Reckoning by Lilith Saintcrow

Author:Lilith Saintcrow [Saintcrow, Lilith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Quercus
Published: 2011-10-26T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The rest of that run is a patchwork of confusion in my memory. Bolting across streets, into alleys, up fire escapes, rooftops blurring underfoot, Christophe more often than not hauling me along because I wasn’t moving fast enough to suit him. I wasn’t about to complain.

It wasn’t dark, but it wasn’t light either. We stuck to pools of shadow, flitting from cover to cover, streetlights and city glow suddenly enemies instead of friends. The suckers wouldn’t use guns—not likely, Christophe said, but the Maharaj were another proposition. Once someone opened up on us with an assault rifle, and the sound of the bullets chewing into the street behind me still sometimes shows up in my dreams.

Christophe hanging and twisting to kick in a window, Nat blurring between changeform and girlshape as she ran, random reflections of light picking out iron grillwork on a balcony or the pattern of bricks on a restaurant’s facade. The moon, behind low scudding clouds and smiling like a diseased coin. The glow of Christophe’s eyes as he scanned a rooftop, Nat crouching and panting a little while she rested for ten seconds before we were off again, her hair ruffling in the breeze. A car’s headlights throwing our shadows against a graffiti-tangled concrete wall.

“Got any more grenades?” Nat yelled merrily, and Christophe swore in reply, with breathtaking inventiveness. I levered myself up over the roof’s edge like I was muscling out of a swimming pool. My hair fell in my face and the bloodhunger burned all through me. The fangs dug into my lower lip; I had to be careful or I’d bite out a chunk of myself and they’d have a blood trail.

I was so glad, for once, that svetocha only have teensy top fangs; boy djamphir’s are larger and only on the top too. Sucker fangs are top and bottom, and they are serious business. I’d seen pictures of what those teeth could do. The jaw distends like a snake fixing to take down a huge egg, and sometimes they tear flesh to get at the liquid inside.

“Door,” Christophe said, as close to short of breath as I’d ever heard him. Nat’s boot had already thudded onto the metal door’s surface; it crumpled like paper. “Could you be any louder, Skyrunner?”

“I could,” she shot back cheerfully. “Would you like me to? Up. We’re almost there.”

I was glad. My ribs heaved; sweat stood out on my skin. We were just a jump ahead of the nosferat. There were so many of them, no time to take a breath, just the running and Christophe and Nat bantering back and forth like they were at a party or something. I’d heard Dad use that sort of humor before, with other human hunters.

I was too occupied running and not doing anything stupid to contribute. Plus, I couldn’t find anything witty to say.

I mean, oh God oh God we’re all gonna die doesn’t really fit the definition of banter, now does it.

The suckers kept screaming, hunting-cries echoing all over the city.

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