Crimson Sins

by Madeline Pryce

  Rory threw his duffel to the ground and bent to rummage through the contents. He pulled out a flare and set it on fire. Sulfur filled the air and dispelled some of the rotten stench from the ghouls.

  Rory waved the torch in front of Morgan’s face until she snatched it from his hand. “They’re afraid of fire.”

  Bastian looked at the ghouls and called out, “Stop.” Power rang clear in his command. One by one, the pack looked up. Black, soulless eyes dominated their emaciated faces and stared straight at him.

  With Morgan at his side, Bastian walked a circle around the ghouls and sprinkled the water on the ground as he went. Eerie electricity danced in the air. Each step wound energy around him, tighter and tighter. The moment the circle closed, the air popped with a fizzle of blue sparks, and the satisfying sensation rushed through him.

  “Feel that release of pressure? Kind of like how your ears pop after taking off on an airplane?” he asked her.

  Teeth tugging on her lower lip, she nodded.

  “Rory, toss me the ointment,” he called out.

  “Going old-school?” Nolan asked as Rory drew out a small, flat jar and threw it at Bastian’s head.

  “What’s he talking about?” Morgan asked.

  “As necromancers we have the innate ability to command and manipulate death of all kinds. But the magic is raw and sometimes, like in your case, unpredictable. Take how you ruined my apartment, for example. There are rituals and spells, voodoo if you will, to help sharpen the intent. Putting things to rest requires a bit more finesse than pulling an army of dead from the ground.” He held up the jar and unscrewed the cap. “This ointment will create a bond between us and the circle we just made.”

  She wrinkled her nose as soon as the pungent odor wafted free. “Should I ask what’s in it?”

  “Graveyard mold, rosemary, cinnamon, sage, and thyme combined in a cream.”

  He spread a thin layer of the gritty, slightly wet mixture on his forehead. Where the cream touched, his skin heated. He reached under his shirt to dab a little over his heart.

  Stepping close, he trailed his thumb along her forehead. Their gazes locked. Touching more skin than he needed, he drew his hand under her shirt, up her stomach. After grazing her breast, he spread the paste over her heart. He smeared the last bit of ointment on the ground to complete the circle. Morgan gasped as an invisible rope wrapped tight around them. Deep in his chest, he felt her heart beating.

  “Wow,” she breathed. “I can feel your heart beating, and we aren’t even touching.”

  “I’m acting as an anchor. Until you learn focus, you shouldn’t try this on your own.”

  “Enough with the foreplay!” Nolan yelled and made a gesture for them to hurry.

  Bastian thumbed Morgan’s lower lip and pulled a switchblade from his pocket. He unfolded it. “Give me your hand.”

  She offered and winced when he drew the knife across her palm.

  “Normally we’d sacrifice something small, a rabbit or a chicken. But Father Xavier does not condone taking a life for any reason. If you create a circle and offer a blood sacrifice, you can do almost anything you want. You won’t just raise zombies; you can control them.”

  He held her hand over the ground and waited for the dark drops to hit the soil. Morgan’s magic spread like liquid over the grass as it looked for a way into the earth.

  “I can feel the dead in their graves. They’re so hungry.”

  “None of that,” Bastian chastised gently and pulled her magic inside him so she wouldn’t inadvertently raise any zombies.

  The connection between them hummed. Bastian shivered as her magic trailed through his veins. Like an arrow hitting its target, her necromancy zeroed in on the cold, dark spot deep inside. Ice spread through his stomach and stole his breath. He forced his shields between them, essentially slamming the door shut on her magic. Startled, she snapped her gaze to him and blinked.

  Nolan crossed the graveyard in three strides. Before Bastian could stop him, he gripped Morgan’s injured hand and squeezed to induce pain, severing her magic. The sting drew a sharp sound from her throat.

  “That’s enough, Nolan,” Bastian growled, angry that Nolan hurt her.

  Connected the way they were, Bastian sensed Morgan’s creeping fear and the way her heartbeat picked up in tempo.

  Nolan shook his head and tightened his hold. “Focus on the pain. Pull your magic from Bastian, but don’t take anything with you. Like walking on a tightrope, you balance on it, or you fall off and break your neck.”

  “Nolan, I got this,” Bastian said, this time quieter, scarier, and shoved his brother’s shoulder hard enough that momentum forced Nolan to let go of Morgan.

  “It’s okay. I understand what he’s saying,” Morgan whispered.

  Nolan nodded and stepped farther away. “We’ll get you a rubber band on your wrist, whenever you feel the magic slipping—snap the band as hard as you can. Its crude, but you’ll learn.”

  Bastian cupped Morgan’s cheek. “You okay?”

  She bit her lower lip. “This is harder than I thought it would be. I didn’t mean to…”

  “You’re doing fine.” He glared at Nolan. “No one here is going to let you lose control.”

  Bastian took out a handful of salt from the bag Rory handed him, and threw it at the ghouls. The creatures hissed and snarled. “Let’s focus. Repeat after me, and with each word you speak, I want you to visualize it. ‘With salt I bind you to your graves.’”

  She cleared her throat. Bastian gave her a reassuring smile and watched when she glanced back at Rory and Nolan. Rory gave her a thumbs-up. Nolan, the ass, eyed her warily.

  “With salt I bind you to your graves,” Morgan said the words, and Bastian pictured tiny white granules hitting the ghouls. In his mind, the salt dissolved through rotted flesh and melted everything into the ground before solidifying into rock.

  The second the words were out of her mouth, the ghouls shriveled in on themselves. Bastian picked up the knife he’d cut her with, and slashed it in the direction of the creatures. The blood on the tip of the blade landed at their feet and sizzled.

  “Repeat, ‘With this blood and steel I bind you to your grave. Be at peace and walk no more.’”

  Morgan said the words, and Bastian visualized the blood, the steel, and each ghoul fading into the earth. The ground rumbled and opened. She clutched his arm. One by one the ghouls disappeared.

  Pride swelled. He knew she could do it. Bastian bumped her shoulder. “Told you, you were ready.”

  Her grin spread from ear to ear. “That was amazing.”

  Jesus, he loved her. If only he could tell her. He’d tried, repeatedly, but he just couldn’t get past the paralyzing fear that one day she’d turn on him, enslave him, rip his newly reformed heart into a million pieces. Instead, he’d focused on showing her. He tilted her face up and stroked his thumb back and forth across her cheek.

  “You’re amazing,” he whispered, bent.

  “Oh, come on! If you two start making out, I’m going to shoot something!” Nolan yelled.

  Despite his brother’s words, Bastian claimed her mouth. Behind his back, he flipped off Nolan. When she was breathless, he pulled away and grabbed her hand. He tugged her to his brothers. “Let’s get out of here.”

  His hand slipped from hers as he took a step back. Morgan looked up at him with a soft smile she normally reserved for when they were in bed and he’d just made her come about a half a dozen times.

  The scent hit him first. Death. Putrid, rotting flesh. Out of the shadows, pale white hands slid around either side of Morgan’s waist from the back. She screamed and turned to the touch. Bastian could look at nothing except the man who materialized behind her.

  The cloak covering Ronan’s head slipped back to reveal the blistered flesh on the right side of his face from forehead to chin. As if on a continuous cycle, the bubbled skin burst and dripped with puss before healing and sizzling all over again. What in the fuck had Morga
n and Bastian done to him? Horror and disgust clenched Bastian’s stomach into a knot.

  “She won’t be going anywhere,” Ronan growled through his half-formed mouth.

  “No!” Bastian jerked forward, the tips of his fingers barely touching Morgan’s outstretched hand. He was too late. Morgan vanished along with his father.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Pain spread through Bastian’s chest and cracked him in half. No. Fuck no. What in the hell had just happened? He fell to the ground where Morgan had stood only seconds earlier. The earth trembled beneath his knees. Through their connection, her fear bombarded him and made it impossible to think.

  Bastian tried to separate his emotions from hers, found it difficult to get past the muddled mess inside his head. Morgan’s terror spiked, and his love for her redoubled his panic. He was a police officer, for fuck’s sake. He’d been trained to compartmentalize his feeling, so why couldn’t he?

  “He can’t have taken her far,” Nolan said, the tremor in his voice revealing their collective dread.

  Bastian rose and spun in a circle in the middle of the graveyard, desperately searching for where Ronan might have taken Morgan. Nolan was right. Ronan wouldn’t be able to shift through shadows with another person, not for long. He wouldn’t be able to remove her from the cemetery, not unless he’d brought a car.

  “There!” Rory yelled, already running to a baroque-style mausoleum about twenty yards away.

  Ronan stepped from the shadow of the building, his pale hand covering Morgan’s mouth, his other arm banded across her chest to keep her pinned in place. Fear for Morgan’s safety pushed Bastian into a sprint.

  Too far away. He would never make it in time. Magic gathered in his palm, an ice-cold flame licking up his arm. But, what could he do? If he threw the spell at his father, he could very well hit Morgan instead.

  Ronan pushed the stone door open and smiled at them, a twisted sight with half his face missing. Several feet before Bastian and his brothers could make contact, Ronan backed inside and pulled the door closed, sealing himself and Morgan inside.

  A roiling sapphire mass of magic exploded from Bastian’s hand. Energy collided against the smooth stone in an explosion that rocked the ground. He threw himself at the closed door. Frantic, he tried to slide the stone door free, but it wouldn’t budge.

  Beside him, Nolan and Rory tried to help, to no avail. Shoving the door open wasn’t going to happen with it locked from inside.

  “Goddamn it!” Bastian yelled and kicked the wall.

  The anger inside him boiled over, and he switched to beating against the stone. Helplessness washed through him, and he took every ounce of the angst filling him and threw it against the one thing preventing him from protecting Morgan.

  “Bro, stop!” Rory yelled.

  Nolan and Rory pulled him away from the door. A scream from within the mausoleum rent the night and tore out his heart. Morgan. Oh God. He would not stand here and listen to his father rape her, kill her, and then claim her soul. He broke free from his brothers. Magic spiraled from the tips of his fingers, and he pressed it into the stone, freezing it.

  “That isn’t going to help,” Rory growled and tried to pull him back again.

  Bastian spun on his brother, shoved him in the chest, and sent him sprawling to the ground.

  “The fuck it won’t,” he growled, the anger inside twisting him apart. “We freeze the stone over and over, weaken it, and then we can break through it. Morgan can fend him off until then. I can feel her fear and her hatred—she won’t go down without a fight.”

  Bastian met Rory’s emerald gaze and wondered if his brother could see the raw, naked emotions in his eyes. Bastian wouldn’t survive with the guilt of Morgan’s blood on his hands. He shouldn’t have brought her here tonight. He shouldn’t have let go of her hand. Jesus, he hadn’t even told her he loved her.

  “You either help me, or you stand back.”

  Rory pushed himself off the ground and nodded. “We won’t let him hurt her.”

  “We might not have a choice.” Darkness filled Nolan’s eyes, and Bastian knew he was thinking of another woman. The woman Nolan had loved.

  In sync, one after another, they hit the door with everything they had. The stone frosted, thawed, frosted. One layer at a time, the stone crumbled away slowly. Too fucking slowly.

  THE MOMENT RONAN let go of her, Morgan screamed and backed against the cold stone door. Her vision clouded in and out of focus. She could see nothing in the darkness except the way her captor’s green eyes morphed into glowing red pits of evil.

  “Aye, lass, we’ve not got long,” Ronan said. “I have something for you.”

  A single fiery match appeared between his fingers. The flickering orange light accented the ruin of his face. He smiled cruelly as if he enjoyed the disgust she showed. Her terror and fear melted into a twisted kind of power at the knowledge that she and Bastian had hurt him. He could be stopped. Would be stopped.

  Chains rattled from a shadowed corner behind Ronan. The sound of screaming behind a gag echoed off the walls. They weren’t alone, and she realized Ronan had planned this. He had lain in wait until the moment came when he could steal her away.

  She pressed her hand to the dull gray stone door behind her, and the surface chilled at the surge of her magic. She struggled to slow her breathing. Ronan shuffled back, and the flame he held in his hand transferred to a torch affixed to the wall. The darkness lifted and gave way to a sight that stopped her heart.

  Chained to the wall was a man she recognized, a man she’d banished from her memory. Bradly Haines. He was still overweight. Still bald. She wondered if his breath still smelled of rancid meat. He’d been an orderly at the mental hospital. For weeks, he’d tormented her and the other girls in her ward.

  Ronan petted Brad’s head and smiled at her. “I come bearing gifts, my precious.”

  Panic mounted in her chest. She had no weapons. Nothing except the magic she’d been born with. A magic she now knew how to use. Ronan ripped off the duct tape, and the orderly immediately screamed.

  Ronan pinched his throat and cut off all sound.

  He spoke into the man’s ear. “Now, be a good boy. We discussed this on the way over. You have something to say to the lady.”

  “I ain’t got nothing to say,” the guy cried. Fear sent sweat pouring down his pudgy face.

  A blade gleamed silver in the firelight. Ronan brought the tip in front of the man’s eye and shook it back and forth as if it were his finger. “Wrong answer. Tell Ms. Cross how sorry you are, or I’ll start cutting off body parts.”

  “You’re fucking crazy, man,” Brad whined and struggled against his bindings.

  Ronan lowered the knife and pressed it against the man’s inner thigh. Brad cleared his throat. He looked at her. Terror danced in his eyes. “I apolo…gize for touching wh…at wasn’t mi…ne.” He said the words as if rehearsing a speech. “I’m a perverted ped—”

  Apparently unsatisfied, Ronan jabbed the knife into the man’s leg and twisted. “Like you mean it,” he hissed.

  Brad cried out. The rest of his words fell out in a jumble. “I’m a perverted pedophile who deserves to be punished.”

  “Better,” Ronan praised. “Morgan, this is my last gift to you. Choose his punishment. Shall I cut out his eyes? Remove his testicles? Your wish is my command.”

  “Let him go, Ronan.” She struggled to keep the fear out of her voice. Bastian would break through, would do whatever he had to in order to save her. In the meantime, she wasn’t helpless.

  Ronan clucked his tongue. “Where is the fun in that? Unless”—his eyes brightened—“you wish me to chase him down before I remove his spinal cord?”

  A wet stain darkened the man’s dirty khakis. The pungent odor of urine mixed with the scent of mold.

  Ronan rolled his eyes and looked down. “Pathetic whelp! You pissed on my shoes.”

  His hand moved in three quick, deep slashes. Groin, gut, throat. Blood
sprayed the air, and the smell, the putrefied taste in the back of her throat told her he’d sliced through the stomach lining.

  She pressed a trembling hand over her mouth to keep from crying out. Tears pricked her eyes. Ronan used his blade to hack through flesh and bone, severing Brad’s hands from his arms. His limp body fell to the ground and landed in the growing puddle of blood.

  Death seeped into the air and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. A brown haze lifted from the body. His soul. Magic rushed through her and beckoned her close. Before the intent could fully form in her head, Ronan reached down and shoved a red glowing palm through the center of the life force. The soul exploded into hundreds of droplets before scattering into nothing.

  “There now,” Ronan said. “A true death. I can’t have you raising any more zombies. While they are lovely, they are too distracting. I underestimated you. Twice. I won’t let that happen again.”

  He stepped over the body, advancing on her. The energy within her surged and roiled with her increasing panic. She thought of the fear she’d felt when she’d first seen the beating heart in the black box. Her mind jumped ahead to the look of pleasure on his face when Ronan had kicked her, touched her. As if the dream were real, her chest tightened at the weight of his body on top of her. All over again the sick sounds of enjoyment when he’d forced himself on her in the nightmare filled her ears.

  Blood trickled into a crevasse in the dusty ground. The liquid raced to her as if drawn by a magnet. She didn’t need Brad’s soul, not with the blood sacrifice rich in the air. A little closer. She alternately watched the rolling blood and then Ronan’s approach. He made no move to hurry, just took one deliberate step at a time, enjoying the wait and savoring her fear.

  The blood pooled in a crack next to her foot, and she stepped forward. Power. Death magic. There might not be any zombies to raise, but she’d learned over the last few weeks that necromancers were capable of so much more. Raven’s Sight would make him see and feel his worst nightmare all over again. She pulled all the fear, hatred, and panic together. Like a lead weight, ice gathered in the pit of her stomach. She thought of the horrible dream she’d had and how paralyzed she’d been upon waking. How utterly helpless she’d felt.