Dark Cravings

by Pryce, Madeline

  I got out of the truck and pressed the back of my hand to my nose. The humid weather brought out the stench of rot and decay. With my other hand, I swatted away the flies and mosquitoes buzzing around my face. No doubt they were here to gorge themselves on rancid flesh and rotting vegetation.

  I looked over at Dante as he pulled a backpack from the bed of the truck and slung it over his shoulder.

  “She’s here,” he said. “I can smell her.”

  Fear churned my stomach. The stench of age-old torture radiated from the building and lingered in the air. A leaf skittered across the ground and it sounded like nails clawing concrete. We bypassed the front entrance and made our way to the side of the building. The gravel crunched below our footsteps.

  Boards covered almost every window we passed on the first floor. I craned my head back to look at the other levels. At each window, bricks shaped the arched recesses. Through the bars covering the glass panes, I saw glimpses of shadows. Soft yellow light filtered down from a single unbroken pane on the fourth floor. That source of illumination was the only bright spot in the night. Something dark eclipsed it and then darted away. I must have made a noise, because Dante stopped and gave me a concerned look.

  “I’m fine. Just get me inside,” I whispered.

  “This way. I went here a few times when I was a teenager. We can get in through the violent patients’ ward.”

  “You came here on purpose?”

  “It was a good way to impress chicks.”

  “You’d think the muscles would have done it,” I muttered. “When was this place built? It looks old.”

  Dante shrugged. “Sometime in the 1870s. Rumor has it that the place was shut down because there were reports of abuse and too many ‘accidental’ deaths. Can’t you smell it? The fear? The death? It lingers in the air. Has a certain taste.”

  “Yeah, I smell it and it’s creeping me the fuck out.”

  The violent patients’ ward turned out to be a completely separate entrance. There was a plaque next to the door proclaiming the area. The windows on either side of the wooden door had long ago been ripped out and covered with chicken wire. Dust layered the edges of the remaining broken glass. Dante moved up the steps. Unlike the other entrances, this one had a rusted chain and padlock to keep out trespassers.

  With a quick tug, Dante snapped the chain. Metal rattled to the ground and echoed in the quiet of the night. Birds in the nearby trees took flight in a hurricane of flapping wings and rustling branches. The moment the door creaked open, the violence still living in the musky air assaulted me. The sensations morphed into images and I pictured skeletal fingers clawing at my legs, trying to drag me into the pits of hell. Foul breath slid along my neck as if some invisible force was hovering behind me. And the scent. Dead flesh, urine, blood. Everything hit me at once and I put the back of my hand over my mouth and coughed.

  The concrete floor had been stripped in most places, so the only thing remaining was a few broken tiles. Paint peeled from the walls and littered the ground, along with other bits of broken wood. My steps stirred the dust and kicked up paint chips piled on the floor. The cement ceiling only concealed some of the rusted piping covered in mold, fungus and mildew.

  Dante stopped and threw his pack to the ground. I opened my mouth to ask him what he was doing when he pulled his tight shirt over his head. His rippling muscles shut my mouth and I stared for longer than was probably polite. It wasn’t until his hands moved to the button on his jeans that I got my wits about me.

  “What in the hell are you doing?” I squeaked.

  He lifted one golden eyebrow. “I’m going to shift forms.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Me shape shifter,” he pointed to his chest, then motioned to me. “You vampire.”

  “Jackass. I meant you can shift whenever you want? It doesn’t happen on the full moon?”

  “Depends on the person, I guess. All of us shift during the full moon phase, but I can also do it whenever I want.”

  Interesting. “Hurry up.”

  I turned my back to give him some privacy as he undressed. I really, really wanted to turn and peek. Heat lined my back and my skin crawled with the energy swirling around me. His transition must have been seamless, because the next thing I knew thick, slightly rough fur brushed my palm.

  I looked down and took an automatic step back. A gigantic lion gazed at me with intelligent, almond-shaped, tawny eyes. Dante was absolutely breathtaking in feline form. His mane was thick and full, melting from a dark yellow to an almost blackish-orange on top. He padded forward on paws the size of my head. Jesus, he must have been at least four feet tall at his shoulders.

  While I stared at him with an opened mouth, he moved past me. After a second, he picked up the pack and I followed the swish of his thick, long tail. My every footstep echoed and added to the creaking, crumbling noises of the substructure.

  We passed a series of rooms, each with a metal door and a barred window at the top. I toed open one of the doors and the screeching of hinges rung out through the darkness. I could make out a metal bed and the bolts securing it to the floor. The mattress was wafer thin and stained with yellow watermarks. A rusted bedpan sat in the middle of the bed. Attached to the ceiling was a caged lamp. Looking into the room, I could almost visualize the person who once lay on that thin mattress.

  I didn’t look into any more rooms after that. We walked down the hall and I glanced left, then right down the long corridor that appeared never ending. Halfway down, in the middle of the floor was an old wheelchair tipped on its side. The wheels spun in rapid rotations, as if it had just fallen. Unease crept up my spine and moistened my palms.

  The air stirred behind me. I pulled my Silverstone knife from its sheath, let the weight of it ground me. My breaths sawed from my lungs. I turned, tense and ready for a fight. Nothing was there. When I turned back to the wheelchair, the tires were motionless.

  The pounding of my heart was as loud as a drumbeat. Dante stared at me, his big yellow eyes unblinking like he didn’t hear or sense a damn thing. I shook my head and tried to calm my lurching heart. Just as I managed to convince myself I was letting the haunting atmosphere get the better of me, an ice-cold finger ran down the back of my neck. Something yanked on my swinging ponytail hard enough to tip my chin up and my head back. I lashed out on instinct and spun for attack. My blade slashed air.

  “Holy fuck.” I gasped and pressed the back of my hand to my forehead. I struggled to draw in a breath.

  The lion at my side stayed silent as he scented the air and gracefully moved down the left hallway. I pushed my back to the scratchy wall and followed with slow, careful steps through the darkness. A laugh echoed from an empty room on my left. Footsteps scampered to my right.

  Someone was fucking with me.

  I took two more steps when some kind of an intercom system screeched to life. Dante and I froze as the cracking noise morphed into a single piercing wail. For as long as I lived, I would never forget how that cry of pure terror cut through me. The scream turned into sobbing. The intercom amplified Hannah’s horrified shrieks and filled the hospital with her agony.

  “Please, no! Stop, oh god, stop!”

  Panic eclipsed every ounce of training I had. I sprinted blindly down the corridor. The near-deafening roar Dante emitted was nothing compared to the ragged cries of my sister. The halls were an endless maze. We turned left, right, sprinted up a crumbling staircase.

  “Help me, please somebody help me.” Hannah’s screams were everywhere and nowhere.

  I kicked in one locked door after another and found more of the same. Dirty, ripped-up floors. Broken furniture. Rusted metal chairs, basins and other obscure items that hadn’t deteriorated over time.

  The smell was the worst. Fear and death lingered in the air. Old blood carried the haunting memories of horrors past. Through it all, I listened to my sister beg her attacker to stop hurting her.

  “Ella, help me!” She screamed for m
e and the sound of my name felt like a blade to the gut.

  Through the intercom, metal clinked. “No, no, no, no.” Hannah’s fear, a heavy weight I could feel and taste on the back of my tongue, increased with each strangled “no” she uttered. I conjured images of archaic torture tools laid out on a metal tray. My stomach lurched. I couldn’t listen to this.

  The pack on my back lifted and I turned, knife ready. Dante, now in human form, caught my arm and shook his head.

  “Her scent is strong here,” Dante growled and pointed to the floor a few feet in front of me.

  I followed his finger and stopped moving. Amidst the dirt and the grime was the outline of a slender bloody footprint. Then another. The prints were close together, smeared, as if the person shuffled instead of ran. My gaze rose and I looked at the wall, to the perfect scarlet imprint of a hand.

  Hannah’s blood. Horror filled me at the thought of my sister, bleeding and abused, roaming this place in the darkness. Why let her go? Had they played some sick game of cat and mouse?

  “Is it,” I swallowed, “hers?”

  The muscles in Dante’s jaw went taut as he pulled on a pair of pants from his backpack. He curled large hands into meaty fists and met my eyes. Venomous anger shadowed his face. “Whoever these fuckers are, I swear on my last breath, I will kill them.”

  And then, over Hannah’s unrelenting screams and sobs I heard it. The sound—the god-awful noise—of bone snapping. Snap. Snap. Snap. Like crisp tree branches breaking in half. My sister’s scream changed pitch. Went higher, sharper. My belly churned with vomit and I stumbled over my feet. I fell into the wall and slapped my open palm against the hard surface as if I could beat through the immovable obstacle. Tears filled my eyes as rage unfurled inside me.

  I turned, threw my head back and screamed until my throat felt raw. As if I’d somehow short-circuited it, the sound system shut off and Hannah’s audible pain vanished. Her terror still echoed in my mind. Around us, the hospital came to life like a living, breathing entity.

  Doors opened and slammed shut. Floorboards creaked. Wind howled through broken windows and stirred a tornado of debris to life. Dust pelted my cheeks and stuck to my damp skin. Laughter rang out. Dante and I spun one way and then the other but saw no one.

  In the distance, someone sobbed. Hearing Hannah in real time made it worse somehow. We struggled to pinpoint the sound. A series of left backtracking turns led us into some kind medical wing. Broken glass cabinets hung open. Yellowing bandages and empty medicine bottles littered the ground.

  A flutter of sound drew my attention to the right. The gossamer curtain separating what looked like operating rooms rustled. My senses narrowed and I picked up the faint, slow steady drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. Was it blood or the lingering moisture weighing the air from leaking pipes?

  Rust and mildew converged on my taste buds. A shadow danced in front of the wavering sheet and with it, my pulse sped. I looked to the thin gap between sheet and floor for feet. Nothing. I raced to the fabric, ripped it aside and held my breath.

  The nearly empty room stared back at me.

  I walked farther into the room, passed a lone metal gurney with a large basin on top of it. For a moment, I was actually afraid to move in front of it. Terrified that something was going to jump out at me.

  The air directly in front of me grew heavy and I staggered back into Dante. Pain lashed through my head and I gripped my temples as I doubled over in agony. I blinked. When I opened my eyes, a girl no older than fourteen stood before me.

  Her blonde hair was coiled and twisted on top of her head in some old-fashioned kind of a hairstyle. The curls framing her face and drifting across her shoulders resembled writhing golden snakes.

  Against her porcelain skin, large, luminescent electric-blue eyes glowed. She gave me a girlish grin of delight that was all wrong with the fangs and dark-red blood dripping from her chin.

  “Who the hell are you?” I asked.

  “I’m Lizbeth, your dear old auntie.” Her smile vanished and hatred frosted her eyes. “And now it’s time for you to die, bitch.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I’ll admit—for a moment, I was speechless. In all the times Julian pushed lascivious images of him with another woman through the bond, I’d never seen her face. If I had, I might have known just how twisted my sire was.

  The slender body, narrow hips and small breasts of the vampire before me were a familiar sight, one I’d been seeing for years. Only I’d gotten the X-rated version complete with whips, chains and sex toys. Now I felt like a pervert. The pixy face, slender nose and pouting mouth didn’t belong to a woman. Jesus, she was a child!

  My shock faded. She’d kidnapped and tortured my sister. Arranged it so I’d hear Hannah’s screams and pleas. My dear old aunt was going to get her ass kicked. I pivoted left and lashed out with my leg, which should have buried my boot in her stomach. The air shifted. Cold hands caught my ankle and twisted. I fell face first in the direction of the floor.

  My reflexes kicked in and I caught myself a centimeter before my face hit the stone. Dust and debris kicked up and tickled my nose. I looked up as Dante cupped the butt of his matte-black gun, took aim and fired. Bang. My ears rang.

  Lizbeth moved so fast, I barely saw her hand move. She plucked the bullet from the air before flicking it at me. Burning-hot steel hit my arm and I yelped. The queen phazed in, out, stopped in front of Dante and smashed her foot into his groin. He doubled over and when he did, she gripped his hair and brought his forehead down on her knee.

  The entire thing took her two seconds. She turned to me and screamed.

  “Get up! I have been waiting for this moment. Don’t disappoint me.”

  I rose and brushed the dust from my pants. Lizbeth hurled a wave of crackling energy at me with a flip of her twig-like wrist. The power slammed into my chest, stunning me. Before I could recover, her hand whipped across my face in an open-palm slap. I flew across the room and collapsed in a heap. Blood welled at the corner of my mouth. I put the tip of my tongue there and winced at the sting.

  “You worthless bitch,” she hissed as she stalked closer. “How dare you think you can waltz in and take what is mine!”

  “If you’re talking about Julian, you can have him. If you’re talking about the queen thing, I don’t want it.” From the ground, I threw a Silverstone blade at her. End over end, the knife spun through the air. Lizbeth caught the weapon an inch from her chest and dropped it to the ground with a clatter.

  “Liar!” Her fangs flashed white in the darkness. She lunged at me. “I’m queen, not you. Julian was supposed to kill you! Your own agency set it up, but he fell in love and couldn’t go through with it. How fucking common.” She sneered, punched me in the face. Stars exploded before my eyes.

  “The Vampire Queen and the Demon Son.” Another hit. “Everyone thinks the prophecy has been fulfilled. But they’re all wrong. I know the truth!”

  I blocked the next fist aimed at my face and jumped up. I arched into a back flip, landed low, crouched and swung my leg out. Lizbeth phazed to the right. I sprang up into a roll and caught her square in the nose with the base of my palm. Cartilage broke and the flow of blood was immediate. Down her chin, the bright crimson fluid soaked the thin fabric of her silk dress.

  Shock registered on her pretty face and I wondered if I was the first person who had ever actually hit her. Off guard, she stumbled back and I caught a glimpse of her flat white ballet shoes. They had baby blue sparkles on them. She pressed a hand against her already healing nose. I took advantage of her momentary distraction. Pouncing, I pulled out the stake I’d tucked in my boot. I was a second too late. Lizbeth reared back in the same moment I lunged. The stake sank into her chest, three inches from her heart.

  She smiled at me with blood-covered lips. Masochistic pleasure filled her eyes when she ripped the wood from her chest. She no longer looked fourteen. The weapon clattered to the ground and I listened to it roll across the floor. The gaping woun
d sealed shut before my eyes. The bloody hole in her dress was the only evidence I’d staked her.

  “I’m going to enjoy this,” she said in a little girl’s singsong voice. “More than I enjoyed torturing your sister.”

  My sister. Hannah’s blonde hair and green eyes filled my mind and I clung to the image. I was going to die at the hands of this psychotic bitch while my sister bled out. My skin tingled. My world spun. Then it hit me. Lizbeth wasn’t the only who could phaze.

  I threw myself into the spinning images in my head and clutched on to the only stable thing in the chaos. Hannah. I came out of the phaze stumbling and ran right into one of my worst nightmares.

  Hannah was strapped to an old, hinged surgical board, hands and feet bound with leather straps. Tears poured down her cheeks and her blonde hair was a tangled nest. She was naked and quivering. Along her arms and legs, dozens of cuts flayed open her skin. Blood dripped to the floor. Puncture wounds bruised her neck, arms and the insides of her thighs. Beside her was a small table, complete with antique surgical equipment. Fresh blood still tipped some of the instruments.

  My sister turned her head, looked right at me. Another scream, deeper, more desperate, interrupted the sobbing. Her eyes were wide and glassy and held no recognition at all. Her thrashing intensified and I could see the blood welling where the bindings cut into her skin.

  “No, please no.” Her voice quavered.

  That was the same voice she’d had when she’d found our mother dead on our front steps. Mommy, please, no. Wake up.

  My hands shook as I tried to rip the leather bindings apart. When my fingers slipped off the blood, I fumbled with the buckles to get her free.

  “It’s me, Hannah. It’s Ella. I’m going to get you out of here. You’re safe.”