Crimson Sins

by Madeline Pryce

  “You mean what you did?” The knife in his chest twisted. “Allison will be in touch, Nathaniel.”

  Just as he hung up the phone, a knock at the door sounded. He rose, wiped his sweaty, bloodstained hands on his pants, and forced his necromancy to the surface. Nolan put on his most charming, nonhomicidal smile and opened the door. The three giggling women huddled together under the cabin’s awning. His smile faded and he attacked. They never knew what hit them.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Drip. Drip. Drip. Morgan lay with her eyes closed and listened. Drip. Drip. Drip. With each slow, steady plop, she imagined water rolling, suspending, and then falling into the pool beneath it. Drip. Morgan drifted into a foggy consciousness and immediately recoiled at the overwhelming stench of rancid flesh. Death. Decay. The rusty tang of blood. Evil lingered in the cold, dank air.

  Shivers of her icy magic raced through her veins but found no outlet. Her teeth chattered, and try as she might she didn’t have the strength to huddle in on herself for warmth. Her arms and legs prickled with frost, a subtle tightening of skin.

  She tried to cover her mouth, to block out the stench of rot, only to feel the bite of metal digging into her wrists. The rattle of metal clanking together punctuated even the slightest of movements. She struggled to open her heavy lids.

  Her last moments of consciousness hit her hard. Bastian, the desperate love in his eyes when he’d clutched her and told—not asked—her to be his wife. Jodi’s crazed eyes the moment before she fired. The only man she’d ever loved bleeding out in her arms. Then her own pain. Soon after, she’d been shot, and there had been nothing.

  Where the hell was she? Why couldn’t she open her eyes? Unable to see, Morgan’s other senses took over. She drew her now bare foot along the hard surface beneath her. Her toes slid through a thin layer of something coating the dense floor. It was cold, but not wet like snow. Soil? Dust? Past the drip, drip, drip still echoing and the rattle of chains, a man’s low, gravelly moan sounded. It was not of pleasure, but of a terrible, deep-seated pain.

  Bastian? Rory? Panic forced her eyes open into a living nightmare.

  The only thing not concealed in shadow was Bastian’s slackened body hanging limply from thick, rusted chains affixed to gray cement walls curved at the top to create an arched ceiling. Blood dripped from his beaten face and the flayed gashes on his chest and stomach. Red soaked into his jeans and dripped to the ground. Some cuts were so deep she saw the white hints of bone.

  Drip. Drip. Drip. Every drop added to the nearly black puddle beneath him. He groaned, tugged at his restraints. His eyes were the worst part—wide-open, bright, and hungry. He looked right at her and snapped his jaws as if he were imagining taking a bite out of her flesh.

  This man before her wasn’t her Bastian. She jerked, kicked her legs, and scrambled over the dirt-strewn floor until her back hit the smooth wall behind her. Her breath sawed through her as horror took root. Bastian snarled, his gaze zeroing in on a streak of blood she’d left on the ground. Was this blood from her shoulder? Or was she wounded somewhere else?

  Morgan looked left, then right, finding two marble sarcophagi staring at her. The second her gaze connected to the stone skull and crossed bones, magic beat at her skin from the inside out. From the skeleton, cold tentacles of inky death seeped over the ground like an oily, roiling mist and wrapped around her ankle. The lingering numbness in her limbs faded, and the spot where the fog, the spirit touched, burned.

  She tried to pull away, to kick her foot. Nothing shook the shadow crawling up her body. Her skin prickled as if someone were stabbing her with tiny needles. She could only grit her teeth and bear the horrible sensations twisting inside her gut. The whispers from the surrounding ghosts, just a few at first, turned into dozens, then hundreds. A whirring filled the room, echoing off the ceiling in a cacophony of discordant noise. She knew in the depths of her bones that whatever lay in those coffins was hundreds of years old.

  “What have you done?” Ronan’s deep, heavily accented voice rang through the crypt. Jodi had handed them over to the devil. That knowledge gave Morgan the strength to fortify her shields. The moment she slammed the door closed in her mind, the mist faded.

  “You stupid cunt!” Ronan bellowed, his deep voice booming off the walls. “You could have killed her. I wanted her unharmed. I specifically told you that!”

  “It was the only way!” Jodi yelled.

  From up ahead, she caught glimpses of Ronan’s black robes billowing with every step. Before he passed out of sight, Morgan got a good look at the rotted half of his face that now showed bone through the remaining strings of red and pink tendons.

  Flesh slapped against flesh, and Morgan instinctually flinched at the sound. Was he hitting her or raping her? Through the opening of the tunnel in front of her, Jodi’s frail, fully dressed body came into view as she collapsed to the ground.

  The blonde struggled to her feet, her bloodstained hands slipping in the thin layer of dark brown soil. Red dripped from her mouth, her skewed nose, and the corner of her swollen eye. Ronan paced to Jodi, his green eyes glittering with a murderous rage. Crimson ice dripped from his balled fists.

  “What is it about that whore?” Jodi growled. “She’s nothing but a slut! You know she fucked all of them, don’t you? You promised me Bastian, and I want my payment. You played with him long enough. I want my turn!”

  Morgan felt sick to her stomach at the thought of what they’d done to Bastian. Ronan’s fist was a white streak in the air seconds before impact. Jodi crumpled back to the ground.

  Through the blood covering her emaciated face, Jodi looked up. Cracked lips stretched into something resembling a smile. “I’m done playing your games.”

  She withdrew a gun, the same one Morgan had stared down the barrel of. Before her finger got anywhere near the trigger, Ronan grabbed her around the throat and lifted until they were nose to nose. The weapon skittered across the ground. Jodi’s pale face lost what little color it had left, and her lips turned blue.

  “You’ve served your purpose.” Ronan twisted. Skin ripped and bone snapped, his strength unreal. The sounds weren’t ones Morgan would soon forget. Jodi’s detached head hit the ground with a splatter of blood before her body dropped.

  Morgan must have made some kind of a noise, because Ronan turned and looked in her direction. He smiled wide enough to show that despite the decay of his face, he still had pink gums and a set of perfectly even teeth.

  “You’re awake; how lovely. Took you long enough. Bastian and I had to get started without you.”

  He grabbed Jodi’s foot and pulled her body behind him as he stalked in Morgan’s direction. Every bootfall sent her heart racing. She struggled against her restraints, pulled until metal cut into flesh. Across from her, Bastian must have smelled the fresh injury, because he went wild. He thrashed, growled, pulled so hard the medieval-looking cuffs on his wrists sliced into skin.

  “You’ll be getting none of that. You hear me, boy? Stop moving about; you’re making a mess,” Ronan snapped, and Bastian instantly stilled.

  Oh God, no. No. No. No.

  Ronan threw Jodi’s corpse at Bastian’s feet and then removed something from his pocket. He waved a thin black key in front of Bastian’s face, but her lover only had eyes for the corpse.

  “If I let you go, do you promise to be good? That’s right.” Ronan turned and grinned at her. “Of course he will.” He faced Bastian. “You’ll do whatever I tell you to do. If I tell you to fuck Morgan in Jodi’s blood, you will. When I tell you to remove every single stitch of Morgan’s clothing, you’ll do it. Let’s get you fed so you can focus, can really experience how it feels to kill the one you love. Nolan knows all about that, doesn’t he?”

  The moment Bastian was freed from his chains, he dropped to the ground and grabbed Jodi’s headless body to pull it into his lap. He found one of her arms, brought it to his mouth. Bastian sank his teeth into flesh and slurped at the remaining blood in Jodi�
��s veins. Morgan’s stomach clenched, and she had to fight back a wave of nausea. After a few minutes, Bastian rolled Jodi to the ground and stood without bothering to wipe the blood from his beard.

  One by one, the wounds on his chest and stomach fused together. His battered face smoothed. The pale, almost greenish hue of his skin pinked. Deep in Bastian’s eyes, Morgan saw disgust and anger. The certainty that he knew, was conscious of everything that would happen, filled her with sorrow. Tears gathered before rolling down her cheeks.

  Ronan held out his hand, palm up. Within seconds, an icy ball of crimson appeared. “Listen up, you two lovebirds. This is how we’re going to do this. Morgan, you fight against me, against Bastian, I’ll shove every ounce of magic I have straight up your twat and rip you apart from the inside out. Bastian, you break from the thrall—and I’ll feel it if you do—and Morgan dies much slower and more painfully than she has to.”

  Using the same key, Ronan stepped close and drew the cold steel down the side of her cheek. The magic in his hand vanished. He pressed his palm against her breast and squeezed.

  She turned her head away from the caress, but he abandoned her tit to reach out and grab a fistful of her hair. He pulled, forced her head back until she had no choice but to look into his ruined face. Ronan leaned in and pressed his half-missing lips against hers. The second he stuck his tongue into her mouth, she closed her teeth around it and bit down as hard as she could.

  Blood filled her mouth, and she gagged on the thick liquid, her throat convulsing at the nasty, rancid tang of decay. Ronan howled in rage. The fist in her hair tightened. He pulled away from her mouth and slammed the back of her head against the wall hard enough to send stars dancing in front of her face.

  “Bastian, here, now,” Ronan said, his words muffled from his swollen, injured tongue.

  Bastian staggered at the command, his eyes full of a fury she felt in the pit of her stomach. The icy flames stoked inside her, colder and colder, and Morgan held on to all of it.

  “Unlock her.” Ronan handed Bastian the key and stepped behind him, his palm glowing with lethal magic.

  She looked up and met Bastian’s gaze as he undid first one restraint, then the other. Chains clanked to the ground in a puff of dirt. “We’ll get through this, Bastian. Do you hear me?”

  “Bastian might make it through, but you, my dear, will not. On your feet, Morgan. Nice and slow, walk to the entrance of the next room. If you turn around, I’ll tear him apart. He won’t die, you know, just feel the agony of his skin ripping away and then healing.”

  Morgan rose on shaky legs and realized for the first time she was dressed in her uniform from the diner. The once-blue cotton dress was now stained with blood and dirt. With only one shoe on, her footsteps were uneven.

  Torches lit her path and cast eerie flickering shadows along the walls. Slow, in no hurry to find out what Ronan had in mind, she moved from the antechamber she’d woken in. The entrances to five dark tunnels appeared as black holes.

  She wiped her palms on her dress and looked around the cavern, then up at the thousands of pounds of cement she guessed were above her head. White oleander blooms were everywhere, covering almost every surface to give off a thick fragrance that didn’t quite overpower the rot. She turned in a slow circle.

  Etched above the arched entryway to each of the five tunnels were different symbols. Put together it looked like a pentagram, this room in whose center she stood. Disgust filled her. How very Ronan.

  “Where to now?” she asked.

  “To the left, all the way down into the chamber at the end.”

  The corridor was narrow and dark. Unable to see, she shuffled forward. With every step, her one bare foot made contact with the cold ground. A malevolent force she couldn’t visualize pressed in on her from every angle, making it hard to breathe. The trapped air felt heavy and smelled of Ronan’s rotting flesh. After a few long minutes, the first hints of light flickered at the end of the corridor.

  Someone grabbed her arm, and Morgan jumped. She looked from the pale hand that gripped her elbow, then up into Ronan’s distorted face. He walked ahead and pulled her into the empty cavern. From floor to ceiling, everything was black. Instead of soil, the ground was slick, smooth granite. Carved into the walls, shelves held hundreds of mismatched bottles ranging in sizes, shapes, and colors.

  In the middle of the small room, inlaid within the granite, was a gold ritual circle much like the one Ronan had drawn at her apartment. She swallowed, and her one sneaker squeaked on the floor when Ronan dragged her into the center of it all.

  She didn’t need to wonder what horrors had occurred here. The walls were a deep, deep red. Blood. They spoke of rape, torture, and sacrifice.

  “Home sweet home,” Ronan whispered into her ear. He unfastened the clasp holding his robe together. The material fluttered to the floor, exposing his naked body.

  Morgan shivered with revulsion and took an involuntary step back at the sight.

  His face hadn’t been the only thing rotting away. From the top of his thigh to his chest, skin pulsed and oozed with rot. In the center of it all, his flaccid penis, parts of it bubbling with blisters, rested against the decay. She pressed the back of her hand over her mouth to keep from throwing up.

  “See what you and your little boyfriend did to me?” He sneered and walked a slow, menacing circle around her.

  Where he went, she turned to keep them eye to eye. Satisfaction filled her at how badly she and Bastian had hurt him.

  One half of his face curled into a snarl. “This body is ruined, but I’ve got a new plan. Auri won’t be the only one getting a new body today.” His gaze cut to Bastian, and he assessed his son. “I would have preferred Rory, but Jodi was too dumb to bring him along.”

  Rory. Was he still at the diner? Trapped in some morgue because they thought he was dead? She had no idea how much time had passed or how far Jodi had taken them.

  “Restrain her, my boy. I’ve got a few preliminary things to take care of. I won’t be so careless as to let her magic roam free while I’m in the middle of the ritual.”

  Without hesitation, Bastian crossed the distance between them. He reached out before she could pull away, and grabbed her wrists. He spun her so she ended up with her arms crossed over her breasts and his front to her back. Morgan’s magic spurred in her palms at his touch, and the moment she would have shoved it into him, Ronan was there to press his glowing palm against the center of Bastian’s forehead.

  “Naughty girl, I warned you.” Flesh sizzled and smoked.

  She twisted in Bastian’s hold, and the sight stopped her breath. Tears filled her eyes and spilled over.

  “Stop!” she cried out, struggled in Bastian’s arms to get free, to help him.

  The smell of burned flesh seared her nostrils and ratcheted up her panic. Pain filled Bastian’s eyes, but he didn’t make a sound, not even when Ronan pulled back. The skin that had freeze-dried to his father’s palm ripped away.

  “Now, it’s your turn. Hold her tight, Bastian.”

  “NO!” she screamed, her anguish no longer echoing off the walls but absorbed by them.

  Bastian’s grip tightened, and the added pressure dug her elbows into her ribs. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think through the splatter of blood dripping down Bastian’s face and onto her shoulder. His blood was black and inky—its scent somehow stronger than the other smells around her.

  “Let me go, Bastian!” she screamed in desperation. “Fight him. Please, don’t do this!”

  Ronan snatched a torch from the wall and pried her fingers open. When she resisted, he started snapping bones. Pinky. Snap. Index finger. Snap. Middle finger. Snap. With each twiglike crack, she cried out.

  Pain engulfed her. Not from broken bones, because those hurt, but this new realm of agony came from licking tongues of flame he pressed to her palm. Her magic snuffed out, and she realized fire counteracted necromancy. The horrible scent of her burning skin filled her nostrils and ma
de her gag.

  She screeched and screamed until her throat felt raw, but still the pain didn’t abate. Bastian’s fingers dug into her wrists, and she tried to focus on that small touch. Nothing helped, not when the contents of her stomach rose. Her throat convulsed seconds before she spewed and covered Ronan from face to chest in a slimy film of vomit.

  “You fucking cunt!” He pulled away and spat at her feet.

  The torch dropped to the ground, and when Ronan bent to pick it up, impulse and instinct forced her into action. Trusting Bastian wouldn’t let her go, Morgan lifted both her legs and kicked out with every ounce of strength she possessed. She connected with the side of Ronan’s face and sent him sprawling back.

  Seconds. She had only seconds. Morgan hooked her leg around Bastian’s and rammed the back of her head against his face. Something crunched, and while she felt horrible for hurting him, there wasn’t time. The second Bastian stumbled from the impact, she kicked back on his knee and sent them both crashing to the floor.

  Their limbs tangled, and in the process, his grip on her wrists loosened enough for her to get away. There was only one thing she could think of to free Bastian—steal him from Ronan. Her heart broke at the thought. Bastian would hate her for this betrayal.

  There was no other choice. Even if he spent the rest of his life loathing her, at least he’d be alive. She shoved her burned hand into his mouth, needing him to consume some of her blood, and cried out when the blistered skin scraped his teeth.

  He clamped down on the charred flesh.

  Ronan’s grabbed the back of her head and ripped her off Bastian. She flew through the air and slammed into one of the shelves. The breath in her lungs whooshed out, and a sharp pain radiated up and down her spine. Bottles clanked, teetered, and crashed to the floor.

  The devil pounced on her with his teeth bared and his fists a blur of movement. Face. Chest. Side. Torment spread through Morgan’s ribs as he kicked her. Each breath she took jostled her and tripled the agony. Pain strangled the screams trapped in her throat, and the first gathering of ice slithered up her spine.