The Agrista (Between the Lines Book 1)

by Shannon Lamb

  A heady silence descended upon the room as Marcel’s thrashing came to an abrupt stop. All movement fled his body with a loud, hissing exhalation that breathed life into the room while expunging it from him. Drawn to the screams, Aruzhan’s naked form glistened in the dying wisps of sunlight and broke through the darkness. Her strong body framed in steel demanded the attention of the room.

  “Lucidus and Vilhant!” Aruzhan searched the darkness for an answer, but it only left her with more questions. “What happened?”

  “Evangeline,” Marie croaked. Her voice was no longer familiar among the chaotic drumming in her ears. “She was alive this whole time. She locked herself in here to protect us, and now...now she’s dead.”

  “What?” Aruzhan stammered as her tongue tried to make sense of everything while her brain struggled to catch up.

  “She was sick, my...m-mother,” the word felt strange on Marie’s tongue, now more than ever. “I think Cailene was sick too. I don’t really understand how it works, but I think...” she let out a shaky sigh, forcing a nervous smile. “I think it’s over. Is Cailene dead?” Aruzhan gave a curt nod in response, dragging a somewhat hysterical laugh from Marie.

  “Is he?” Aruzhan jerked her head toward Marcel.

  “I think so,” Marie slowly nodded, but in truth, she’d been wondering the same thing herself. “He stopped breathing.”

  As if summoned by the need to defy their protestations, Marcel’s supine form sharply retracted with a loud gasp. He craned his neck and canvassed the room, taking everything in as if seeing it for the first time. He mechanically rose to his feet as if rising from the dead. His pallid skin stretched tightly over sinewy limbs, draped limply alongside his willowy frame.

  The three Umbra waited for no word of explanation and descended upon Marcel like a pack of wild dogs, giving credence to their true nature of never adhering to sound judgment and acting solely on impulse. Something in Marcel’s eyes awakened the animal baying at their core, forcing them to revert to snarling beasts. They repeatedly lunged at him, unable to penetrate the growing barrier forcing them apart.

  Marcel sliced his arm through the air and sent the Umbra sprawling into all corners of the room, repelled by an unseen force that followed his every movement and magnified his strength. Aruzhan was the only one who’d held onto her consciousness. She struggled beneath the weight of pain and exhaustion as she staggered to her feet. She charged Marcel as soon as she’d found a promising foothold, despite the blaring protest of sore muscles and fissured bones.

  A flick of his wrist sent her tumbling out of the mausoleum, into a scattered bed of horny brambles that suffused her hide with gleams of blood and sweat. She determinedly jumped to her feet, ripping her flesh from the tangle of thorns as she beat her cracked pads over the hard ground. She saw Marcel’s demise clearly in her mind as she unabashedly eyed his jugular and steamrolled forward.

  Laylia flinched at the sound of Aruzhan biting into the silver as the door slammed shut in her face. Aruzhan used the last vestiges of strength to claw at the thinning seam and howl in protest. Laylia quivered at the echoed stir of tumblers as she futilely attempted to jerk Bria awake, refusing to tear her eyes from Marcel.

  In the dim, sanguine glow of the mausoleum, it was difficult to discern Marcel’s movements, but his motives were clear. Marie closed her fist over the key, allowing the nodules to dig into her flesh as the raised edges carved lines of blood along her palm. The sharp twinge of pain kept her focused and coherent. Fueled by a surge of endorphins, her brain restlessly connected neurons and forged pathways, racing to find a solution to save her sister and herself.

  “I suppose I should thank you,” Marcel slowly turned to Marie. “Because of you, I’m now King,” he smiled. The gleam of white teeth was terrifyingly stark against his shadowed face. “I’ve been waiting years to be reunited with Laylia, but I suppose it would be rude of me if I didn’t take the time to express my gratitude and welcome you to the family,” he laughed cruelly, crouching to put himself face to face with Marie.

  Laylia felt an explosion of conflicting emotions, inducing a wave of tremors that rattled her chest and pinched her breaths. She was thankful for the reprieve of Marcel’s divided attention, but frightened for the fate of her younger sister’s soul, destined to the thralls of Vilhant’s purple haze once Marcel was done with her body.

  Determined to do one kind thing in her life before she gave herself to the ill-fated gales, she wound her arm back, and with a trembling fist, struck Marcel across the back of the skull. She instantly regretted it.

  “Laylia...” Marcel slowly turned to the fragile woman shrinking in the corner as she willed herself not to shake. Once again, she felt like a helpless child as she cowered before him. “You’re still so weak!”

  Sensing interference from Marie, Marcel outstretched his slender fingers, draining the strength from her body without so much as a touch. Marie felt the vitality melt from her limbs, and used the fleeting vapors of energy to expand and contract her lungs. She was helpless to do anything more than lie there and breathe as she watched in horror.

  Marcel closed the distance between Laylia and him with an eager gait. He slowly raised his arm, relishing the buildup of apprehension as she quailed beneath his looming shadow. He’d felt a new power coursing through his veins. It enabled him to taste her fear as it exploded in a sweet medley of spices on the tip of his tongue.

  She bore the brunt of amassed anger and longing as he slammed the flat of his hand across the sharp panes of her face. He shattered her cheekbone with an audible crack as the back of her skull bounced off the wall. He caught her roughly beneath the armpits as her limp body slid down the silver with a horrible screech. He’d been waiting years for this moment. He refused to let her submerse herself into the numbness of unconsciousness as her eyes fluttered close.

  Laylia jerked herself awake, raking lines of fire across his face as she dragged her fingernails down his cheek. A horrible scream accompanied the sound of splintering bones as he crushed her delicate wrists in a single-handed grasp. He pinioned her arms to the wall above her head, using his free hand to gently stroke a flyaway tuft of blonde hair.

  She cringed from his light touch, swallowing the violent upsurge of bile as she wriggled wildly beneath his grip. The unmistakable smell of citrus and sweat burned her nostrils and corralled her thoughts.

  Marcel slapped a clammy hand over her chest, abruptly stunting her movements amidst the confusion as a putrid acid seeped from his cuticles. It raced down her armor in hissing rivulets, chewing through the metal and burning through the black cotton underneath.

  Laylia cried out as it disintegrated the tender flesh above her breasts, leaving it searing and raw. Marcel smashed his lips into hers, muffling a scream of protest with an angrily probing tongue as he cupped her breast. Laylia flinched as he sunk his teeth into her bottom lip, breaking the thin membrane of flesh and splitting her lip down the middle.

  Marcel drew blood from the fresh wound with a voracious suckling that twisted her stomach in knots. He pulled back suddenly, grinning from ear to ear. He peeled his lips back in a reflexive snarl that bared his teeth, glossed with a sickly shade of red. Laylia shuddered at the sight, turning away with racking shivers of revulsion.

  I can’t believe this is happening again! She fought the hot prickle of tears, not wanting to give Marcel any more satisfaction than he was already getting from her.

  Desperate to save herself, she slid her now free hand down the declivity of her stomach, searching for the dagger sheathed near her groin. It was an odd placement for a weapon, but it was symbolic. She kept it pressed tight against the curved junction of her inner thigh. It served as a constant reminder that she was in control. Many had tried to force her to succumb to their will since Marcel, and all had failed. Laylia was determined never to fall victim again, often leaving a slew of her own as a preemptory strike.

  Marcel allowed the movement, thinking it an act of submission. All the
tension melted from his shoulders with a quivering exhale as his full lips twisted up into a cruel smile. He was pleased to see that he’d broken her so easily, though it didn’t mean he’d take it any easier on her.

  Her breathing hitched as her fingers grazed the smooth edges of the hilt of her dagger. The blood began pumping to her heart again. It was beating so hard she had to force her eyes to focus through the current of shadow pulsing beneath her eyelids, shaking her awake.

  She pressed the hilt flush against his bowels, sliding her thumb along the length of the carved silver and erecting the blade. It pierced Marcel’s abdomen with a horrible ripping sound that made her judder, carving through his flesh as if it were tissue paper.

  He jerked himself free with a scream and staggered back, watching Laylia in utter disbelief. Not wanting to give him time to retaliate, she advanced with a singular graceful stride and plunged the knife into his chest. She savored the stunned look on his face as all the color drained from his lips and his body went slack.

  She yanked the blade free from his breastbone and raised her arm to strike again. Driven by morbid curiosity, she decided to let him speak; it would be his dying declaration, after all.

  “Foolish woman! You think you can get rid of me?” A haunting laugh gurgled up from his chest, drowning in a violent upsurge of blood. “Now that you’ve taken my life, I’ll never leave your side. I’ll always be inside of you, pumping through your veins and gripping your heart. You’ll never be rid of me now!” Laylia took his rambling as a bout of madness, and refused to look for meaning in his empty promise.

  She flung herself at Marcel, driving the knife into him again and again. She hesitated at first, but gained confidence with every thrust, apropos of every time he’d put something inside of her that she didn’t want. She divined it as karmic justice, though even the weight of his life would never truly balance the scales.

  Feeling slowly bled into Marie’s fingers with a flood of capillaries snapping awake, driving out the unpleasant prick of pins and needles as she forced herself upright. She blinked several times to relieve her dry eyes, burning beneath a fringe of wet lashes. She gingerly scaled the wall with trembling hands, pulling herself to her feet with tottering limbs.

  Laylia was seeing red. She absently mutilated Marcel’s corpse with an eruption of garbled expletives. Marie hobbled toward her frail sister’s crouched form, careful not to put herself in the blade’s path as Laylia wildly flailed her arms. She cooed and murmured, speaking to her sister as if she were a spooked mare in need of a firm hand and soothing voice. Nothing seemed to break through the maelstrom of violent thoughts.

  Marie impatiently nudged Alex with the tip of her boot as she shuffled her feet, refusing to take her eyes from her sister as she edged closer in a sinuous line. No response. Marie heaved a distressed sigh. Bria’s limp, prostrate form stretched languorously along the threshold, giving no indication of waking and therefore moving anytime soon. It was up to her to bring Laylia back to her senses.

  “Laylia!” Marie nearly jumped out of her skin when the dagger hit the floor with a thunderous clang. The ringing vibration slowly brought her sister back to herself. She craned her neck and peered up at Marie through a curtain of silver waves. “He’s dead.”

  Bria dazedly came to with a rumble of choking and snorting, rousing her from a painful slumber as she jerked to her feet with a low hiss of alarm.

  “Bria!” Marie’s shoulders slumped with relief. “It’s alright. Marcel, Xenos, Cailene...They’re all dead.” The words felt strange on her tongue, as if their deaths had been nothing more than a natural occurrence. She couldn’t bring herself to say Evangeline’s name just yet. She still hadn’t gotten past the shock of meeting her, only to lose her. “We did it,” she smiled ruefully.

  Bria’s irises devoured her pupils, reflecting a crazed bloodlust as she snarled and hissed, halfheartedly snapping at Marie’s shins. She ruthlessly advanced toward her with a low grumble of warning, causing Marie to clumsily back-step and trip over her feet amidst her growing confusion.

  She crumpled to the floor with a demoralizing shriek as Alex abruptly stirred beside her, regaining his consciousness. The hackles along his spine protruded like iron spikes, as unmovable and intimidating as Alex himself. He and Bria circled each other within the suffocating confines of the mausoleum, trapped in a sobering rhythm until one of them chose to take action or submit.

  “You’re siblings!” Marie nearly laughed at the words as they flew out of her mouth with surprising vigor. Everything that led her here had been a fallacy. Blood meant nothing, and she was beginning to wonder if blood was what had driven them all mad. Looking around the dusky mausoleum bathed in the blood of her ancestors, she was inclined to believe just that.

  Marie slunk along their dancing shadows, careful not to offset the balance of slow and steady movements and trigger a cataclysmic explosion of teeth and claws. She felt along the doorjamb, warm to the touch and caked with sludge.

  She did her best to ignore the nausea churning her bowels and worming its way up her throat as she frantically felt along the contours of the doorframe for the protrusion of the strike plate. She felt an instant release of mounted tension upon its discovery, and indelicately jammed the small wedge of silver into the keyhole.

  “Laylia,” she whispered, trying hard not to capture Bria’s attention. “Let’s go! There’s no reason to stay here,” she urged, slowly reaching for her sister’s hand.

  “No!” Laylia sharply recoiled, pressing herself tight to Bria. Her urgent touch was the only thing that kept the snarling Umbra in place. “I can’t!” she adamantly shook her head. “There’s...” She doubled over, burying her face in Bria’s side to stifle the dark feeling burning a hole in her tongue and burying her words. “Something’s wrong!”

  “Yes. Yes, I know,” Marie slowly nodded, feigning understanding. “It’s this place. It’s making you sick,” she edged a step closer, thrusting out her hand. “We have to-”

  “Stay back!”

  A matrix of knotted veins pressed through Laylia’s pale skin, beating hot against the surface as they branched out in a cluster of globular webbing. A thick, black tar traced the intricate network of veins. It furrowed beneath her skin like a hungry parasite, feeding off her blood as it burrowed toward her heart.

  “Alex!” Marie shot Alex a pleading look that melted his heart and amplified the guttural rumbling stagnant in the back of his throat. “We need to help Laylia!” she whimpered hopelessly. “There’s something wrong with her! She’s not right!”

  Alex knew what he had to do, and it broke his heart. Marie would never forgive him, but his first priority was to protect her. Loving her would always come last, a close second to his happiness and hers. Happiness didn’t matter; life mattered.

  He would have to be quick. He spared his sister a brief parting glance. He was afraid to linger on her face for fear that Marie might read the remorse written clearly on his, present in the deep crease of his brow as he looked on Bria for what was possibly the last time.

  He charged Marie, burying his face in her abdomen as he forced her out the door. He bucked his hind legs at the first sign of daylight, slamming the door closed with a crash of sound.

  “Alex! What-” Marie clutched her stomach as she struggled to find her next breath.

  Alex melted into his human form, positioning himself directly in front of the door with a wide stance and squared shoulders. The occasional compassion often present in his face had faded, replaced with a stern expression and cold eyes that made Marie quail in response.

  “What are you doing?” she gasped. Her lungs burned with relief from the sudden rush of air. “Let me pass!” Marie struggled to remain upright, tripping over her feet as she stumbled forward. Her steps were abruptly halted by the hollow abyss separating them. She clutched the key tightly in her white-knuckled fist, drawing beads of sweat from her shaky palm.

  “It’s my duty to protect you, even if it is from yours
elf.” Alex rocked back on the balls of his feet, digging his heels into the dirt to emphasize his point.

  “You think Laylia is a danger to me?” she scoffed. “That’s ridiculous!”

  “Mariella,” he closed his eyes. The protruding vein above his left temple was indicative of his rising temper, contrary to his cool composure. “You saw her transform, just as Marcel did. I don’t know exactly what’s happened or what’s causing this, but...” he trailed off with a sigh. “You said it yourself. She’s not right.”

  “So what, you mean to lock her in there?” she guffawed. The truth behind her words eviscerated any hint of amusement lingering in her tone. “Oh my god. You do!” Nothing could’ve prepared him for the look she gave him. Her shrewd gaze penetrated his stony facade, forcing a break in his demeanor that softened his features.

  “It’s only until we can figure out how to make her better,” he began weakly, meeting with a silence uncharacteristic of the girl he’d come to know and love. “It is the only way!”

  “I will never accept this!” Finding that words had failed her, she resorted to her bare fists. She futilely attempted to rouse the others to action to dislodge Alex, a towering wall of muscle that filled the silver frame and was easily as formidable.

  All the sunlight had gone out of the mausoleum. The cover of shadow had snuffed out the dying embers of Laylia’s sanity, reducing any hope that remained to burnt cinders. She awoke in the darkness, feeling as if she was a part of it. She could see clearly in the pitch black, seeing herself clearly for the very first time.

  She stared into the murky silver. Beneath the porcelain skin and hazel eyes was a face she’d recognized, but it was not her own. She reached a tentative hand toward the reflective surface, moved by an overwhelming need to touch the man she saw staring back at her. Bria jerked her away suddenly, shattering the image and tearing her from her thoughts.