Page 24 of Of Flame and Fury
I give Emme a shake, gently at first, until I sense an immense Nyte materialize. “Emme, wake up. The shit’s hit the fan, and now it’s on fire.”
The Nyte, like the others, is unlike anything that should exist on Earth. I see her shadow before I see her. A voluptuous, naked woman shakes out her hands, clicking her talon-shaped nails. Her lower body is that of a black widow. She scuttles down the wall, her girth comparable to a Smart car and her beady red eyes illuminating at the sight of Uri.
Her very nature is unnerving. My ingrained fear warns me against giving my presence away.
Not Uri. He and his family are covered in entrails and thin black fluid. His vampires hiss, marching forward to protect their master. They halt in place when Uri lifts his hand. Uri watches the arachnid creature, analyzing her closely and spotting for weak points.
I adjust Emme’s weight on me and stroke her face. My God, her fever is worsening. “Baby girl,” I rasp. “You have to wake up.”
Uri and the arachnid are squaring off. Uri barely moves. The Nyte readies to attack. She clicks her nails, and her feet scuttle back and forth, excited and fretting over which side of Uri to eat first.
Something splats against the invisible wall separating the foyer from the ballroom. Another witch has perished. What remains of her face stains the divide as her broken body slides to the floor. I swallow down the lump in my throat when I realize who she is.
Her name was Charan. She was in my Mayhem and Menace class at witch school. Her favorite snack was apples drizzled with honey. She liked to sing when she cooked and was one of few who were kind to me.
“Emme,” I say, my voice splintering. “Wake up. We need to fight.”
More Nytes go down on our side, and the fight dwindles from an ear-splitting uproar to bar-brawl-level chaos.
Uri, now impatient to start the fight, scoffs at the spider. “You’re nothing,” he tells her. “Trash beneath pseudo layers of power.”
The spider Nyte’s speech is garbled, as if she’s unsure how to place her tongue. “Nyte has come,” she tells Uri. “Nyte will triumph.”
It’s not exactly the comeback I expected, her words slightly off following Uri’s comment.
Uri frowns, offended. He tackles her, his movements a mix of speed and grace. With a turn and a partial flip, he locks his strong legs around the Nyte’s waist. Like a temperamental child pulling up weeds, he tears the Nyte’s legs from her large lower body.
It only takes an instant for Uri to kill the Nyte, a stark reminder of why he is who he is and why so many fear him.
I almost drop Emme when something with the legs of a man and the head of a crocodile skitters by. These Nytes are everywhere, feeding on those too slow to react or ripped to shreds by the more powerful.
Tweedledum is among the Nytes who remain. Gemini’s twin leaps on top of Tweedle, determined to take him down. Tweedle swerves from left to right, his multiple eyes spinning and his male parts flapping away.
“Emme,” I plead. “Wake up.”
She’s so sick, her pallor fading to a horrid shade of green.
Bren, now human, stumbles toward me. Like his wolf counterpart, he’s covered in bite marks and not healing. “Here,” he says. “Give her to me.”
I almost don’t, feeling protective and stunned stupid by his state. “You look awful.”
“Yeah.” It’s all he says. He gathers Emme against him, using care as he turns her.
I clasp his arm. None of this makes sense.Weresheal at an astronomical speed. Yet here he is, kicking on death’s door and demanding to be let in. “Bren, you’renot healing.”
He yanks his arm away. “Neither will Emme if I don’t do this.”
He hooks the bottom of Emme’s bodice with his mangled fingers and tugs the fabric down.
“What the hell are you doing?” I demand. I smack his hands when he exposes her breast. “Stop it. Leave her alone, dammit.” He ignores me, his full attention on Emme. I try shoving him away. I might as well be pushing a wall. He exposes the other breast and pulls harder, stretching the fabric until it crumples at her waist. I push and strike him. “God damn it, Bren. Stop. Don’t make me kill you.”
Bren’s head pops up, the look of sorrow he pegs me with freezing me in place. He wipes the blood dribbling from his mouth and onto his skin. “You have to trust me, T.”
He curls forward, clutching Emme like a lover. As I watch with my jaw dangling down to my toes, Bren’s full lips pass along Emme’s sternum. His mouth opens and closes over her flushed skin between her breasts and around the swells of her small breasts. He moves up and down, grimacing as if it pains him to leave her breasts when he works his way to her throat.
I avert my eyes certain I’ll have to kill him. Instead, I take out my frustrations on a creature resembling a cross between and creepy doll and a baboon with four tails. The little bastard is flinging flaming green poo at a cluster of vamps, laughing his shiny ass off and enjoying himself. I zap him with a lightning strike, making him jump and distracting him long enough for a werehyena to bite his head off.
I turn back to Bren, my temper surging as he drags his tongue down Emme’s now-exposed stomach.