Paranormal After Dark: 20 Paranormal Tales of Demons, Shifters, Werewolves, Vampires, Fae, Witches, Magics, Ghosts and More

by Rebecca Hamilton

  The moment he left the doorway, an iron grip closed around his throat.

  “Too late.” Sebastian’s voice was sad. “I’m already back. Was that that girl I saw? Running to a teenager for help? Really, Hugo? You’re such a goddamn baby.” He spat the last name like a curse, like the first time he’d said it, and for a moment, the putrid green wallpaper of a rotting tenement seemed to close in around Lenny.

  The hand left Lenny’s throat and swung hard into his jaw. He choked and spat out teeth, and they had crumbled to dust before they could hit the deck. He raised his hands to shield his face, and a foot planted itself in his chest and shoved, cracking ribs. His momentum carried him back until his hip struck the railing and he twisted, flipping over to land hard on the gravel below.

  He tried to roll over, to get back to his feet, but Sebastian was already there, pulling him up.

  “Stop calling me that,” Lenny mumbled through a mouthful of blood. “I’m Leonard. I’m n-not Hugo, I’m Leonard.”

  “Shut up.”

  Lenny’s throat sealed itself. Something moved in his blood, and the pain began to fade. He tingled, instead. It felt good. He fought it, but he had lost before he even began. It spread until he relaxed and slumped against Sebastian’s side.

  “Shhh, don't worry about it. You want the kid, that's okay. You can have her. My gift. Don't cry, okay? I hate you when you cry. But first, let’s get you in one piece again.”

  He half-dragged, half-carried Lenny into the motel office. The woman behind the desk stood up with a gasp and reached automatically for the telephone, but Sebastian snared her and reeled her in. She met Sebastian’s eyes, and Lenny could see her stop thinking.

  “Take her,” Sebastian instructed. “It’s fine if you don’t feel like bleeding her out. I just want you healed before we get to that coffee shop.”

  Lenny balanced himself atop his quaking knees and shook his head, still unable to speak.

  Sebastian shrugged. “Take her, or I break her neck and go find another, and we keep this up until we find one you like.”

  The numb tingle receded, and the pain flooded back full force, driving home Sebastian’s point.

  Lenny obeyed and left the woman half-conscious in the chair behind the desk. At least she’s not hurting. She had enjoyed it, in fact, not that she had a choice. He had known, in a speculative, theoretical way, that he would have the same effect on a human being as Sebastian did, as any of the others did, but seeing it was unnerving. She lay motionless, breath shallow, heartbeat impossibly slow, pupils dilated. He reached for the phone – he could at least call for an ambulance – but Sebastian pulled him away and shoved him into the car.

  “Here’s the deal,” Sebastian growled. “You are not my friend. You’re a tool. Not even a smart one. I know things you don’t. You know that friend of yours is in tight with Leland? Yeah. He’s working at the high school. Bet you didn’t know that. You don’t know anything. If killing his friends isn’t enough to wear him down, we go further. Death is certain, but the unknown is scarier. We take her alive and let him just imagine.”

  Lenny curled into a ball in the passenger seat and focused on the new teeth budding up through his jaw.

  Sebastian was silent for a moment before continuing. “I misspoke. You take her alive.”

  They drove past once, slowly, and Lenny could see Liz through the window, sitting in the very back where they had sat together before. Sebastian continued on around to the narrow alley behind the row of shops, got out, and tore the handle off the café’s back door.

  “In and out,” he said. “Easy as pie. Now go.”

  Lenny hung back for a fraction of a second, but he already knew that he was through resisting. Liz could either end up hurt by his hand or dead by Sebastian’s. He shuffled in, but Sebastian stopped him with a hand on his arm.

  “Shouldn’t have lied to me, Hugo,” the huge man hissed through clenched teeth. “Shouldn’t have tried to leave me.” There was pain in that statement, raw and fresh. “Most of all, though, shouldn’t have let me know what you care about.” He pushed Lenny through the door.

  The back of the coffee shop was dark, but not too dark for Lenny to see. He skirted around a low table and between stacks of cardboard boxes, making for the lighted door into the front. It swung open, showing a scrawny male silhouette that groped blindly for a light switch. Probably an employee. Lenny pulled back, but Sebastian was suddenly there, and the kid, whoever he was, fell limply to the floor. Lenny braced himself for death, but it did not come, so he pushed into the coffee shop.

  Liz sat with her back to him, clasping an untasted latte between her palms and chewing so hard on her lip that he could smell blood. He could, in theory, have sat down with her, explained the situation as calmly as possible, and asked her to come quietly for her own sake. But Sebastian had said in and out, and Lenny suspected that meant quickly. He did not want Sebastian coming in to speed things up, because alive did not necessarily mean in one piece. He could explain later.

  He stepped up behind her and closed a hand carefully over her mouth, feeling the tiny suction as she gasped.

  “It’s me,” he whispered thickly. “It’s okay, it’s just me.”

  But she wasn’t listening. She was twisting and thrashing, and her elbow made contact with his mending ribs, sending a thunderclap of pain through his side. His arms tightened around her involuntarily, and she fought harder.

  “Liz, p-p-please, j-just…”

  She thrust her head back suddenly, and his nose crunched, oozing blood, but he could not let go. If he let go, Sebastian would hurt him and kill her, and that made it worth it to hold on, even if Liz never forgave him for it.

  “Stop,” he told her, grasping at the power he had never quite been able to master. “Liz, stop a second. I’m not g-going to hurt you.”

  She paused only for a moment before beginning to kick and writhe again, her chest swelling with captured screams.

  So he kept talking, filling his voice with authority he did not have as he dragged her backward through the swinging door. “It’s me. It’s okay, Liz. Try to relax. J-just relax. I p-promise it’s okay.”

  By the time he had pulled her outside, she had stopped fighting and hung limp in his arms, hiccupping weakly. Her expression was distant, listening. But he wasn’t one of the good ones, and she listened because he made her, not because she wanted to.

  “Amateur,” Sebastian commented. “But you get an A for effort.” He bent and peered into the girl’s face. Her eyes widened and then rolled back.

  Lenny laid her across the back seat.

  “By the way, plan B is that I change her and sic her on Leland.”

  Lenny nodded, but resolved not to let that happen. If plan A fell through, he would find a way to get to Liz first. No one should have to go through eternity grafted to a psychopath’s mind, not that he really expected his to be much better.

  Sebastian drove them to an old farmhouse somewhere out of town, in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains, and left Lenny to guard their prisoner. Sebastian had come prepared with duct tape and a Polaroid camera, but nothing else, so Lenny draped his jacket over Liz’s shoulders, pulled his knit cap down over her ears, and put her in the corner where the least wind blew through the cracks in the walls.

  He knew when the trance wore off, because she started to scream, and she screamed until her voice was gone, and then she sobbed. She beat her heels against the floor. He could see her perfectly, though it would be too dark for her to see anything at all. He saw the tears freeze in her eyelashes.

  And he said nothing. There was nothing he could possibly say. I’m sorry I kidnapped you? Ha. By the way, do you prefer vampirism or euthanasia?

  He realized too late when the sun rose, and light began to filter in through the cracks in the walls. She saw him, and he got to witness the moment her innocence broke. He walked away.

  * * *

  LENNY SPENT MOST of the day in town, in places with heaters. There was littl
e point in playing at righteousness anymore, so he stole a few sandwiches and a few bottles of water from the grocery store, and a blanket from the back seat of someone’s car. He thought about running, fantasized about it, and stayed put. Liz needed him, even though she had lost all trust in him. He would change her if he had to, he decided. If it came to that, there would be no chance for discussion, no opportunity for her to make a choice, so he would simply change her and let her decide afterward, when there was more time, whether she preferred to die.

  He returned after dark to find Liz’s blood on Sebastian’s mouth.

  “You said I could have her,” he reminded Sebastian. “Remember? Your gift.”

  Sebastian blinked. “You actually want her?”

  “I d-do. I want her. I want you to not t-touch her.”

  “No can do. If plan B rolls around…”

  “I’ll do it. I’ll do that. Don’t touch her.”

  The air grew cold, but it had been cold already, and Sebastian did not seem to notice.

  “Yeah, sure, whatever. Just tape up her mouth, would you? She keeps calling for you, and it’s getting annoying.”

  Lenny left quietly to oblige.

  Sebastian shivered. “It’s getting kind of miserable out here. Let’s find someplace else. Actually, no. I’ve got a good idea.”

  Sebastian’s idea was the ghost’s house. Lenny saw her face in the window as he traversed the front walk, carrying a deeply entranced Liz. Sebastian walked to the back of the house, and Lenny listened to him break the back door down. He must have forced or tricked an invitation out of Donna before he killed her.

  Then Lenny heard another voice inside. The husband, Henry. He’d meant to warn him. Before he could even begin to form a plan, though, a death ripped through him, and he barely managed to keep his hold on Liz.

  The front door swung open, and Sebastian leaned out. He grinned at the sickness in Lenny’s face. “Whoops! Was that uncomfortable for you? I forgot. Come on in and set her down. I’m going to go get rid of the cars. Don’t want anyone thinking he’s home and coming to visit, or anything.”

  Lenny tumbled in and laid Liz carefully on the floor, then sank down after her.

  Sebastian blinked at him. “When was the last time you actually slept?” he asked.

  Lenny shrugged.

  “Huh. Sleep now, then.”

  Lenny did.

  * * *

  THERE WAS A heater, but Liz was still cold, and she was going to need to eat something, and there was nothing in the pantry at the empty house. Part of Lenny had hoped that the house would not be empty, that Donna and Henry would stay, but they had left together and were gone by the time he woke. There was death in the walls and blood on the floor, but no ghosts. They had not needed him, after all. That was a good thing. The ones who needed him were the ones too hurt to help themselves, and he was glad that Donna and Henry were not trapped by their pain. Still, it would have been good to be needed.

  Lenny contented himself with being needed by the living, and he went out to find something for Liz. He had never needed to know how to cook for himself, really, but he had seen it done and thought he could do it if it was required. He could make her a pot pie. That was the recipe that was bookmarked in the cookbook on Donna’s counter, and part of him took that as a sign, and part of him was too tired to search for something simpler. It was mostly just chopped things in broth, anyway, and while he could not bring himself to handle flesh, he doubted Liz would mind vegetables. She was not in a position to be picky, and neither was he.

  He was good at theft. He could not be quick or silent, but he could be unseen, and he made off with carrots and celery and frozen peas and a pie crust. That would do. That would keep her alive. And maybe if he made an effort, she would begin to understand his place in all of this. Maybe she would manage to forgive him.

  He was gone less than an hour, but he came back to find an open front door and the smell of dead blood. He recognized it as Sebastian. The bag of groceries dropped to the floor as he rushed in. He had moved Liz to the living room couch before he left, but she was gone. She was not in the kitchen or the dining room or the washroom, but as he scrambled upstairs, the smell of blood grew stronger.

  He stopped dead in the hallway, terrified of what he might find. He would have known if Sebastian had died, surely. He would have felt it in his blood, would have known the moment he was free. He crept forward over the dusty carpet and peered into the first bedroom.

  Sebastian lay on the floor, his throat slashed to the bone, an old and splintered arrow protruding from his neck. It had severed his spinal cord, but there were several square inches of flesh between his injury and total decapitation and so he remained alive, after a fashion. The floor was littered with ribbons of duct tape, but there was no one else in the room. To be sure, Lenny stretched out his ghost sense, but the house was entirely empty.

  Almost.

  For the first time in a long time, the priest was there, as well. He sprawled near Sebastian in a heap of black robes. That made sense, if the spirit was anchored to its own body, and the body was broken.

  The body would stay broken until it healed, and Lenny had no power to speed that process, so he went instead to the ghost and placed a hand on the priest’s back. It was warm, but he could feel the priest’s weakness. That frightened him. A spirit could not weaken, not truly. A spirit could not die.

  “Father?” he said quietly. “Um… P-padre? Let me help you.”

  But the priest shrank away, his eyes dull.

  “It’s okay. I c-can help.”

  “You’ve changed.”

  A thrill of fear pierced Lenny’s gut. “I’m trying not to.”

  “You hate me.”

  “What? No. I d-don’t. I want to help.”

  “You said it.”

  Lenny shook his head vehemently. “No, never. Him, maybe, but not you.” He seized the Veil and pulled, expecting an opening to appear, but nothing happened. He swallowed hard.

  The priest shuddered. “You hate me. You can do no good for that which you hate.”

  Lenny gritted his teeth and clenched a fist. “I can if I want,” he spat, and he went to prove the priest wrong. He pulled the arrow from Sebastian’s throat so that the healing could begin, hefted the limp body over his shoulder, and took it away from that place. It did not matter what had happened there. The past meant nothing, and the only thing he could change was the present.

  He found the Mazda a few blocks away in a ditch, and he left Sebastian under the blanket in the back seat. The wound was not healing fast enough, but bringing a human would result in death, and he could not do that. But if he could find a farm, enough animals big enough to avoid death… That was feasible. Nowhere in America, as far as he was aware, was there a single point in space that was not running distance from a farm.

  He locked the doors and pocketed the keys and buried the car in a snowdrift, smoothing the dirty white to erase any trace of a presence there. Quixotic though the attempt was, there had to be a way to save Sebastian as well as everyone else.

  But anything that could kill a vampire would do so within seconds, and if Sebastian was not dust yet, he was not likely to become dust without outside help, so Lenny first sought Liz, because Liz was mortal and fragile.

  He found her walking away from Leland’s house, supported by a teenage boy. Lenny focused on the fiberglass bow across the boy’s back and ground his teeth so hard they creaked, but if the boy had harmed Sebastian, he was also helping Liz. Lenny followed them until he was certain they were both safe, and then he returned to tend to Sebastian.

  Sebastian had no forgiveness for anyone, least of all for Lenny, and Lenny weathered his rage from the back seat of the Mazda. They did not dare find a new place to stay, so they took turns stealing gasoline to keep the car and their bodies above freezing, and Sebastian continued to kill. He returned again, again drenched in blood, and Lenny retreated from him.

  He hid in the farm house, crouc
hed in the corner where he had secreted Liz. He drew the ring out of his pocket, but it slipped from between his numb fingers and fell through the cracks between the floorboards, and he tore frantically through the decaying wood to get it back.

  You could have killed him, the Kate part of him said. He was nearly dead anyway. Perhaps you’re afraid to hate him, but killing something like that would be love. If I had rotted inside as he has, would you have let me continue like that?

  Lenny peeled off his glove and slid the ring back onto his finger. “You were rotted,” he answered. “But you saved yourself.” He thought of the priest, the spirit haunting its own body. He thought of himself, becoming something evil, and had to believe that the priest could return. “Maybe he can, too.”

  I killed as a child tears the wings from moths, with no understanding. I never knew the pain I caused until I saw it through you. He gluts on pain as though it were blood. Stop him, beloved.

  “He’ll hurt me. And I’ll fail, and then he’ll hurt everyone, and it’ll b-be my fault.”

  His sins are his own, but inaction is not among them. That is all yours. All yours, my lover. I do not recognize this coward who has grown in you.

  He swiped the tears from his eyes, but a sound outside froze him. It drew closer, and he fled upstairs. He was barely real anyway, and though the stairs were brittle and full of holes, they were strong enough to hold what little of him was left. He held his breath and stayed perfectly still until the movement began to follow him upward, and he leapt back down through a hole in the floor. The boards creaked beneath him, and he looked back up to see the young man from the funeral.

  The boy was human, was real, solid, as massive as any other truly living thing. The floor could not possibly hold him.

  “Careful,” Lenny warned. “You’re going to fall.”

  And the boy did. Lenny moved to catch him, but gravity was too quick, and the boy struck the floor and created a new hole, down into the cellar, with a wet, organic crunch. The air grew thick with coming death. Lenny backed away. He did not want to feel it when it came, but he could never have outrun it. When he turned and found himself facing the barrel of a gun, it was almost a relief.