Crimson Night (Night Series Book 1)

by R. S. Black

  Lust, who’d grown strangely dormant, roared to life, flexing her muscle. She stretched inside me and filled me up. She fed off Luc’s desire, purring with satisfaction. But there was something else now, something dark, and small, and twisted, and it too stirred.

  And with it, I came crashing back down to reality. My heart sped; the foreign darkness was a sour taste in my mind.

  I grimaced, wanting to peel it off me. Fling it away. Luc stirred, sensing my agitation. He looked down at me. “Pandora?”

  I shook my head and slid out from under him. I wrapped my arms around my thighs and rested my head on my knees.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, caressing my calf with his fingers.

  I stared at the wall in front of me remembering last night and the furry demon hopping toward me.

  “I went to Hell, Luc.” I glanced at him.

  It was as if he’d become a wall of living stone. There was no betraying movement to hint that he’d even heard me. Finally he asked, “How?” His voice was flat, emotionless. As if we were talking about the weather or things that didn’t matter.

  “The ring.” I gave a bitter laugh. “She played me for a fool the whole time. The ring was spelled. It was never meant to kill him, it was meant to kill me.”

  He clenched his jaw, and I knew he was thinking of all the times he’d told me to use it on Billy. Guilt etched a line between his brows.

  “Don’t blame yourself,” I said.

  “No.” He punctuated the word with a shake of his head. “I told you to use that a million times. I was so angry with you, Pandora. So angry that you kept choosing that priest over your safety. If I hadn’t...”

  “No.” I placed my finger over his lip. “I would have used it anyway. At some point I would have gotten brave enough to use it. I trusted her, Luc. The whole time I doubted everybody else, even you at times, but never really her. I’d question things, things she said or did, but I never questioned her. I just kept thinking I was seeing things wrong. That the day her house felt ice cold it was me having a panic attack. Me trying to see ghosts where there were none, because she was Grace. She was my ally, my friend. She would never betray me. She loved me.” I snorted, disgust dripped off my tongue. “She was right. I sucked it all up and always came begging for more.”

  The pain of losing Kemen began to churn with a new thread of emotion inside my belly. Betrayal.

  “What I can’t understand,” Luc said, rubbing his jaw as if trying to scrape the skin off, “is how perfect this worked out. It was as if they’d orchestrated this whole thing.”

  “The molestation ring.” I spat, repulsed by the new lows Grace had sunk to. “She set that up. She must have. It’s the only thing that makes sense. I wouldn’t have risked my life for anything else but innocent kids. She knew that.”

  He shook his head. “You honestly believe she fronted that entire thing? Those were real kids. You saw them.”

  Luc was still hanging on to the same thread I’d tried so hard to keep where Grace was concerned. Because the thought of her betraying us had seemed crazy, so far beyond the realm of possibility that it was unacceptable to even allow our minds to go there. But I was done being willfully ignorant. She’d tried to pit me against everybody, even Luc.

  “Yeah, but only to make it more authentic. Casualties didn’t matter to her. This was never about cracking down on a vampire-run molestation slash Moloch-worshipping ring. You and I both know the vamps were never smart enough, never organized enough to pull off something like that. The entire thing was a setup. To get me. She used my one weakness against me, the one thing I’d cross heaven and hell to try to save. Children. She took them there that first night, made me feel something, want to be the hero. But mixed in with those kids were LCDs, and somehow Kemen was smart enough to figure that out. That’s why he went there, to kill them, I just wish to God he would have told somebody. The whole damn thing was a setup.”

  My fingers were curled into tight balls by my side, the inside of my body so full of heat and fury that if I could have spit fire I’d be burning the place down.

  “But how?” Luc grabbed the hairs on the side of his head and gave a hard tug. “You could have used that ring at any point, but you didn’t. Instead you waited until the night you saw Kem.”

  My stomach dipped. “I can hardly think clearly right now. I’m so upset.” My voice broke. I waited until I could trust myself to speak without crying again. “When I think about it, Luc, I’m not sure they cared whether I killed Kemen or not. I think all this was about me. I think if I hadn’t told Grace about my priest problem she would have found some other reason for giving me the talisman. It just so happens I provided her with the perfect excuse.”

  “Fine, she was after you. That’s obvious in hindsight. But there’s more to this.” He shook his head. “On the tape she seemed as interested in the priest as she was in you. Why?”

  I shrugged. None of this made sense to me.

  “What prophecy was she talking about? You survived, Pandora.” His blue eyes were twin pools of misery and confusion. “Are you that woman? Is this only the beginning? What else is gonna happen?”

  I twisted my lips. “I wish I knew.”

  We sat wrapped in silence, each of us deep in our thoughts. I don’t know how much time passed, but when next I looked, sunlight had crept long golden fingers through my room, chasing back the shadow of early morning.

  I jerked, surprised when I felt Luc’s hand trace the line of my jaw. “How did you get back home, Pandora? I searched the woods. I searched the club. Dora, how did you come back?”

  The Gray Man. I closed my eyes, remembering his strong arms. The white light. The screams of the damned behind us. Who was he? Who could enter Hell and not be harmed by it?

  Only demons. And angels.

  But demons don’t do white light. And if the Gray Man was an angel, he was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

  I hung my head. “I prayed. I was dying. Wrath had me thralled.”

  His thumb traced the seam of my lips. “Did you escape on your own?”

  “No.”

  His mouth turned down. “Who brought you back?”

  Even though I was no longer in Hell, thinking about it filled me with dread. I shivered and looked at my hands, remembering the bones they’d been. Remembering that last lingering look Billy had thrown me. My heart ached, my temples hurt.

  “I don’t know,” I finally whispered after a while. “I wish I did, but I don’t know.”

  The Gray Man, whatever he was, was not an angel. He couldn’t be. So what was he?

  “Friend or foe?” Luc asked.

  I threw up my hands.

  “So the order’s out to kill you. Someone rescued you, but you don’t know who. Where’s the priest?”

  I glanced at him. My heart lurched at the mere mention of Billy. Even now, I cared. Had he actually been there to kill me as I’d initially thought? I’d seen the violence in his eyes, his raised sword. And yet, he’d thrown himself atop me to keep from taking those last fateful steps toward Wrath.

  “Chaos stabbed him,” I said in monotone.

  “Is he dead?”

  I bit my bottom lip to keep from betraying the slight tremor coursing through it. “Probably.” Simply admitting that hurt so much I felt like I couldn’t catch a breath. I quickly switched topics. “What happened to the worshippers?”

  Now it was Luc’s turn to look uneasy.

  He turned and dropped his head into his hand. “When you disappeared... I lost it.”

  I rubbed his back.

  He grabbed my hand and placed it against his chest. “I killed anybody who crossed my path.”

  “The kids?” I managed to squeeze out.

  “Some died, Dora.”

  I tried to pull my hand away.

  “No.” He grabbed me back. “Not by me. I didn’t touch them. I swear.”

  I could read the sincerity in his panic-stricken gaze. I’ve seen Luc lose himself to th
e monster before, and for the first time in my life I could now say I have too. I frowned.

  “Please tell me you believe me.” He shook me softly.

  I’d lost my will to my demon because of blind rage, thinking I’d seen Kemen killing children. Losing all rational thought because of that. Luc must have felt something similar when he’d nearly killed me.

  I cupped his chin and gave him a sad smile. Even in my rage, I’d directed my anger solely at Kemen. I know I would never have touched the children. Neither would he.

  “I believe you, Luc.”

  His eyes closed and his shoulders sagged with relief.

  “What happened to the rest of the LCDs?”

  Haunted blue eyes held my own. “They ran. I followed and killed the ones I caught. Dumped them in the streets.” He clutched my fingers, holding them to his lips. “Dozens, Pandora. I couldn’t stop.”

  I scooted near him, laying my head on his shoulder.

  “When I saw you with Kem, I figured he was our rogue. I called Bubba and Vyx on my cell. Then it was all madness. You disappeared, and I went feral.” Muscles in his jaw flexed. “They found me in the streets. Bubba knocked me out, dragged me home.”

  “Luc, all those bodies,” I murmured, “the police will find them. How can we explain that away?”

  “Vyx helped...” His eyes flicked to my face then down at the carpet. “...calm me.”

  I knew what he meant. I touched his cheek and let him read the truth in my face. It didn’t matter. I’d have done the same.

  He clipped his head. “I went out again this morning to look for you, retraced my steps.” He tucked a blond strand of hair behind my ear. “The bodies were gone. All of ’em. Humans and vamp.”

  “What?” Confused, I pinched the bridge of my nose. “What happened to the kids?”

  “They were there. The ones that survived were still huddled together in the large cage. They didn’t even try to leave, Dora.”

  “Did you call the cops?”

  He nodded. “They’re down there now. It’s all over the news.”

  I rubbed my temples. “None of this makes sense to me. None of it. Why the kids? Why involve the vamps?” I rolled my neck from side to side, trying to work out the knot at the base of my skull. “Was this even about me?”

  “Why would you ask that? Of course it was? Grace tried to kill you.”

  I scooted off the bed and started pacing back and forth. Something about all this kept nagging at me. “But why me? What makes me special? She didn’t seem to care if I lived or died, unless I was part of the prophecy. No.” I scratched my head. “This is bigger than vamps, and I suspect this new zombie infestation plays a part in all this.”

  He stood and ran his hand down his face. “I have a sick feeling that this is just the beginning.” He paused, studied me for a second, and then licked his lips.

  “Something I can’t understand and keep obsessing over... why Hell? Why send me there? What does Wrath have to do with any of this? He wanted me.” Thinking about his allure... I shuddered. I always prided myself on my self-control, on being in charge of my destiny. But down there, in his dungeon... I hadn’t belonged to me. I’d have done anything he wanted. I’d have done anything, even kill Kemen all over again, to let him touch me.

  “Dora.” His eyelids fluttered. “You never had a clue? Not once, in all the time you visited with her—”

  Fury burned like hot coals in my gut. The slithering, slinking, parasitic demon who inhabited me now bristled, shivered with eager anticipation at my emotions. Breathing hard through the muck churning inside, I tried to calm myself. “I should have sensed it, I should have. But I didn’t. None of this makes sense. I thought we were just here to shut down a vampire molestation ring. Hell was nowhere near my radar. I should have seen it, but I didn’t. What is she doing, Luc? What!”

  Grabbing my trembling body, he pressed me tight to his and just rubbed my back up and down until the worst of it past. “That’s what we’re going to figure out.”

  Nodding, I pressed the heels of my palms to my eyes.

  “Dora.”

  I cocked my head and stepped out of his arms. He was nervous about something. “What?”

  He squared his shoulders. “Bubba brought Kem home last night.”

  Hearing that was like taking a punch to the gut. My mouth turned down.

  “We’re gonna prepare the body and have a funeral.” He gripped my shoulder, then turned and left.

  I sank onto my bed and stared with unseeing eyes out the window. I didn’t move. I sat until the sun disappeared behind the thicket of trees.

  And as each minute, each hour ticked by, I grew more and more upset. It gnawed away at me. Pestilence seemed to like the anger more than Lust. He goaded me, spurred me on.

  Go kill her. He told me. Kill her. Look what she did to you. She doesn’t deserve to live.

  My breathing grew heavy. I jumped to my feet, got dressed, and ported. My booted feet pounded the deserted sidewalk of downtown. And with each step my rage mounted, twisted into an ugly, horrible thing.

  I got to 666 Elm and snarled. I should have seen the clues. Trust no one.

  I wrapped myself in glamour and ported inside. Silently I moved up the stairs. The only sounds in the house were the constant ticktock of the wall clock. I maneuvered my way around the maze of boxes lining the upstairs hallway.

  There were four doors, all closed. It was cold up here. Freezing. I turned to look at the closed door on my left. The hairs on my arm stood up. When I breathed, steam curled from my lips.

  Then suddenly it all made sense. Pestilence knew what I had not. The cold I’d felt the first night I’d visited Grace was a portal. A doorway between this realm and Hell. The clue had been under my nose all along. I’d just failed to recognize it.

  She’d been the one slipping LCDs into downtown. Grace had bought the home not because she needed a soft bed to sleep on but because she needed a safeguard for the gateway. Which made me wonder all over again whose eyes had been watching me? What had been watching me? What had she been planning? What was she still planning?

  And now because of the presence of Pestilence within me, the proximity of the portal no longer affected me. Did this mean I was more demon than human now? Angrily I shoved that thought away. I’d worry about that some other day. Not now.

  I narrowed my eyes. Hanging from one of the doors was a purple and teal muumuu.

  Pestilence smirked. Blood. Blood, he cooed.

  I licked my lips and pulled a knife out of my pocket. “Everywhere,” I trilled, finishing his song. He wanted blood, and tonight I would grant his request.

  I opened the door with the muumuu, and a long, slow grin spread across my face. There she lay, in the middle of the bed, one hand flung over eyes, the other clutching a rosary.

  I glided to the side of the bed. Blue liquid drops of moonlight kissed her temple and highlighted the gray strands of hair.

  “You liar,” I hissed, loud enough that she should have woken up.

  A gentle snore fell from parted lips.

  “Wake up and face me,” I said through clenched teeth. I wouldn’t kill her, like some coward, in her sleep. I was going to stick the knife through her heart and make her watch while I did it.

  “Wake up,” I yelled this time, grabbed her shoulders, and shook her violently. Her head lolled from side to side, but still her eyes didn’t open.

  What was this? She was breathing. She was alive.

  A crystalline pulse of power shivered down my spine. I twirled and saw a black blob of dancing shadow shape and form itself until it stood before me.

  “Pandora,” the Gray Man said, and I knew what he’d done.

  He’d placed her in a catatonic state.

  “Why?” I screamed, throwing my knife to the ground. “How dare you steal my revenge?” Tears blinded my eyes. I swiped them away. “You show me that tape and expect me not to come? Stay out of my life.”

  I was breathing so heavy I s
hook with it.

  “There is the prophecy to learn. You cannot kill her. Not yet. She has to believe that she’s failed and you know nothing. You must continue to work with her.” The deep timbre of his voice shivered across my flesh.

  “I could not care less about some stupid prophecy. You think I owe you a thing just because you saved my life?”

  He glided forward, and as he moved the pressure in the room grew thick and heavy. It crushed me against the wall, like unyielding hands pinning me by the waist. Paintings Grace hadn’t yet packed crashed down around us.

  “You should care. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that this has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with you.” His words were vicious barbs.

  I tried to fight back, force my will against his. But he was too strong. “I don’t care anymore. She can kill me. I don’t care.”

  “No, she can’t,” he growled. And again I saw a burning glow of amber burn bright within the hood. “I won’t let her kill you.”

  I laughed, and the sound was caustic to my ears. “For all I know, you’re going to try to kill me too. Oh wait. You already tried once. Who are you?” I balled my hands into fists. “You’re no angel, I know that.”

  I could feel his anger; it lifted the fine hairs on my arms and the back of my neck.

  After a lengthy pause he finally said, “Who I am doesn’t matter. What I know does.”

  “What do you know? Tell me. Did you know she was going to make me turn against one of mine? Did you know the order planned this whole charade? Just what do you know?”

  “We must learn about the prophecy. You will help me.”

  I chuckled. “Kill me, Gray Man. If you think threats will work, think again. I’m dead inside. I’ve got nothing left to lose.”

  He moved closer, so close his faceless body hovered inches from mine. I stared into a yawning chasm of shadow and twin dots of burning light. The power emanating from him rolled through the house like thunder.

  “If you think losing that boy is the worst it can get, then you’re sorely mistaken.” The gravel quality of his voice rubbed against my body like sandpaper.