Bloodfever Read Online Free PDF Page B

windowless hallway of utter blackness, the flashlights bathed my body in white radiance that protected me. With each switch I threw, more Shades bunched up, until I had fifty or more of them crammed into the darkness I was forcing to retreat, light by light.
    By the time I reached the landing of the first-floor stairwell, I was feeling downright cocky about my ability to clear the store of the Unseelie infestation.
    I stepped briskly into the back parlor, heading for the light switch on the opposite wall. Three steps into the room, a damp breeze ruffled my hair. I swung my flashlight in that direction. A window was open onto the alley behind Barrons Books and Baubles! The truth was inescapable—interior and exterior lights off, a window propped open? Someone was trying to kill me!
    I stomped toward the window and sprawled headlong over an ottoman that shouldn’t have been there. My flashlights went flying in all directions, casting a dizzying strobe light effect as they spun out of control across the floor. Shades erupted like panicked pigeons, flocking through the open window to the sanctuary of night.
    Ha. Good riddance. Now I just needed to slam the window on them.
    I scrambled up onto my hands and knees and froze right where I was—face-to … er … blackness-where-a-face-wasn’t—with a Shade that hadn’t fled. It wasn’t one of the smaller ones, either. It had contorted itself to occupy the darkness between the flashlights, coiling snakelike over, under, and around the beams. I didn’t want to think about the frighteningly quick reflexes it must have to have managed the trick. It was as high as the ceiling in several places, at least twenty feet long, and pulsated like a dark cancer, pressing at the edges of the light.
    I sucked in a breath. I’d seen one do this before—test the light. I’d not stuck around long enough to learn the outcome of its test. I muttered a fervent prayer it had gotten an
F
. My flashlights were scattered across the floor. Two were shining on me, flanking me, left and right. I was far enough between them that the combined pool of light narrowly bathed my entire body, but if I were to crawl toward either one, the beam would dwindle the closer I got, leaving large parts of me in darkness. It was a risk I couldn’t take with this abnormally aggressive, gigantic Shade crouching over me.
    As I huddled there, it snaked inky tendrils of itself forward, one toward my hair haloed weakly in light, the other at my fingers splayed in a pale pool on the floor.
    I yanked my hand back, fumbled the matches from my pocket, and struck one. The pungent smell of sulfur soaked the damp air.
    The tendrils retreated.
    Though it’s tough to tell with something that has no face, I swear it studied me, seeking my weaknesses. The match was burning down between us. I dropped it to the floor and lit another. There was no way I could strip off my jacket to set it on fire without my arms and part of my torso protruding into the dangerous darkness. Likewise, the ottoman over which I’d fallen was too far behind me to be of use.
    But … the priceless Persian rug beneath me was starting to smolder. I exhaled a gentle puff on the glowing embers of the dropped match. It went out.
    If Shades snicker, this one did. It expanded and contracted, and I swear I felt its mockery. I really hope I’m wrong. I really hope they aren’t capable of complex thought.
    â€œIt would seem you are in need of assistance,
sidhe
-seer.” A musical baritone drifted through the window, otherworldly, sensuous, and punctuated by a forbidding growl of thunder.

THREE

    S till no knight errant.
    It was V’lane. And here I’d been thinking things couldn’t get any worse.
    Not a knight, but a Prince. Of the Seelie or Light Court, if anything he says can be believed. And hardly errant, V’lane is a death-by-sex-Fae. They don’t wander in search