Page 104 of Tin God
Their life was always going to be short.
Except those brightly colored creatures had brought Tenzin joy and peace, and some nights seeing that was the only thing that kept Ben from cursing eternal night.
“Tenzin—”
“They could have flown away. We probably won’t ever know.”
He whispered, “Tenzin.”
“Gavin is investigating because he’s very angry that Chloe might have been hurt, though I suspect that whoever burned our house timed it so that she was not hurt because hurting her wouldn’t have distracted us—which is doubtless the intention—it would have simply provoked even greater enemies.”
His heart ached, and it wasn’t only for himself.
It was just a house, and it shouldn’t matter so much. In the centuries of life stretching before him, he would gain and lose property. There would be homes that were lost because of natural disasters or simply because they became too exposed.
But their town house in New York was where he’d fallen in love with Tenzin. It was the nest he’d created to tempt her to New York with him. It was the place where she’d held him when life fell apart.
“It’s just a house,” he whispered.
“It was your home.” She reached over and stroked the back of his neck. “I know that it was important to you.”
“We’re going to kill Zasha,” Ben said woodenly. “And every person who is working with them. Not because of our house but because it’s the right thing to do to keep them from harming anyone else.”
But also maybe a little bit because of Tenzin’s birds.
Hungary, Ninth Century CE
Tenzin walkedthrough the rubble along the edges of the Duna River, stepping over corpses that humans had left to rot.
Waste. So much waste.
The blood was already spoiling in their veins, which made her lip curl. It was dark along the riverbank, and she could hear other vampires in the distance, scavenging among the victims of this raid to find humans with enough life that they could use them for food.
Her kind were predators by nature, but they were scavengers when the opportunity presented itself.
She came across a barely living victim a few moments later. The girl was no more than thirteen or fourteen and had propped herself on an overturned boat. She was holding her intestines in her lap, watching the water flow by as she blinked slowly and faded away.
A vampire approached from the forest, but Tenzin flung out an arm and grabbed them by the neck. “What are you doing?”
The young man was ravenous, probably a newborn. “She’s alive; her blood is still pumping.”
“There are others. Leave her.”
He shrieked, and it sounded like a ferret screaming. “I want her!”
“Are you willing to die?” Tenzin bared her fangs and hissed.
His eyes went wide, and Tenzin saw the water behind him stir, so she threw the young one in the air and punched him with a column of wind that sent the creature soaring into the forest on the opposite side of the river.
Tenzin turned back to the girl and bent down. Her skin was milk white, and her lips were turning blue. “You’re dying.”
She had hair the color of polished copper and clear brown eyes that looked up at Tenzin, but there was no sense of comprehension. The girl murmured in a language Tenzin didn’t speak. Magyar, perhaps.
Tenzin watched the girl as her eyes drifted back to the river. She sat down in the mud next to the girl, wondering if she was in pain or if shock had settled in.
“It’s not a bad place to die,” Tenzin murmured. “The air hasn’t turned rancid yet. There’s no scent of rot. Most of the blood washed away when it rained today.”
The girl let out a soft breath and reached out, bloody fingers reaching for Tenzin’s hand.