Lip trembling, Bog jumped at Rupert. His hand went straight for the hilt of Rupert’s sword, but Rupert was faster; his son whipped the blade out and slashed at him.
Garin marveled at the clean gash, that stunning shade of ruby dripping from Bog’s fingers, leaking onto the floor. Rupert had done so with precise skill under his entrancement, lurching back with a perfect arch of the sword. With hisrighthand, even.
Bog sank against the wall; his wrist and several fingers cut open. As he screamed and the blood spilled, the burn at the back of Garin’s throat and the twist at his core increased. Bog was lucky,solucky he was on the other side of that barrier.
“Mathias! Lorenzo!” Artus shrieked, shrinking back as Rupert stalked past.
His long legs brought him forward, through the door and into the night. Garin met no resistance when he plucked the blade from his hands, nor when he gripped Rupert by the back of his shirt, spinning him. He was trembling.
Mathis and Lorenzo had emerged, watching from the hallway, but they’d seemed sobered enough to notice the grim realization of being under a vampire’s will.
“Well?” shouted Artus as Bog sniveled beside him. “Don’t just stand there!”
“What do you want us to do,” shot Mathias, “wrestle him from the brute?”
“I’m not going out there.” Lorenzo rubbed his still-bandaged shoulder.It seemed Brient and Hamon had taken their places following the aftermath of the troupe happening upon the ogre camp west of The Fenfoss Inn, but even the faithful butcher and blacksmith couldn’t be found when Garin surveyed the crowd.
He whipped out his rapier and pressed it against Rupert’s throat. “Give the deed to me, Artus.”
He waited expectantly for Bog to shuffle over and wrestle it from him, but the tavern owner remained against the wall.
“Artus,” Bog stammered. “My boy.”
Artus’s eyes burned with an inhuman hatred. “Do it!”
Garin readied the blade, adjusting the hilt in his palm. He should. The bastard was going to be a waste of a life on their Daemon hunt, and he was now.
He’d make a far better dinner. Garin tossed the rapier aside, peeled his collar down, and?—
He heard it before he felt it: the whizz through the air, then the searing pain shooting down his arm. Garin staggered as the arrow landed in the dirt behind them. It only had grazed his bicep, yet the violent jolt of pain mere inches from his bullet wound rocked his entire body.
An archer stood in the hall sandwiched between Artus’s bodyguards, clinging to her longbow. Garin immediately recognized her as the elderly woman who’d sat across from him and Lilac at The Jaunty Hog.
“Put it down,” Garin demanded from over Rupert’s quaking shoulder.
“Do as he says, you old hag,” Rupert sobbed.
She ignored their pleas, her weathered fingers fumbling over another hawthorn arrow. “I know you,” she said, sneering at Garin. “You killed my neighbor during the Raids. I saw you run out of this house, you coward! My best friend and her family,” she cried. “You killed the Fangs.”
There was no sense in denying it. Garin swallowed and nodded, guilt still proving secondary to his own fear. “If it’s any consolation, one of their daughters is still well and alive!”
The old woman let out a hideous snarl and raised her readied arrow at them.
Garin cursed his burning arm. “Forgive me, Laurent.” He brought own hand to his mouth, shredded the inside of his wrist, and muttered, “Sorry, mate.”
Then, he slammed his bleeding arm to Rupert’s blabbering mouth. The bastard kicked and bucked; the arrow whistled through the air, and Garin’s injured leg shook against the force that hit Rupert square in the stomach. Through Rupert’s rattled wailing, Garin couldn’t tell if he’d ingested any of it.
Just as he was about to drop him, a second arrow hit them in rapid succession; Rupert’s groaning cut off abruptly as he went limp. Garin lost his footing, and they both tumbled down the porch steps.
He heaved Rupert’s body to the side, where he rolled into the dirt, eyes glassy and open, mouth twisted in pain. It was Garin’s second time seeing a dead vampire. Those who died by the stake instead of sunlight looked no different from other bodies, he’d learned from Laurent, who rested in the crypt at the Mine. Their fangs remained protruded, their bodies perfectly preserved forever to rest in peace—or, for a most unlucky grave robber to discover.
But Rupert hadn’t had the time to wake up and complete the change by drinking from a human, even if he had swallowed some of Garin’s blood. Rupert would not rise again with the second hawthorn arrow that protruded from the middle of chest.
Garin shifted to his knees—and gazed up the length of the next arrow, aimed this time by Bog. The tavern owner’s hands shook, looking too small for the longbow; there was no way Bog was a better shot than that impressive old hag—she must’ve had decades of experience fending off her crops and livestock, probably joining in on Daemon hunts from time to time. But with the alarming pain spreading throughout his body, he felt too winded to run.
There was something very wrong. The wrist he’d bitten into moments ago had already healed, but his arm and leg were struggling to expel the bullets like they should have. He’d expected it would take some time, but instead of slowly healing, he was growing weak.
“He’s injured,” Artus was murmuring. “Do it, Bog. What are you waiting for?”
