“Hey, it’s okay.” He patted her shoulder awkwardly, and when he got no hint of images, leaned over and hugged her. To his surprise, she moved the grunting, protesting Barnabas out of her lap and threw her arms around Nik’s neck.
He picked her up, took her to the bed, and just held her for a while. Maybe he could help her. Since joining forces with the shape-shifters and now the vamps, he’d done nothing but wonder what contribution he could make as a human. He didn’t have supernatural powers. He couldn’t pick up tall buildings with a single thrust. He didn’t own a cape.
“We can work together if we make it,” she whispered. “Cage can help us if he makes it.”
A chill stole across Nik’s shoulder blades at her whispered words. “What’s going to happen, Hannah?”
Her arms tightened around his neck so fiercely that he worried she might cut off circulation to his carotid and he’d end up unconscious on the floor.
“I don’t know,” she said in a voice both childish and much, much too old. “But I keep seeing horrible things. Monsters. Animals.”
Nik’s chill deepened. “What kind of animals have you seen? Did you see them in visions, or did you see them in Penton?”
She pulled away from him and studied his face. “Both. I saw a black lion in my head and a coyote in the house before the fire. I remember seeing coyotes from my human life, but I have never seen a black lion. Barnabas was afraid, and he hid under the bed in the empty room. I went to get him, and that’s when the fire started. It got big so fast, and I was afraid.”
“Have you seen the coyote anywhere else, or the lion?” No point in going into the whole black-jaguar spiel.
“Only in my head.” She looked down. “Both of them are so angry and so hungry, but they can’t eat.”
He’d felt some of that rage and hunger in his own head when he’d held the glass. “Why can’t they eat, sweetie? Why are they angry?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head, and then threw her arms around him again. “I don’t know.”
CHAPTER 19
Matthias thought he knew starvation. He’d dropped at least fifty pounds off his frame since the pandemic vaccine had put vampires at the bottom of the food chain, and only twenty pounds of the loss looked good on him.
When he’d been arrested in Aidan Murphy’s old clinic office in Penton and jailed in his own dungeon, his tormenters had intentionally kept him on the edge of starvation.
It had been nothing like this. He wanted blood. He also wanted food. Solid food.
For the first time in more than seventy years, he daydreamed of the things he ate during his human life. He had loved a fatty slab of prime rib swimming in its juices; a baked potato with butter, chives, and an extra dollop of sour cream on the side; bread warm from the oven, its outer shell crusty and flaky, its insides soft and tender.
He thought of ice cream in summer, hot chocolate in winter. Of clambakes and sweet, smoky Virginia hams.
He must be in hell. Forget pitchforks and His Satanic Majesty’s Secret Service, or whatever else attracted people’s beliefs. Hunger was the worst.
Wolfgang, dutiful toady of Frank Greisser, still brought a plastic bag of unvaccinated blood every night, handing it to him while another toady stood behind him with a gun at the ready. Wolfie even managed to look sincere when he left, apologizing just before the lock clicked shut and Matthias again was a prisoner.
It was almost feeding time now, and Matthias paced his room in restless angles and circles. Surely his feed would take the edge off this insane hunger.
He breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of movement in the hallway. A part of him always feared that the day would come when Frank felt he’d outlived his usefulness. The man wouldn’t hesitate to have him killed; of that, Matthias had no doubt. The Slayer had nothing on Frank Greisser when it came to death with dispassion.
The lock clicked, and Matthias turned to greet Wolfie, anxious to feed. Confusion set in quickly, however, when the armed toady came in first, followed by Wolfgang not holding a bag of red nourishment, but pushing a stainless-steel service cart.
On top was spread a fine white linen tablecloth and service for one, the plate covered with a stainless-steel domed lid polished to a sheen that reflected a fun-house version of the room around it, including Matthias himself.
“What kind of joke is this?” Only was it? He had been craving food, more so every day. The hunger was devouring him.
“I thought you might be hungry,” Wolfgang said, bowing his head in a no-doubt-sarcastic show of respect. “There is also a bag of unvaccinated blood on the shelf beneath the main tray.”