Harsh Light of Day

by Jaye A. Jones

  **

  I couldn’t believe Lennox could kill someone.

  Sure, Delilah would have probably killed us in spite of the lie I told her. She could always snap our necks or set us on fire. There were millions of ways to kill someone without spilling their blood.

  Delilah’s white skin grew slowly waxy and grey, like the preserved skin of a cadaver. As it began coming away from the bone, I took in the look of horror on her face locked in place. Her teeth were clenched but her mouth was open. I knew the look. She had been in pain and terrified when Lennox stabbed her.

  I didn’t want to watch, but couldn’t make my eyes look away, or even blink.

  Will was frozen several steps behind me, no longer close enough to grasp my hand for the first time since I awoke. The distance was weird. I was still getting used to feeling the human way. It didn’t come as naturally as I thought it would. Everything was harder. Breathing, standing, focusing. I had to work at every little thing.

  My stomach leapt as Delilah’s skin shriveled and wrinkled, turning her into an old lady in seconds. Black blood like tar oozed through her thinning skin which was falling off in clumps.

  My body wanted to throw up. It was a strange feeling after twenty mostly-dead years, and I didn’t like it.

  My head was dizzy and the meager contents of my stomach stirred, but I heard his voice through it all.

  “Don’t stand amazed.”

  Lennox waited, possibly attempting to block my view of the horror show taking place to poor Delilah.

  What was I thinking? Poor Delilah? A minute ago, I was sure she was going to have me for breakfast.

  “Go. Now. Follow Annabelle. I’ll be around shortly.”

  I didn’t know where Lennox was going, but he urged me to head down to the cellar, and I didn’t have the strength not to obey. Not to mention, there was a distinct, old, sour blood smell filling the room. Decayed flesh. Death.

  Taking Will’s sweaty hand, I guided him to the cellar and made him go first. He didn’t resist. He seemed very weak, but who wouldn’t be? We were still on our feet, still moving forward.

  Lennox was gone, and I knew we were more in danger now than before. Every vampire in the house would smell that, and it was unquestionable what it meant. But I couldn’t resist one last look at what was left of Charles’s consort.

  What I saw didn’t even look real, like something found in a high school haunted house. Delilah was nothing but a distorted face and limbs, slowly melting into a puddle of black goop.

  I thought I was going to lose it. Pass out or puke or go crazy. But I didn’t. I just turned away, and followed Will into the dark cellar.

  When I reached the bottom, I opened my eyes as wide as I could, hoping to see anything at all. There was nothing. No sounds. No smells.

  But I had to move. I took tiny steps away from the ladder into the pitch black.

  There was wet mud at my feet. I kept getting stuck and could hardly make my way through it. The new feeling of the mud had been incredible to me before.

  There were vines brushing my face and spiders in my hair. I slapped my skin wherever I felt a tickle. There were imagined bugs all over me in the darkness, making my skin crawl.

  It all felt horrible.

  I couldn’t feel the breeze as I could before. I walked in a direction having no clue where I was going, or if Will was still in front of me.

  He was at the wooden door and had no trouble pushing his way through. I’d done all the work the day before. And Annabelle had gone through it moments ago.

  Yesterday, I felt free when I left this place. Today, there was nothing but worry in me. Worry for Annabelle, for Lennox. And for my Declan.