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- And then a burned corpse came out of the woods.
- That was all I could think of to describe it. Half the body was blacker than a hamburger that had fallen through the bars of a charcoal grill. The rest was red and purple and swollen with bruises and bloody blisters, with very, very occasional strips of pale white skin. A few wisps of dark hair were attached to her skull. I say her because technically the corpse was female, though that hardly mattered amongst all the burned and pulverized meat that smelled slightly of tequila.
- The only things I really recognized were the cold silver eyes.
- Lara Raith's eyes were bright with an insane rage and a terrible hunger as she snaked her bruised, swollen left arm around Madeline's wind-pipe, and tightened it with a horrible strength.
- Madeline cried out as her head was jerked back sharply-and then she made no sound at all as the wind was trapped inside her lungs. The burned, blackened corpse that was Lara Raith dug one fire-ruined hip into Madeline's upper back, using Madeline's own spine as a fulcrum against her.
- Lara spoke, and her voice was something straight from Hell. It was lower, smokier, but every bit as lovely as it ever was. "Madeline," she purred, "I've wanted to do this with you since we were little girls."
- Lara's burned black right hand, withered, it seemed, down to bones and sinew, reached slowly, sensually around Madeline's straining abdomen. Slowly, very slowly, Lara sunk her fingertips into flesh, just beneath the floating rib on Madeline's left flank. Madeline's face contorted and she tried to scream.
- Lara shuddered. Her shoulders twisted. And she ripped an open furrow as wide as her four fingers across Madeline's stomach, pale flesh parting, as wet red and grey things slithered out.
- Lara's tongue emerged from her mouth, bright pink, and touched Madeline's earlobe. "Listen to me," she hissed. Her burned hand continued pulling things out of Madeline's body, a hideous intimacy. "Listen to me."
- Power shuddered in those words. I felt an insane desire to rush toward Lara's ruined flesh and give her my ears, ripped off with my own fingers, if necessary.
- Madeline shuddered, the strength gone out of her body. Her mouth continued trying to move, but her eyes went unfocused at the power in Lara's voice. "For once in your life," Lara continued, kissing Madeline's throat with her burned, broken lips, "you are going to be useful."
- Madeline's eyes rolled back in her head, and her body sagged helplessly back against Lara.
- My brain got back onto the clock. I pushed myself away from Lara and Madeline's nauseating, horribly compelling embrace. Binder was sitting with his hands over his ears, his eyes squeezed tightly shut. I grabbed him under the arms and hauled him away from the entwined Raiths, maybe fifty yards downhill, through some thick brush and around the bole of a large old hickory tree. Binder was obviously in pain as I pulled him-and he was pushing with his unwounded leg, doing his best to assist me.
- "Bloody hell," he panted, as I set him down. "Bloody hell and brimstone."
- I staggered and sat down across from him, panting to get my breath back and to push the sight of Lara devouring Madeline out of my head. "No kidding."
- "Some of the bloody fools I've known," Binder said. "Can't stop talking about how tragic they are. The poor lonely vampires. How they're just like us. Bloody idiots."
- "Yeah," I said, my voice raw.
- We sat there for a few seconds. From up the slope, there was a low, soft, and eager cry.
- We shuddered and tried to look as if we hadn't heard anything.
- Binder stared at me for a moment, and then said, "Why?"
- "Once Lara got going, she might not be able to stop. She'd have eaten you, too."
- Turn Coat Chapter 43, page 423-426
- I ignored her and asked Molly, "Where's Thomas?"
- "With his family," said a calm voice.
- I looked over my shoulder to see Lara Raith standing in the doorway, a slender shape wrapped in one of the blankets from a bunk on the Water Beetle. She looked as pale and lovely as ever, though her hair had been burned down close to her scalp. Without it to frame her face, there was a greater sense of sharp, angular gauntness to her features, and her grey eyes seemed even larger and more distinct. "Don't worry, Dresden. Your cat's-paw will live to be manipulated another day. My people are taking care of him."
- I tried to find something in her face that would tell me anything else about Thomas. It wasn't there. She just watched me coolly.
- "There, vampire," Ancient Mai said politely. "You have seen him and spoken to him. What follows is Council business."
- Lara smiled faintly at Ancient Mai and turned to me. "One more thing before I go, Harry. Do you mind if I borrow the blanket?"
- "What if I do?" I asked.
- She let it slip off of one pale shoulder. "I'd give it back, of course."
- The image of the swollen, bruised, burned creature that had kissed Madeline Raith as it pulled out her entrails returned to my thoughts, vividly.
- "Keep it," I told her.
- She smiled again, this time showing teeth, and bowed her head. Then she turned and left. I idly followed her progress down to the shore, where she walked out onto the floating dock and was gone.
- Turn Coat Chapter 46, Page 459-460
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