Creature Discomforts (Descendants)

by Peterson, Jenny

  “We’re going to have to swing,” she announced.

  The screech of the chain was like needles against her ears and sent the alcohol-brined contents of her stomach churning and her head throbbing. It took three tries to even get their swings lined up, but finally they did it. Rachel jammed her shoulder against the bars, strained until it felt like all of her tendons would snap, and reached for Beth Ann’s hand. The compact was cool and smooth against her palm, but she clamped her fingers down and pulled it into her cage.

  She slipped the compact into the side of her bra for safe-keeping and got to work whittling the wooden pendant into something a lot more deadly. Ten minutes later, she was ready. Now she just needed a vampire. The Corpus said nests operated on a strict hierarchy, and each vampire had a specific role. In a nest this small, she had to bank on the hope that only one vamp would be assigned guard duty. But there was only one way to find out.

  Rachel braced her shoulders against the back of the cage, pulled in her feet, then struck. Her boots slammed against the door, and the boom ricocheted off the cave walls and pounded against her aching head. Her stomach roiled. Maybe she wouldn’t be fighting the vampire so much as puking all over it. But she took a breath, braced herself, and struck out at the door again. And again. Each time, the rusted metal lock gave a tiny bit.

  But it didn’t give soon enough. A guttural roar echoed down the dark tunnel, and a brute of a thing stumped into the cavern.

  “If you don’t stop with that racket, we’re going to eat you first!” The thing bellowed. Beth Ann started whimpering.

  Rachel answered by kicking the door again. The vampire stalked closer. It looked nearly human, Rachel realized. It must be young. The longer a vampire lived, the less human it became. It was never anything drastic, she’d read, but just a sense of otherness. This vampire was short and nearly square, with broad shoulders, meaty arms, and bandied legs. Its irises were still the color of its human origin—not the black they’d eventually turn—and when it bared its teeth in a hiss she noticed its gums hadn’t receded yet to permanently show fangs. A new vampire then. Perfect.

  “Girl,” the vamp hissed. “I’m warning you.”

  Rachel looked at the vampire, smiled, and kicked the door.

  “That’s it.”

  The vampire came closer still. One step. Then another. Then …

  Rachel shoved her hand out of the cage and held the compact open in the shaft of light. It hit the mirror and refracted straight into the dim cave. The vampire’s mouth hung open in confusion for a moment then the light found him—a direct hit from the sun. Its hair and skin erupted like water boiling in a kettle. In the instant the small circle of sunlight hit the vamp’s temple and hair, its skin melted and dripped down its face, a demon candle. Beth Ann screamed and the creature shrieked and dropped to its knees, trying in vain to push the skin and hair back up to its temple. But as soon as it left the sunlight, the skin healed into dried folds and flaps that would forever dribble down its ruined face.

  And then came the fangs. All across its gums, razor sharp teeth slid down to cover human teeth. The vampire snapped and slavered. It grabbed the door to the cage in both hands and wrenched it open in one ungodly loud squeal of twisting metal.

  “I’m going to drain you,” it hissed. Its tongue was thick against the new teeth, its lips clumsy. The words slurred like soup and gristle. “I’m going to take my time killing you.”

  But Rachel was ready. When the vampire reached in to grab her, she plunged her hidden dagger right through its palm and skewered it. She kicked out at its face, wrenched her dagger back, and landed lightly on her feet, her legs planted wide against the rocky ground and her arms up: her silver dagger in one hand and her short stake in the other.

  The vampire snarled and charged, and Rachel whirled and slashed. The vampire was quick though, and her dagger just grazed its shoulder. She found her footing and crouched, ready for attack.

  She knew it’d be quick—she remembered from the Corpus that they were faster than humans, but not necessarily stronger—but this was more than she’d expected. The vampire was on her in a flash and a gnashing of teeth, and Rachel only just got her dagger up in time to protect herself. She sliced again, and this time her dagger’s edge found flesh. The vampire roared in pain and pushed fingers against its open neck, but nothing could stem the spurt of black blood.

  Confusion rippled across its pale face and it blinked its eyes—still so human—in something like realization. Rachel wasn’t just a college girl it could scare and kill. She was something more. In its dying moments, the vampire understood that too late. But its eyes. Rachel couldn’t stop staring. Her fist was held high, the stake in her hand, but she hesitated. He was so human, with blue eyes like Kendra’s. Rachel shook herself, shifted her gaze to the fangs, and plunged the stake into the creature’s heart.

  Rachel turned away and faced the open terror in Beth Ann’s face. The girl wasn’t just afraid of the creature that had exploded in a wave of ichor behind her, but afraid of Rachel as well. That crawled across Rachel’s skin and settled deep inside.

  “C’mon,” she said, striding across the cavern to Beth Ann’s cage. “Let’s get you out of here.”

  “No,” whispered a silky voice from the dark tunnel behind her. “I don’t think so.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Willem. It was Willem.

  Rachel spun to face the vampire and grimaced. She’d made out with him? Rachel nearly dropped her dagger in surprise. Willem stood at the front of four big vamps that looked related to Bitey No. 1. They flexed their fists and bared their fangs, but it was Willem who really turned Rachel’s stomach.

  He smiled past ruby red lips—and holy hell, Rachel squinted and looked closer and could swear he was wearing lip liner. Even worse, his dark hair hung in limp hanks from a thinning center part and he wore a black velvet shirt unbuttoned nearly to his stomach. Rachel shivered and pulled a face.

  “Yes,” Willem purred. “You should be terrified. You finally behold me in all my glory.” He held both arms out wide, and a silver thumb ring glinted in the diffused light. This guy totally had some silk leopard print sheets hiding somewhere around here in his cave linen closet.

  “Yeah, no,” Rachel countered. “Glory isn’t the word I’d use for a guy wearing a thumb ring.”

  Willem snapped his fangs and growled.

  “Look,” Rachel said before she had to hear more from this ren fair reject. “I’ve got some hangover rage going, and the only thing I want to murder right now is a plate of greasy fries. So we’re going to go, and you’re going to let us, or I’ll be happy to stake every one of you.”

  Behind Willem, his four vampcakes spread out, lips twitching in snarls. The first tendrils of fear bloomed inside Rachel and spread out through her limbs. Apparently she wasn’t going to talk herself out of this one. She backed up until her shoulder bumped Beth Ann’s cage. The girl scrambled forward and grabbed Rachel around the neck.

  “Don’t leave me!” She screamed into Rachel’s ear. For being such a tiny girl, she had one hell of a grip. “Don’t leave me with them!”

  “Beth Ann! Let. Go.”

  “No,” Beth Ann screeched.

  Eyes still on the vampires closing in, Rachel clamped her dagger between her teeth and pried Beth Ann away. She slid her eyes away from the vamps for one single moment to look at Beth Ann—who was now sobbing uncontrollably—and the demons attacked.

  Rachel slashed and stabbed and kicked. But the minute she had one vampire pushed away with a new wound, another rushed her. Claws raked down her arms, and one of them grabbed a bundle of her hair and left her with a bloody scalp. Sweat dripped into her eyes and trailed down her back, but the beasts didn’t even seem to be breathing hard. They rushed and ebbed like some terrible tide, and Rachel found herself stumbling over the rocks, throwing her kicks wide. She got a good stab at the gross couch, but it didn’t die.

  Finally, her aim was true and she staked one of the henc
hmen straight through the heart. The demon fell back with the force of the blow, and her little stake was wrenched from her hand. The demon hit the ground and burst in a flood of ichor, the stake lost in the mess of black blood.

  Willem and his three remaining vampires circled and pushed Rachel back until her feet twisted in soft fabrics and she fell onto the pile of blood-crusted clothes. Willem loomed over her, his lips drawn across his fangs in a horrible smile. Rachel swallowed down the acid creeping up her throat and tried scrambling to her feet, but Willem pushed her back with a steel-toed boot. She landed hard on her elbows, and her fingers snagged on the pocket of a pair of discarded jeans. Something sharp jabbed the pad of her index finger, but the rest of her hand had closed around the contents of the pocket—around what was unmistakably a handful of sharpened pencils. Wooden pencils. Rachel sent up a silent thank you to the unfortunate girl who had tried in vain to defend herself and gripped the weapons.

  “I know what you are,” Willem said, his voice quiet and menacing. “I can only imagine the power you’ll bestow upon me.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Rachel lied. Things wouldn’t go easy for her if he knew she was a Descendant. There’d be no quick death.

  “I can smell your fear,” Willem said, his nostrils flaring. “It’s tangy.”

  Rachel rolled her eyes for affect and nodded at the vampire over Willem’s shoulder. “Maybe you’re smelling your buddy there.”

  Willem stepped closer, a sneer playing on his face that made his black eyes shine. She could see it now, the otherness. He was old, this vampire, he was not as stupid as the others. His eyes were so black they had blotted out the whites until it looked like she was staring not into eyes but into pits. Rachel didn’t remember anything in the Corpus saying the whites would be swallowed as well. The strangeness of it all shook her. The blooming fear took root in her core and made her fingers tremble. Rachel clenched her left hand over the familiar hilt of her long, silver dagger and the right around the bunch of sharpened pencils. She needed to fight, not just these vampires but her own fear.

  Willem blinked slowly, lazily. “You know,” he drawled. “It’s always the plainest girls so eager to believe my lies of their beauty. Despite who you are, you’re no different from the others. A little mouse who wants to be a bird. You’re so easy to lure.”

  “Hey,” Beth Ann snapped suddenly from her cage. “I’m not a mouse, you shithead.”

  Willem shrugged and nodded at Beth Ann. “True. You were convenient. That boy will come after you, then I’ll have two of their kind”—and he hitched a thumb toward Rachel, forgotten for the moment in the pile of discarded mouse clothes—“to add to my collection.”

  His what now?

  “Your collection?” Rachel couldn’t help but ask.

  “The power I’ll draw from you feeds a greater evil,” he said. “A beast of old you can’t comprehend.”

  “And the other girls? Were they added to your collection as well?” Keep him talking, that’s what Rachel needed to do. She needed to buy time to figure a way out of this mess.

  Willem smiled again, and his black eyes shone in the twilit cave. “Oh no, those were just for fun. And food, of course. My new little nest needs to grow strong, after all.”

  Rachel clutched the pencils so hard the edges bit into her palm. “Why girls then? Vampires feed on men, too. If you recognize what I am, then surely you’re aware of how much I know about your kind.”

  “It’s the game,” Willem said. “The chase is nearly as fun as the kill.” He waved his hand as if to wipe away the memory of it all. “But enough of that. Now I have you two.” Willem strolled to Beth Ann’s cage and left his three vampires to guard Rachel as he opened the door and dragged Beth Ann out. She squirmed in his grasp, but it only made him smile wider. Willem turned to face Rachel, Beth Ann pinned to his side. “Your deaths will be slow and painful, and I think I’ll start with your friend here.”

  Rachel snorted. “Go for it. She’s a pain in my ass.”

  Beth Ann’s mouth dropped open, and Willem frowned then shrugged. But at that moment, Rachel sprang. She lunged straight for the closest vampire and jammed the whole bundle of pencils into his heart at the same second an earth-trembling roar rolled down the tunnel from the cave entrance.

  The cave exploded into chaos. Willem dropped Beth Ann to round on the new sound, and Rachel snatched her away and pushed the girl behind her. Willem screeched at his two remaining vampires, something about taking care of someone already. The vampires stared at each other, stumbling over excuses until they both loudly started blaming the dead guys.

  And then Sid burst into the cavern, a troll right behind him. Beth Ann screamed and took off, and even in the shouts and fighting her shrieks echoed all the way down the entrance tunnel. Rachel whipped back toward the action only to catch Willem darting away down the darker tunnel. Coward. Sid dispatched one of the vampires with a quick stake through the heart. The troll—all ten feet of him—swatted the head off the final vampire like an apple falling off the end of a stick.

  It was all over in a matter of seconds, and Rachel was left facing a grinning Sid and a troll baring every one of his fist-sized teeth in what she assumed was a smile. Trolls were classed as a threat in the Corpus, but this one didn’t seem too threatening, at least not to her. The beast’s head appeared to have been plopped directly onto its shoulders without any need for a neck, and its skin was the color and texture of a plucked goose. It wore rough, hand-sewn pants and a patchwork tunic of hides.

  Rachel looked past the troll to Sid. “The leader got away,” she said, pointing down the dark passageway. “We should track him.”

  It wasn’t Sid who answered, but the troll. It lifted one beefy hand in hello. “I’ll take care of it,” the troll said. Its low voice rumbled through Rachel’s bones. “Name’s Bernard, by the way.”

  “Your name’s Bernard?” Rachel asked. Of all the absurdity she’d witnessed in the past hour, that seemed the strangest.

  “Yeah,” Sid confirmed. “And this was Bernie’s home until those vampires kicked him out.”

  Rachel peered around the cavern and pushed at the creaking, rusty cages. “This is your home? Are these your cages?”

  Bernard shrugged. “Antiques. It’s been generations since my family has eaten humans. I’m on a full deer diet.”

  “Dear, tender college girls?”

  Bernard rolled his mossy green eyes and spread his hands behind his ears. “The kind with antlers. Anyway, thanks for the help. I inherit the place and lose it to vampires within fifty years. My dad, rest his soul, would not be proud.”

  “Right,” Rachel said. Really, what does one say to a troll? “Um, happy we could help.”

  Bernard waved a plate-sized hand her way. “Happy to finally meet Daphne’s daughter. I’ve heard a lot about you over the years.”

  Rachel squirmed at that. She’d never heard Daphne talk about a troll, let alone a troll named Bernard. It was Sid who spoke up. “Well, Bernie, we should get back. We’ve got one freaked out girl out there.”

  Rachel raised her eyebrows. “One in here too.”

  *

  Rachel had been right about the cave entrance being right around a bend in the tunnel. It was a narrow exit, and short enough that Bernard had to stoop to get out. Rachel blinked in the sunlight after so long in the dark and held up a hand to shade her eyes as she followed Bernard down a narrow, steep path winding through a gray-rocked gorge. The ground was crumbly and soft underfoot, and Rachel’s head pounded with each stumbling step.

  They clambered over a boulder blocking the entrance to the gorge, and Rachel shuddered with relief to see Kendra waiting for them in the middle of a bright clearing, a loaded crossbow in her hands and the old pick-up at her back. Her friend squealed and immediately dropped the crossbow, setting it off with a click and a thrum. An arrow shot toward them, ricocheted off the rock right near Bernard’s head, and careened off into the thick pines.

/>   “Sorry!” Kendra squeaked.

  Kendra picked the crossbow up and held it at arms’ length. Behind her, Beth Ann sat like a stone statue in the passenger seat with a pageant smile frozen on her face. Rachel frowned at that and turned back to Bernard and Sid.

  “Bernard,” Rachel said. “Have you noticed anything strange lately?” She recalled Willem’s eyes, and the way he spoke of a greater evil.

  Bernard shuffled his feet. “Your mom and I just talked about this. There have been more vampires in the area, and that mess with the wendigos.”

  “Have you heard the term ‘greater evil’?”

  Bernard cocked his head to the side, thinking. Next to him, Sid mirrored the motions. “No,” they both admitted. Rachel’s shoulders drooped a bit. It felt important somehow. She just didn’t know how.

  They said their goodbyes with a promise to be in touch if they heard anything new. Bernard even pulled out a cell phone and punched in Sid’s number with a sharpened stick acting as a stylus.

  Then aching and tired and still horrendously hungover, Rachel crawled into the truck next to Sid and leaned her forehead against the cool glass. Beth Ann didn’t say a word, though she still had that desperate smile pulling at her lips.

  Sid patted Rachel’s knee, but they were all jammed so close in the truck she had nowhere to pull away. “You have a wooden face,” he said. When Rachel didn’t agree he repeated it in French: “Vous avez une gueule de bois,” he said. “It means you look hungover.”

  “Wow,” Rachel groaned. “Thanks.”

  Sid slipped Rachel a silver flask engraved with the letters S L M, and she took a tiny, burning sip of whiskey. It actually helped a bit as they bumped and jostled down the long-forgotten roads out of the mountains and back to Saint Etienne, but she still wanted those fries.

  CHAPTER 12

  Heat crawled up Rachel’s neck and spread across her cheeks. She pressed the back of her hand to her face, but it did little to cool her skin. All around, heads bent over test booklets and the rasp of pencils on paper scratched at Rachel’s ears, yet her No. 2 remained still. She stared at the test question and read it back to herself for what felt like the hundredth time, but the words meant nothing.