A question of doubt shifted Paolo’s brow for a moment but the soldier, almost one hundred and fifty years his junior, knew better than to argue with Dante. The vampire nodded, turned from his surveillance position, and disappeared into the shadow-laden street.
Slivers of light squeezed through drawn curtains at the second floor window immediately above the building’s main entrance. Reception remained open twenty-four hours, the hostel unlocked. The mortal couldn’t have picked a less secure place if he’d slept on the street.
Dante brushed his fingers along the lapels of his full-length leather coat, releasing the buttons as his hands traveled down. He pushed the garment aside and traced fingertips over the sword’s smooth, gold hilt.
Fangs pushed against his gums in anticipation.
Smiling, Dante crossed the deserted street, and entered the building.
* * *
Her eyes flicked open, and she realized the sound hadn’t been a part of her dream.
Deanna lay motionless in the dormitory and listened to the room. The person sleeping in the bed closest to hers—a teenage girl if she remembered correctly—breathed deeply, long inhalations indicating peaceful rest. Two more single beds resided by the far wall; the girl’s parents sleeping soundly. Deanna could distinguish the man’s breathing over the woman’s, although she let out a snorted mumble every so often.
That hadn’t been the sound she’d heard.
The young girl had insisted the window be opened slightly, wanting an avenue for summer air to enter the room in the hope of aiding better sleep. The street outside was quiet, and it seemed whatever life Rome held at that time of the morning didn’t reach as far as the hostel—except for life inside the building indicated by a noise that drifted to her ears again. The shuffle of feet on the dorm’s tiled floor? The heavy breathing of something sinister watching her from shadows gathered in the corner of the room?
She tried to shake the tormenting thoughts from her mind but failed to do so. She’d made a mistake tonight, certain she would pay for it. Deanna reached under the small of her back and gripped the tiny purse. It bulged with the wad of bills stuffed inside yet she could still feel the flat surface of her credit cards through the material: credit cards she’d used to draw out money before checking into the hostel.
She’d paid for one nights board with cash intending to rise early the next morning, catch a train to the airport and jump aboard the next flight bound for anywhere but England. Maybe she should have caught that plane tonight, shouldn’t have waited until the morning to make her escape. She had no idea how long it would take to trace her credit card transactions but a nagging suspicion told her it was already too late.
Sleep had avoided her as usual, and she began to wish she’d taken that opportunity of sleeplessness to jump in a cab and head to Leonardo da Vinci. Too late now, she mused.
With the exception of the family’s heavy breathing, the room stayed quiet. Deanna cursed her overactive imagination.
Glancing at her wristwatch, its hands glowing in the dim light, she determined the time to be a little after four in the morning. It would be a waste of time now to lie in bed waiting for nothing. She’d be better served getting up, maybe taking a shower before the other hostel guests drained the hot water. A quick continental breakfast and then a cautious walk to Termini train station to begin her journey to destinations as yet unknown.
The young girl in the nearest bed moaned gently in her sleep. The family was Australian; maybe the teenager dreamed of a boyfriend she’d left behind.
A subtle pressure in Deanna’s bladder became more palpable, and she realized she needed the toilet. Empty the bladder, freshen myself up, then start running again.
Deanna gripped the loose-fitting bed sheet.
Movement: the same sound she’d heard only a short while ago.
It came from next door, and Deanna released an exaggerated breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. The occupants of the adjacent dorm were probably stirring, anxious to be up early and view the famed sights of the city or catch an early train. She smiled at her own concerns.
The pressure on her bladder squeezed harder.
Gripping her purse tight, she swung her legs out of bed, stood, and turned to face the open door.
Shadows moved; swift, unexpected, and something solid smacked into her face. Fingers locked onto her cheeks, pain rolling in waves over her forehead, a scream of agony and shock muffled behind the sweaty palm pressed against her mouth.
A line of luminescence from a streetlight outside split the room’s darkness, throwing golden light onto the man’s features. A twisted smile split his face as two diluted pupils, like vacuous holes in bloodshot eyes, bore down on her.
“I’ll break your fucking neck if you make a sound.” The pull of transforming bone tissue cracked the room’s stillness and the hand enlarged against her face as sharpened talons dug into her skin. “You’re coming with me; there’s someone who’s dying to see you.”
Breath wheezed in panicked bursts from Deanna’s nose, her intestines cramping in terror. The hybrid led her, pulling her face as he backed towards the hallway. She feared his solid grip would shatter her cheekbones and cause her face to fold in on itself. Her first step wavered, she stumbled, the intense clutch of fear weakening her muscles. The monster kept her upright by applying pressure to her jaw and lifting her slightly.
Where the hell was Cain; outside in a car, or maybe at some secret location in the city, waiting in a darkened dungeon where he would torture her until death became a blessed release? Did he await her arrival in a different city in a different country?
Deanna tried to shift the unwelcome thoughts from her mind. She couldn’t be concerned with where the hybrid was taking her, but needed to figure a way of getting out of this mess with her life. They’d found her—she hadn’t ran fast enough.
The hybrid didn’t even pause at the doorway but dragged her into the passage. The hallway’s dim lighting highlighted its body; divested yet coated with a thin layer of sweat, a heavy penis pointing away from its crotch in a state of semi-arousal. The creature had kept its human shape, yet the skin from its elbow to the hand that was fastened to her face bulged with muscular contractions. She couldn’t see much of its hand, but the claws digging painfully into her flesh told her it had transformed.
Her mind came up blank. She thought about hitting his arm away and then trying to run or shouting for help, yet his words echoed in her head and reminded her what he’d do should she attempt such an escape. Maybe if she feigned unconsciousness an opportunity to overpower him could present itself. Fear increased her heart rate, shortened her breath, and told her she had no chance. The monster would drag her by the face if it had to, down the flights of stairs and outside towards her death.
She had no escape, and the realization of that fact churned a pit of vomit and bile in her stomach.
Three paces down the hall, by an open door, the hybrid stopped. The half-breed looked to its left. Deanna shifted her gaze, only managing to move her eyes because his gripping hand kept her head immovable.
A rectangle of light spilled into the dorm to illuminate a figure hunched over a single bed, his form hidden beneath a long, jet-black leather coat.
In the edge of her vision Deanna saw a man laying in the bed, the terror in his staring eyes all too evident.
The cloaked figure held a sword, its pointed edge jutting against the man’s Adam’s apple.
Then, her world became filled with chaos.
* * *
The hairs on the back of his neck began to prick. Dante sensed the hybrid’s presence before he saw the abomination. With the sharpened steel of his sword pressed against the delicate neck of the mortal man, Dante turned towards the open doorway and hissed with defiance.
The hybrid had not yet transformed but its human guise did not look any more appealing. Unkempt with long hair and a growth of stubble adorning its chin, the creature glared at Dante with an almost comic
al look of bewilderment. Its right hand clasped the face of a woman, palm pressed against her mouth, the ridge between thumb and forefinger tight to her nose so that her panicked breath rasped upon exit.
Damnation! What the hell is a hybrid doing in this building?
The brief moment Dante had in which to consider the situation passed quickly.
The hybrid stepped through the doorway and cast the terrified woman aside as if he were discarding a rag doll. She screamed as momentum carried her onto a bed hidden in the room’s shadows. A dull thud ended the yelp as her head connected with the wall.
Pupils dilating in an instant, fangs surging from his gums, Dante turned to face the assault and a fist slammed into his jaw.
The blow lifted him, smacked teeth together, and sent a ripple of disorientation flooding through his mind. He clenched his fist and held the sword even when he smashed into the far wall. A mortal man would surely have slumped unconscious to the floor, but Dante dropped to his feet, eyes fixed on the hybrid as it closed on him, aware of the shadowy movements of the mortal as he scrambled from the bed.
Vaffanculo! If the mortal gets away again, Markus will have my balls!
The blade whistled in the motionless air as Dante swung the sword at the hybrid. The crossbreed dodged the weapon, bending its body away from the arcing steel. From a two-footed stance, Dante leaped onto a nearby bed in effortless ease, using the subtle spring of the mattress to maintain activity and continue his motion towards the front of the room.
A roar bounced off the walls, the hybrid’s anger bellowing from its throat. A heavy arm slammed into the iron-framed bed, denting metal, missing his ankle by inches. Dante thanked the Elders that the mortal target was staying alone in the room. The man had barely scrambled from his bed when Dante landed with agility in the open doorway. Shocked surprise hardly had time to distort the mortal’s features before Dante thrust his forearm against the man’s temple. The Italian collapsed to the floor.
The hybrid’s thick shadow filled Dante’s vision, charging; light from the hallway reflected in its black pupils, saliva coating its jaws. The thing had completed its transformation, must have altered while Dante scaled the beds to thwart the mortal’s desperate bid for freedom.
Dante lunged forward, jabbing the blade, disheartened he now found himself in a battle for his immortal existence. The hybrid sidestepped, twisting its body, but its momentum carried it onto Dante’s weapon. Steel sliced through its flesh, opening its torso on the left side just below the ribcage. The hybrid’s back slammed into the wooden structure of a closet, the timber splitting upon impact. Reaching out with his left hand, Dante closed his fingers around the monstrosity’s thick neck. He pinned the creature against the furniture, dragged the sword sideways so that when he removed the blade he caused as much damage as possible. The crossbreed winced, the sweet tang of blood filled Dante’s nostrils, and the splatter of gore falling from the hybrid’s open wound echoed in the cramped dormitory.
An engorged hand clamped over Dante’s forearm; squeezed hard and a bone—ulna or radius, Dante couldn’t be certain—fractured under the pressure. The hybrid drove its knee up hard. It missed Dante’s crotch, struck his thigh, but the combination of blows sent him staggering towards the opposite bed. His feet tangled with the prone figure of the mortal Italian, and he reached out to keep his balance.
Somewhere, out in the hall, a door opened, concerned voices drifting into earshot.
At his feet, a silhouette stirred, the Italian’s movements stuttered by a degree of grogginess.
The woman the hybrid had thrown into the room mumbled an incoherent word.
The hybrid crossed the space between them in less than a second.
Dirty saliva coated Dante’s clothing, the material shredding as elongated fangs searched his flesh. He’d moved, only a fraction, but enough to leave hybrid jaws locked onto his shoulder instead of around his throat. Pain shock-waved through his system as incisors tore meat and muscle, their sharp tips gouging into his scapula.
Dante couldn’t prevent the scream that erupted from his mouth.
Turning his head and voluntarily dislocating his jawbone, Dante leaned forward and drove his fangs into the hybrid’s head, the teeth slicing like knives into the fleshy tissue behind its lower jaw.
Venom flooded the hybrid’s body. The chemical reaction was brutal and swift.
Releasing its grip from his shoulder, the crossbreed issued a tortured wail as the poison swept through its circulatory system, rupturing blood capillaries, shredding veins, disfiguring the heart. Its epidermis flushed crimson with an explosion of shattered blood vessels.
The creature collapsed into the room’s entrance, its head propped by the doorframe.
Dante ignored his own suffering: the torn shoulder, his broken arm, the dull ache in his head he often experienced after releasing such a large amount of venom in one violent burst. The brief confrontation had not been quiet and his position would most certainly have been compromised.
He’d have to kill the mortal quickly in order to make his escape.
Commotion from the other dorms filtered down the hall. This kind of situation would be very difficult to explain to Markus, and Dante worried more about that than the possible arrival of the police.
He turned to retrieve the human, and Dante’s world went black.
* * *
Fabio gripped the baseball bat with both hands and gazed at the vampire’s slumped form. The creature let out a soft moan and a line of blood oozed from its ear. He had no idea if he’d killed or stunned it, but didn’t intend waiting around to find out.
Something moved in his peripheral vision, hauling itself from the shadows and into light thrown on the floor from the hallway. Fabio turned on his heels, splayed his legs and raised the bat; stared into the pale face of a woman. She stood unsteadily, dressed in shorts and a tee-shirt, her gaze locked first on the bodies slumped in the room, and then flinching to look at him as he presented the bat. She held out a defensive hand.
“Chi siete?” Fabio asked.
Misunderstanding furrowed her brow, a dark tiredness rimming the underside of her eyes.
“Chi siete?” He asked again, fear raising his voice a number of decibels.
She shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t speak Italian.”
English? Her accent suggested it, the pale skin on her exposed legs seeming to confirm it. He hadn’t seen her properly before, but remembered the thing that’d attacked the vampire had thrown something into the room when it entered. Maybe it had been the woman. None of the beds had been occupied when he’d turned out the lights earlier and he hadn’t slept; his mind hadn’t let him.
“Who are you?”
“No one,” she paused, blinked, and a tear ran a meandering line down her cheek. Her voice cracked through what Fabio could only assume was fear colliding with frustration. “I’m Deanna.”
Fabio gestured with his head towards the vampire. “Are you one of them?”
Shock countered the fear spreading across her features. “No.”
Using the bat he pointed at the deceased creature in the doorway. “What do they want with you?”
She shrugged in an innocent motion yet her answer flushed a stab of alarm through his body.
“He was taking me somewhere and then going to kill me.”
A scream resounded through the corridor.
Fabio looked up, startled by the noise, and stared at a young woman wearing nothing but underwear, hand clasped to her mouth, eyes fixed on the body in the doorway. He glanced down, looked with disgust at the naked man with skin a deep shade of burgundy and thick lines of blood oozing from every orifice.
“Merda!” Fabio cursed, then in English he said. “I’m getting out of here.”
“Take me with you.”
He glared at the woman; on oddly attractive figure wearing disorganized clothing and red spiked hair. Her voice trembled when she spoke, and an intense fear simmered deep in her eyes.
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Who was she? He couldn’t trust anybody at that moment but it seemed she struggled through a similar horrifying predicament as he. The grotesque, lifeless being in the doorway had been abducting her from the building to kill her, if he could believe that, and judging by his own experiences these last few days he had no reason to doubt it.
He gripped the bat tight in his right hand and held out his left. “Stay close.”
She held him with a nervous grip, her purse crunched in her fist. Fabio stepped over the corpse into a hallway filling with curious onlookers. He waved the bat in the air and the gathering parted. They obviously believed he had killed both the men in his room and were wary of him. He dragged the woman down the hall, anxious to get her out of the property before a degree of confidence found its way into the male guests at the hostel and made them try to apprehend him.
The receptionist shouted that he should stay and not leave the building; that the police had been called, but he ignored her high pitched voice and pulled the woman behind him down the stairs.
Fishing car keys from his pocket before exiting the building, he paused long enough at the entrance to ensure no other vampires stood in close proximity to the door.
Fabio stepped from the hostel and ran to the rented Fiat. Sirens wailed in the distance as police cars raced towards the vicinity. He let the woman’s hand go at the car. “Get in!”
She opened the passenger door, dropped out of sight into the car.
A shout echoed off the buildings lining the street. Fabio looked towards the noise, behind him, on the opposite side of the road from the hostel. A man ran up the road towards him, eyes wide, hatred distorting his features, torso thickening and chest expanding, limbs lengthening as he gained ground.
“Merda,” Fabio whispered again.
The monster lying dead in the building had accomplices waiting outside, and they’d recognized the woman.
Monsters and Mortals - Blood War Trilogy Book II Page 6