Free Going Dark (Nightfallen #1) by S.G. Schvercraft Page B

now, but it was entirely mental, remaining focused so my body would move elegantly through space, as opposed to dropping to the pavement like the corpse it actually was.
    Helping this focus was my vision. Not only did I see visual light, I perceived heat like a thermograph, like looking through a SEAL’s night-vision goggles. Motion existed before my eyes in multicolored waves, painting not only where something was but where it had been seconds before. And I could see life itself, how it blinked wanly in the lowest insect, how it coursed like white-lava rivers through the veins of a man fighting for his life.
    I could see, perceive, know all these layers, make sense of them, patterns that would probably drive a living person insane.
    Now, my eyes were focused on Dave. He was a throbbing knot of light. Like a moth to a flame, I couldn’t have stopped myself from chasing him even if I’d wanted to.
    I collided with his back, the speed with which I hit him compensating for my lack of mass. We fell to the pavement, and as I went for his throat, his elbow slammed into the side of my face.
    I was strong, but just like my speed, it was on the low end of superhuman. I usually relied on surprise, often taking my victims post-coitus in bed. Or failing that, they were usually so terrified at the sight of fangs that they just froze.
    This was different. Even though Dave wasn’t wearing anything that bragged about being a wrestler like his friends, it was clear that he was on the team. That elbow might have fractured a living girl’s skull. For me, its unexpected force had been enough to throw me slightly off balance.
    He took advantage of the situation. He managed to push me off his back, and I fell to the ground. Instead of running, though, he was suddenly on top of me, pinning me from behind. One of his meaty forearms was crushing my neck, the other looping beneath my leg, his weight pressing down on me.
    From the corner of my eye, I saw the terror on his face as he held on to me. His calls for help echoed down the brick-walled alley.
    He had leverage on me, making it hard to push off the ground. His forearm was close now, shining brilliantly to me, like light catching a diamond.
    I wrenched my neck down and bit.
    He screamed. Like a tick, I forced my mouth deeper into the wound. His taste made me shudder, and I groaned more deeply than if he’d gone down on me.
    Dave yanked away, my fangs lacerating him the length of his forearm.
    He stood up, falling against the alley wall, looking at his wound in disbelief. “Christ, somebody help!”
    The screams sounded so strange when I thought about how cool and confident he’d been in the bar. What a difference five minutes made.
    I turned to face him. His blood must have been smeared all over my mouth, and I could only imagine how dramatically crazed I looked as I continued grinning at him.
    I was loving the intensity of it. The sting of his elbow strike against my skull, his voice piercing the night, the drunk rush of his blood entering me, warming me. This was what it was to truly live.
    My senses were so focused on Dave that I noticed the oncoming footsteps only when they were practically on top of me. Four men, sizes varying from squat to tall, all powerfully built, rumbling down the alley toward us.
    I recognized them: Dave’s friends from the bar.
    They must have left the Grogg a few minutes after us and, walking down Dominion, heard their friend’s shouts.
    “Hey, man, you all right?” one of them said, not completely sure what was happening in the alley’s near dark.
    “He’s cut bad,” another said, slightly slurring. “Did this bitch cut you?”
    Yet another, also tipsy but clearly influenced by Ramsgate’s anti-rape campaign, said, “Hey, um, you weren’t, uh, trying to do anything to her, were you?”
    “She bit me!” Dave yelled. “She’s . . . like . . .” He hesitated. “A vampire!”
    There was a split second during which the four friends looked at him