Winterly (Dark Creatures Book 1), стр. 131
Meanwhile, Tanith crawled atop Emma, her hair snapping out wildly as Malach summoned the fog to aid their escape and confuse the nose of the imminent wrath of William. Mina shuddered as much from the pain of the bite as from fear of the Valkolak prince. The white wolf was frightening enough—his brother was near as terrifying as Gabriel and Marbod.
“There’s no time, Tanith!” Mina cried, hoisting the pupal sac over her shoulders. The pupa bucked and fought its bindings with so much strength that Mina could not bear the burden alone. “Tanith, there’s no time! Help me!”
But Tanith was delirious with pain and rage and would not hear her. Her fingers were elongating with sharp intent, but she was wounded and fumbling, and the process was taking too long. The fog rushed in and the sky burbled with darksome energy—Markus was coming!
Mina abandoned the wolfling to her father and wrenched her half-blind sister from atop Emma, intending to drag her forcibly to safety. “The heart will be dead before you get to it! Leave off, sister!”
Malach had no trouble lifting the vigorous pupa, he merely tucked the bundle under his free arm. “Enough!” he commanded of Tanith. “There’s no time, lest you wish to lose more than your eye.” With that he sped off with Ana and the wolfgirl, leaving his daughters to follow.
Tanith gave vent to a frustrated hiss as she sank to her knees, giving way to her snake skin. The white serpent, one socket empty and the other aflame with rancor, hastily slithered away into the thick fog after its sire.
Spent, Mina dropped to all fours and summoned the cat. But nothing happened. She was not as strong as her sisters, had not yet ascended as they had. And been poisoned with wolf venom besides! The only thing that throbbed along her skin was the bite. “A thousand damns!” She tried not to look at the white wolf lying stiff nearby, its teeth bared in death—that dead grin taunted her with William’s fast approaching vengeance. “Concentrate, Mina!” More than ever, she steadied her thoughts and urged her familiar to the surface with a desperation that was suddenly equal to the task. She felt the animal twitch inside her at last. “Hurry!” It was happening too slowly! Their foggy veil was already thinning out and Mina could feel the heavy vibration in the air, as of a deific heartbeat growing stronger and louder: the sound of fleet and powerful wings beneath the clouds. And, below it, the dark bellow of Anubis, his canine breath preceding him in hot waves.
“Now, damn you! Now!” Mina cried. Every cell was strained as never before and finally, finally, the red pelt sprang to the fore and encompassed her with the power she needed to make good her fleet escape. The last desperate “Now!” became a growling meow. She sprinted away beneath the stealthy aegis of her familiar; it alone would protect her from the cunning nose of the black wolf.
Chapter Sixty-One
Death
Markus raced along the scud, his wings beating in time with Emma’s arhythmic life-force. What had been a steady flame this morning was now only a dim and weakening glow, as of the last pulse of warmth in a dying ember.
He hated the way this feeling—this panic—made him vulnerable and weak! He hated the way his fear was consuming him and turning his entrails inside out. Most of all, he hated himself for letting her go! Where the devil was Nicholas?
He thrust his wings faster and harder against the air, tasting blood as his fangs ground against his underlip; the pain would sustain him—distract him—until he was at her side. If he could only fly faster! Below him, William was pounding the empty road with all the heft and might of his colossal paws. Markus would hunt Malach the rest of his days if any harm had come to Emma.
The taste of his own blood only excited his burgeoning violence all the more. But it was not only his blood flavoring the air. The closer he drew towards Emma’s life-force, the weaker it became; a terrible irony that only chilled him the more. So much blood putrefying the air tonight. The clouds themselves tasted of death as he dove through the grey canopy that shrouded the priory like a pall. Beneath it, dusk was already dancing macabrely around the churchyard and over the scattered corpses. But his eyes searched only for Emma.
He couldn’t yet see her but he felt her nearby. Still alive! The bond betwixt them, however, was unravelling faster than he could move. Do not let go, Emma! He sent the thought through the ether with all the power of his own life-force.
The willow gave a shiver as he swooped beneath her boughs. The water in the pond trembled as he slammed his boots against the blood-soaked earth. And there was Emma, jealously tangled in the grass as though the earth would swallow her up any moment.
His veins seethed with hot fury as he beheld her greying flesh, the blush of life sputtering out. As his feet ate up the distance between them, his eyes snapped up to scan the limbs overhead where his brother’s arachnid musk pervaded the willow. The tree, however, was untenanted.
“Emma!” He knelt down beside her and lifted her head carefully onto his lap. No flicker of life passed across her features; her heart was wobbling perilously on the edge of life.
Had she been nothing more than a pet he’d marked—his property to do with as he pleased—his rage would not have been any less deadly, but she was his heart! To love and protect her was his life’s only purpose now! And so his rage shook the heavens. The dragon within roared and raged