To an untrained ear, that insidious voice would have been beguiling, persuasive. But Aidan could see the gray skin shrunken over the skull. The dried blood beneath the long, yellowed fingernails. The receding gums and exaggerated fangs. Most of all he was very aware of the small, vulnerable boy in the trunk of a car, placed there as the instrument of the vampire’s revenge.
“You seek to buy yourself time, dead one. Why? What plan do you have that you would pretend to be my friend?” Even as Aidan spoke, the vipers hissed hideously and swarmed toward him, a slithering mass of writhing bodies.
As the snakes neared his feet, they changed shape, became women crawling toward him, obscenely sexual, hissing, their long, forked tongues flicking at him. Using the fog to cover his movements, Aidan reappeared behind the vampire. As Diego turned this way and that, Aidan struck, a swift, killing blow designed to end the conflict quickly. But at the last moment the vampire leapt away, and his creatures, half female, half snake, growled and spat venom at Aidan, scrambling toward him on their bellies and hands and knees.
Do not pay attention to his illusions. Never take your eyes off the vampire. He waits for your inattention. Alexandria’s voice was soft and sweet in his mind, clearing away any cobwebs the illusionist was weaving to confuse him.
He is skilled, this one, cara, he acknowledged.
Not skilled enough, she responded with complete faith in him.
The women on the ground set up a wail, a low, keening, mournful whine that rose on the wind. Aidan smiled at the vampire with a lazy, self-confident smile. “You are trying to call Gregori to our little battle? You are much more foolish than I thought. Even I, who have nothing to fear, would not want to disturb Gregori’s solitude. With this racket, he is certain to join us.” His golden eyes slashed at the vampire, found the dull, dead gaze, and locked onto it, holding the other man in their molten depths. “I worked closely with Gregori for several years. Did you know that, Diego? What he does, he does coolly and efficiently. There is no other like him. Perhaps in your final moment you wish to test your meager skills against his greatness.”
The vampire’s bullet-shaped head was undulating again, the skull swinging back and forth rhythmically. He hissed a command, and the obscene creatures of his invention moaned and slunk away. Chanting, he waved a hand at them, and the wailing women slowly shape-shifted back to snakes. Ordinary, harmless garden snakes.
The vampire began to move in a slow, careful, sinister dance. He circled Aidan, the hard shells of the cockroaches crunching beneath his shoes. His head continued to move slowly back and forth, his fangs gleaming and dripping saliva. Aidan faced the vampire stoically, refusing to look at his dancing feet noisily crushing the insects or at the garden snake approaching from his left.
The snake isn’t harmless, Aidan. Alexandria’s warning was calm. That’s another one of his illusions. It is no garden snake. I can sense the vampire’s triumph.
Aidan held his ground calmly, his golden gaze never once shifting from the vampire’s swaying figure. He didn’t so much as glance at the snake gliding toward him or betray in any way that he was aware of the danger it presented to him. The vampire’s actions were hypnotic, a strange series of steps and motions designed to dull the senses and capture the mind.
As the snake coiled itself to strike only a few inches from the hunter, the vampire stopped, his eyes boring into Aidan’s, seeking to mesmerize him. Then, with unbelievable speed, the vampire launched himself forward in an all-out attack. The snake, too, flung itself forward, seeking to bury its fangs in Aidan’s leg. But Aidan was no longer where he had been. Even faster, he had leapt to meet the vampire. His hands caught at the bullet-shaped head and wrenched. There was a sickening crack, and the vampire howled, the razor-sharp claws raking Aidan’s broad chest.
The talons bit deep, leaving four red furrows. Aidan melted away from the illusionist and reappeared beside the trunk of the car. He risked one quick glance at the sleeping child. The sight of the little boy covered with, charred snake carcasses was unnerving. He wanted to fling the repulsive, evil creations as far from Joshua as possible.