Sacrifice (Dylan Hart Odyssey of the Occult)

by Gilmore, RM

  “Cyrus, why is there a drain in the floor?” I scuffed my sneaker over the top of the stains. My head knew what I was looking at, but wouldn’t really let it be truth. I looked up to find Cyrus staring at me like he was shoving his thoughts into my head. “Cyrus, why is there a drain in the floor?” I asked again, this time looking at him and not the hole.

  “You know why, and any questions you have about it should stay put in your head.”

  “Cyrus,” I choked back frustrated tears, “tell me you can’t answer my questions because you are not a part of whatever happens in this basement.” Tell me Tatum was not something that happened in this basement. I didn’t dare speak that aloud.

  “House of Porte is under the authority of Marienne Poisson, and therefore practices customs that are unlike those at House of Cailleadh.” I stood very still as he recited this speech he’d likely rehearsed in one way or another over the years.

  His words were mechanical and reminded me of a dozens of other ‘reasons’ he’d spewed at me for things vampire related. Everything he’d said to me, that was not the God’s honest truth, was forced.

  “Why do they have so much control over you?” I supposed I’d say anything they wanted me to also if it meant my life. Eventually though, I’d have to just let them kill me; it’d get so tedious. Unless of course, it wasn’t death they were threatening.

  The look on his face confirmed everything. He was so tired. Not like me, like he’d been awake for a full day; like he’d grown tired of the façade and was ready for death, or whatever came after his lonely existence. Maybe that was my fault for being too damn cool for school.

  My little legs cleared the space between us in just a few quick steps. “When we get home, you and I will have words.” My tone was flat, neither threatening nor soothing just matter of fact.

  Knowing his silence was forced, changed the game. I’d always assumed he chose to be cryptic, or he was such a lapdog he did whatever he was told. See what I meant about assumptions?

  “How are we liking my office?” Marienne spoke from the bottom step, causing me to piss myself a little.

  “Remind me to get the number for your decorator.” I shoved past Cyrus and B-lined for the bitch in question. “I don’t give a shit who you think you are. You’d better pray to whatever fucked-up vampire god you have, that Tatum is alive when I find her.”

  “Or what? Your detective will arrest me?” She laughed a smooth haughty laugh in my face.

  I stepped closer, pressing my chest against hers. For once, I got the chance to look eye to eye with my target. “You’ll be begging for the law when I’m through with you.” A memory of my body covered with blood, hooker and vampire boy, hit me. I smiled. “I have nothing to lose but my humanity.” I let my shoulder slam into hers when I passed her and headed back upstairs.

  She didn’t follow and that was fine with me because I had no intention of sticking around for girl time. I’d exhausted my badass and needed a break from danger to let it recharge. “Mike,” I called to him from the base of the big-ass staircase. “Let’s roll.” I tried to stay as calm and as Arthur Fonzerelli cool as I could. ‘Ey.

  He didn’t budge. His back to me, he stood in the place I’d left him. “Mike, come on.” Nothing. Shit.

  Reluctantly, I stopped at the door and turned to fetch the boy. “Mike, come on, we’re leaving. We’ll figure this shit out on our own.” I put my hand on his arm and was forced to walk around to face him when he didn’t move. His face was slack and drawn like he’d seen a ghost, then gotten drunk with it. “Dude, hello?” I waved my hand in front of his face.

  He looked down at me and smiled. “You know, I really didn’t believe.” A long line of blood streaked down his neck and soaked into his collar.

  I grabbed his chin and moved his head to better see his injury. A thin slit in his skin bled slowly. “You fucking believe me now, jackass?” I squeezed his chin between my fingers.

  He smiled like a drunken frat boy and pulled me in closer to him. “I love you,” he giggled.

  “Yeah, cool. This is not the time for that sort of fuckery. Get it together.” I shoved his face away with my fingers, grabbing him by the hand to drag him out the door with me. “Cyrus! Let’s get the fuck gone!” I yelled as I booked it toward the door.

  He was at the door waiting by the time Mike and I made it there. “We’ll figure something else out! Let’s go!” I yelled flying out the door, Mike in tow.

  Halfway down the walkway, Marienne’s voice echoed through the night, “What a lucky girl you are, Dylan, darling. Two beautiful and delicious men at your service.”

  I couldn’t stop myself; she’d hit a nerve. “You keep your fucking fangs off those men or you’ll end up in the fucking ground, you shit sucking cunt!”

  “A pure soul that one has. Bon appétite!” her laughter shook my eardrums.

  I didn’t have time or energy to stay and fight with that Frenchy. I had an idiot blonde and her equally retarded ginger boyfriend to hunt.

  “Oh, Dylan,” she called after me. “If you’re looking for McTavish, you might want to check Lafayette number one.” The doors slammed before I could turn and look at her.

  All of that crap for her to yell his whereabouts at me from her doorstep?

  “What the fuck is Lafayette number one?”

  “A place we will be walking to.” Cyrus stood at the curb where our car had been waiting.

  “Malcolm didn’t tell you where he’d be?” I asked, finally beginning to understand the weight of what was surely about to go down.

  “Yes. Here.” He took off walking down the residential street. “He has not answered my calls since we landed.”

  He answered my question before I could even ask it. It was the most logical approach at this point. Blood drunk, Mike smiled like an idiot behind me as he shuffled along. “What’s wrong with this one?” I asked, pointing up at him.

  “It happens. He’ll be fine,” Cyrus assured indifferently.

  Thanks, that explains everything. “Come on.” I pulled at Mike’s hand and sped up to catch Cyrus.

  “Where are we going?” I followed behind him, either way. Where the hell else would I go?

  “To find Malcolm.”

  “And this is how we find him? Wandering New Orleans in the middle of the night?”

  “No. We find Malcolm by starting with the only lead we have, Lafayette number one.”

  “I’m glad you know what the fuck you’re doing.”

  “I don’t. Google does.”

  “Lafayette Cemetery number one.” An electronic voice came over the speaker of his phone. “One mile, six-hundred feet. Turn left in twenty feet.”

  “A vampire is in a cemetery looking for his non-vampire girlfriend, who went missing a few hours ago? Did we end up on the WB and no one told me about it?” I felt like I was trapped in a shitty horror movie and no one knew their lines.

  “What is the WB?” he asked like it was a foreign language.

  “Never mind,” I sighed.

  “Hey, guys, where are we going?” Mike asked as if he’d just joined our regularly scheduled programming already in progress.

  “Jesus,” I groaned and shook my head. My tolerance for life was waning with every stupid comment and bullshit filled event.

  “Turn right in twenty feet and your destination will be on your left.” The machine declared, echoing in the still night air.

  The full moon cast light and shadow along a seemingly never-ending white brick wall that lined the street behind overgrown trees. Beyond that ivy-covered wall was Lafayette cemetery.

  Fuck. I have to poop.

  Chapter Twelve

  Overgrowth of plant life covered the white brick that surrounded the old cemetery. A ‘No Trespassing’ sign brought modern times to the obviously well used graveyard. A narrow break in the vines showcased an entrance fifty-feet or so ahead.

  It being the middle of the night, chains and a thick lock held the wrought iron gates closed. I
eyed the pointed tops and decided right then and there that whatever I was looking for would have to come out to play, because there was no way in hell my ass was scurrying over those spikes.

  A clank and a grunt echoed off the small shops and two-story houses across the street from the aging cemetery. Cyrus leaned against one half of the gate, allowing the chain to stretch and create an opening large enough for us all to crawl through. Not caring how he’d done it, I asked no questions and proceeded through the space.

  Tall concrete and stone grave markers jutted up from the mossy dirt and filled the landscape. No light, other than the moon, reached beyond those first few rows of headstones. Any other day of the week, I’d be excited to check out the old cemetery, not many of these in L.A. In fact, it was rare even to see a standing headstone; let alone full-on crypts.

  “So cool,” I said under my breath.

  “We can sightsee it another day,” Mike snapped at me. He’d recovered from his daze and wasn’t very happy about being dinner for a vampire. I wondered if he tasted like pork.

  Tough shit, he should’ve listened to me.

  “Where do we start?” I asked.

  Cyrus dialed a number on his phone and held it away from his ear while it rang. It took me a second to catch on, but once I was on the same page, it didn’t take long for my ears to get in tune with the plan.

  We were all very quiet as we listened for Malcolm’s phone, hopefully, to alert us of his whereabouts. Or, maybe he’d just answer the fucking thing. Cyrus dialed and waited three times as we moved silently through the rows of tombs and crypts, before I caught the faint sound of a jingle.

  Not wanting to lose the scent, or sound, whatever, I ditched the Bozos and moved on my own toward it. They’d follow. Hopefully. I made my feet touch the ground softly with each step. The jingle grew louder and I knew it was a phone ringing. A few more steps, and it sounded like I should have been standing in front of Malcolm and his shitty, generic ringtone. But there was nothing. Just a muffled ringing. I pressed my ear to the backside of a crypt. Of course, I heard nothing through the thick concrete walls.

  Where in the fuck…I put my hands on my hips and tapped my foot. As I did, the noise grew louder and softer and louder and softer. My heart skipped. The ringing stopped. I kicked at the dirt and revealed a tiny blinking light. Using the toe of my sneaker, I scooted dirt away to find the source of the blinking. Buried under a thin layer of dirt was a phone.

  Fuck me.

  Dusting off the caked on dirt, I woke up the screen with the little button on the side. Eight missed calls, it read. Cyrus Atossa’s name listed in the missed calls let me know I hadn’t just coincidentally found some random person’s lost phone. If that asshole was here, he lost his phone and didn’t bother to come back for it. That is in no way a good sign for the three of us occult halfwits.

  “You guys,” I said, still investigating the phone. “I think we’re fucked.”

  A cliché thunk echoed through the intimidating mausoleums that filled the graveyard. A grunt followed and the textbook thud of a body fell to the mostly dirt ground. I turned in time to see Mike’s body on the ground in a heap and Cyrus quickly become an unlucky Whack-a-Mole. A freakishly tall skeleton of man stood over the two, a shiny black leather paddle held tight in his hand. My heroes. Marienne’s alien henchman had plonked them both over the noggin and knocked them out cold.

  Holy sweet sesame seed cocks.

  An inhumanly quick glance around the dark cemetery told me we were alone. I didn’t trust that for a second, but it was all I had. A sick grin spread over his long face. His translucent ghostly skin practically glowed in the moonlight, illuminating an eerie hue of blue luminescence like a textbook ghost. The irony was not lost on me.

  His grin slipped into a sneer and stayed there. Long fingers flipped and twisted the paddle like an old-fashioned gunslinger.

  He was almost hard to look at. Grotesque, nearly emaciated, the highlights and shadows of his bones under the thin skin stretched over them, made him all the more terrifying. I couldn’t out run him. His long legs could catch me in just a few strides. I didn’t have a weapon; the two sleeping lumps were it. What was a girl to do?

  Our standoff was over as quickly as it had begun. Just as I’d assumed, he made it from the boys to me in two strides, and so quickly, I didn’t have a chance to react. Adrenaline spun me around away from him. Malcolm’s phone slipped from my fingers and fell to the ground. My legs only stumbled and stammered, and didn’t really go anywhere in the end.

  Skinny, alien arms wrapped around my waist. I felt his muscles tighten, flex and struggle to manhandle me as he’d obviously, and horribly incorrectly, assumed he could. A few seconds of this downright comical struggle, and I became confident his skinny ass could never heft my big fat butt anywhere if I didn’t want him to. So much for inhuman vampiric strength; it, looked like Cyrus was right about something.

  He pulled and tugged. I resisted and tried not to laugh. I was stopped in my tracks, but so was he. It was a battle of wills and mine was winning. Searching my ass-kicking database, I leaned forward and stuck my butt out and into his thighs, throwing off his center of gravity. Leaning over as far and as fast as I could, I pulled the lanky man over my back. I’d seen this move on TV more than once, and anticipated I was halfway to flipping his scrawny ass over me and onto his back. I leaned farther and farther until I thought I was supporting his full weight, but he didn’t budge. I took a second to glance at his feet and realized I hadn’t even lifted him off the ground. His legs were too long and mine too damn short.

  Fuck.

  Jackie Chan movies aside, I had very little martial arts training. Honestly, aside from whacking some heads off, I wasn’t much of a fighter in the physical sense. That was more Tatum’s area of expertise. The man’s full weight, seemingly on my shoulders, and I was thinking of that stupid bitch. She’d left me just like Cyrus had, only she’d done it on purpose. She knew what I was getting into and she let me walk right into the mouth of evil without batting a fucking eye. She’d changed, became even more of a bitch than she’d ever been. A year ago, she’d had traveled through hell and back to keep me safe – kind of like hopping on a plane back to Satan’s asshole.

  You’re a fucking idiot, you stupid twat!

  The man’s laughter echoed in my ears and reverberated off the cement and stone that filled the cemetery. His mockery of me, and my fat ass only fueled my adrenaline. Instead of trying to pull his long body over mine, I utilized my weight in a much better manner. Without an ounce of warning, I leaned my ass into his thighs and let myself fall. And fall I did. Hard and fast. My chunky ass made contact with Twiggy’s crotch with a quite audible crunch. I secretly hoped I’d broken his man parts into tiny little fleshy bits. I turtle-on-its-back-ed it off the skinny guy and left him groaning on a patch of cement.

  Vampire or not, nuts are nuts, and they are not forgiving of a fat ass coming down on them at warp speed. His groans filled the night as I kicked my two boys still passed out cold in the dirt.

  “Get the fuck up! Let’s get out of here!” I yelled as I kicked them each in the ribs.

  Emotional hell ride be damned. There was shit that needed taking care of and I had no time to screw around with that dingle berry. Not to mention the spark of confidence his thorough ass kicking provided my frazzled nerves.

  Twiggy alien guy struggled to get to his feet. Not wanting another knock down drag out, I left the boys to tend to the guy now on his hands and knees. Without a thought, I released a kick to his gut – up and out. Though I imagined my foot exiting his body via his spinal column, that really didn’t happen. But the inertia knocked him back on his face, gasping for air.

  He fell flat and choked out a few choice words. “You fat fucking bitch,” he laughed. “Where will you go?”

  I didn’t utter a syllable. My size nine Converse All Stars stomped in the center of his back. He hadn’t expected it. Air shot from his lungs, puffing dirt around his transpare
nt face. My foot didn’t stop there. I reared back and kicked him again. And again. Over and over until blood spurted from his lips and trickled down his cheek.

  “The question you should have asked is, ‘what will you do?’ Shit, I might have even answered you.” I grabbed Malcolm’s phone from the dirt and left the bleeding man with a snarl on my face.

  Call me fat. Asshole.

  “Get your ass up,” I nudged both men with my vampire-stompers and kept walking.

  They had both been rousing from their relaxing slumber while I was kicking the shit out of twig man. They’d be fine. Me on the other hand…there was nothing a few prescriptions couldn’t fix.

  I was halfway to the cemetery gate when I heard Cyrus and Mike shuffling behind me. I could hear their clothes rustling almost louder than their groaning.

  “I don’t know what you two are bitching about. I’m the one that did all the grunt work here. You got a knock on the head and a quick reprieve from the gore. I’m one dead thing away from a straitjacket. It was stupid to come here in the first place. Stupid to listen to one word that woman had to say after what she did to Mike. Shit, there’s more here than we ever expected I think, and we just stepped ass deep in it. Marienne is the Primus around these parts. Did you really think she was going to let us get away with this shit? Jesus, Cyrus, you should have known better. I’ve been in this vamp gig for like two seconds and I know not to trust a damn soul. And, Mike, excellent police work back there. Didn’t you attend an academy of some sort? It’s a damn good thing I’m not the damsel in distress type; we’d all be fucked,” I rambled on over my shoulder, not wanting to stop long enough to feel the weight of the situation.

  Their grunting and moaning was so loud they were going to wake the damn dead. Something I was not about to deal with. “Guys, come on now, are you really hurt that bad?” I slowed to turn around. “Do I need to take you to the…” My breath caught in my throat. “Hospital,” I choked out.