Sneak Peek

Here's a little taste of the book I'm working on now, Strain: Jeux. This scene will probably happen somewhere in the latter first 50 pages of the book. It's graphic, for fair warning.

~Artemis~

I have a bad habit. When someone pisses me off, I yell at them and run away. I did that with Eric, too. He just wouldn't listen to me. Over the one month I'd known I was pregnant, he hadn't given up telling me not to abort it. What's worse, he hadn't even really provoked me. He listened while I ranted. He didn't try to belittle my circumstances or tell me it wasn't as bad as it seemed, or even that he understood. Yet I was angry. And one night, after we'd left the dining hall to go upstairs, it all came to a head.
"How are you feeling?" he asked. "Has the morning sickness gotten any better?"
"No," I huffed, glaring down at my sandals. "I don't want to have this conversation again. When are you going to drop it?"
Eric looked thoughtful. His eyes were on my stomach, which is the best way to make just about anyone squeamish and uncomfortable. I was no exception. "My eyes are up here," I growled, and his head snapped up so fast I thought he must've hurt his neck.
"Sorry." He didn't answer the question. I knew what he would've said, anyway. "You know, I was thinking, would your mother take care of the baby for you? I bet she misses having kids around."
"Wrong angle," I said shortly, watching as my patience slowly ebbed away. "As far as I'm concerned, my mother will never, ever know that this even happened. That, and on the slight chance that this thing is a psycho like it's god-damn father, I don't want to saddle my mom with it. Or anyone else. There are enough crazy people in the world without my child being the next Jim Jones."
Shaking his head, Eric muttered, "The chances of it inheriting Genesis' tendencies are-"
"Shut up!" I nearly screamed, praying that nobody else had heard me. "I don't want to talk about him, or it, or this pregnancy from hell, got it?" And I left. I knew it was a stupid thing to do. As Conrad was generally keen one reminding us, the African night was full of dangers. Maybe one of them would eat me, demon spawn and all.
I wasn't lost, and that was something, at least. I kept Warwick manor to the south and headed straight up, following the little compass Eric had given me to make up for the plane vouchers, because a compass made a more interesting impression than a simple pocket watch, he said.
It wasn't long before I began to hear things. Most of what I heard was me, tripping over god knows what and jumping sideways at any little creature in the underbrush. African wildlife, spare me. I wondered what kind of predators they had around there. Eventually, I heard something that was distinctly not myself - it roared like a thunderstorm and cracked like thick limbs coming off of trees. In a moment of pure insanity I hoped whatever it was would kill me, and I went toward it.
I broke through a patch of brush and saw what I'd been looking for. On the ground, broken and dark with blood, lay something - man or animal, I couldn't tell. Above it stooped a person with the longest white-blond hair I'd ever seen. In his hands he held a dark lump that oozed between his pale fingers. His face was half-buried in the lump, and he seemed to be slurping at it like a kid trying to drink the juice out of an orange. He sensed me quickly and looked up, the lump dropping from his hands with a squelch. I couldn't help thinking that it belonged in the torn, black region of the fallen being's upper body. I still couldn't tell if the thing was a human or not, where it lay half obscured in underbrush.
The man with the blond hair dashed at me with familiar speed, and I felt his bloody hand grab the hair at the nape of my neck. His mouth was stained red - which looked more or less black in that light - but he opened it to reveal shining white teeth. "Daywalker," he hissed, and seemed to be thinking. "You smell like woman. It's been so long since I've tasted woman's blood..."
A scraping sound interrupted whatever he'd been planning, and by that point I was glad of it. My heart was hammering at my ribcage, and I'd been wondering how my mom would feel about me dying a gruesome death in Africa. The man was anxious now, and his eyes turned to the trees, as if he expected something to come down at us. "Asanbosam," he muttered, then swore under his breath. He fixed his eyes back on me. "Daywalker... in this country... I'm looking for one of my kind. He expects me. He smiles like a shark. Do you know him?"
I nodded and ducked away from him, heading back where I'd come from. I knew he would keep up. Suddenly, from beside me, I heard his voice again. "I don't drink pseudos. It was a moment of weakness." I wasn't sure if he was telling me, or reminding himself. I kept me eyes on the compass.
Once we had broken through to the Warwick Manor clearing, the blond man went blazing across the lawn - a bat out of hell. Conrad was waiting at the door.
"Protect me, Master of Council," he begged, his blood stained fingers gripping Conrad's shirt until they were as white as the Oxford themselves. "The Irons Ones want me dead."
"You should know better than to walk this country alone," Conrad muttered, separating the man from his shirt. "By God, you're a mess. Go inside."
The blond man slinked past him and into the house while I stood in yard. Conrad watched me from the top of the stairs.
"...Sorry for the trouble," I said. That was all I could think of.
Conrad's stiff countenance faded, and he laughed. His laughter was decidedly unpleasant. "I actually owe you, Artemis. I would have been sore disappointed if they'd killed him before I got to see him again."
I didn't ask who 'they' were. As often seemed to happen, I wasn't sure I wanted to know. "Well, then. You're welcome."