Dance of the Gods Read Online Free PDF Page B

Moira was staring out the side window like a woman in a dream. In the front, Hoyt and Glenna continued to talk magic. Blair leaned closer to Larkin, lowered her voice.
    â€œLook, maybe our magical lovebirds can pull this transportation bit off, maybe not. If they can’t, you’re going to have to handle your cousin.”
    â€œI don’t handle Moira.”
    â€œSure you do. If we’ve got a shot at executing a little cave-in, or firing up those caves, we have to take it.”
    Their faces were close now, their voices down to whispers. “And the people inside? We burn them alive, or bury them the same way? She won’t accept it. Neither can I.”
    â€œDo you know what torment they’re in now?”
    â€œIt’s not of our doing.”
    â€œCaged and tortured.” She kept her eyes on his, and her voice was low and empty. “Forced to watch when one of them’s dragged out of the cage, and fed on. Terrified, or well beyond that while they wonder if they’ll be next. Maybe hoping they will just so it ends.”
    There was no playfulness now, in his face, in his tone. “I know what they do.”
    â€œYou think you know. Maybe they don’t drain them, not the first time. Maybe not the second. They just toss them back in the cage. It burns, the bite. If you live through it, it burns. Flesh, blood, bone, a reminder of the impossible pain when those fangs sank into you.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    She turned her wrist over, so he could see the faint scar. “I was eighteen, pissed off about something and careless.In a cemetery up in Boston, waiting for one to rise. I went to school with the guy. Went to his funeral, and heard enough to know he’d been bitten. I had to find out if he’d been turned, so I went, and I waited.”
    â€œHe did this?” Larkin traced a finger over the scar.
    â€œHe had help. No way a fresh one would’ve managed it. But the one who sired him came back. Older, smarter, stronger. I made some mistakes, and he didn’t.”
    â€œWhy were you alone?”
    â€œHunting alone is what I do,” she reminded him. “But in this case, I was out to prove something to someone. Doesn’t matter, except that it made me careless. He didn’t bite me, the older one. He held me down while the other one crawled over toward me.”
    â€œWait. Can you tell me, is that the way of it with a sire? To provide…”
    â€œFood?”
    â€œAye, that would be the word for it, wouldn’t it?”
    It was a good question, she decided, good that he wanted to understand the phychology and pathology of the enemy. “Sometimes. Not always. Depends, I’d say, on why the sire chose to change instead of just drink. They can form attachments, or want a hunting partner. Even just want a younger one around to do the grunt work. You know, sort of work for them.”
    â€œI see that. So the sire held you down so the younger could feed first.” And how terrifying, he thought, would that have been? To be restrained, probably injured. To be eighteen and alone, while something with a face you’d once known came for you.
    â€œI could smell the grave on him, he was that fresh. He was too hungry to go for the throat, so he got me here. That was the mistake, for both of them. The pain woke me up. It’s unspeakable.”
    She said nothing for a moment. It threw her off her stride, the way he laid his fingers on that scar now, as if toease an old wound. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had touched her to comfort.
    â€œAnyway. I got a hand on my cross, and I jabbed it right into that bastard’s eye, the one holding me down. Christ, did he scream. The other one’s so busy trying to eat, he doesn’t worry about anything else. He was an easy kill. They were both easy after that.”
    â€œYou were just a girl.”
    â€œNo. I was a demon hunter, and I was stupid.”