Blood Cursed Read Free Page B

underground laboratory by a mad fairy spell-worker. And he’s bought the sickest faecrazy killers he knows, with cash and sparkle and frightful promisicalities that make even a hardened deceiver like Diamond shudder and sweat.
    He slips the vial away carefully. All in a day’s treachery.
    It takes cunning to kill a 350-year-old hellcursed vampire ganglord. Cunning, and some serious balls. Both of which Diamond has in plentification. He’s had eyes on Ange’s empire for a long time. Kill the boss, take the spoils. That’s what gangsters do. But now, Diamond has reasonicality plus to want Ange dead.
    Sweet vengeance thrills his blood. Angelo didn’t just steal the woman Diamond loved. He corruptified her. Made her dirty. Fed her virustainted blood until the vampire infection took hold. Killed her, or as good as. Rosa was beautiful, dazzling, an earthly goddess. Now, she’s a ravenous monster.
    A life for a life. It won’t make his rosepetal girl well, or bring her back to him after what happened. But that’s not the pointificality. Ange deserves to die.
    And then … well, the demon lord already likes Diamond’s sense of funnification. Owning the town is a tough gig, but someone’s gotta step up. And then Diamond will be as untouchable as Ange was.
    After so many years of untruths and trickspringings and dirty gang politics that end in death, Diamond has to win. Otherwise, it’s all for nothing. Without Rosa, it’s the only way to make his sordid life worthwhile.
    Ange and Tony round the corner. Tony flicks away a cigarette, ash glowing. Behind them, three silent fairy shadows loom and grow.
    Diamond’s mouth dries, and before he can swallow, the assassins strike.
    It’s swift, soundless, brutal. In an instant, Tony slams facefirst into the ground under a mess of flaming firefae wings. The firefairy laughs, shaking copperbright hair, and straddles Tony’s neck, grinding his flat lizard nose on concrete. Tony grunts and whips misshapen legs, but he’s overpowered.
    Angelo tenses, spins fluidly like a dancer. His vampire reflexes are sharp like icicles, those hard gray eyes afire with danger. The second fairy assassin dives for Ange’s legs in a clatter of steely blue wingbones. The third one leaps, spearing down like a crazyass vulture, her greasy black hair streaming. Oily black wings stretch rubberlike, petrolscent spraying, and moonlight glints on her evil green-tinged blade. Poison drips, hissing on the pavement.
    Diamond watches, his nerves glass-sharp. Just one slice. One splash of greenified death. That’s all.
    The cackling blue one aims a sharp elbow at Ange’s kneecap, missing by a fraction. Angelo growls and kicks back, but the oily vulturefairy lands on sharp black haunches atop Ange’s shoulders, her long feet curling in tight. She yanks the vampire’s head back by wet dark curls, and snakyquick she slashes with her knife, bright-green steel blurring across Ange’s throat.
    Diamond sucks in a triumphant breath. Angelo snarls, the hole in his throat gushing crimson.
    It doesn’t even slow him down.
    Ancient vampire anger roasts the air like a furnace. Ange ducks like a charging bull, the fairy still yowling triumph on his shoulders, and runs headfirst for the wall.
    Bones crunch wet. Vulturegirl screeches like a wounded bird, and the blade clatters to the concrete in a scarletgreen spray.
    Ange bounces off, blood still spilling down his chest. Kicks the one chewing at his ankles in the face. Grabs the shattered vulturegirl’s wrist, and yanks.
    Her slender arm cracks like kindling. She howls, fighting limp legs, feet flapping uselessly. Ange hauls the broken fairy from his back, throws her on the ground with a foul curse that blisters Diamond’s palms, and rips her shiny black throat out with his teeth.
    Oily blood sprays black. Angelo chews, flesh tearing like paper. Shakes his head like a sleek dark dog. Wrenches the vertebrae free with a pop, black fairy meat hanging in shreds. And spits