Circus of Blood Read Online Free

the bandages on her face and throat.
    “Maybe that wasn’t a good idea.” I smiled for lack of anything else to do. Tension was drawing my shoulders up. I felt like I was on the edge of moving wrong and hurting her. This wasn’t what I was good at.
    I sat down next to the bed.
    “Do you know who I am, Fallene?”
    She nodded.
    “I need to know some things so I can find whoever did this to you and make them pay.”
    Another tiny nod.
    “This was vampires, wasn’t it?”
    Nod.
    “How many were there?”
    She leaned up, trying to swallow. It looked like it hurt. Her voice was thin, wispy. “I don’t know. A lot.”
    “How long did they have you?”
    “I . . . I don’t know.”
    “Can you tell me anything about them or where they had you?”
    A tear rolled down her face. “It hurt. God, it hurt so bad.” The tremors got worse, her body shaking under the blanket. “I smelled . . . peanuts.”
    Peanuts?
    “Anything else?”
    A convulsion wracked her frail body. Her legs drew up to her chest and she folded up like someone had punched her in the stomach. Her head flew back as the cords of her neck became steel cables.
    “Larson!”
    Fur sprouted in lines, running up her skin. Muscles bunching, her skeleton began to break and reform, skin tearing and mending. A shrill screech ripped out of her hollow chest, splitting the air and my head.
    My eardrums closed, sealing in a headache that cut me from crown to chin.
    “Larson! Get your ass in here!”
    Her skull shifted, face rearranging with a wet, grinding sound. Her jaw shrank as her cheeks spread. The bandages on her face fell away, medical tape slipping off short brown fur as they were pushed away by ears displaced and grown large.
    My back hit the door. The hospital bed flipped over and Fallene dropped out of sight behind it. Something bumped the door behind me, Larson trying to get in. I pressed back, holding the door closed.
    “Deacon! What’s happening in there?”
    “Change of plans! Get everybody the hell out of here!”
    The screeching had stopped, the room eerily quiet, the only noise left a raspy, wet breathing, the sound of Larson on the other side of the door, and my heartbeat.
    A claw came over the edge of the bed, short, sharp talon curling into the mattress. Dread dropped into my gut like a cement block. A transformed Fallene hauled herself up, climbing over the bed frame and perching on it. Elongated feet clamped, claws biting deep. Her legs were bowed, thick with muscle, and covered in short fur. They disappeared under a short, pink hospital gown. It had split on the sides as her arms had become massive wings, a membrane of skin stretching from her upper thigh to the end of her mutated arm. The slender fingers she’d had were now pulled long, stretched to form the ribs of the batwing. Her thumb was a twisted, taloned claw on the upper edge.
    The gashes and cuts still showed pink under the fur, glaring out. She squatted, staring at me with beady, black eyes. The cute button nose had pushed up and back on her skull, forming a snout that sat below a ridge of skull bone between overformed ears. Sharp little teeth jutted through a mass of foam that spilled out of her jaw, dripping down a pushed-back chin and spattering on the floor.
    I had just enough time to think, Oh shit , before she launched herself at me.

5
    The door gave out in a blast of splintered wood and pain. Fallene drove into my chest like a battering ram, smashing me through the door. Pain burst in my breastbone like a bomb had gone off inside my ribs. Her lycanthropy scoured my skin with metaphysical heat.
    Instead of trying to fight her off, I pulled her close, fingers digging into her fur and the thin, elastic skin that covered her body. My legs went up,wrapping around her waist. I hooked my feet together, locked them, and held on. Air was driven from my lungs as we bounced down the hallway. My back skidded across the floor.
    Fallene thrashed in my arms, wings flapping to get away,