The Possession

by Jennifer Armintrout

  He’d hurt her. A moment ago it had brought him pleasure. It should have now. He’d done worse to countless other girls, destroyed their innocence and their trust, if not their lives.

  It was exactly the same as he’d done to the Mouse.

  He sat up, supporting himself on shaking arms, and stared at the closed bathroom door. He couldn’t hear her soft sobs, but he imagined them as he listened to the water running in the bathtub. Her spirit had been weak already. She’d seen her friends slaughtered and violated before her eyes. But she hadn’t been completely broken. Not until now. Not until the moment he’d abused and terrorized her.

  It’s what you do. You’re a monster.

  Though he knew it to be true, he couldn’t force himself to believe it. Humanity had been woven back into his frayed soul, for better or for worse. Most likely, for worse.

  Climbing to his feet, he went to the bathroom door, gripping objects for support as he went. “Come out of there.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I said come out of there.” He had no patience for this game. He should be upstairs, demanding answers of his captors and insisting to be restored to his former state. If he could even make it up the stairs after the energy he’d expended fighting her.

  “To hell with you.” His words echoed his thoughts. He limped to the small chest of drawers and pulled out some of the dead priest’s clothes. The trousers were a bit short and the waist a bit big, but he would worry about proper attire later. He shoved his arms into one of the hideous, button-down, black shirts and headed to the narrow stairs. Halfway there, his legs gave way and he toppled to the floor. Still, he kept going, pulling himself slowly to the foot of the staircase, where he had to catch his breath before he could crawl up the rough steps.

  He’d expected the door at the top to be locked somehow, and it was, but only from his side. Apparently, they were less concerned with keeping him in than keeping themselves out. Still, it gave him trouble. He had to stretch to reach the knob, and only after several tries did he manage to turn it. The door opened and his poor balance and awkward position brought him face-first onto the rough carpet of the main floor.

  The bodies of the priest and nun had been removed from the vestibule, but they’d been replaced with fresher corpses. Cyrus pulled himself across the floor, the carpet scraping his stomach where his shirt rode up with his motion. He reached for a wheel of one of the motorcycles, thinking to pull himself up. The vehicle tipped, and for a long moment he thought it might topple onto him. With a frustrated sob, he made his way to the wall, pulling himself upright through sheer force of will. He had dealt with these kinds of people before. They had no respect for anyone or anything, but he had a better chance facing them standing than crawling on the ground at their feet.

  As he rested, propped against the wall, he glimpsed his surroundings through the dark windows. A badly cracked parking lot in an ocean of desert sand, and beyond that, a barren road. Exactly the sort of place these cretins would imagine when waxing poetic about the open road. His gaze dropped to one of the bikes, and the insignia on the side made his skin crawl.

  The Fangs.

  A part of him was revolted at the thought of spending another minute with the uncouth gang, but another part was grateful he’d offered them refuge in the days before his untimely death. If they had any decency at all, which he doubted, they would feel indebted to at least explain what was going on.

  The large, double doors to the church were shut. Cryptic, occult markings had been drawn on them in chalk. He pulled open the door and stepped inside.

  Loud, discordant music, the type Cyrus had been glad to be rid of when they’d ended their extended stay at the mansion, blared from a huge system of stereo equipment hastily arranged on a side altar. A rowdy dice game occupied most of the gang members in the center aisle. A few slept in the pews, obviously not caring what toll their dirty boots and grimy clothes took on the upholstered seats. One Fang used spray paint to draw exaggerated phalluses on the figures in a mural of the Last Supper that graced a side wall. Someone threw a beer bottle and it shattered loudly against the wall. On the whole, they conducted themselves much more respectfully than when they’d been at Cyrus’s house, swilling beer and ruining his formal dinner parties. This must be their church behavior.

  When Cyrus entered, they paused in what they were doing to notice him. All except three of them. They sat in the sanctuary, where he’d been held that morning. Candles marked the perimeter of a circle around them. Their fingertips touched and they chanted in a low drone. He recognized one as the person who’d pulled him from the other side, a tall female with a gravelly voice and an ugly face, even for a vampire. The other two looked as though they’d been younger at the time of their change. One was male, with spiked black hair, the other female, with a similar coif. They all wore their grotesque feeding faces.

  Rage so intense it burned in his veins took hold of Cyrus, but his limbs were so weak that when he ran toward them, he stumbled, falling flat on his face. He looked up blearily as the vampires at the perimeter of the room advanced on him. They tangled their claws in his hair, tore the clothes on his body.

  A scream, painfully familiar, rent the air. The monsters holding him froze, and he looked up in time to see the Mouse, her flimsy dress clinging to her wet skin, her sopping hair hanging like a tangled mop around her shoulders. She rushed at the vampires holding him and pushed them away, an action Cyrus might have perceived as fearless if she hadn’t been trembling and shrieking hysterically. She’d shocked them, though, and that was enough. They were too stunned to attack or even resist her.

  She gripped Cyrus’s wrist with her cold, wet hand, pulled him to his feet and supported him with surprising strength. He looked back once at the three vampires in the circle, considered trying again to reach them.

  “Please!” The Mouse tugged his arm frantically. “Please!”

  She was right to be afraid. The vampires wouldn’t stay stunned forever. They would seethe over them like a tide of death, and weak, pathetic, human Cyrus would not be able to stop them. He held tight to the Mouse, his feet twisting beneath him, boneless as she dragged him from the sanctuary.

  They made it only as far as the door before the monsters pursued them. The Mouse screamed as one of them caught a handful of her hair, but she tore free, tightening her arm around Cyrus. A few more steps and they would be safe, but those steps seemed like miles due to his deadened legs and her ebbing strength. With a final, heroic burst of energy, the Mouse wrenched the basement door open and pushed him ahead of her. He collapsed and nearly tumbled down the steps. She shoved the door closed and locked it.

  The vampires clawed at the door, but the clawing gave way to angry voices, and then the voices faded into heavy footsteps. The Fangs had left them.

  Cyrus gasped for breath, his chest aching with the exertion of his actions. “What was that about?”

  “Please, don’t ever go up there again!” She gripped the front of his torn shirt, catching the long strands of his hair in her fists.

  “Do you think I’d go up there again by choice? They’ll kill me!” He wanted to take her by the shoulders, dig fingers into her thin flesh as he shook her. But there was no sport in abusing her, he decided. That explained why he’d taken no pleasure in it before.

  “If they kill you, they’ll kill me!” She clutched at him, her hold impossible to shake.

  “What are you talking about?” He lowered his voice. In the past, he would have rather died than show sensitivity to a squalling woman, but she knew more than he did. As loath as he was to admit it, he needed her, and he needed her calm so she could tell him what she knew.

  He sank to the second step, and she eased down, too, so they were squeezed side by side between the cinder block walls of the narrow stairwell. She hiccuped pathetically and wiped at her eyes. “If you die, I’m worthless.”

  I was under the impression you were rather worthless, anyhow. “What do you mean?”

>   “They only let me live to watch out for you. They don’t know how to take care of a…human. They kept me alive so I could take care of you.” She seemed suddenly aware that their bodies touched, and she shrank from him. “If you die, they’ll kill me. I’m disposable. That’s what they told me when they killed Father Bart and Sister Helen.”

  When she turned her head, he saw the bloody imprint of his teeth in her flesh. He looked away. “What if I killed myself? What if I went into the kitchen, took a knife and slit my wrists?”

  “No!” She grabbed for him again, and he evaded her, though his bones ached with fatigue.

  “So, you’re charged with watching out for my well-being, at the cost of your life. Yet you’ve done little to keep me from harming myself. There’s a razor in the bathroom, knives in the kitchen drawers. Which tells me you don’t care whether you live or die.” He studied her face as she absorbed his words.

  She looked down, her voice barely a whisper when she spoke. “Would you kill yourself?”

  Would he? It would end this miserable human existence. But they’d brought him back once from the realm of the dead, apparently with purpose. They could likely do it again. And it wasn’t as though he could lift a razor to slash himself. “No. I don’t wish to die.” He slipped down the next step, resigned not to look at her again.

  “Neither do I,” she whispered. “At least, I don’t think I do.”

  That gave him some hope, something to use against her if need be. “Then you’d better keep me alive.”

  “This is it,” Max announced, dropping his duffel bag on the plushly carpeted floor.

  Only the faint, hollow sound resulting reminded me we were in an airplane. “Air Fang One?”

  “Oh, that was bad.” Max flopped onto the cream-colored, silk sofa and kicked his feet up, as if he were on a secondhand couch in a college dorm. “Have a seat. It’s a long flight.”

  I couldn’t tear my eyes from the sumptuous decor of the private jet. The walls, carpet and furniture were all in muted, neutral shades. Warm light spilled from recessed fixtures to compliment the dark wood finish of the tabletops and sprawling entertainment center at the end of the cabin. “This is nicer than my apartment.”

  “There are a lot of places nicer than your apartment.” Max flipped open a console on the arm of the couch. A remote control slid up smoothly. He snagged it and turned on the television. “Like my apartment, for one.”

  I eyed the small, round table and two sturdy-looking wing chairs on either side of it. They were visually appealing, especially with their color-coordinated seat belts, but probably not very comfortable. “Are you just going to hog that sofa the whole time?”

  “What?” He pulled his gaze away from what appeared to be a Japanese game show with topless contestants, and sat up. “Oh, no. Sorry. You want the tour?”

  “There’s more?” I would have been impressed with just this room.

  Max rose and gestured to one of the fabric-covered panels in the wall. “Come on.”

  Sure enough, there was a hidden door handle worked into the ivory molding. Max pulled it open to reveal a small galley, not unlike a commercial airliner’s, and beyond that, a cockpit with all manner of flashing buttons and lighted dials. Two pilots in standard uniform conferred with the tower through headsets as they flipped switches and checked instruments. They were perfectly normal. Human, even.

  “The Movement has humans working for it?” I asked under my breath when Max led me back to the passenger area.

  “Werewolves,” Max fairly growled. “You’ll see a lot of that at headquarters. They’re antivampire, too, so the Movement thinks it’s just great to have them on board. Wanna see the bedroom?”

  “That’s subtle.” I elbowed him in the ribs. “There’d better be twin beds, or pray the flight doesn’t last long.”

  “The flight probably won’t,” he admitted. “It’s the waiting for sundown on the tarmac that’s the real problem.”

  At the thought of sunup, I panicked. It was one thing to be in the big, sturdy shelter of a house or even Ziggy’s old Ford Econoline van when dawn broke, but a plane seemed terribly risky. “We’re gonna be in this thing with the sun up?”

  “Well, yeah.” Max seemed annoyingly unconcerned. “Long flight, short night. Especially since we’re flying through it. Why do you think they built this bad boy without windows?”

  “Oh, God! What if we crash? Max, we could die!”

  “So? You’d die in a crash if you were human, too. If you wanna worry, worry about the pilots offing us for their cause.” On that reassuring note, Max led me to the other end of the cabin, where he pulled open a mahogany door with gold fixtures. At the end of a narrow hall there was another equally tasteful, equally neutral room with twin beds.

  “Damn.” He shook his head as if disappointed. “Unless you want to share?”

  “I’ll pass. Don’t take it personally. It’s the whole crushing-emotional-pain thing I’m concentrating on right now.” It hadn’t gotten any better, but I’d tried my best not think about it. It was something I’d become very good at when my parents had died. If I ignored the grief, I wouldn’t be incapacitated by it when there were more important things that needed my attention. Closing my eyes, I sank to the bed. “I left my bag in the other room.”

  “I’ll get it.”

  When Max returned with the bag, I gave the contents a quick once-over. I’d decided to leave my heart in the wall safe in Nathan’s shop. After we’d retrieved it from Cyrus, I’d given my heart to Nathan for safekeeping. He’d really outdone himself in the security department. The box containing my heart was fireproof and welded shut, so nothing short of total apocalypse would harm the contents. Still, I couldn’t help the spike of fear when I thought of being separated from it. Though I knew nothing could get to it in the hidden safe—and that leaving it behind was much better than trying to sneak a human heart through customs—it was another thing entirely to convince myself my fear for my life was irrational.

  A slender, friendly-looking vampire knocked gently on the doorway to alert us to her presence. A wide grin split Max’s face when he saw her. “You’re new here.”

  The young woman flushed, then seemed to remember her duty to be professional. “Yes, I am. My name is Amanda. I’ll be your flight attendant.”

  “I’m Max. Max Harrison. I’ll be your passenger.” He offered her his hand, and she shook it with a look of mild bewilderment.

  She turned her apologetic gaze to me, and I waved dismissively. “He doesn’t belong to me.”

  “The captain says we’re cleared for takeoff. You both need to find a seat and buckle your seat belts,” she said primly as if clinging to her rehearsed speech would help her resist Max’s charms.

  “Will do.” He winked at her, which sent her scurrying from the room.

  “Do you always sexually harass innocent young women?” I rolled my eyes at him before heading down the hall.

  He laughed. “I’m sorry, have we met?”

  Once we’d taken off and I was reasonably sure we weren’t in imminent danger of plunging into the sea while burning to death, I unbuckled and stood. “I’m tired. I didn’t sleep well yesterday. Mind if I crash?”

  “Not the best terminology to use on a plane, but knock yourself out.” Max shook his head, his mouth turned down and his gaze still fixed on the television. “Nine hundred channels. I think I’m good here.”

  “Great.” Truth be told, I was more tired of the Spanish variety show he’d been watching during takeoff than I was actually tired. “Wake me before we land, if I sleep that long.”

  “Will do.”

  I briefly heard the staged moans of an over-enthusiastic porn actress blare from the television as I headed to the bedroom. At least he’d have something to occupy his time.

  Not that I’d been on a lot of private jets or anything, but the beds were more comfortable than I’d expected. The sheets had a thread count equivalent to Egyptian cotton butter, and the incessa
nt whir of the machinery around me created a womblike environment, or at least what I’d imagine the womb to be like. I should have been able to drop off immediately, but my brain kept replaying the horror of my circumstances. I didn’t have a clue where Nathan was or if he was even alive. When I tried to communicate through the blood tie, all I got back was crippling pain. Did that mean he was dead? Just imagining it intensified the agony, so I shielded myself from his thoughts…or the void where they once were. All I wanted was to feel Nathan’s arms around me, to hear him tell me that everything would be all right. Instead, I cried, grateful for the mechanical noises that would keep Max from overhearing my sobs.

  I wasn’t sure when I crossed the line between conscious and asleep, so it was quite a shock when I opened my eyes and found myself in Cyrus’s bedroom in his palatial mansion. The mattress beneath me was soft, the linen sheets as cool and crisp as I remembered.

  Clarence has really kept the place up.

  “You’re awake.”

  I hadn’t heard the voice of my former sire, even in dreams, since the night I’d killed him. I’d seen him many times, but always through a murky blue filter. We’d never spoken. Still, I remembered his cloying praise and manipulative words. His gentle tone should have put me on my guard, but I somehow knew I dreamed, so he could do me no harm. I had no reason to resist him. Not that I’d ever been able to in the past.

  I rolled onto my side to face him. His long, white-gold hair covered his shoulders and the pillow beneath his head. A smile formed slowly on his beautiful mouth, and I ached to touch him.

  “I’m not awake.” I couldn’t force the sadness from my voice. “I’m on a plane. I’m sleeping.”

  He nodded and reached for me. His hands weren’t the clawed nightmares they’d been after five hundred years of living death. They were smooth and strong when he brushed my hair from my eyes. They slid down my neck to the scar he’d left on the night he’d changed me, and a shudder of longing passed through me at his touch. In reality, Cyrus would have been pleased with that reaction. In my dream, regret softened his usually cruel face. “You’re right. You’re not awake. But now your eyes are open.”