Holy shit!
I slid bonelessly out of Hallow’s grip and fell to my knees, staring into Victoria’s wide eyes.
“See the truth, Kismet! Take my hand and see what I see.” She held out her hand, palm up.
“Silence, Witch!” Hallow commanded. “I will make sure you remain obedient to me, and this time, there will be no traitorous slaves to intervene.” He reached for her golden curls and Devereux leapt over me. He smashed into Hallow, pushing them both backward and knocking over more of the tall candleholders, all the while snarling and growling.
Maxie, a silent observer on Victoria’s other side, suddenly stood. One of Devereux’s vampires moved in to restrain her, clutching her arm in what must have been a painful grip. “The Master told us not to interfere in his fight with Hallow.” He smiled wide, displaying one perfect fang and a chipped one. “That includes you. I think you’ve caused enough trouble for tonight.”
Devereux and Hallow continued their battle behind us to a soundtrack of guttural growls and rumbling hisses and the ripping of flesh and wrenching of bone: grisly background music for the surreal confrontation. The smell of fresh blood saturated the smoky air.
I was staring blankly, unable to move, aware of everything around me but frozen, when Victoria reached over and took both my hands, squeezing hard. “Aspicio! Excito!” she cried. My head flopped back and my mouth gaped open. Then my chin thumped forward onto my chest as Victoria’s words reverberated like a cattle-prod to my brain. Electrical impulses radiated through all of my nerve-endings and energy danced along my scalp. My toes cramped.
Slowly I lifted my head and met her gaze. My eyes felt twice their normal size.
Her expression intense, she leaned in close and whispered, “Keep hold of my hands and focus on Maxie.”
The worst migraine I’d ever experienced threatened to explode my skull. I blinked and licked my lips, then shot my attention to Maxie, who was struggling to break free of the snaggletooth vampire’s grip.
“Stop, Witch!” Maxie yelled. “Don’t do this!”
Maxie was she always was, right down to her cynical smirk. Her long hair flowed along her body like silky snow, her model’s figure showcased in her tight T-shirt and jeans.
Confused, I turned back to Victoria, not sure what she thought would happen.
She squeezed my hands again, so hard I felt the bones crunch together. “Aspicio! Excito!” she repeated, and my body twitched like a frog in a high-school biology class. A loud buzzing filled my ears, like white noise times a thousand. I tried to raise my hands to block the annoying sound, but Victoria held them in a death-grip.
I glanced at Maxie again, and her face blurred. The blue eyes I was accustomed to seeing morphed into green — then brown, then silver — and her features melted, gel-like, creating a double-exposure image. I blinked several times to clear my vision, then opened my eyes as wide as possible, but the ghastly transformation continued until the beautiful woman with the quick smile no longer stood in front of me. Instead I stared, uncomprehending, at a tall, brown, shriveled-up husk with vaguely human features, except for the empty holes where eyes should be. The figure was surrounded by a murky, dark green-grey energy field, bubbling and churning like chemical sludge in a toxic waste tank.
The hideous sight shocked me. I gasped and slumped back against Victoria, who encircled me with her arms.
“Look at Hallow,” she demanded, and everything slowed. My eyes watered and my vision fuzzed. The pain in my head hammered relentlessly, pressing with such intensity against the bones of my skull that I knew I couldn’t possibly survive. I must be dying — this had to be death. Victoria’s voice was very far away.
“Kismet! Look at Hallow!” She grabbed my face and angled it toward the two vampires fighting.
Hallow and Devereux floated in the air, their mouths yawning wide, their fangs displayed menacingly. They were both covered with blood from the gashes and lacerations crisscrossing their bodies. For a second I thought Devereux had embedded his powerful fingers into the skin of Hallow’s neck, but then Hallow, the beautiful man I’d so desired, faded from my sight, and something unbelievable appeared.
Devereux was levitating inside a massive energy field filled with thousands of skeletal shapes, all slithering around and through each other like bony serpents, each with huge, bulging eyes. It looked like a vast, loathsome amniotic sac — the fluid thick, nebulous, and toxic — containing the partially formed embryos of a demonic breeder. Or the undigested remains in the distended stomach of a psychic cannibal.
He didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary as his grasping hands floated in a thick, dark, bloody liquid, which made up an inner layer surrounding an emaciated, contorted, charred-black thing in the center.
My attention had been so transfixed by Hallow’s grotesque form that it took me a few seconds to realize that Devereux appeared the same as always. Maybe his skin was a touch whiter, a shade more corpse-like, but I couldn’t see any other changes.
So why was Hallow such a monstrosity?
The soulless creature in the holographic nightmare had no face that I could make sense of, but still it glared at me.
The torment in my head built to a crescendo and I screamed. Suddenly, as if I were watching several movies simultaneously, each featuring one of my scattered sub-personalities, the pictures speeded up. The volume cranked. Certain my head was about to burst into flames, I braced myself to scream again, when it all—
—stopped.
There, standing alone on the center stage of my inner world, stood the part I’ve spent most of my life considering “me.” Her eyes were closed. The aspects who had splintered off during Hallow’s take-over of my mind wafted in like metaphorical ghosts and merged back into the physical form of the main personality. My psychic skin stretched as if to accommodate the gossamer reintegration.
Lust sauntered over slowly. “I’m stronger now. You can’t sweep me under the carpet. Everything is different.”
She fused into me, and all my puzzle-pieces locked into place.
Heat rushed through my body, and I reeled, as if I’d been hit by a truck. Victoria shook me and yelled again, “Aspicio! Excito!” and at her words, something snapped inside me. A lifetime’s worth of repressed rage splashed over the crumbling metaphorical dam in my psyche, and suddenly I was drowning in anger, so lost in outrage that I could barely catch my breath. My fists clenched as I thought about all the risks I hadn’t taken in the name of being somebody else’s idea of a good girl — the perfect rule-follower.
My mouth went dry with the fury of truths unspoken, desires swallowed. My body shook with the wrath of allowing myself to be bullied and dominated my whole life. I’d become so disempowered, so afraid of my own wisdom that retreating into my intellect was the only safe place. Bitterness rose in my throat, as relentless as fiery magma, building toward eruption.
An unknown darkness awakened inside me.
“Yes, that’s it,” Victoria whispered in my ear. “Feel his blood in your veins. Let his evil fuel your resurrection. Turn it against him.”
I opened my eyes in time to see Hallow’s form flipping back and forth between the beautiful demon and the metaphysical cancer reaching for me. He’d managed to momentarily stun Devereux and now he rushed over to retrieve me, his prize.
He yanked me to my feet and pulled me against his body, which stayed humanoid for only a few seconds this time before the illusion gave way to the grisly aura it had been superimposed upon. I fought against him, jabbing my elbows into his gut, enjoying his grunts of irritation.
Victoria struggled to her feet, thrust her bruised arm into the air, fist closed, and screamed, “Expugno!”
The hairs at the back of my neck prickled and chills rippled over my skin. I didn’t know what she’d said, but the word rattled the atmosphere.
Now that I could see exactly how monstrous Hallow was, my stomach twisted and my skin went clammy. I had to remind myself to breathe while he
pressed me against him. I closed my eyes and cringed as I thought about what I was really immersed in. My intuitive radar was wide open now, and I could sense every foul nuance of his alien nature. He was sickeningly obscene.
“Enough of this nonsense.” He grabbed my hair, tugged my head back and exposed my neck. He began repeating the same phrase, over and over, in his enticing, hypnotic voice: “Do you choose me? Do you choose me? Do you choose me?”
I was becoming drowsy, the edge of my anger dulling. Several hundred pairs of eyes stared back at me from Hallow’s incorporeal death camp. I screamed, my rage rebounding, and forced out the words: “No! No! I don’t choose you. Let. Me. Go!”
And as I screamed, Devereux tackled Hallow again, sending them both back to the ground. It seemed they’d been fighting for hours, but time had ceased to have any meaning.
My body was shaking now. Even if I hadn’t been quaking with anger, being naked in the below-freezing temperatures was taking its toll.
The vampires struggled, switching positions every few seconds when one gained dominance over the other. As Hallow straddled Devereux, his sharp fingernails gouging out flesh from Devereux’s neck, his voice rang out. “I’ve changed my mind, laddie. You’ve been a worthy adversary, and I don’t know how you managed to shake off my control, but you’ve become much more trouble than you’re worth. Time to put an end to this.” He slid his hand across the floor and picked up one of the stakes that had restrained Victoria. He raised it over Devereux’s heart, preparing to strike.
Devereux’s vampires lurched toward him, but Devereux roared, “Get back! He is mine.”
The useless bloodsuckers glanced at each other and stepped away. I couldn’t believe they were just going to stand there and watch. The time had come to replace mindless obedience with common sense. Devereux was a force to be reckoned with, but it was insane to think that something as old and freakish as Hallow could be bested by anyone.
Hallow had become the quintessential symbol of every tyrannical person I’d ever allowed to override my free will. He’d put me and everyone I cared about in danger for his own selfish needs, leaving a trail of death and destruction in his wake, and I was not going to have it. I’d finally awakened from a long sleep and I refused to stand by, passively allowing Hallow to complete his foul plan.
We all sensed a turning point approaching. The room crackled with energy. Maxie managed to free herself from her dentally challenged captor and took a step toward the bloody battle. Except for her aura, which was still thick and dark, she’d transformed back into the beautiful woman I’d befriended.
After watching Hallow flash back and forth continuously between his two forms, I discovered if I focused on the likeness I was more used to, he would stay like that, but if I softened my gaze and viewed him with my peripheral vision, the horror show emerged. It was definitely less hideous dealing with the monster in his human shape.
Devereux had managed to slough off the demon sitting on his chest and they were both on their feet again, circling, Hallow brandishing the spike.
A couple of feet behind me, Victoria chanted.
“Bring me the witch!” Hallow yelled at Maxie, who startled at the harsh sound of his voice.
She pivoted like a robot, stomped over to Victoria and backhanded her with such ferocity that she fell back on the ground, unconscious. Maxie grabbed her arm and started dragging her toward Hallow.
Shocked by the savagery of Maxie’s assault, I jumped in front of her and pressed my palms against her chest. “Let go of her, Maxie,” I pleaded. “You don’t have to do this — don’t give in. You’re more than just his slave.”
“You’ve seen what I am.” She stared at me with wide, glazed eyes. “I serve at his pleasure. I can’t fight him.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to.” She raised her fist, reared back and hit me in the jaw.
The blow took me down. I’d never been struck in the face before and I was shocked at the violence. The punch radiated pain across the bones of my face and stunned me. I sat, dazed, on the cold earth for several seconds, rubbing my jaw, opening and closing my mouth, trying to gauge the damage.
Maxie dumped Victoria near Hallow and gave her a vicious kick to the ribs. Seeing her attack my friend shook me out of my stupefaction. Heart pumping, adrenaline surging, I leapt to my feet, took a running jump and landed on Maxie’s back. I wrapped my arm around her neck and pulled hard, and I must’ve caught her by surprise because she lost her balance and we both crashed down a couple of feet away from Victoria.
Old ideas about my physical limitations combusted in the raging fire of my anger. I savored the dark satisfaction of having a stranglehold on her throat. Who knew aggression could be so good?
But Maxie was by far the more experienced fighter. She sloughed me off, straddled my hips and pinned me beneath her. She braced my wrists over my head and smirked, keen intelligence once again shining from her eyes, replacing the entranced gaze she’d had moments before. Our unexpected trip to the ground must have altered the zombie-like trance Hallow inflicted on her.
I struggled, bucking my hips, and actually managed to shift her off my lower body and free one arm before she regained control.
“Gee, Doc, I’m impressed.” She raised her eyebrows. “A little of Hallow’s blood flowing in your veins and you turn into Wonder Woman.” Her expression became pensive and she leaned down to whisper, “Your boyfriend’s a little busy and I doubt he’ll be riding to your rescue tonight, so I’m going to have to change the game plan. I guess I’ll have to get rid of you permanently. Hallow will punish me, but we’ll both get over it. He needs me.”
Delusional thinking. She needs a twelve-step program, like Vampire Slaves Anonymous.
“He might need you, but he doesn’t care about you — you mean nothing to him.” I laughed, trying to goad her into a strong reaction. “You’re an empty husk. Why would he want you when he could have me? For a smart woman, you’re pretty dense.”
She didn’t disappoint. Her eyes narrowed and she gathered both my wrists into one hand.
Bull’s-eye.
She reached over and grabbed another of the stakes that had held Victoria, pointed it over my heart and laughed. “Say good-bye, Ethel.”
I twisted my body with enough force to bounce her off my hips, making her release my wrists, then rolled on top of her and grabbed for the stake, hoping to wrest it from her grip. We grappled. Evenly matched due to my newly enhanced physical strength, we both held onto a portion of the wood as it angled between us.
“How arousing,” Hallow crooned from above us.
Maxie lifted off my body and released her grasp on the stake, but I held on. Having the sharp weapon in my hand added to my illusion of control, sort of like carrying an umbrella in a hurricane.
We both stood, staring at the madman.
Hallow spoke directly to Maxie, his expression dark. “Kill my new slave and suffer a fate much worse than death, old woman.”
He’d apparently found a way to escape Devereux long enough to grab Victoria’s unconscious body from the dirt. He cuddled her body against him. Quick as a cobra, he pierced her neck with his long, sharp fangs and drank deeply before raising his crimson mouth from the holes in her skin. He licked his lips. “Ah, yes. Elixir of the gods. The perfect pick-me-up when battling a jealous bloodsucker.”
Devereux stood in front of Hallow, unmoving and silent. His blood-covered chest was still, breathing unnecessary. His gaze locked on his adversary.
“I’ll have to reconsider my plans to be rid of the old in favor of the new,” Hallow observed as he studied Maxie and me. “In fact, I’ve decided to take the voluptuous witch along for the ride too. After all, she is powerful, and one simply can’t have too much blood available.”
He bent down as if he were dipping Victoria in a macabre dance, preparing to sink fangs into her neck again.
I couldn’t let that happen.
He turned his back to me and I lunged, my spike poised to impale, bu
t with unnatural speed, Maxie streaked by me and leapt in front of Hallow. My momentum had decided the course of action and there was no time to pull back. The spike pierced her skin, slicing through bone into organs. Vibrations radiated up through the wooden weapon.
I screamed, “Maxie, no!”
Chapter 24
Maxie’s body crumpled to the ground, blood gushing from the gaping hole between her breasts.
My stomach churned and I fought back vomit as her physical form disintegrated within seconds, leaving a semi-transparent puddle of dark green-grey sludge that oozed like an extraterrestrial life form into Hallow’s death-aura.
Hallow retracted his fangs from Victoria’s neck, pushed her away and snapped into a rigid posture, his spine ramrod-straight. He shrieked, the sound rising into the register probably only heard by dogs, and his face transformed into a mask of fear and outrage. Growling, he tore at his hair. Blood dripped from his fangs.
Devereux’s arm slid around my waist from behind as he pulled me backward, away from Hallow. “Come. It is over now, my love.”
“Over?” Shock and confusion overwhelmed me. “How could it be over? Insane Hallow is still here.” Did Devereux think Hallow cared that Maxie was dead? That he’d stop his homicidal behavior to mourn her passing?
Victoria opened her eyes and groaned at Hallow’s feet.
Devereux freed his arm and wrapped me in a thick blanket that suddenly appeared before pulling me against his bloody chest again. I didn’t know where the warm cover had come from — Devereux must have mentally contacted one of his vampires — but I wasn’t going to turn it down. A muscular male popped up next to us and hurried over to Victoria. He removed his own heavy woolen cloak and threw it over the wounded witch before lifting her into his arms.
“Take her to the penthouse,” Devereux ordered.
“No, Devereux — wait. Not yet. I need to witness the end of this nightmare,” Victoria urged, her voice barely audible.
At Devereux’s curt nod, Victoria’s rescuer moved to stand beside us.
Crimson Psyche Page 33