Neon Blue E Frost (speld decodable readers .TXT) 📖

You got a better idea? Let’s hear it. ‘Cause you got about a minute before she starts carving.

Let one of my hands free.

He grunts and shifts fractionally, brushing something firm and warm across my mouth. Sliding his knee off my left forearm.

I reach for my churi.

Nothing. I can’t feel anything. Not the shadow-sheath. Not the cool handle of my churi. Not any of the things I’ve stored in that Other Place.

How fucking stupid are you? You’re inside her sanctum. You can’t summon anything here. And she’ll have felt that—

“Jou!”

See? Use your teeth. Right now. He growls aloud, “I told you she was fighting me. Suck me, dead meat, or I’ll pop your eyeballs out.” He presses a thumb against my eyelid for emphasis.

This is such a bad plan.

Stop talking. Start biting.

He shoves himself along my mouth, but he’s actually holding my jaw closed. Then he releases me and I lunge and snap down on the chain with all my might. I catch something soft – skin – along with the chain and he grunts in pain, but I’ve only got one chance at this and I bite down harder, feeling that softness give. Cold, teeth-chattering, bone-rattling cold, shoots up into my head. I can’t call fire to counter it, but Earth is my element, and warmth is the heart of Earth. Heat fills my mouth, spills in gritty hot runnels down my cheeks. A tooth splinters and god-awful pain shoots up into my head, but I keep biting down. Finally, with the explosive crack of breaking ice, the chain snaps. A freezing piece falls into the back of my mouth. I spit it out along with fragments of my tooth.

A roaring fills my head. It grows, deafening, maddening, until I’m screaming into it just to keep myself sane. The weight on my right wrist increases. The wrist not encircled by my Dala’s protective bracelets. The bone snaps and I howl with the fresh pain. Then it’s gone. There’s no weight on me, the sound is gone, and I’m rolling, falling, to land in a heap on stiff carpeting. I curl into a ball around the sickening pain in my wrist and head and stomach, sobbing.

“Zee-Zee!” Ro screams. Her scream ends in a crunch. The violent impact of one body slamming into another. I shudder, and curl tighter into myself.

Silence. I expect to hear something. Whimpering. Sucking. Something. But there’s just a long silence. And then footfalls.

You lose a tooth?

Something sharp brushes my nose and I start violently. Curl tighter into a shivering ball. Please leave me alone.

He snorts into my mind. Another footfall. Here’s the other half of it. Well, guess that makes us even, since you took a pretty good chunk outta my scrot.

I roll up onto my knees, keeping my broken wrist tucked tight against my chest, and vomit convulsively. Egg roll and poisoned wine and vampire blood. None of it tastes good coming up. I heave and heave long after my stomach’s empty.

When my body realizes it can’t actually turn itself inside out, the convulsions subside. I stay on my knees, rocking back and forth. Shaking. Trying to get a grip.

The sound of the vampire walking around, breaking things, finally focuses me. You said you’d help me. Can you get me out of here?

Sure. Where’d you want to go?

Out of her sanctum. Somewhere I can heal myself.

Light pressure on the top of my head, in my hair. When the pressure grows, turns painful, I start to protest, then there’s that sense of movement, the same as when I’m on the Squire’s horse. And a constriction that I wasn’t aware of until it’s gone falls away from me.

I reach for my churi, not knowing or caring where I am. I’m out of her sanctum. That’s all that matters. My churi is right there, the wooden handle cool in my palm. I draw a circle around myself, awkward with one hand. Nicking my thumb is easier, but I can’t see to seal the circle. I flick my hand, hoping some blood will spatter across the line I’ve drawn.

The protective circle snaps tight around me.

The vampire grunts. “You may be shit on the offensive, but that’s a strong fucking circle,” he says aloud.

Strong enough to keep out your garden-variety vampire, anyway. He probably can’t hear my thoughts when I’m encircled, but I carefully don’t think that at him, just in case. Instead I call to mind every healing thing I can think of. Sleeping deep and warm in my own bed. My Dala’s hugs. The dim, distant memory of my parents’ faces smiling down at me.

I reach into that Other Place. The bitter birchy taste of sarsaparilla fills my mouth. I swallow the potion, feel it burn its way down my abused esophagus.

The haze slowly clears from my vision. The agony in my jaw fades to a dull ache. I uncurl cautiously. Everything’s sore. My head, my back, my wrist. But they’re just sore. Not broken. I take a deep, cleansing breath, and let it out, exhaling a cloud of toxins.

“Neat trick,” the vampire says.

I look up, seeing my rescuer and would-be rapist clearly for the first time.

He’s a huge man. Tall, massively built. Wild, waist-length, blood-red dreadlocks add to the impression of his size. He watches me impassively, heavily muscled forearms crossed over a heavily-muscled chest. His skin’s a deep, rich gold.

He doesn’t look like any vampire I’ve ever seen.

He shifts his weight with a creak of his unbuttoned leather pants. Tilts his head to the side. In the bright fluorescent light, his eyes shine neon-blue.

“You’re not a vampire,” I say.

“Never said I was.” He smiles slowly, a smile that’s more of a leer. It makes the small hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Definitely no fangs.

“What are you?”

He chuckles. “I could tell you. But it’ll be more fun to let you find out on your own.”

I retrace the protective circle widdershins. To take back the power I expended drawing it. I’ve got nothing