The Innocents

by Riley LaShea

  “Still think we’re absurd?” Stacy questioned, and, falling back, Delaney tensed as a body pressed against her from behind.

  “I didn’t say absurd.” She took the step back forward, but the person moved with her, inhibiting her freedom to move.

  “No,” Stacy uttered. “You said there were real monsters in the world, implying that we are somehow fake.”

  They were fake. They may put in yellow contacts, file their teeth into points, they might even drink human blood for all she knew, but they were still not what they claimed or wanted to be. Leave it to her to spend her entire life studying actual creatures of the night, and get attacked by a group of wannabe demons playing dress-up.

  “You can be whatever you want to be,” she uttered.

  “What we want to be?” The man with the fangs rushed forward, hand clutching Delaney’s hair to yank her head back. “What we are.”

  Hand stroking down her cheek, Delaney knew what he thought he was doing. Almost laughable, if not for the grip that was unrelenting on her hair, she wondered if he was doing a better job fooling himself than he was of fooling her. They probably didn’t even know all the powers the creatures they longed to be possessed before she told them. They’d probably gotten the details from Stacy, who picked them out of the knowledge Delaney risked sharing in class.

  “You don’t know what you’re meddling in,” Delaney said.

  “Now, there’s the know-it-all I’ve come to loathe,” Stacy declared.

  “Maybe it’s you who doesn’t know what you’re meddling in.” Carved fangs chomping toward her, the man released her hair, hands moving to the top button of Delaney’s coat, and Delaney accepted the reality that they weren’t going to be content to just intimidate her.

  “Don’t be stupid.” Feeling them closing in, fear spread like bacteria through her body. “You may think yourself some supernatural being, but you will go to jail like a human, I assure you.”

  “Only if we’re caught.”

  Cap knocked from her head as the Fang Man forced her chin up, his altered grin came closer, and, with no better moves available, Delaney dropped her head forward again, bringing it up hard when she felt his chin directly above her.

  Suffering the hit acutely, she only knew Fang Man felt it more when he let go, stumbling back to raise a hand to his bloodied mouth. The element of surprise working to her advantage, Delaney hiked her elbow back, and, slightly constrained by her coat, it still made impact enough with the face of the person holding her from behind that she was able to escape his hold, planting a left hook Stacy clearly wasn’t expecting against her cheek, and jerking the strap of her bag over her head to drop it on the ground when her fourth assailant got a hand on it.

  “What are you waiting for? Go after her!”

  Hearing Fang Man’s cry, and the footsteps pounding at her back, Delaney rushed around the iron fencing that separated St. Margaret’s Shrine from the abbey’s north side, but could tell she would never make it as far as the gate. Reaching the flying buttresses that arched from the abbey wall to the ground, she turned into the pitch black behind the first one, illuminated for a moment by the spotlights on the church as she traversed the space between them, before sinking once more into the relative safety of absolute darkness behind the second.

  Back against curved stone as Stacy and the others caught up, Delaney glanced around the buttress’ edge to the north-side graves, watching Stacy and her posse search for her amongst the headstones. Realizing they were looking everywhere but at the abbey, she slid across the width of the buttress, looking toward the five that remained. If she could just reach the last one, the distance to the steps leading onto the better-lit street would be only a sprint away. Cold as the night was, and dead as the town seemed, there had to be someone out. Another person with a pet. A smoker in desperate need of a cigarette.

  Pushing off the wall to continue down the line, Delaney was struck by a sensation so overpowering it immobilized her where she stood. Far more penetrating than the wannabes’ eyes on her earlier, it was a deep, possessing sort of near-euphoria that stole her breath and wound its way around her body. Throughout her body.

  Peering into the pitch black ahead, she felt something else, another presence. Drawn toward it with near excruciating desire, it was that which made Delaney realize she had to get away. Nothing human could produce such a strong instantaneous effect. Not without visual stimulation, at least.

  Backing slowly, she forgot about the light that passed between the buttresses, the risk of being seen, until she felt hands on her, yanking her from her place of safety, or peril.

  Scream cut off by the hand that struck her so hard she felt her nose begin to bleed, Delaney’s arms were gripped from both sides as Fang Man pawed at the buttons on her coat. Fabric ripped from her shoulders, the bark scratched through Delaney’s sweater, and the button-up she wore underneath, as she was pushed back against a tree. Knife flashing before her, it sliced through both shirts, exposing Delaney’s torso to the cold, and tears leaked from her eyes as the knife point moved to the scars on her abdomen.

  “Looks like someone’s done this to you before,” Fang Man said. “Still think we’re not scary?”

  When Delaney didn’t answer, the knife dragged up her skin, twisting beneath the fabric of her bra, and Delaney clenched her teeth against the fear and laughter as it sprang open.

  “I am going to cut pieces off of you, and hand them out as prizes.” The tip of Fang Man’s knife scratched against her cheek. “But, first… we drink.”

  Head wrenched to the side, Fang Man pressed the knife to Delaney’s throat, apparently not confident enough in his cosmetic fangs to draw blood, and the presence Delaney felt by the abbey was suddenly all over her, like a layer of armor cloaking her skin. Hand brushing her breast as it grabbed Fang Man’s arm, Delaney watched the cyclone of a woman take the knife from his grasp, one hand on his chest carrying him backward until he slammed against a tree on the other side of the walkway.

  Holding him in place, the woman glanced toward Stacy and the other two members of their dark-side gang, and they stumbled over each other in their rush to get away, abandoning their leader to the woman’s possession and whatever she decided to do him.

  “No! Don’t!” Delaney cried as the knife spun in the woman’s fist and she yanked it back.

  Tip of the blade coming to a stop in the cavern of Fang Man’s wide-mouthed scream, the dark head at last whirled her way, and Delaney forgot the wannabe about to be impaled in an instant. Eyes, near black, locked on her own, she couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, enthralled by the same feeling that sent her back-treading before - the desperate yearning to get closer when she knew it was wiser to get away.

  Exposed to the blistering cold, Delaney didn’t even notice its burn, until the dark gaze shifted downward, making her ultra-aware of her state of undress, and, pulling the torn pieces of her clothing together, Delaney forced herself to look away.

  Thump drawing her eyes back a moment later, she watched Fang Man look up from where he landed at the woman’s feet. The first leg of his escape a sloppy scuttle on all fours, he was several gravestones down when he finally got up the nerve to stand. Apparently, coming face to face with his ‘own kind’ wasn’t the experience he had hoped. Perhaps, he thought his ‘own kind’ didn’t truly exist.

  Even knowing they existed, and knowing exactly what the woman was, Delaney never expected to come face to face with one. Watching the deraph glance to the knife in her hand, at last lodging it into the tree with a force that buried the blade to its hilt, she wasn’t sure what she should do, if she should stay or run, look away or stare openly, knowing it was more than just the dark hair and eyes set against skin that looked near ghostly in the moonlight that made the woman so alluring.

  As the deraph moved back toward the abbey, Delaney thought her opportunity for observation might be short-lived, but, making it only as far as her coat, the woman picked it up off the ground, bringing it back
to Delaney and holding it out.

  “Thank you.” Sliding her coat from the woman’s hand, Delaney couldn’t ignore the feel of her gaze as she turned away to pull it over her shoulders and fasten herself into some semblance of decency.

  Trembling so much she could scarcely slip the buttons into the holes, she attributed it to the attack, though the lingering fear of what could have been that pressed tears against her eyes was only half of what she felt. The other half longing to turn into the woman’s arms and seek whatever solace she might offer, Delaney knew it was delusion, no more real than a mirage on a hot desert day.

  “What’s your name?” Low timbre vibrating her senses, it was safer not to answer, to maintain anonymity. That was what Sister Jude always told her. The more they knew about you, the more power they had over you. It was better to be no one than someone known by the wrong kind. “What’s your name?” Question coming softer, it was a caress against Delaney’s better judgment.

  “Delaney.”

  “Delaney.” When the woman spoke her name, it had the same effect Delaney suspected an incantation by the gods would have on her. “My name is Haydn.”

  Delaney didn’t want to know. She didn’t want to give identity to a nebulous figure, to make her more real, to grant her even greater power. She wanted Haydn to remain anonymous too, and she really didn’t want to already be referring to her by name in her mind.

  “Thank you.” Emotions out of her control, like live wires snapped free of their housing, Delaney could understand, at least, why she felt as she did. It was the way the woman stared back at her that she was having difficulty grasping, as if she too was in thrall. Certain there could be only one reason the woman would be fascinated by her, and in no mood to have someone else attempt to drink her blood, she stepped from the grass onto the stone path, providing herself a slightly clearer way if she was forced to run again. “I owe you.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way,” Haydn declared. “Because I need you to come with me.”

  Declaration everything she knew she should fear, the fright thrived in Delaney for only an instant, before anger needled its way in. Grateful as she was not to be getting her veins sucked dry, undeniably beguiled as she might be by the woman, the notion that she would just let herself be carried off to have her blood taken anyway, or to serve as sacrifice in some sort of deraph ritual, infuriated the hell out of her.

  “Listen, I really appreciate what you did for me, but I am not coming with you.” Human or demon, she didn’t owe anyone for saving her life.

  “I appreciate that you think that,” Haydn returned. “But you are.”

  Huffing a frustrated breath at the realization she was, in fact, going to have to run once more, Delaney spun to the nearest gate. Three steps later, one more than she expected to get, Haydn was behind her, body melding against her own as a chilled hand circled her throat. With a single firm squeeze, the dark void of oblivion bore down upon Delaney, and, before she gave into the unconsciousness, she gave into the embrace.

  15

  Awareness returning bit by bit, not all of Delaney’s senses did. She could hear nothing over the sound of a motor, could smell nothing but the sea, could taste nothing but the unpleasant film of her mouth being dry for too long. Sitting still, she still felt movement, but it was nothing in comparison to the presence beside her that made it impossible to get her bearings.

  “I can’t see anything.” She didn’t mean to say it aloud, or to sound so terrified as she did.

  “It’s all right. I can,” Haydn returned, but it was hardly a salve against Delaney’s rampant thoughts. Whatever plans the deraph had in store for her already underway, the rasping voice tied her into further knots, and her stomach protested the passage through pitch blackness in a major way.

  “I’m going to be sick,” she uttered, blinking an instant later at the sudden assault of her vision returning in the soft orange glow of ambient lighting.

  Taking in the levers and gauges in front of her, Delaney recognized the instrument panel of a cockpit as she pushed upright in the leather seat, but could tell she was in a boat, and not a plane, only by the scent of the sea air and the shape of the wheel in Haydn’s hands. Windows showing nothing but black beyond - easily either sky or ocean - at the realization she was out in open water she couldn’t see at all, she went into an instant panic.

  “You’re fine,” Haydn declared, and Delaney knew it was because the deraph could hear her starting to hyperventilate, could probably hear her heart thrumming inside her chest.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked.

  Eyes on the control panel, she managed to keep the nausea in check. Though it only sent the turmoil that had been relegated to her stomach out to the rest of her body. Hands violently shaking, Delaney pressed them between her knees, hoping Haydn wouldn’t see.

  “To my home,” Haydn said.

  “Why?” Reel of possibilities spinning on a zoetrope inside her head, it occurred to Delaney she might have been better off being done in by Stacy’s gang. Nothing pleasant about what they had planned for her, at least their intentions were obvious, and it would more than likely be over already.

  “Because our fates are intrinsically linked, it seems,” Haydn replied. “And, if tonight’s events have proven anything, it’s that you are a danger to both of us.”

  Mouth gaping, Delaney’s thoughts of torture and ritual sacrifice scattered as she turned an indignant glare toward Haydn. She was the danger? She was the danger? As if she wasn’t the one who had just been kidnapped. As if she wasn’t a human, practically powerless against the charms and brawn of a deraph. Biting her tongue, she choked on the words she wanted to fire back, knowing they wouldn’t get her free, and realized she did pose some potential risk to Haydn. Though, she would hardly call it comparable. Anything she might tell anyone about her real-life encounter would be met with a healthy dose of skepticism at best, and an involuntary check-in to a mental hospital at worst. The threat Haydn posed to her was imminent. Delaney could feel it in how discordantly turned on she was by her own fury.

  Jesus Christ, she had to get away from her.

  “I won’t tell anyone about you, okay?” she tried. “If you just let me go…”

  “That’s not an option,” Haydn preempted her plea. “So, if you would like to make a request I might actually meet, I suggest you ask for something else.”

  Watching her stare ahead into the darkness, knowing Haydn’s eyes could see what hers couldn’t, Delaney considered the available options. Any attempt at attack, Haydn would turn comically brief, and she was too tired to attack anyway. Even if she did, then what? Try to figure out how to read the gauges that had no meaning for her and get the boat to shore without killing herself? Or go for a hypothermic swim in an ocean she couldn’t see?

  “Do you have any water?” She decided survival had to be her first and only priority.

  “No, I don’t.” If Delaney thought it remotely possible, she might have thought Haydn was almost apologetic. “But we’ll be there soon.”

  Head falling back against the seat, Delaney accepted that all she could do was wait. Not sure what trouble she had managed to stir up for herself, she realized, with a painfully dry swallow, that Sister Jude may be right about the risks of her research and she may well follow in her father’s footsteps after all.

  Using a one hippopotamus, two hippopotamus, three hippopotamus count, Delaney estimated it had been twenty minutes since Haydn told her they would be there soon before the boat began to slow. Unable to stop agonizing over where “there” might be in that time, though, she doubted her timekeeping could be trusted.

  Stomach grateful for the reduction in speed, it suffered one last lurch as the boat turned sharply and a weak glow at last illuminated the water ahead of them. A few less-careening curves later, larger pockets of light appeared, just enough to make out the towering walls of a cave. Head ducking toward the window, Delaney tried to see where the lights were coming from, and, wh
en she made out the faint outline against the rock, her worry was momentarily superseded by awe.

  Perched on the rocky ledge that jutted out over the water above them, the dark silhouette of a castle appeared to protrude straight out of the rock. Though illuminated only by the lights shining from within, Delaney could tell how massive the castle was as it stretched up as high as she could see.

  When the boat continued past it, headed toward the apparent dead end of a rock wall ahead, Delaney’s fingers gripped the leather armrest, preparing for impact. But, another stomach-churning curve carried them a full ‘U’ around a rock formation that jutted out of the water, and they ended up in a canyon rising several meters on both sides, before drifting into a narrow cave that swallowed what little light there had been.

  Halfway down the black tunnel, new light sprinkled over the water, and as they reached its full glow, the low ceiling of the cave opened up, revealing a massive stone cavern. Several boats already tied and anchored to a dock that extended off a rocky slip of shore, two sets of stairs led upward to metal doors - one lower, one higher - both of which appeared to lead straight into the stone.

  Boat coming within a few meters of the dock, crisp air flowed into Delaney’s lungs as Haydn retracted the top and cut the motor to edge the boat sideways. Current carrying them closer to the bumpers with each small wave, Haydn rose from her seat, taking up the coiled rope from the floor, and climbed onto the side rail behind Delaney as if the rocking had no effect on her.