Crimson Sins

by Madeline Pryce

“No. I’m stuck with you. There’s a difference.”

  “Are you two done?” Nolan, his other brother—only a year younger than himself—pushed Rory out of the way and held down a hand as if to help Bastian up.

  The familiar, god-awful plaids his brother favored, the current one shades of blues and browns, was a comfort Bastian would never admit to. Nolan had been wearing plaid—tartan they used to call it—since the late eighteenth century. Some things never changed.

  Bastian waved the hand away and pushed off the floor of his own accord. He did have some dignity.

  A sly smile curled the corner of Nolan’s mouth. “Get your naked ass in the shower. We’re going hunting tonight.”

  He shook his head and staggered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  Nolan pulled a worn notepad from the back pocket of his jeans. “I tracked down that girl you told us about. You were right about her.”

  One of Bastian’s eyebrows rose. “Tracked down… Meaning what?”

  His brother’s sly smile made him look a little bit too much like Rory. “Meaning I hacked into a few databases.”

  Of course he did. Bastian closed his eyes. “Damn it, Nolan. You gotta quit doing that crap. I’m a cop—”

  “A cop who solicits zombie prostitutes.” Rory grinned. That lasted for all of about two seconds before Bastian smashed his fist into his brother’s smirking mouth.

  “Asshole,” Rory hissed and pressed a hand against his bleeding lip.

  “You deserved that. Now, knock it off.” Nolan flipped his notepad open and began reading. “Full name: Morgan Levine Cross. Age: twenty-three. Height: five feet six. She has no driver’s license or credit cards. From what I can tell, she bounces from city to city, job to job. According to state records, Samantha and Peter Cross, now deceased, adopted her when she was four. Her birth parents are unknown. She’s got a sealed juvie record—”

  “Tell me you didn’t.” Bastian scowled.

  Rory shoved Nolan to the side. “You know he did. Listen to this. Morgan was fourteen when she earned a stint in a nuthouse after cops found her in a graveyard with a couple of dead bodies out of disturbed graves. When she told them zombies attacked her, the state thought shock therapy was a good idea. Guess who her assigned psychiatrist was?”

  Something cold and dark settled in the pit of Bastian’s stomach. He didn’t like the burning excitement in his brother’s gaze. All of it was connected. Fuck.

  Bastian opened his mouth, but Rory kept on talking. “Dr. Ronan MacHallen.”

  Twenty-three. In the infinite life span of a necromancer, she was just a babe. A pawn his father would have no problem using and then discarding. He shook the thoughts away and frowned. “Ronan used his real name? That was arrogant.”

  Nolan leaned back against the counter. “He’s six hundred and the oldest living necromancer, the most powerful, the most feared. You know he thinks he’s God. I bet he was hoping someone would call him on it, track him down for a change. I managed to get a copy of your girl’s file, and there was a photo of Ronan inside. He aged himself, put white streaks in his hair, and added some weight. Looks like he’s gotten better at using his magic to manipulate his image. We should watch out for that. I’ve got Morgan’s current address.”

  Rory pinched his thumb against his fingers, made a puppet and began talking with it. “Blah, blah, blah.” He dropped his hand. “The point is. Morgan lives in a building near where you had your little zombiefest. We’re going to pay the baby necromancer a visit, see what she knows about Ronan. It’s not a coincidence you were lured to the spot where she lives. But if Ronan wanted her dead, she’d have met the sharp point of his magic nine years ago.”

  Bastian stepped into the shower without waiting for the temperature to heat up. Water hit his face and then sluiced down his body. Steam rose from his fevered skin. He removed his head from the spray, slicked back his hair, and looked at both his brothers through the clear glass door.

  “All right,” he said over the sound of the water, “we go and question Morgan. What if we find Ronan instead? I’m in no shape for a fight.”

  Rory hopped up on the counter before sitting. He brought his middle finger to his mouth and chewed on the nail. His worn black T-shirt with a picture of a washed-out red skull stretched tight across his chest. In the reflection of the mirror behind him, the big faded block letters read MISFITS in reverse. “I thought of that. Jodi is on her way up to make a ‘donation.’ Now that you’ve stopped puking, you should be able to handle blood. We don’t need an appearance of Zombie Bastian on top of everything else. Oh, and we got you a new phone. Your captain keeps calling, and you’ve got about fifteen voice mails.”

  He hurried to finish his shower. “I’m not fucking Jodi anymore.” The last thing he needed was Jodi, the manager of Nolan’s bar, Haven, catching him in the buff.

  “Why not?” Rory asked. “She is seriously hot and easy as hell.”

  “She’s in love with me. I’m an asshole, but I’m not that much of an asshole. I broke it off a few days ago.”

  Nolan pointed at him. “If she quits, I’m kicking your ass. And, you don’t need to fuck her to take blood from her. You know that.”

  Bastian washed off the last remnants of soap and glared first at Nolan, then Rory. “Fine, I’ll feed, but I’m going on record—using Jodi is a horrible plan.”

  A knock sounded over the pounding spray of water, and Rory jumped off the counter. He grinned. “You said the same thing when we visited the Romanian brothel. Look how that turned out?”

  Bastian chuckled and shouted at Rory’s retreating form, “That was over a hundred years ago. And didn’t you lose a limb?”

  Rory turned before walking through the darkened bedroom. “It grew back.”

  * * * *

  Morgan swallowed and covertly glanced from Ronan around her poorly decorated studio apartment, looking for a weapon—something aside from the keys she clutched in her hand. Damn her clean-freak fanaticisms. The more stressed she got, the more she cleaned. Nothing was out of place. No dishes or silverware. No empty beer bottles or loose books. Not even a fucking article of clothing she could use to strangle him if it came to that.

  She should have known being fired wasn’t going to be the worst part of her night.

  To think, she’d walked away from Dave’s rapemobile only to be faced with a sadist who enjoyed sending her beating hearts. She had no job. No friends. Nowhere to be. No one to report her missing when she failed to show her face in a few days. Would Mrs. Petterson care enough to call the police?

  Damn it! Why had she told the old woman to turn off her hearing aid?

  Ronan stared at her with an expectant look on his attractive face. She had to backtrack in her mind a little. “Call me Ronan,” he’d said. What was he waiting for, a hug? She needed another minute to come up with a plan. If she’d learned one thing about her time in the mental hospital, it was that crazy people liked to talk.

  “So, um, Ronan, are you still working at the hospital?” Maybe he should check himself in as a patient.

  He bent his head to the side and studied her for a moment. Displeasure flashed in his eyes. Okay, so maybe she should have gone for the hug. Red frost drifted to the ground from his curling fists.

  “I get the impression you are displeased about something. Were the presents not to your liking?”

  She pressed tighter against the door at the mere mention of the word presents. She wondered if the smile she conjured looked as uneasy as it felt. “Who doesn’t love beating hearts and rubies? Your thoughtfulness is astounding.”

  Dealing with crazies, lesson two: no sudden movements. One slow inch at a time, she brought her arm behind her back. She fisted her hand around the keys in her palm so that the metal teeth stuck through her middle and index fingers.

  Ronan nodded, pleased. “I knew you were special the moment I laid eyes on you.”

  Even at the tender age of fourteen she’d been leery of him. The way he walked and talked as
if he were better than everyone else. Then there’d been the way he looked at her, not like she was a teen but a woman he wanted to see naked.

  “You felt it too,” he continued. “The kindred spirit between us? We can be together now. You look just like her; it’s remarkable.”

  Her? Who in the hell was he talking about? He was more insane than she’d thought.

  “Of course.” She gave him a frantic nod and prayed he’d close the few remaining inches between them so she could stab him. Morgan only needed to get out of the door and the few feet to Mrs. Petterson’s shotgun.

  One more foot; it was all she needed.

  “I apologize for making you think you were crazy, but there was no other choice. Mortals don’t understand the sway we hold over death. They fear us. Necromancers are a dying breed”—an arrogant smirk curved half of his mouth—“thanks to me, that is. Keeping you locked in the sanitarium was the only way to ensure your safety. You drew too much attention to yourself by raising those zombies. Such power, even then.”

  Ronan trailed a chilled finger down her cheek. For the first time, Morgan realized her apartment was completely void of ghosts and spirits. The silence, the loss of that comfort was worse than the mint on Ronan’s breath or the lingering scent of death on his skin. She angled her head to the side in an attempt to move away from his caress.

  His hand closed over her face. Hard fingers pinched her cheeks and pursed her lips. He forced her head still and compelled her gaze to steady on him with nothing more than his presence. Around his pinprick pupils, a red ring swam through the emerald. His other hand rose, picked up a crimson strand of her hair, and rubbed it between his fingers.

  He drew the lock to his nose, inhaled. “Cinnamon.”

  Her breaths came faster. This was bad. Really, really bad.

  “There is so much to learn. Will you let me teach you?” he asked, bringing their cheeks together.

  She struck. The long, skinny teeth of her key slashed across his cheek. Jagged metal caught on flesh and ripped. Blood dripped from the uneven gash stretching from temple to jaw. He didn’t flinch, didn’t let go of her face.

  He pulled her face from his and grinned.

  “Naughty minx,” he purred, caught her hand, and squeezed the palm around the keys. He tightened, and the flex of his muscles was visible in the thinning line of his mouth. “Pain can be so delicious.”

  A sound caught in her throat. Blood filled her fist and seeped from between the fingers she had pressed together. After a moment, Ronan let go of her hand. The keys clanked to the hardwood floor in a splatter of red.

  Morgan darted left, but Ronan was quicker. He grabbed her around the back of her neck, his touch so cold it burned. Jerking her away from the door, Ronan dragged the tips of her wet sneakers along the ground where he forced her into the living room. As if she were a doll no longer worthy of his attention, Ronan threw her to the floor.

  Her head smacked the hard surface and threw an array of stars in front of her eyes. Instinct lifted her to her hands and knees. She scrambled before she’d even gotten her vision back. Blood-slicked hands slipped on the smooth hardwood, and she had the absent thought that it was going to be impossible to get the bloodstains clean if she survived this. She fell twice before the solid tip of a boot slammed against her ribs and cracked bone.

  She cried out and crumpled into a ball. Breathing was a struggle. Every inhalation made her head spin from the agony. She curled her body in tighter even though movement increased her pain.

  Ronan snapped his fingers and looked down at her with a sick kind of lust dancing in his eyes. “Damian, Christian, pin her down.” The command was clear in his voice.

  Who in the hell were Damian and Christian? There were other men in her apartment? Oh God.

  Ronan crouched before her and pushed a ruby strand of hair off her forehead. He searched her gaze while he pressed two fingers to the leaking gash on his face. “This could have been so easy. But I’ll admit, I kind of like the challenge. Join with me willingly, and I shall enjoy your warm body. If you choose not to obey, well, let’s just say the chill that death brings to the skin does not bother me. I’ve waited long enough. You’ll be mine, dead or alive.”

  Before she could process the disgusting images his words conjured, two figures appeared from a shadowed corner of the kitchen. The first thing she saw was tight blond curls gleaming from gobs of hair gel. The curls would have made the man look feminine if it weren’t for his masculine features. Large nose, square jaw, and a deep divot in his chin resembling two butt cheeks pushed together.

  The second form stepped into the light. Black hair and dark brown skin made her think Hispanic, but the slant to his eyes hinted at something else. His face was slender just like the rest of him. He was dressed in a tight dirt-smudged tank top that showed his arms were little more than toothpicks.

  The two men had one thing in common—the look in their vacant, sightless gazes. They weren’t men at all, at least not living ones. Zombies so lifelike it terrified her.

  Fear engulfed her. Ice-cold electric jolts raced through her limbs. Her cracked ribs protested in the form of breath-stealing pain when she pushed back up to her hands and knees. In a blind panic she crawled to the door. Ronan reached her in two strides and pressed his boot to the middle of her spine. He stepped. The pressure he applied crushed her chest to the floor until her lungs threatened to burst through her back. She screamed in pain. Blood dripped from her flailing hand to smear across the ground like paint.

  Damian and Christian shuffled close, one grabbing her wrists, the other her ankles. Where they touched, ice seeped into her skin. The chill stole her breath. She kicked. She bucked. The hits she landed didn’t faze them, didn’t interfere with their single-minded mission. Nothing she did stopped them from turning her onto her back, spreading her out like a sacrifice.

  She stared up at Ronan, a man once privy to her most intimate secrets.

  “Ronan, don’t do this. I’ll do whatever you want, please, just let me go.”

  Lie.

  Laughter bubbled out of his throat. The sound was rich and deep. His long, elegant fingers worked the ruby clasp of his cloak. The expensive fabric fluttered to the ground and made an inky circle around him. One button at time, he undid the line of dark pearls on his shirt to reveal a pale muscular chest covered in black and red symbols. He shrugged out of the silk shirt before letting it fall on top of the cloak.

  “You think I don’t know about your penchant for lies? I know you better than anyone. Now, be a good lass, or I’ll be forced to hurt you worse than I already have. I do so hate to bruise that silky flesh of yours.”

  Morgan looked from Ronan to the two zombies pinning her in place. No emotion. No sign of compassion. There was nothing in their gazes except the burning hunger surging through them.

  Hunger.

  Damian’s gaze flickered to her palm, to the blood dripping from the gash. She eyed Ronan as he pulled a piece of chalk from his pocket. He knelt on the floor and, with a single shove from his finger, pushed her couch across the room. The sofa scraped the already scuffed wood floor and crashed into the bookshelf lining the back wall of her apartment.

  Books fell onto the cushions, sounds muffled until they thudded to the floor. Without looking up, he drew something on the ground. The smooth scratching reminded her of charcoal on paper, and she struggled to guess what he sketched by the movements of his arm. A circle of some kind, and then another. His strokes changed to a quick series of lines within the border he’d created. A star?

  The answer hit her. He’d drawn a pentagram. She recognized the symbol from pictures he used to show her during their “sessions.”

  “Bring her here. Remove everything except her panties.” He looked down at her, slowly swiped his tongue over his lower lip. “That will be my present.”

  Ronan turned away to riffle through a black duffel bag on the floor.

  Damian readjusted his hold on her wrists and grabbed for the he
m of her shirt. Morgan didn’t waste a moment. She lashed out and aimed her open palm for his mouth but instead slammed into his nose. Black sludge oozed out of his nostrils and over his mouth. The rancid smell of rotted blood filled the room.

  The cold inside her expanded, found an outlet from the split in her hand. She looked from her bleeding palm to Damian’s face. In the midst of his black blood was a streak of red. Her blood had smeared on his cheek. She willed him to taste it. His tongue flicked out, tested. Color flashed in his eyes.

  The connection, like a lock sliding into a key, was instant.

  “Drink,” she ordered, held out her hand.

  Damian fell on her as if starving. His chapped, cold lips latched onto her palm and sucked. Power filled the room, and the sweet, spicy scent of cinnamon grew stronger with each passing second. The more Damian drank, the more connected they became. A rush of addictive power surged through her, and she reveled in it.

  Christian’s grip moved from her ankles to her calves. Icy fingers bit into her thighs and then her waist as the other zombie climbed her body, eager for the blood running down her arm.

  “No!” Ronan bellowed.

  Ronan ripped Christian off her and threw him across the room. In the same movement, he kicked Damian in head with the heavy tread of his boot. At her hand, Damian made a hungry, mewling noise in the back of his throat and kept sucking. This time, Ronan used his fist to smash the side of the zombie’s face. Bones crunched. Damian did not pull away, only growled and held tighter. Whether it was Ronan’s fist or his boot, a battering ram of sensation slammed against Morgan’s side, jerking her body off the ground. Ribs. Kidneys. Stomach. Ronan pummeled her again and again, but she never let go of the magic coursing through her.

  At any cost, she would survive.

  Hands trembling, voice on fire, she pointed at Ronan and looked directly into Damian’s sightless eyes. “Kill him.”

  No hesitation. Damian threw himself at Ronan, and the horrible pounding against her body stopped. A snarling beast after a fresh kill would have been more civilized than her zombie. Scrambling out of the way, Morgan launched herself at Christian. He needed no urging, not when the scent of fresh blood wafted in front of his nose. She smeared the raw, ragged wound over his lips. He picked up her hand and drank. She had one thought, Mine. Like with Damian, the connection between them clicked into place. Christian tightened his hold on her wrist, sank his teeth into the wound in his haste to get more blood.