Keen's Turn: Descent & Depravation

Chapter 7: Night Scuffs (first quarter)

Seconds. Only seconds, to find a way to save his life. Unable even to put up his hands to fend the vampire off, lest he give him something more to hold on to. His leg was on fire. His torn side was bleeding. He could feel every follicle in his scalp and each finger pressed into his skull, squeezing harder. There was so much pain he could hardly think—

Pain?

The vampire was hurting him.

He can't hurt me with his fangs out.

And to bring out a vampire's fangs?

Jared yanked his shirt up, plunging his fingers into his wounded side, goring them, then thrust them upward. Droplets of blood flew free. The hand in his hair slipped loose. His weight fell back onto the staircase, which gave a wooden groan and shifted suddenly lower. Jared wobbled and dropped to one knee, looking up just in time to see two pitch-black eyes glowering down at him, before the stairs at once gave way, dragging him into the dark.

He landed hard, skinning a palm on the fractured steps, momentarily stunned by the impact and the reverberation of timber collapsing around him. The staircase had fragmented as it fell, and on striking the floor it had split down the middle, allowing him to ease his calf off the splintered wood.

Shooting a glance upward, he gave a quick test of his leg. It set his teeth on edge, but if he used half his weight, he could walk. The vampire was nowhere to be seen. Jared oriented himself and turned for the hallway door, wincing as he broke into a sprint. He was wide open for attack, and with the vampire likely headed to rearm or cut off the path to the Seal, there was only one hope left.

If only I'da gone with the smaller one! Idiot!

Hobbling into the main hallway, his footsteps far too loud. He was almost there. But if the vampire came on him now—

He reached the row of doors leading off the hall, but in the moonless light of the few unboarded windows, he wasn't sure which one led to his ploy. It was beyond the doorway where he'd thought he'd first seen the vampire, where he'd later talked to him of cornfields and bloodbaths, but now every doorframe looked the same.

Over his frantic breaths, he could hear the vampire moving upstairs—he didn't have long. Something flickered in the corner of his eye, something like a light. He twisted to look, seeing for a second the broken wire of the work lights dangling over one of the doors. He started toward it. In his haste, he struck his heel too heavily on the floor, lighting a fire in his torn muscles. Choking down a cry, he sank into a crouch to clutch at his leg—a noise from ahead—the vampire was on the stairs.

Jared staggered upright, but his calf was cramping too hard to bear his weight. Another step dropped him to a crouch again, now in front of the doorway where the vampire had been scuffing his feet in the dust. As he started to rise, he froze.

A clammy desolation wrapped itself around his heart, a sour, seizing despair. He gasped in a breath, the hairs down his body erect. He could not run—he could not even walk—his plan was ridiculous, and in this lonely place he would meet his end.

Movement in the periphery.

Jared turned.

In the weak light of the moonless night, he could see the vampire at the end of the hall, razor blades glinting dully in his claws. A fist raised and drew back to launch—Jared jolted upright, twisting to run—and scuffed his heel hard on a protrusion on the floor. Unbalanced, he toppled sideways through the doorframe. Blades sheared past his shoulder as he crashed headlong into the dust. He shot out a palm to catch his fall, then lunged forward, scrabbling across the floorboards on his forearms, pushing off on his good leg, making for the shelter of the desk at the back.