Rachel rolled over on the pullout bed and looked up into Kai’s face.
The merman had legs, and he had pants pulled over them. But it was his face that was the most changed. His eyes were red and raw, and he reflected the despair Rachel felt. The utter loss, and the pain of knowing there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t even defend herself against Kendra, how could she do worse? It made fire erupt in her belly to realize Abbadon had done this to them on purpose. But then the fire was doused just as quickly. He’d done this to them, and he’d won.
The bed creaked, and Sid’s hand enveloped Rachel’s. “Kai has news,” he said. He almost kept his voice from cracking.
“I need you both to come with me,” Kai said.
Automatically, mechanically, Rachel stood and followed Kai. Her legs were stiff, and every movement made her side ache where Kendra had hit her with the board.
The car ride was silent, the only sounds Daphne and Bruno whispering to each other in the front seat. Rachel sat jammed up against Kai, the fishy smell of him warm and pungent in her nose. The older man kept his eyes forward, but he clutched Rachel’s hand tight and didn’t let go.
They parked as close as they could to Breaker Cove and had to pick their way through the thick oaks and trailing vines on a memory of a trail, flashlights jumping through the dim woods. It swung light across whisper-thin spider webs and caught at the ragged, sagging eaves of an abandoned fishing shack. The moon was rising again by the time they’d breached the trees to the curved beach.
Kai stood still at the edge of the trees, like he couldn’t bear to walk on. “Mallu went missing after the hippocampi attack. We think Abbadon had been using his body until a better”—his voice cracked, frayed at the edges, and Kai took a deep breath—“a better candidate came along. Kendra visited last week, and that’s when I knew. My daughter … she wasn’t anywhere in that body.” Kai hung his head, like it weighed too much, then he looked up and pointed an accusatory finger at the full moon. “I couldn’t … I had no way to tell you until the moon was full. And I was too late.”
Water crashed ashore, breaking around something that shone silver in the failing light. Rachel knew what it was—who it was—the moment she saw it, recognized the silver tail and the silver hair. Grey. Though his eyes were closed, she knew they were moss green behind his eyelids. The water tugged at Grey, trying to reclaim him. Bruno wrapped fingers around the merman’s slender shoulder and flipped him onto his back.
Grey’s heart was ripped from his chest.
CHAPTER 12
A headache had lodged itself in Rachel’s brain sometime around noon. It was knives behind her eyes, boulders in her brain. She pushed fingers to her temples and forced herself to keep reading. She groaned, pushing off her butt and stretching across the rug for the next book. Rachel dragged the musty leather volume onto her lap and collapsed back against the couch.
There had to be something in one of these books about possession. There had to be. The books were stacked around Rachel, forming a sneeze-inducing nest. Rachel opened the latest volume and bit back a cough that crawled into her chest. There was a counter-spell for witch possession, a whole chapter on possessed objects, and a section on leeches attaching to household pets. Yet nothing on actual demons taking up residence in bodies. The only way they’d wormed Abbadon out of Willem was by beating him nearly to death. And that was not an option here. Not for Kendra.
Rachel leaned against a couch cushion and let her eyes drop closed. She felt raw, prickles of energy making her twitch yet drained at the same time. A drill whined across the house. Sid had abandoned the research for some manual labor, working to repair the bookshelf in Rachel’s room. Or she assumed, at least. She hadn’t stepped foot in there since Kendra—no, Abbadon—had attacked her two nights ago. Other than the muffled sounds of work, the house was still. Holding its breath. Waiting. Just like Rachel.
Somewhere in the quiet house, a phone chirruped. Rachel looked up from the book, made a tiny move to search for the phone, then slumped back against the couch.
“Are you going to get that?” Footsteps echoed down the hall and Sid appeared around a kitchen counter. He hadn’t left her alone in the house since the attack. “Rachel?”
“S’not mine,” she muttered to the ceiling. The sun baked her arm and side of her face where it blasted through the window, but the air conditioning raised goosebumps along her skin.
Sid rifled through stacks of papers and more books littering the dining room table. He unearthed the phone from a sheaf of yellowed papers and held it out to Rachel in question. She shrugged. “Not my mom’s.”
“Bruno must have forgotten it when they left,” he said as he slid an index finger over the screen to answer.
Bruno and Daphne had left early that morning after reports of tornadoes in the foothills. Daphne had given Rachel an extra-long hug before they rushed out the door, weapons-stuffed duffels heavy on their backs.
Sid answered the phone, eyebrows raised. Then they dropped, slashing lines over his narrowed eyes. Sid’s jaw jutted, his hand where it rested on the back of a chair tightened to a fist. He switched to French that spewed low and clipped past his lips. Rachel watched him, forehead furrowed and mouth screwed over to one side. Sid snapped a quick goodbye—at least Rachel recognized that bit of French—and dropped the phone.
“The DuBois twins have her.”
Rachel scrambled to her feet, her headache pounding with the sudden movement. Books tumbled against her ankle, but Rachel kicked them away. “Where?”
“South of town somewhere. They said they were in some old shack in the woods close to the coast.”
Rachel squeezed her eyes shut, trying to place it. She drummed fingers against her thigh, anything to dispel the currents of pent up energy forking through her. Think. Think.
Her eyes popped open and she slapped her leg. “I know where they are.”
They grabbed weapons and raced out the door. Sid drove, Rachel shouting directions that made them skirt Shipley and hug the coast. The road curved away from the water south of town, twisting through the ancient beech groves and gnarled oaks that grew thick around secluded Breaker Cove. The road was deserted when they pulled over, the lights of town forgotten.
“This leads out to Breaker Cove,” Sid said quietly as he cut the engine. “Right where we found Grey’s body.”
Out of the car with only the cicadas and creaking trees to hear, Rachel didn’t trust herself to speak. She was afraid she’d scream or cry or maybe both. They had Kendra. But what were they going to do with her?
The question looped in Rachel’s burning brain as she and Sid slipped into the woods. The day’s heat still hung thick and wet around them, trapped underneath spreading branches and dripping moss. It collected at her hairline and slipped in beads down between her shoulder blades. Gnats swarmed her sticky skin, clouded in front of her. Rachel swatted them away and kept walking.
She stopped behind a tree and peered around it. The abandoned fishing shack was all slumping roof and half-rotten wood, but orange light flared from behind a ragged curtain flapping within a broken window. Sid’s breath blew hot and close against her ear.
“How are we going to save her?”
Rachel leaned closer to the tree, fingers sinking into soft bark. Something scuttled across her fingers, something with too many legs. She wrenched her hand back. Her voice was wretched when she finally answered. “I have no idea. But we can’t let the DuBois twins hurt her.” She sucked in a breath that sloshed like liquid in her lungs. “Did they say if they’d …”
Sid’s fingers found Rachel’s hand in the darkness and squeezed. “Luc just said they had her. He didn’t—”
A howl shattered the woods.
Rachel lurched through the trees, slapping moss and spider webs out of her way. Shadows flared from within the cabin, looming tall through the window. Across a weed-choked clearing, the cabin sagged like it wanted the earth to reclaim it. The wooden door was half off its hin
ges and hung useless and broken. Orange light bled through the door, inching across dirt and moss at the doorstep.
Something shrieked, something utterly inhuman. Rachel lunged from the darkness into the cabin. Her eyes burned with the sudden light, and it was only Sid’s shout of warning that made her jump away from a swinging sword.
Rachel dropped to a crouch and spun away, her hand at her hip in an instant for her dagger. She glared up at a tall guy holding the sword—it had to be Luc DuBois. He glared right back at her, his deep blue eyes narrowed and cold, but then he ran a hand along his chiseled jaw and grinned. It made Rachel’s stomach turn sour.
A knife slid around Rachel’s neck from behind. The twin. How could she have forgotten? A throaty chuckle rasped against her back. “Drop the dagger, please,” said a girl’s voice.
Someone coughed—gurgling and wet—and Rachel slid her eyes away from Luc and his sword to the pathetic form crouched in the corner of the shack. Rachel’s dagger clattered uselessly to the floor. Two lanterns threw the shack into greasy light that didn’t reach into the corners, but Rachel couldn’t miss her best friend. Kendra met her stare … or tried. One eye was brilliant purple and swollen shut, and the other was forked with angry red veins.
“Kendra,” Rachel breathed.
“My hero,” the girl whispered. She laughed again, but starting choking and turned her head to spit out a glob of blood. “Come to save your bestie?” She grinned past a cut and bleeding lip. “Or should I say, your beastie?”
The knife at Rachel’s throat pressed harder. “You’re friends with the beast?” The unseen girl’s voice was harsh.
Sid strode into the light at that moment, his bow raised and aimed directly at Luc. The air in the shack snapped with anger between the two. “Hello, Luc. Claire. Stop showing off for Miss Chase and drop the damn knife.”
“Boo,” Kendra hissed from the corner. “Right when it was getting interesting.”
Claire answered Kendra’s taunt with a hurled knife. It sliced the girl’s bare arm and buried itself in the wall an inch from her throat. “The next will be aimed for your heart,” Claire snarled.
“Promises, promises.”
Rachel’s hands went to her now-free throat, rubbed the spot where Claire’s knife had pressed. She turned to face Claire DuBois. Luc’s twin had the same dark hair and piercing blue eyes, and though she was shorter and slighter than her tall twin, she held herself like a ballerina. Claire’s cupid bow of a mouth quirked up at the corners.
“Rachel Chase? Bruno has spoken highly of you.” Her eyes sparked. “Though his standards have fallen sharply in recent years, I’m afraid.”
Sid’s bow creaked as he relaxed and stowed the arrow back into its quiver. “Be nice, Claire.”
“We prefer the truth, Sidney,” Luc said in his twin’s defense. “And we prefer not to coddle the enemy,” he said, sliding his glance to Kendra still huddled in the corner.
Rachel stooped for her dagger, eyes darting between the DuBois twins, and backed away from them. “We weren’t coddling her. We just found out Abbadon was possessing Kendra when she attacked me in my own room.”
Claire raised both delicate eyebrows. “Poor child. You got attacked. This demon massacred an entire family of Descendants in Australia. We were cleaning up the mess when Bruno called us here to help.”
“Torturing Kendra is hardly helping,” Sid said through clenched teeth.
“Oh, Sid. You have always been soft,” Luc said with a shake of his head. He strode closer to Sid and dropped a hand on his shoulder. Luc was a head taller and seemed to draw himself up straighter to emphasize the difference. Sid glared and shrugged Luc’s hand away. “Our techniques have, in fact, helped. Or, they were about to until you two showed up.”
Rachel backed up another step, disgust roiling through her. “You’re not going to touch her,” she said. Her hand tightened around the hilt of her dagger. “There’s got to be another way to get to Abbadon. There—”
A growl rumbled through the shack, and Rachel only had a moment to register Sid’s eyes going wide before an arm wrenched her backward. Kendra held her tight, but her exposed arm was smoking. The girl shrieked in Rachel’s ear; it sent shivers scratching down her skin. Rachel was tossed to the ground and stared up: Clumps of ferula and some other herb hung in a ring from the ceiling. So that was how they’d kept Kendra confined. But now …
Kendra paced before Rachel, still prone on her back. She tried to stand, but Kendra kicked her in the stomach. Sid bellowed and lurched closer, but Luc held him back. The sound of Sid’s cracking shouts brought a smile to Kendra’s mouth.
“You know,” Kendra said. She glanced over her shoulder at Sid before turning back to Rachel. She clucked her tongue and kicked Rachel’s dagger outside the binding circle. “I always thought your crush on Sid was pathetic, but maybe I was wrong about him. Shame. He deserves better. I never thought he could be into someone like you. I mean, you couldn’t hold onto Jake even after you gave it up on the floor of a boat.”
“Shut up,” Rachel said. She grit her teeth against the pain radiating from her stomach and tried crawling away from Kendra. The girl grabbed her hair and yanked Rachel to her feet.
“Honestly, Rach,” Kendra said, low and purring. “It was nearly this easy luring that idiot mer.”
Rachel’s heart stuttered. Grey. A groan whined up her throat at the memory of the merman, discarded on the beach with his heart ripped out. Was that her fate too?
Kendra giggled, and it turned Rachel’s stomach. “Aw, do you feel bad for him? Don’t. He thought we were going somewhere to make out until the moment I sank my claws into his chest. Want to see what it was like?”
Long werewolf claws sprouted from Kendra’s free hand and sank into Rachel’s leg. Rachel bit her tongue until she tasted blood to keep from sobbing. A strangled cry choked from Sid, and Rachel met his eyes. He was blurry through her tears, but she didn’t look away.
“Look at the poor boy.” Kendra’s voice licked Rachel’s ear. Rachel choked on bile as she felt long vampire teeth slide against her earlobe. “Look at his eyes. He knows he can’t save you.”
“Please,” Rachel whispered. “Kendra, I know you’re in there somewhere. You’re strong. You can fight.”
The beast laughed. “Oh, she’s here. And she knows it just like Sid over there. She knows you’re about to die, Rachel.”
Teeth plunged into Rachel’s neck, and troll strength held her tight when she tried struggling away. Rachel closed her eyes and let the tears leak out.
But suddenly the teeth were gone. Rachel collapsed to the floor and blinked against the dirty lantern light. Sid loomed over Rachel, veins sticking out from where his hands clenched his bow and his chest heaving. Nearby, Kendra’s laugh was harsh and crude. The girl pushed herself off the floor and touched the spot where the fletching of an arrow stuck out from her thigh. Rachel shook her head to clear the dizziness. No. This was what Abbadon wanted. Now they were both in danger. Rachel struggled to her feet and grabbed at Sid. He tried to push her behind, to protect her, but Rachel clung, dug in with her short nails.
Movement caught the edge of her vision, and a strange net—almost like an old fishing net—flew through the air and landed directly on Kendra. A scream tore from the girl’s throat. Her skin blistered and smoked where the net touched her.
Sid finally budged, and Rachel dragged him outside the binding circle. He pushed his hand to Rachel’s neck, where she was dimly aware of warmth still oozing from the bite. His lips moved as he worked, Rachel’s name on his breath over and over.
“Now do you see?” Claire yelled, her French accent growing thick. “You stupid girl.”
Luc retrieved a torch from a duffel bag and lit it from one of the lanterns. It flared to life and threw Luc’s face into the angles and planes of a marble statue. “The girl must die,” he said. His voice was flat. Determined. This was just another job.
A sob clawed past Rachel’s teeth, and her knees ga
ve out. Sid caught her and held her up, hugged close to his chest.
Claire shook her head and lit another torch. “It’s not like she’s human. She’s half-demon.”
Sid’s arm tightened around Rachel’s shoulders. He wrenched his other arm out, held it up to the torch light. Long scratches from Kendra raked down his arm and dripped blood. “We’ve got demon blood too. Just like Kendra.”
Luc sucked in a hissing breath. “We are completely different. We protect humans. This thing”—he spit the word—“is our enemy.”
“This thing is one of my best friends. You won’t kill her.”
Next to Luc, Claire growled, sounding nearly as inhuman as the beast inside Kendra. “Fine. But we’re getting Abbadon out of it.” And she stalked forward to where Kendra huddled under the net and thrust the blazing torch against Kendra’s skin.
Kendra shrieked, and the smell of burning flesh singed Rachel’s nose and snaked down her throat. She struggled against Sid, pounded her hands into his chest in her effort to get to her best friend, but he held her tight. He whispered against her ear, his voice thick. “It’ll be over soon. I promise. It’ll be over.”
And then it was. Kendra’s back arched and she lurched forward onto all fours. Her shoulders convulsed, and then black slime spewed from her mouth. Luc had another net ready to throw on the essence of Abbadon, but the thing bubbled and hissed like a tar pit. It transmuted into a stinking black cloud and shot away into the night.
CHAPTER 13
A shudder rippled through the silent shack. A cry, small and mewling like an injured animal.
Rachel wrenched away from Sid and raced to Kendra. The net no longer smoked against Kendra’s skin, but Rachel ripped it off and sank to her knees. Kendra fell back against the wall and looked up at Rachel with eyes half-closed in pain and something else. Something haunted that scared Rachel.
Sid dropped down next to Kendra with a med kit. He pulled the arrow free from her thigh as quickly as he could, and Kendra almost didn’t scream. She squeezed her eyes shut, her chin quivering, and let Sid pack the wound with a poultice and wrap her leg. But she pushed his hands away when he tried to treat her burns.
Eat Your Heart Out (Descendants) Page 9