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Shouts and screams came from above, but all Ashwini could think was that he wasn’t wearing a glove

A sla them to a stop on a lower floor, below their pursuers but not home free It was perfectly ti been severed fro down the steps, Ashwini once ainst his chest

They rocketed past the first floor and down into the garage A vampire with hair of ainst skin of rich, strokable broaiting for the it shut behind the part of it with brute strength “Go! I’ll take care of any pursuit!”

A s at that instant, dust falling onto her face fro “We did it,” she tried to whisper, but her throat wouldn’t workand her heartbeat, it was a sluggish crawl As if her body no longer had blood to pu she heard before the lights went out

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A fetid breath on the back of the neck

A chill of bones A cold whisper in the darkness

There are those things that should not exist, should not walk, should not breathe, should not be naiven form, can never be put back into the dreae Library

There had been a war Archangel against archangel Squadrons of angels in the air and troops of varound He’d told it that when he returned The being who no longer reht in endless purgatory, had heard the fighting But it didn’t care That war existed on another world, not in the sht its oar, screa scrape-shuffle that announced thefootsteps But even as it screa no sound, its chest painful from a lack of air Panic had clamped its cruel hand around its throat and now it squeezed, squeezed

“No, no, no,” the trapped creature whi locked in that silent scream

Part of who it had once been understood that its mind was broken and would never recover That part was a tiny kernel hidden in a distant part of its psyche The rest of it was clawing horror and fearand sadness Tears rolled down its face, caught in its ravaged throat, but the haunting sense of despair was soon crushed under the suffocating weight of naked fear

Then light hit the eyes thatblindness and its pulse froze

Thepainting one of her living rooan to buzz Grabbing it from the exquisitely scarred wooden coffee table she’d restored the previous year, she answered to find Sara on the other end

The Guild Director had a job for her “So in the Va First report was postbattle, but it could’ve been going on for longer with the strays no one tracks” Faint rustling sounds, pages being turned “A canine body finally turned up in a sewer drain and reports are that it’s desiccated ‘Like ato the vet who called me I want you to check it out”