Crimson Sins

by Madeline Pryce

  She took all the ice, all the building energy, and shoved it inside the zombie.

  “Don’t let Ronan hurt me, Christian.”

  As she said the words, she looked to Ronan. He had one hand on either side of Damian’s head. Ronan twisted, ripped. Black blood flew into the air, coated the floor. The detached head rolled to a stop next to her foot. Her tie with Damian vanished.

  A frost built around them, but this time it didn’t come from her. Ronan stalked across the room, blood dripping from a new gash over his eye, a split down the center of his swollen lower lip. With one hand he pulled Christian off her and then threw him to the ground. Foot against his throat, Ronan bent and placed a glowing hand in the middle of the zombie’s chest. Crimson light moved from Ronan’s fingertips.

  Boom.

  The sonic blast rippled through the room. The zombie’s body bowed, legs and feet lifting off the ground and then slamming back down. Morgan gasped, looked up from the smoldering hole in Christian’s chest to Ronan’s glowing red eyes.

  Stalking close, he stopped and bent. He grabbed a fistful of her hair. The sharp tip of an ice-cold blade was pressed into the hollow of her throat. “Stealing one’s zombies is not allowed. That’s gonna cost you. I think I’ll play with you a little first, make it hurt so you learn your lesson.”

  His cruel smile was the last thing she saw before his fist made contact with her jaw. Body limp and consciousness fading fast, she was dragged into the circle Ronan had drawn.

  Chapter Four

  Bastian stood outside Morgan’s apartment and listened for sounds of a struggle or some other sign that the baby necromancer was in trouble. He heard nothing out of place. A gust of wind howled down the corridor, and he looked for its source. Through the jagged shards of a broken window, snow gusted. Undeterred by the cold, a stream of roaches flowed across the wall opposite him like a trickle of shitty water.

  Entombed death dwelled inside those walls. The corpses called out to his magic as if begging to be set free.

  He glanced at Nolan. “This place is a dump.”

  His brother shrugged. “Were you expecting something nicer? You saw where she worked. Besides, we’ve lived in worse. At least the roaches are only the size of a thumbnail.” Nolan gestured to the door. “We aren’t getting any younger. Let’s go.”

  Unease tightened Bastian’s stomach into a stone block he pretended wasn’t there. Not that he would admit it, but damn it, he didn’t want to go inside. The sweet fragrance of oleander blooms permeated the hall around him. The scent mixed with the toxic, underlying smell of death brought memories too close to the surface.

  Beside him, Rory chewed on his nail and shifted from foot to foot. “He’s inside, isn’t he? I don’t hear any screaming, so Morgan isn’t home, she’s on his side, or she’s already dead.”

  Bastian drew in a breath and pushed his unease away. His brothers needed him to be strong. He dropped a hand on Rory’s shoulder and squeezed until his brother looked him in the eye. The uncharacteristic fear he saw made his hatred for his father increase. “Keep your shields up, magic ready. Don’t let him mind fuck you.”

  Nolan stepped close. Together, as it had been their entire lives, they formed a tight circle. “He’s right, Rory. This doesn’t change our plan.”

  The twenty-minute drive had given Bastian and his brothers enough time to come up with a strategy. Get in, get the girl, and get out. In case Ronan showed up or was already there, shoot him. A few bullets wouldn’t kill the six-hundred-year-old necromancer, but they sure as shit would slow him down.

  They hoped.

  Rory shrugged off Bastian’s hold and straightened his shoulders. “Stop looking at me like I’m a pussy. Let’s get this shit over with.”

  Bastian held up his hand and signaled to the entrance. Nolan raised his leg and kicked open the door.

  Crash! Wood splintered.

  Through the debris, Nolan moved in low and to the right, gun gripped in his left hand while Rory went high and to the left, his black-and-silver pistol held snug in his right hand just like Bastian had taught his brothers.

  His compact firearm tucked into the back waistband of his jeans, Bastian walked in behind his brothers. A gust of swirling, icy wind from the broken window in the hall blew his coat back in a dramatic kick-ass hero effect Rory would have loved if he’d seen it.

  Bastian took in the details of the room in order to assess the situation. Beige-painted walls, closed windows at the rear of the room, small kitchen to the left, and an open bathroom to the right. His gaze narrowed in on the pentagram drawn in the middle of the floor and the beaten, unconscious woman who lay inside it. Ronan, dressed only in wrinkled black slacks, crouched over his victim. Dark hair. Crimson highlights. Morgan Cross, the woman he’d run into the other night in the slums.

  His father met his gaze. Surprise turned into satisfaction as a slow smile curled the corners of his bloody lips. Bastian sucked in a sharp breath. Magic and evil saturated the air. The foul taste stung his throat. The hazy aroma of torture scraped his flesh from the inside out. His steps quickened without thought or hesitation.

  Bastian stared into eyes once the same shade as Rory’s. Now they were deep scarlet, consumed with the essence of Satan, the only being his father had ever worshipped. Dried blood stained Ronan’s pale cheek from an already healed gash on the left side of his face. A lingering yellow bruise ringed his eye.

  Morgan had fought back. Good girl.

  Around his father’s form, a translucent black, billowing shadow writhed. Perhaps the dark silhouette represented the tarnished remnants of Ronan’s aura. Maybe it was a manifestation of pure evil.

  There was a reason people called Ronan “the Devil.” Aside from his many horrific deeds, within the short black strands of his father’s hair, two red streaks came from his temples and spiked slightly apart to resemble protruding horns.

  Bastian drew his weapon. “Step away from the girl.”

  Ronan threw his head back and laughed. The sound filled the apartment. Power pulsed through the room. The ancient necromancer Bastian and his brothers once called master wiped a tear from the corner of his eye as he stood. He strolled along the inner perimeter of the ritual circle. The clap, clap, clap of Ronan’s hands coming together sent spikes of pain straight into Bastian’s skull, and his lingering headache sharpened. Every vibration of palm hitting palm drove the hurt deeper.

  “You made it. I thought you might still be ill.” Ronan bent to run a hand over Morgan’s hair. She didn’t twitch, not even to draw a breath. “Sons, I’d like you to meet someone very special. This is Morgan. Isn’t she exquisite? The perfect vessel.”

  The thick Irish accent brought back too many unwanted memories for Bastian. The sickening combination of his father’s and Morgan’s necromancy magic hung in the air. A quick glance around the room and he could see Morgan hadn’t gone along willingly with his father’s plan. Red and black streaks of blood painted the floor. Books cluttered the area around where a worn, tattered couch rested on its back against a crooked bookshelf. A decapitated head of blond curls lay, a pool of gelatinous black blood beneath it. The zombie’s body lay a few feet away next to an emaciated corpse with a gaping hole in the middle of its chest.

  Ronan’s singsong tone grew heavy with annoyance, drawing Bastian’s attention back to him. “She’s a bit of a mess, I know. Needed a lesson in etiquette after stealing my zombies. You boys remember your lessons, don’t you?”

  She’d stolen his zombies?

  The power needed to supersede a master’s thrall over a blood slave was…substantial. Immense. Ronan and Rory were the only necromancers Bastian knew who could manage the feat. He looked back to the circle, to the woman lying at the devil’s feet. The bright sun-fire amber shade of her eyes flashed in his memory. Ronan had once told him the unique shade was a mark of power.

  He barely recognized her through the swelling and blood. Her hair was the only thing he recalled from the first time he’d seen her.
She was naked except a pair of purple bikini panties askew on her bony hips. Her long arms were stretched over her head. Thick rope imprisoned her wrists. Through the knot, an athame with its emerald-jeweled handle was embedded in the floor to keep her grounded. The submissive position flattened her small breasts and drew attention to the bite marks around her nipples.

  She was so still.

  The only movement he could discern was the crimson flow of blood from several shallow gashes on her abdomen over her black-and-blue ribs onto the floor. Despite the strength of her innate magic, she was too young to heal as quickly as an older necromancer might. Nolan had said she was twenty-three. Hell, she was still aging.

  The dripping of her blood deafened Bastian to all other sounds. With each drop his jaw clenched a little more. The blood didn’t pool beneath her as the laws of gravity demanded. As if the liquid were on a track, the fluid raced into the lines of the circle to feed it power. To feed Ronan power.

  When Bastian closed his eyes, he didn’t see Morgan in the circle. He saw himself, naked, bruised, and battered. Drip. Drip. Drip. He shook the gut-curdling images away.

  “You sick fuck,” Nolan hissed, his voice thick with his own horrible set of memories. “What the hell are you planning?”

  “I’m securing the future bloodline of the MacHallen’s, no thanks to you ungrateful whelps.” All semblance of joy vanished from Ronan. “I haven’t gotten a chance to finish her off yet.”

  Bastian traced his gaze over the glowing runes on Ronan’s chest, down the dark path of hair to the open button on his bloodstained slacks. His pants were still zipped. Based on the “finish her off” comment, it gave him hope Morgan hadn’t been raped. If only sexual assault were the worst thing in Ronan’s nasty bag of tricks. He and his brothers knew from experience that being taken against your will could be endured. There were other horrors one could suffer at Ronan’s hands.

  “I thought you liked them dead. This one still has a pulse,” Rory said, and then added, “Or maybe that’s what you’re waiting for.”

  A sly grin curled his father’s mouth. Ronan looked at Bastian. “I’m not the only one who prefers the cold kiss of death. How are you feeling, Son? Did you like your present? Tell me, did you fuck her before you drained her?”

  Bastian took one step. He bounced his gaze from Morgan’s blue-tinged lips to his father. “Why don’t you step out of the circle so we can reacquaint ourselves? It’s been, what? A hundred years since we broke from under your thumb? Since then you attack us through shadows in the dark of night.” He held out his arms, the weight of his weapon pulling down his right hand, the rage inside him a bomb waiting to detonate. “We’re right here. Let’s see how you do when we can see the assault coming.”

  “Not part of the plan,” Rory growled.

  Gunfire exploded. Ronan jerked at the impact of bullet melting through flesh, and staggered back. The moment he stepped out of the circle, the glowing symbols on his chest, on the ground, faded to white. No longer contained, the blood streamed across the wood floor, filling scuffs and cracks as it went.

  “Get the girl. We’ll keep him busy!” Nolan shouted and pulled the trigger on the gun he had aimed at their father.

  Bastian didn’t pause. Another shot was fired, but he didn’t look. He trusted Nolan and Rory with his life. He dropped to his knees and slid through the chalk circle, deliberately breaking the connection between Satan and his father. The lingering power washed over him and weakened him. The sensation made it hard to move through the paralyzing memories of times past, and he fought to push them away.

  He scanned Morgan’s face, stared at her unmoving chest, and willed it to rise. She didn’t breathe. She wasn’t dead, though, not yet. He’d feel it through his necromancy. Hesitating, his fingers stopped a scant inch over the vein in her neck. He didn’t want to touch her, didn’t want to taint her skin with his when she’d already been through so much. He shut out everything around him and pressed against her neck. He searched. A second passed before the faint thud-thud of her pulse reached his ears.

  “She’s got a pulse!” he shouted.

  “Great!” Rory yelled back. “Get it together, detective. Give her CPR before she gets brain damage. Compression sets of thirty and then start mouth-to-mouth.”

  Rory was the paramedic—he should be doing this. Bastian gritted his teeth and placed the heel of his hand between her breasts. He put his other hand on top, interlacing his fingers. Her skin was slick with blood. Warm. A shocking contrast to the death-kissed temperature of his hand. On the first push he heard the crack, felt a rib fracture.

  Goddamn it. Too hard.

  One. Two. Three. Four. He counted thirty compressions before he stopped, tilted her head back, and lifted her chin. Pinching her nose, he sealed his mouth over hers in a parody of a kiss. He exhaled until her chest rose against his. He pulled back, waited. Nothing. Putting his mouth to hers again, he blew.

  “It’s not working!” he hollered. Bastian lowered his voice, smoothed the hair off her forehead. “Come on, Morgan, breathe. You’ve gotten this far; don’t let him win.”

  “Again, Bastian,” Rory instructed, his words muffled from the riot of gunfire.

  The noise behind Bastian intensified. Curses sounded, and things crashed to the floor. Flesh slapped against flesh in an accompaniment of grunts. Ronan laughed.

  Bastian pressed down on Morgan’s chest, one, two, counted to thirty before bringing his lips to hers once more. Never looking away from her closed lids, he exhaled. Come on. Breathe, baby, breathe. Almost as if she’d heard his silent command, her eyes snapped open. She sucked in a breath that stole the icy air in his lungs and a part of his thawing soul.

  Rearing back, he broke the seal of their lips and removed his hands from between her breasts. He stared down at her as if in a trance. Her mouth moved, and a whispered voice just as bruised and as battered as her body came from her trembling lips.

  “Don’t let him hurt me anymore,” chipped off a piece of his heart and stabbed him in the gut.

  “Never again,” he promised.

  The sounds of the fight behind him escalated. Icy bursts of magic chilled the room into a frost of varying colors. Spells and counterspells—each person had a unique smell and feel. Scents mixed, overlaid the fragrant oleander blooms. Cloves, spicy and sweet, from Rory. Cedar, masculine and woodsy, from Nolan.

  Bastian didn’t have much more time to get her free.

  He yanked loose the knife holding her bound hands above her head and glanced at her. The unfocused glaze in her swollen, bloodshot eyes worried him. Her fight-or-flight instincts were about to kick into full gear, and he was the closest target.

  “My name is Bastian Hale, and I’m here with my brothers, Nolan and Rory. We’re going to get you out of here. Trust us. Now, I’m going to cut you lose. Feet first. I want you to get somewhere safe until I come for you. Understand?”

  She blinked at him. Good enough.

  He used the blade to saw through the rope at her ankles. The knife slipped off the twined cord, slicing a three-inch gash through his leather coat and into his forearm. Too focused on the purple crescent-shaped bite marks on her thighs and the fingerprint bruises marring her ivory skin, he didn’t register the pain of his injury.

  She scrambled back and out of the circle before the slackened ropes around her feet hit the ground. Crying out in shock and agony, she brought her bound hands against her sternum. She looked down as if confused. Broken ribs. He had cracked one of them, Ronan several others. Her face paled from the pain. Sweat dripped and streaked through the caked blood on her face.

  None of it stopped her momentum. She made it to the kitchen, a small strip of peeling linoleum, and huddled into a shadowed corner as far away from Ronan as she could get. With her knees to her chest, she used teeth on the ropes around her wrists.

  “Bastian!” Rory shouted.

  The moment it took Bastian to turn from Morgan to the sound of his brother’s warning was one too lat
e. Ronan slammed into him. Bastian crashed to the floor. The weight of his father on top of him doubled the impact. He reacted without thought. Hands up, he pressed his palms against his father’s chest and pushed as much power through the tips of his fingers as possible.

  Flesh sizzled. Not from heat, but from the frost of death he forced into his father’s chest. Death’s Chill, they called it—paralyzed your opponent with rigor mortis. Ronan reared back. A layer of sapphire ice coated and then chipped off Ronan’s skin. Using the distraction, Rory came in from the side. Rory’s fist connected with Ronan’s jaw and threw the older man’s head back. Icicles clanked to the floor and shattered before melting.

  Ronan shook off the magic, the blow to the chin, and shoved. As if weightless, Rory flew several feet into the air. Bastian’s brother crashed into the bookshelf across the room, dropped to the couch, and then rolled to the floor in a heap.

  Nolan jumped back into the fight, his mouth twisted into a snarl. Purple magic dripped from his balled fists and left a trail of ice in his wake. Blood leaked from Nolan’s nose onto his ripped flannel shirt. His hair, all black an hour before, now streamed in rich bluish-purple streaks.

  On the defensive, Ronan put out his hands and threw a bolt of energy. The blast hit Nolan in the middle of his chest. Bastian knew his brother fought the magic, tried to counteract whatever spell Ronan had used. The strain of his efforts etched lines around Nolan’s eyes and pinched mouth. Bastian knew the moment Nolan lost. At two hundred, give or take the few years separating their ages, none of them were a match for someone of Ronan’s caliber. Nolan clutched his chest. He gritted his teeth as if to hold in his scream. Even in the face of the devil, pride demanded he keep quiet. His knees hit the ground in a harsh thud of bone to floor.