Netherworld: Drop Dead Sexy(86)

Even as relief to see the protection of the wards washed over me, a young vampire darted in close enough to tear a furrow into Tristan’s gut, leaving a flap of skin gaping open. Tristan’s backhand caught him, flinging him into the sky. The youth returned to the fray within seconds.

The wards helped, but the number of attackers was too much. Tristan and Patricia would not be able to fend off the Judge’s lackeys much longer. With half a dozen vampires darting in the air overhead, flight was no option for the pair either.

While I tried to figure out how I could help the beleaguered siblings, a hand gripped my shoulder. I turned to see my rugged Dan, his face a mixture of relief for my return and terror for Tristan and Patricia. “Brandilynn! I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Why is everyone attacking Tristan and Patricia?”

I hurried to explain. “The Judge sent them. He’s dead,” I added when Dan searched the chaotic scene for the serial killer. “Tristan’s people are on the way, but I don’t know how long it will take for them to get here. How can we help?”

“Running water,” Dan said, and he transported us both to the nearby waterfront. “Draw energy from the water, and then do what you can to slow the attack.”





We pulled hard on the field emitted by the swift current. Dan got us both back to the fight, and we did what we could. It wasn’t much. Weres and vampires are tough customers, and I quickly found yanking and punching didn’t faze them a bit. After a few minutes, I concentrated my efforts on tripping the attackers. That went a little better, though with most of the weres transformed and on all fours, I wasted my energy in many instances. The low-to-the-ground gators couldn’t be stopped by any means I had at my disposal. Without corporeal help, Tristan and Patricia didn’t have much longer.

I sank into dimness, my energy-bleeding self fading fast when Tristan’s vampires hit the scene. Boy, you’ve never heard such hellish shrieks as when vampire went against vampire, rending and tearing. That left the weres to worry at Tristan and Patricia, and I blanched to see the female vamp now on her knees, her brother standing over her and grimly defending her as best he could. A werehog got a mouthful of her thigh and tore a chunk of meat from her. She shrieked, but she sounded more furious than in pain.

I could only watch as Tristan’s loyal vamps surrounded the embattled pair, taking on the traitors in bloody conflict. Four of the enemy went down, but two of Tristan’s faithful were torn to bits. It was the most awful thing I’d ever witnessed and being powerless to help was a nightmare.

Five minutes that felt like five years later, a scream like a banshee’s wail split the night. I was half-frightened, half-thrilled to see a panther leap into the fray. Gerald and his army of werehogs, bears, and gators arrived, and they made short work of the traitors. Feeling almost insubstantial enough to float, I drifted to where Tristan tended his sister as his people finished off the grisly work. The paras took no prisoners, and I saw several weres eating the enemy dead. Gross.

The great black cat, as big as a pony, joined Tristan and Patricia. The fur receded mostly, and Gerald’s man shape emerged, glorious and muscular. “My lady,” he whispered, going to his knees and offering his neck.

Patricia’s head darted forward, as lethal as a rattlesnake, and I couldn’t help but cry out. Gerald only sighed, his dark face blissful as she buried her face in his neck, falling back to lie on Indian Mound. Patricia rutted frantically against his thigh, satisfying the other hunger without penetration. I had to look away despite the warped fascination that wanted me to watch the missing chunk of her thigh re-knit itself into existence.

“You don’t look so good,” Dan told me. He pulled me away from the still-wild scene towards the water again. The sound of police sirens warbled in the distance. The causeway from Fulton Falls to Goose Creek Island was five miles long across the marsh. Even the quickness of the paras wouldn’t clean up the mess before they arrived, however. For once, I rejoiced in not being alive. The coming investigation would have no effect on me at all.

“The Judge made me into a wraith. I can’t hold my energy.”





Dan sat me down on the edge of the pier. I sucked power from the running water like a man would down a beer after cutting an acre lawn with a push mower in the middle of August.

Dan’s arm tightened around me. He lifted me and planted me between his thighs so I could rest my back against his chest, my head on his shoulder. “How did you kill him?”

“Long story. I’ll tell you back at the library, when we’re away from all this. And when it’s daylight. I don’t want to talk about it in the dark.”