bitter odor. My body balked like a rearing horse. This stink was bad. It was an evil, harsh stench, laced with pheromones and magic, and meeting its source was a terrible idea.

I stopped in the shadow of the oak and concentrated.

The magic swirled around me. The stench came from above.

I looked up.

It sat above me, on top of the streetlamp pole, anchored to it by large clawed feet. Blue-and-green pixelated armor protected its vaguely humanoid body. A helmet of interlocking plates shielded its head, leaving two triangular ears free. It had two legs and two arms and one head, but that's where the resemblance to Homo sapiens ended. Its spine was bent, not quite hunched over, but curved enough to permit it to easily drop down on all fours. Even with the curve, the creature was at least seven and a half feet tall. Its neck was thick, its shoulders massive, and its hips protruded at an odd angle, supporting a heavy lizard-like tail. Despite its muscular bulk, the dahaka looked limber, like a monkey. It seemed wrong somehow, so alien that the mind stalled, rustling through the mental Rolodex of familiar animals, trying desperately to come up with some sort of association for it and failing.

The creature stared at me with two glowing purple eyes. There was no pupil, just the electric-violet iris. Looking into its eyes froze me in my tracks. Instantly I knew it was vicious, cruel, and it thought I was prey. My thoughts and my feelings mattered to it not at all. Given a chance, it would hunt me and eat me.

"Target," I said.

The inn clanged, swinging the massive guns within itself to lock onto the creature.

It scuttled down the lamppost, slid down, and leapt onto the sidewalk just outside the inn's boundary. A deep sound, half subdued roar, half snort, issued from its mouth. The hair on the back of my neck rose. My body threatened to lock into a petrified freeze.

I glared at it. I would not be intimidated in my own home.

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