Excerpt "Chalice" by Callaghan Grant

Passion has no place in the haversack of an assassin. An effective accountant for The Fiddler must be singularly dispassionate. But I had personal issues to settle with Philip, and no cool-tempered, preprogrammed alter ego was gonna steal my thunder. In retrospect, I suppose I'd have to say that pride really does precede a fall.

Philip had moved to within ten horizontal feet of my position when I "thought loudly" at him, imagining a rustling in the shrubbery to his back. He lurched about, careless in his growing fear and frustration. This was the Philip I knew, and the rage I'd been suppressing since our last encounter gushed into awareness. My emotions hardened, solidifying to frozen contempt, and I was instantly visible again.

I suppose part of me had taken Philip's behavior a little too personally. It was that ego involvement that divided my agendas and blew my cover. I knew that when he turned back, Philip would see me. But somehow, I just didn't care. Somehow, I wanted him to see me.

All-ye-all-ye-out-come-free…

“...You stupid phucker."

The strange, resonant voice burbled from my throat, and Philip reeled to face the sound. Rage twisted his face as he glared up at me, wondering why the Hell he hadn't seen me there before. I saw the enmity in his expression give way to terror as his face was lit by the muzzle flash from the Browning hi-power.

The first round hit him dead center of the chest, knocking him into a back step. The next two rounds tore through his torso just below the left shoulder and spun him as his legs began to buckle. Rapt in a furor, my vision narrowed to a tunnel and locked on Philip. I lost myself in the moment and leapt headlong down out of the tree. Slamming his right upper body with my left shoulder, we tumbled head over feet. He came up to his knees, while I rolled back to my feet behind him. I let fly with two more rounds as I closed in on him.

Mercy!

The Little Voice in my head was shrieking at me as I wrapped my left arm around his neck and shoved the muzzle of my weapon between his shoulder blades. All to no avail. Erinn Cailín was not the one in charge of the body at the moment. Fear had given way to rage and some monster within me had taken over. A sickle of pain arched through my chest as I plunged my teeth into the right side of Philip's throat. It might as well have been a mere pinprick for all the attention I paid it.

Tout que va, vien aussi, eh cousin?

I heard some part of my psyche deriding the boy telepathically as I shot him twice more. He stopped moving, save for his heart, which sputtered out the last of its contractions.

Damn, vampyres are hard to kill, I considered. Little Voice had gone conspicuously silent, but myriad other voices filled my head, and my consciousness reeled with the confessional death banter of Philip's departing soul.

Regret was what he was made of, abject and self-loathing. He had never intended to harm me and had been drawn in helplessly after that first night in my room. Aware that he was dying, he wanted me to know that he'd been unable to stop himself from injuring me. He warned me of Stuart's presence and intentions. His contrition found me yet in a cold, murderous fury: indifferent to his appeals. But he wasn't asking me to let him live. It was mercy and forgiveness he wanted. At the moment, I had none to offer.

As death billowed from his chest, I wrenched my blood teeth free of his throat, and then I broke his neck.

"I am the water. You are but stone..." Yet livid, I heard myself hissing vengeance. I let his body drop and stood there panting, my head spinning, as I tried to get a grip on myself...