Page 6 (1/2)
Don in the club and drug district, Phury was flying through an alley off Tenth Street, his shitkickers pounding the ratty pave behind hiiven their positions, technically Phury was in pursuit In reality, the slayer wasn&039;t trying to get aith all this heel kicking The bastard wanted to get deep enough into the shadows so that the two of theht, and Phury was so on board that train
Rule nu Society: no roughhousing around humans Neither side needed the hassle
That was about the only rule
The sweet smell of baby poafted back to Phury, the wake of his ene nasty It was so worth the stink, though, because this was going to be a good fight The slayer he was after had hair that was fish-belly white¡ªwhichtime: For reasons that were unknown, all lessers faded to pale over ti their individual hair, eye, and skin coloration as they gained experience in hunting and killing innocent vampires
Great trade-off The more you ing a Dus and not a dead houred in another fifty yards he and his lesser buddy were going to hit pay dirt for privacy The bowel of the alley was an unlighted dead end, bracketed by less brick buildings and¡ª
There were a pair of humans in it
Phury and his slayer stopped short in the face of the buzz kill Keeping a healthy distance from each other, they assessed the sitch as the two human men looked over
"Get the fuck out of here," the one on the left said
Okay, this was obviously a case of dealus interruptus And the guy to the right was definitely on the buy side of the exchange, and not just because he wasn&039;t trying to take control of the intrusion The y bastard itchy in his dirty pants, his fevery eyes wide, his sallow skin waxed out and spotted with acne Most telling, though, was that he went back to focusing on his dealer&039;s jacket pockets, not at all worried about the possibility of getting capped by Phury or the slayer
Nah, his biggie was about getting his next fix, and he was clearly terrified he&039;d have to go home without what he needed
Phury sed hard as he watched those empty-house eyes bounce around God, he&039;d just had that stinging panic had tangoed with it right before the shutters had gone up for the night back at ho dealer put one of his hands to the set out of here"
Fuck If the asshole pulled out a gun, all hell was going to break loose because Okay, right, the slayer was also reaching into his jacket With a curse, Phury joined the party by putting his pal dealer paused, clearly realizing everyone had lead accessories After doing souy put a pair of eht, maybe I&039;ll just take off"
"Good choice," the lesser drawled
The addict didn&039;t think that was such a hot idea "No, oh, nono, I need¡ª"
"Later" The dealer buttoned up his jacket like a store-keeper would lock up a shop
And it happened so fast, you couldn&039;t have stopped it Froht out a box cutter and with a messy, more-luck-than-skill slash, he sliced the dealer&039;s throat wide-open As blood went everywhere, the buyer busted the dealer&039;s shop apart, going through jacket pockets and stuffing cellophane packets into his beat-to-shit jeans When the raid was over, he tore off like a rat, hunched over, sca, too juiced with his lottery win to bother with the two bona fide killers ere in his path
No doubt the lesser let hiin
Phury let the hu into a mirror
The rank joy on the addict&039;s face was a total head nailer The guy was clearly on the express train to one hell of a bender, and the fact that it was a free fix was only a small part of the buzz The real boon was the lush ecstasy of super-surplus
Phury knew that orgasot it every ti fat pouch of red s papers
He was jealous He was so¡ª
The length of steel chain caught him on the side of the throat and wrapped itself around his neck, a metal snake with one hell of a tail recoil As the lesser yanked, the links dug in and cut off all kinds of things: breathing, circulation, voice
Phury&039;s center of gravity shifted fro out his hands to keep fro it into the paveot a brief, vivid eyeful of the drug dealer, as gurgling like a coffeepot ten feet away
The dealer reached out a hand, his bloody lips working slowly Help me help me
The lesser&039;s boot hit Phury&039;s head like it was a soccer ball, the cracking i round and round as Phury&039;s body did the dreidel He ended up flush against the drug dealer, the dyinghis roll
Phury blinked and gasped Up above, the glow of the city canceled out alaxy&039;s stars, but didn&039;t touch the ones that were doing laps in his vision
There was a choking gasp next to him, and for a split second he shuffled his dazed eyes next door The drug dealer was doing athrough the gaping second uy smelled like crack, as if he were a user as well as a peddler
This is ies and wads of cash and using and worrying about the next fix consumed more of his time than even the Brotherhood&039;s mission
The wizard popped into his ht it&039;s your world, ya fried daft bastard And I a
The lesser hauled on the chain, cutting off the wizard and hter
If he didn&039;t get back in the ga to be his best and only friend
Bringing his hands up to the links, he gripped the fuckers in two thick fists, jacked into a tuck position, and roped his prosthetic leg around the steel leash Using the foot for leverage, he pushed against the links that ran under the sole of his shitkicker and created some slack so he could breathe
The slayer leaned back like a waterskier, and the prosthesis weakened under the pressure, the angle of his fake foot changing With a quick unhook, Phury freed his leg from the chain, dropped the slack on his end and braced his neck and shoulders As the slayer went flying against the brick wall of a Valu-rite Dry Cleaners, the undead&039;s force and body weight yanked Phury up off the ground
For a split second the chain went loose
It was just enough for Phury to spin around, get the thing off his neck, and pal body-slae of its struck-stupids, lancing forith his blade The steel-composite tip and shaft went deep into the lesser&039;s soft, elossy and black
The slayer looked down in confusion, as if the rules of the gaed in the middle and no one had told him His white hands caainst the deluge
Phury wiped hisanticipation lit him up from the inside
The lesser took one look at his face and lost his out-of-it expression Fear seeped into his pale features
"You&039;re the one" the slayer whispered as his knees onky "The torturer"
Phury&039;s can&039;t-waits faded a little "What?"
"Heard about you Mauls first then kills"
He had a reputation in the Lessening Society? Well, duh He&039;d beenmesses of lessers for a couple of months now
"How do you know that&039;s "
As the slayer slid down onto the pave
Hard to knoas more horrific: that it was there or that he hadn&039;t noticed
Suddenly, the lesser&039;s pupils shot to the left "Thank fuck"
Phury froze as a gun ainst his left kidney and a fresh wave of baby powder shot into his nose
Not more than five blocks to the east, in his private of fice at ZeroSue, aka the Reverend, cursed He hated the incontinent ones Hated the in front of his desk had just pissed in his pants, the stain showing up as a dark blue circle at the crotch of his distressed Z Brands
Looked like soe
"Oh, for God&039;s sake" Rehv shook his head at his private guard of Moors, the ones ere playing hanger to the piece of shit Trez and iAusted expressions that he did
Only saving grace, Rehv supposed, was that the guy&039;s pair of Doc Martens see was dripping
"What&039;d I do?" the guy squeaked, the pitch of his voice suggesting his balls were soher and he could have been a contralto "I didn&039;t do noth¡ª"
Rehv cut the denial off "Chrissy showed up with a busted lip and black-and-blues Again"
"You think I did that? Coirl whores out for you It could have been any¡ª"
Trez raised an objection to the testi the forced fist like an orange