Year of the Rat (Changeling Sisters #4)

Final Sneak Peek: Chapter 4: The Red Night

~Citlalli, Months Later~

Since the Red Night fell, there are three things I haven't seen in months: a full belly, laughter, and the sun.

Today someone laughed.

It was a lieutenant in Vampyre Prince Aleksandr's army. He stumbled out of a former restaurant in Itaewon that had once been a lively hub of music, dancing, and drinks.

The lonely sign creaked in the wind. Beneath all of the claw marks, it read: Alvarez Family Restaurant.

The lieutenant and his two companions threw the backwash of their drinks at it. It hurt less because the sign looked how I felt: Battered. Weary. And numb, because if I stopped to think about where my "family" was, then I would just—snap.

Miguel's blank face drifted across my mind before I could stop it. Trance-like. Elsewhere. Yu Li tried to keep his eyes closed to protect him, but most nights I would wake and find them open, staring sightlessly ahead at the horror he'd seen in the subway station...

"Stop it, Citlalli. Stop it." I clutched my head and rocked back and forth until the image went away. But the queer feeling remained that everything and everyone I loved was slipping out of my grip.

I could smell the foul spirits and decomposing food from here. The entryway was peppered with smashed glass from patrons panicking back when the Red Night had fallen. Spray-painted across the wall were the haunting words that had shown up on countless buildings across Seoul:

Scurry, scurry, little mice.

The vampyre trio strolled brazenly down the main street of Itaewon back toward Yongsan Garrison. I could hear more mocking laughter in that direction.

It had been a hard loss when Aleksandr's undead forces had arrived in this strange netherworld, claiming northern Seoul down to the Han River. We were at a standstill, now. The Frost King was in the north, solidifying the Vampyre Court's rule over a city of the dead. Across the river in Gangnam, the Were Nation was holed up in Yong Enterprises with what weapons we'd secured from Yongsan Garrison.

The vampyres didn't bother to search for us. They had the virus to drive us out.

A woman suddenly lunged pathetically from the shadows. Her bony fingers scraped the lieutenant's boots. She was in the final stages of Walking Death. Her skin was the faded gray of the sidewalk, two peaks of massive scar tissue arose from where her eyes used to be, and she had lost all of her hair. Dried blood stained her chin, and she continuously coughed up a strange, silver substance.

Her bones had long ago broken through her skin when she had begun the initial rage transformation. The supernatural growth had left her legs useless, but she still crawled hungrily toward the lieutenant using her elbows.

The lieutenant placed a boot against her forehead. He watched in amusement as she clawed at him. Then he flashed a fanged smile.

Something in the deteriorated woman awoke to recognize the danger. She tried to scramble away, but the lieutenant swooped in and plunged his fangs into her withered neck. Her breath evaporated with a sigh, and the other two vampyres joined in, sucking the silvery plasma free from her body: her soul.

The lieutenant threw back his head to laugh.

"To the Lords of Walking Death!" he toasted. "Queen Maya kept this gift of soul-stealing all to herself. The Death Gods want to share this feast with us."

"The soul tastes better than blood," his comrade agreed.

"I will eat a dozen nasty-tasting shapeshifters in service to the Red Night," the other soldier salivated. "Think of the millions that will be ours once the last of the Were Nation falls."