The Possession

by Jennifer Armintrout

  She traced a fingernail down the front of his throat, then scratched beneath his chin affectionately. “You call me a dog as though you were trying to offend me. I know what I am.”

  “A pain in the ass? A fat, heavy pain in the ass?” God help him, he was teasing her back.

  Are you high, Harrison?

  No, brain. But I wish I was.

  “I am not fat. I have fat, where it is needed in human form.” As if to demonstrate what she meant, she pressed her breasts more firmly against his back.

  Someone must have drugged her. That was the only explanation for this strange behavior. Or, dear God, did they go into heat?

  “Are you coming on to me? ’ Cause if you are—” He didn’t have time to finish with his bad barking-up-the-wrong-tree pun. Up ahead, the mansion loomed before them.

  With startling clarity, he remembered that night. Or, more accurately, the drive over. He’d never seen Nathan so shaken. Too keyed up to drive, definitely, so Max’d had to drive Ziggy’s shitty old van, listening to Nathan mumble “faster” and “come on,” the whole time.

  “I can’t lose her, Max. If I lose her, you have to do me a favor.”

  And then he’d pressed a stake into Max’s hand.

  Max wouldn’t have been able to do it then, and he wouldn’t be able to do it now. They’d have to take Nathan alive, and damn the consequences.

  “Why did you stop?” Bella demanded, digging her heels in again as if she could spur him to movement. “He is not here!”

  “Fine!” Max didn’t mean to shout it. The stress was getting to him. Calmer, though his voice was still ragged from tension, he started forward. “Where am I going?”

  She sniffed the air again and tugged his shirt. “That way. And straight onto that lawn.”

  Her directions led him to another sprawling home, past a baffled security man, who didn’t try and stop them until they were nearly to the back fence. There was a gate—thank God for small miracles—and it was unlocked, so they could slip out before the guard called the cops.

  “Wasteful, to have such large homes,” Bella said, the flirtatious air completely disappeared from her speech.

  Max thought of his own place and cleared his throat. “Well, maybe they’re inherited.”

  “Then wasteful of their ancestors, to have such large homes.” There was clearly no arguing with her.

  As they crossed the next lawn, she directed him back to the street. He groaned in frustration. “We could have just gone around the block.”

  “The trail is fresh. Cross the street!” She sat up like a foxhunter rising in the saddle.

  “You’re hard to carry when you’re squirming like that.” He ran across the street, glad for the absence of traffic on this side of town after nine.

  They were crossing another lawn when he caught sight of Nathan, naked and bleeding, sprinting through a hedge.

  “Holy shit!” Max dropped Bella, though she tried her damndest to stay on him.

  “Do not leave me here!” she yelped. “I thought you needed my help.”

  “I need to lose some ballast so I can chase him down!” Max ran toward the hedge, slipping on the grass.

  “You will lose his scent!” Bella jogged beside him, her face contorted in pain.

  “You’re going to hurt yourself,” he warned. Let her. She’ll have no one to blame but herself.

  Her breathing turned to panting, but she kept up despite the pain he knew she felt. Her stamina was amazing as they scrambled over a high brick wall and landed on a vast lawn.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Max groaned as Nathan rounded the corner of a small shed.

  “Wait. He has been here before. I can smell him.” Bella’s nostrils flared and she clamped a hand over her mouth. “And I smell death.”

  They crept to the huge house, a stucco monster with Spanish tiles and creeping ivy. There were no lights, save for a candle in one of the ground-floor windows. Max motioned for Bella to follow him to the back door.

  The impressive oak panel wasn’t locked. It led to a small, three-season room with a mosaic floor and a veritable arboretum of plants. He stumbled over something in the dark and swore quietly.

  “What is that?” Bella covered her nose with her sleeve.

  Max gave the bulky shape a kick, producing a sickening, dull sound. “I’d say the former owners of this place.”

  “How many?” She squatted beside him and lifted an arm with a frown. It came completely free of the pile and she dropped it with a gasp.

  Max did a quick check. “Two heads.”

  “That is impossible. There are more than two bodies here. There have to be more.” Her pupils dilated and her breathing sped up visibly. “We are not safe here. Let’s go.”

  With his shoe, Max pushed aside another pile of something moist he’d rather not think about. “Why on earth would you say that?”

  “It is not a time for jokes! There is so much death here I cannot breathe.” She stiffened, her nostrils flaring. “Someone is coming. Run! Now!”

  On the heels of her statement, he heard it: several pairs of feet clomping toward them. Max ushered Bella ahead of him through the door, but with her injured leg she was too slow. He scooped her up in his arms and ran across the lawn, boosting her over the wall. He vaulted over and dropped onto the grass beside her with a thud.

  “What could have done that? And who has that kind of security?” she whispered, peering up at the top of the wall as she sank into a crouch.

  “The Soul Eater’s guys,” Max wheezed, his fist bunching the fabric of his shirt over his chest as he struggled for breath. “Looks like someone is keeping an eye on us.”

  Bella shook her head. “Or on someone else.”

  Max’s blood ran colder than it should have in a vampire. “You’re right. We’ve got to find Nathan or he’s a dead man.”

  It was the second time in a week Cyrus had woken cold and naked in an unfamiliar place, and he didn’t like it. A foul, chemical stench stung his nose, and he swiped at it with the back of his hand. His head throbbed and his vision swam. The only thing clear was the feeling of rough carpet at his back and the unmistakable sound of asphalt passing beneath him.

  “Where am I?” He sat up, the motion of whatever vehicle he was in setting him temporarily off his balance. A nagging sense that something was wrong, beyond the fact that he’d been kidnapped naked again, plagued him.

  “You’re in the back of Ziggy’s van.”

  He recognized the voice in an instant of raw pain.

  “Do you remember who he was?”

  “Honestly, I don’t.” Cyrus rubbed his eyes and looked around the space for something to cover himself with. “No, wait. The boy. He was Nolen’s son.”

  And you’re my fledgling, he added silently. Or, you were.

  “Good. Glad to see you retained your memory. I worried you had forgotten.” She sounded distracted. The van lurched around a corner.

  “Where are you taking me?” The feeling that he was forgetting something, something very important, crept up again.

  “Back to Michigan. You’re going to help us fix what’s happened to Nathan.”

  The unmistakable sensation of motion sickness overwhelmed Cyrus. “Stop the car. I’m going to be ill.”

  To his surprise, the van lurched to a halt and the driver’s door ground open on rusty hinges. Seconds later, the back doors opened, revealing a dark, desert highway and endless night sky.

  And Carrie.

  Fear, embarrassment, pain and relief cascaded in a wave over him. Disoriented, he reached for her, but she stepped back, cold and unyielding as ever. She still wore her fair hair scraped back from her face in a severe ponytail, still glared at him with her cold, blue eyes. He’d looked into those eyes once and prayed to see a bit of warmth, some sign of loving acceptance.

  That memory sparked the nagging feeling of having misplaced something, and he scrambled from the van, falling to his knees on the shoulder of the road.
r />   Mouse!

  “You have to take me back,” he insisted before he heaved up his dinner on the sand. He got to his feet, head still reeling from the effects of whatever she’d used to drug him. “I have to go back.”

  “You’re not going anywhere.” Carrie followed him the few steps he managed away from the van.

  “They’re going to kill her.” Words seemed impossible. He couldn’t get them in the right order, couldn’t think of the ones that would convince her to take him to Mouse. “I don’t know anything about Nolen, just let me go back. I love her.”

  “Right. Like you loved me.” Carrie laughed, becoming for a moment the great, heartless creation he’d wanted her to be. He should have been careful what he’d wished for. “Listen, I’m not letting you run back to your undead girlfriend so you two can plot whatever you’ve got going.”

  Undead? “No, you don’t understand.” But he couldn’t make her understand, either. He was drunk from…was it chloroform? A bitter trickle stung the back of his throat. “Please, I have to go back.”

  She stepped closer, squinting at him as though she could see into his mind and detect an ulterior motive.

  Let her search. She won’t find anything.

  “Please.” He clenched his fists at his sides. There was some vital detail that would make her bend, he knew it. But his muddled brain wouldn’t seize on it. So he just repeated over and over, growing more frustrated by the minute, “Please.”

  Something changed in her eyes. She was much harder, almost angry. “Get back in the van.”

  “I won’t.” He realized he sounded like a petulant child, and must look ridiculous standing naked in the desert and refusing shelter. But he had to get to Mouse, before they knew he was gone. “I have to get back to her.”

  “Get in the van, Cyrus,” Carrie repeated, pointing for emphasis.

  There was nothing to be done. She was stronger than him, he knew. And he was still drunk from the chemical. So he fell into the back of the van, weeping like a child. They would kill Mouse, and he would be alone again.

  As they pulled onto the road, a brown bottle wrapped in a scorched rag slid to him as if pushed by a divine hand. If he’d believed in God, he would have thanked him.

  The front seats were partitioned from the back by heavy canvas drapes. He wet the rag with the chloroform and thrust his arm through the opening between the curtains.

  She tried to push his hand away, and the van swerved, nearly tossing him back. He clutched at the drapes and tried again, this time managing to cover her face. She had the sense to put on the brakes, and the vehicle slowed to a crawl as she went limp. Then her foot fell from the pedal and they rolled to a stop.

  “We have to go back for her, because she’s human,” he explained as he pulled Carrie’s rag doll body into the back. As he situated himself behind the wheel, he shook his head to clear it. “Human. That was the word I was searching for.”

  Chapter 17

  The Mouse

  When I came to, I thought I was on a ship. In a storm. Then I recognized the van, and wondered who the hell was driving so badly.

  And then I remembered Cyrus.

  I pulled back the curtain and he shouted in surprise, swerving even worse than he’d already been, “Get back, Carrie, or I swear to God I’ll stake you!”

  “With what?” I demanded, reaching toward my back pocket.

  He grabbed the stake he’d propped in the cup holder. “With this. Now sit down and shut up. We’re going back for her.”

  “For who? Angie?” I laughed. “I’m sure you’ll find a replacement for her.”

  “Angie?” He hit the accelerator hard, then let off abruptly. “No! Mouse. We have to go back for her before they figure out I’m gone. Damn it, is this the right way?”

  A cold, sick feeling gripped my stomach. “Mouse?”

  He glared at the road and hit the gas again. “Yes. It’s what I call her. Her real name is just ridiculous. She’s human.”

  “She was human?” I eased into the passenger seat, shock slowly numbing my body. “I didn’t know she was human.”

  “She is. Is human,” he insisted, pounding the steering wheel. “Am I even going the correct way?”

  I nodded woodenly. I’d left a human being behind in that place? With those vampires? Trembling, I reached into my pocket and withdrew the key. “Take this.”

  He looked down for just a second, the car heading for an instant toward the shoulder as he did. “What is that, a marble?”

  “It’ll help you find the place. Unless…you want me to drive,” I offered.

  “No time,” he answered tersely.

  I was as eager to get the girl out of there as he appeared to be, but I wasn’t willing to die in a fiery crash to do it. “Have you ever driven before?”

  “No.” He sounded impatient. “It looks much easier in the movies.”

  Ahead was the intersection just before the church. In the distance, where I should have seen the small, black shape of the burned-out ruin, the ghostly outline of the church broke the line of the horizon. Whatever spell the Fangs had cast on the place was wearing off.

  “Maybe they’ve just gone and left her behind,” I said hopefully. But I knew better. So did Cyrus.

  The tires squealed as he pulled into the parking lot. If he thought the Fangs were still there, he was sure making plenty of noise.

  Grabbing a stake, he kicked the door open. “They won’t hurt me. They’ll probably kill you, though.”

  “I’ll take my chances.” I pocketed a stake, too, just in case.

  “Mouse!” he shouted as we entered the dark vestibule. But his voice fell silent at the sight of the sanctuary doors ripped from their hinges and lying like splinters of firewood on the carpet.

  He seemed to freeze for a minute, his Adam’s apple the only part of him moving as he swallowed. “No.”

  “Cyrus, wait,” I begged as he ran toward the basement door. I wanted to go first, for some crazy reason intent on shielding him from seeing something terrible.

  I was two steps behind him on the stairs. A single bulb hanging from the ceiling illuminated the apartment, and on the other side of the light I saw pale legs, barely distinguishable from the sheets, splayed at an unnatural angle across the bed.

  The sight didn’t stop him, didn’t register, just as the sight of the bloody bedclothes didn’t keep him from climbing onto the half-bare mattress beside her and slapping her face lightly. “Mouse? Wake up. Wake up.”

  “Cyrus…” I began, but he couldn’t hear me. The girl’s dead eyes were open. They seemed to stare accusingly at me.

  “Mouse?” Grief sounded strange in his cultured, British voice. “Wake up. Please.”

  He buried his face close to her ruined neck, ripped from ear to ear by claws or teeth. He laid an open hand on her bloodstained hair, but his fingers curled into a fist and he lifted his head, making a sound that was a wail and a scream and a sob all in one.

  My back to the cinder block wall, I slid to the floor. I’d never seen an emotion so genuine and powerful from him as this. I’d never imagined him capable of this kind of sincere feeling.

  He loved her. It struck me like a cold hand slapping my face. Had I known? Had I sensed it and intentionally left her behind? The thought made me sick. If I had done such a thing, I’d abandoned a human to die a cruel and humiliating death, and I’d done it out of spite.

  You didn’t know. The voice of sanity in my head didn’t belong to me. It was Nathan, in a moment of rare lucidity. And he was more concerned for me than for himself. That broke my heart more than it should have.

  Nathan. I don’t know if I can help you. I was tired, tired from my journey and tired from witnessing this carnage. I just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep for years.

  Nathan’s elusive clarity disappeared again, leaving me no way to escape Cyrus’s raw hurt, which so closely resembled the agony in Nathan’s soul.

  “I’m sorry,” Cyrus whispered, cradling the girl�
��s limp body to his. “I’m so sorry.”

  Burdened by Nathan’s pain and my own guilt over the death of this innocent girl, I closed my eyes. There was nothing I could do to fix my error, no way to comfort Cyrus or make things better. The life of this girl was snuffed out forever, and I’d caused it. Her death would hang like a noose around my neck for the rest of my life.

  When Ziggy had died, I’d blamed myself for not protecting him, but I’d been able to lay most of the blame on Cyrus, who’d done the actual killing. I’d even blamed Nathan some, for overreacting to finding his son in a compromising position and driving him away. But I had no way of avoiding my guilt now, no way of reasoning it away. I’d fucked up, and now this girl was dead.

  No wonder some vampires didn’t enjoy the killing. How could they, with this feeling always hanging over them? For the first time, I began to understand a fraction of Nathan’s pain and heartache. The agony I felt over this girl eerily mirrored the turmoil Nathan experienced now.

  Something shifted in my mind, as though one of those jumbled puzzle pieces had fallen inexplicably into place. But I didn’t have time to ponder it. When I looked up, Cyrus’s cold, blue eyes locked on me with murderous intensity.

  “You did this,” he whispered. “You killed her.”

  “I didn’t know.” I rose slowly, aware the gesture betrayed my fear of him. But what did I have to fear? He was human. I was a vampire. I had more physical strength and faster reflexes.

  But he had nothing to lose, now.

  “I tried to tell you.” His voice was that calm one I knew so well from my days as his willing prisoner. A calm that would turn to fury without warning. “You didn’t let me explain. And now she’s dead.”

  “You will be, too, if we don’t get out of here.” It was an empty threat. The place was abandoned.

  He shook his head with an expression of stony resolve. “I’m staying with her.”

  “There’s nothing you can do for her now.” I highly doubted there was anything that could have been done for her if we had gotten there just after they’d attacked.