The Vampire Files, Volume Five by P N Elrod

Author:P N Elrod [Elrod, P N]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781937007126
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2012-03-06T05:00:00+00:00

2

HE had an arm like a train. All the breath shot out of me. I folded and staggered and kept my feet only by grabbing the stair rail with one flailing hand. It wasn’t as bad as it might have been for anyone else. I didn’t want a second helping, though.

Coldfield’s dark face was darker than normal, suffused with barely controlled rage. “You know why I’m here,” he rumbled. Volcanoes reach that kind of deep pitch before they blow.

Took an experimental sip of air for speech. “Oh, yeah.”

“Why the hell did you do that to him?”

“How’d you—”

“I got people who work at the hospital. One of them saw Charles brought in looking like he’d been worked over by a bulldozer and called me. They wouldn’t let me see him. Took one look and knew I wasn’t a relation. I tracked down the ambulance drivers and got them to talk. What the hell did you do?”

I’d grown a thick hide over my ability to feel guilt over some of the more objectionable things I’d done in life, but it was no protection now. I was in the wrong, and there were consequences to face.

“Charles and I had a fight—”

“The hell you did! What about?”

The words got stuck long before the halfway mark. The situation was edging close to being a reprise of my fight with Escott. Sweat popped out on my flanks.

“What?”

I shook my head. There was no way I could tell Coldfield what I’d done that had infuriated Escott enough to beat the crap out of me—and then my going bughouse-crazy out of control and returning the favor. All I could do was thank God that I’d stopped short of murder. I couldn’t remember much about the fight, but the aftermath was clear and sharp, especially those frozen-in-lead moments when I thought Escott was dead.

“What?” Coldfield loomed again.

“Charles was pissed with me about something and we got into it. It’s not important now.” Favoring my middle, I straightened, knowing what was coming. No way out.

“Goddammit, you put him in the hospital!” Coldfield piled in a rain of gut-busters, grunting from the effort. He was in on my secret. Had been for a while. He also knew about the ugly business with Hog Bristow, what the bastard had done to me. For all that, Coldfield didn’t pull a single punch.

And I took it.

He finally knocked me ass flat on the floor. I stayed there, not quite keeling over.

“Talk to me, you sonovabitch!”

He wasn’t going away. Come sunrise he’d probably continue beating on my apparently dead body to make sure I had more damage than Escott.

I raised one hand in surrender. Seemed like too much trouble to stand. He’d just put me back again. It hurt to draw breath to speak. Took a minute to get enough air inside to do the job. “Look…you once socked him for his own good…didn’t you? You got fed up?”

Coldfield nodded slowly. “What about it?”

“This time it was my turn. He did his damnedest to pound some sense into me.

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