Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Kyle has never experienced panic on a level like this.
Completely helpless. Unable to even turn his head.
“What do I want?” asks Mance without even a glance at the new arrivals to the party. He spreads his arms. “Same as every last fuckin’ person in this room, I guess.”
Then he rushes right up to Lord Markadian. Face-to-face. Still grinning. Eyes so dark with rage, they nearly burn.
He speaks the word through his teeth: “Blood.”
Markadian can no longer play brave.
Can no longer uphold his persistent expression of apathy.
There is true fear in his heart. And it reads all over his face now, all over his eyes. Even his lips start to quiver.
“By the way,” says Mance, squints, “I just decided I really did not enjoy being spat on.”
Then he lifts a hand.
Snaps his fingers.
The next instant, the boy named Peter brings his own hand to his own neck, squeezes. He sputters, tries to suck in air, fails, clenches his eyes shut in anguish. Nine agonizing seconds later, blood bursts from his ears. Then from his nose. Finally, a drop runs down his cheek from his left eye. He continues gagging, makes a sad whimper, tries to cry out. Fingers squeeze tighter.
Bones crack, something snaps like celery.
The boy’s eyes open, grow blank. He lets go, drops to the ground. Markadian stares down at Peter’s lifeless body, aghast, his eyes shiny with renewed terror.
Mance sighs, as if bored. “Immortal, you said? What a lie. Biggest fuckin’ lie. You’re just as killable. Even these full-blood ones that tagged along with me, they can be killed, too. Might be harder to kill ‘em, but just as possible. A hundred and one ways to kill y’all dead—the final kind a’ dead, the dead no one comes back from.” He brings a hand to Markadian’s cheek, gives it a condescending pat. “But seein’ as you only got sixty-nine of you here for this shindig, looks like I’ll only be able to show you sixty-nine a’ those ways, give or take. Did you invite that exact number on purpose? Heh, dirty scoundrel …”
“We used to be like brothers.”
Mance stares down Markadian. “What’s this? Your gallows speech? Final words? Should I pull out a sheet of fancy fuckin’ parchment paper and write ‘em down with a feather pen?”
“The reason you’re here for my blood is because you think I let a Feral come after you,” Markadian goes on. “You think I ignored your pleas. That I did nothing. You blame me for that Feral finally taking the lives of your wife and daughters.”
Mance keeps patting Markadian’s cheek. “You sure love to hear yourself talk, don’t you, buddy?”
“But that Feral wasn’t there for them. He wasn’t even there for blood.”
“You’re actin’ like you knew the Feral.”
“I did.”
Mance grows deathly still, staring at Markadian, waiting.
Kyle senses a strong prickle of satisfaction working its way into Markadian’s heart when he says: “He was hired …”
Mance lowers his hand.
Markadian finishes: “… by your wife.”
“What the fuck’s this?” mumbles Mance, low and gravelly.
“I’m sorry, but your wife is not who you thought she was.” His voice gains power. “She was a witch hunter, Mance … She hired the Feral to kill you.”
“What the fuck are you doin’?”
“I had made efforts to sway the Feral without you knowing. You were too infatuated with your wife, too under her spell … maybe a literal spell. Isn’t beneath a witch hunter to use magic to trap witches, a necessary evil. She had you around her finger, Mance … I’d never be able to convince you of what she was.”
“This is bullshit. I knew my wife. She was no fuckin’—”
“But the Feral lost patience trying to catch you, decided to take the lives of your wife and daughters instead.”
Mance remains in his face. “Shut your mouth.”
“All those years, you were deceived. All those years, I tried to warn you, hint it at you, in so many ways, and you never—”
“I said …” A table bursts into flames—bright red tongues thrashing into existence with no seeming cause. Mance doesn’t even flinch. “… shut your fuckin’ mouth.”
A thread of desperation weaves its way into Markadian’s words. “Think back on your life with her. Surely the signs were there. Secrets she kept. People she met with in private. I heard some of it through the Feral. Weren’t there signs? I even tried to tell you without telling you. But you’re so thick, Mance, even back then. After you did what you did, trying to resurrect your family, turning on your own kind, killing two immortals … everything flew out of my hands. Control over what happened to you. Over what laws you were breaking. Laws that had zero tolerance, no loopholes, no way to sweep it under the rug …”
Another table ignites like a torch, closer. “I’m warnin’ you.”
“If I can’t uphold the laws with any semblance of integrity, society as we know it falls apart. That includes the humans. Think their government isn’t aware of us? Of course they are. I have the Secretary of Homeland Security on speed dial. And all the burden is put on us, the Lords and the directors—including Peter, whom you just needlessly murdered—to maintain peace between all our kinds. Vampire. Witch. Were. Demon.”