Biting Cold (Chicagoland Vampires #6)(16)
Author: Chloe Neill

She roled together another bal of magic, then pitched it at him. He screamed out as the shock of magic hit, but then froze for a moment.

As we al watched in horror, we realized Malory hadn’t meant to kil or even stun him.

She meant to change him.

Keith began to stretch and expand. His shoulders widened, and his arms grew into tree limbs. His torso tripled, and his legs lengthened until his head rose over us to horrific proportions, fr o m a smiling two-foot-tal gnome to a twenty-foot-tal lumbering beast. He looked down at me and grinned menacingly through domino-sized teeth, and it wasn’t a pleasant smile.

Mal hadn’t just made him larger; she’d made him meaner.

"Oh, that is just wrong," I muttered.

I swalowed down fear, took a defensive stance, and held up my sword, preparing for battle.

Keith stumbled toward me, hands extended as if he meant to swipe me up off the ground. The gnomes might have been spritely in their original size, but stretched and expanded like Sily Putty, he lumbered about. Of course, he was throwing a lot more weight around.

I felt miserable about striking back at him; it wasn’t his fault Malory had turned him into a monster. So I tried other tactics. It didn’t take much effort to run around and avoid him. Although I’m sure the sight was comical – sword-bearing vampire being chased around a cornfield by a twenty-foot-tal garden gnome –  I hoped I might be able to wear him out before he could do any real damage.

Todd was a little more optimistic.

"Keith, stop this!" Todd ran in front of him, arms waving.

"Snap out of it, man. This girl is on your side. You don’t want to hurt her."

I instantly forgave Todd for the kick on the shin. But if there was any bit of Keith that remembered Todd or anything else of life before Malory, I couldn’t see it. His eyes – oversized and shaded by his giant white cap – were empty. Not just dazed, but completely void of emotion or recolection or any intelect at al.

Poor Keith.

And goddamn Malory.

Even if we brought her back from the brink, I’m not sure I could ever forget, or forgive, what she was wiling to do to get what she wanted. But that problem assumed we would survive to bring her back, so first things first…

Keith swiped at Todd, knocking him off his feet. I held my breath, but he sat up a moment later and signaled the gnomes.

They launched another attack, this time on one of their own.

While I helped Todd stand again, the gnomes peppered Keith with rocks and their few remaining arrows, but Keith was big enough to ignore the few pricks that made it through. He howled out when an arrow caught him in the shin, yanking it out and tossing it to the ground, and then stomping around to try to catch the gnome who’d gotten the lucky shot.

The battlefield silenced for a moment, and Todd’s eyes went cold. He looked up at me.

"He is gone," Todd said. "Perhaps if we knocked him out,magic could be worked?"

I didn’t waste time arguing. I ran toward the middle of the field, where Keith was throwing clumps of dirt – and probably some chunks that weren’t actualy dirt – at the gnomes around him.

"Keith!" I caled out, facing him with sword extended.

He looked back, then stomped toward me.

"I’m sorry," I murmured, and when he swung down a meaty hand to knock me off my feet, I slashed out with the katana.

I caught the back of his hand. Blood splashed the ground, and Keith yelped in pain, a horrible sound that probably woke the few remaining farmers who hadn’t already been awakened by the giant garden gnome tromping around their neighbor’s land.

I paused for a moment at the sight of blood, afraid I’d be overtaken by the need to drink. But there was nothing remotely palatable about the smel of it. It smeled of dirt – not dirty, but damp and mineral. Not an altogether bad scent, but nothing I wanted to drink.

Not that Keith would have given me the opportunity to do so.

Monstrous teeth bared, he wrenched in the other direction. I hit the ground to avoid the swing of his palm, but I wasn’t far enough to avoid the swing of his fingers. They hit me like tree logs, tossing me ten feet across the field. I landed facedown with a bounce that echoed through my body and radiated pain through my limbs.

There was no time to rest. The earth shook as Keith moved closer. I winced at the stabbing pain in my ribs – another rib broken, I guessed – and slowly got to my feet.

A bundle of gnomes came again to my defense, but they were soon out of weapons. Keith tossed them away like irritating gnats, then turned his gaze on me again.

He bounded toward me. Ignoring the pain in my side, I two-handed my katana and drove it into his foot. He howled with pain. When he bent over to clutch at his injury, I puled my sword away and ran through his legs.

Before he could get his bearings, and before I had time to think better of it, I jumped onto his back and scrambled upward.

My weight distracted him from the pain, and he stretched and twisted back and forth, trying to throw me off.

It was like the world’s strangest amusement ride…but al good things must come to an end.

My broken rib hardening my heart against the violence, I climbed to his shoulders, adjusted my sword, and thrust the butt-end of the sword handle into the pressure point behind his ear.

Hard.

Keith froze, then began to fal toward the earth. I jumped away to safety, roling across the ground while he hit the earth like a falen tree.

The night was silent for a moment.

I brushed hair from my face and stood up again, looking around until I found Malory. She stood nearby, her expression suddenly horrified, her gaze on the giant gnome on the ground.

He was out cold.

I wiped the mud from my katana on my pants and walked toward her, stopping ten feet away.

"Any more minions you want to create, or are you ready to face me on your own?"

When she didn’t answer, I moved closer.

"It’s me and you," I said, only inches away. "Are you ready for that? Are you wiling to kil me to get what you want?" I rotated the sword in my hand, hoping I might intimidate her at least enough to let her guard down.

"I’m not afraid of you."

"That’s funny, because I’m afraid of you. I’m afraid of who you’ve become and who you’re going to be if you finish this the way you want to. I’m afraid you’l never come back from it."

"I’m not afraid," she repeated, but there was clearly fear in her eyes. As much as she wanted the Maleficium – as much as she believed she needed it – she was scared.

Good. Maybe the Order had managed to talk a little sense into her in those few hours before her escape.

Thinking I was making progress, I kept pushing. "Look at what you’ve done. You’ve hurt people, Malory, for a spel you think is going to make your life better. But if that was true, wouldn’t the sorcerers have done it by now?"