by Marie Hall
“Get off,” I grunted.
“Shut up,” he growled through clenched teeth.
“Get him,” Wrath commanded.
Then bodies were on top of us, dragging Billy off me. I jumped up only to have the furry, maggot faced LCD of earlier fling himself at me.
He wrapped his claws around my neck, blood lust dripping from his eyes. But I was bone now, not flesh. I shoved my arms between us, broke his hold and slammed him to the ground. I punched through his chest. My fist sank through muscle, gristle and between the ribs as if he’d been made of sand. I grabbed his heart and ripped it out, throwing it away.
He snapped at me. His fangs gnawing at my arm. I seized his head and twisted it off.
Killing him in the style of a neph. But he wasn’t neph and I was unprepared for what happened next.
“Pandora, no!” I barely heard Billy’s anguished cry. But it was already too late.
The furry body exploded in a shower of blood and bits of gore. A black oily substance floated out and then slammed into me.
I screamed, curled into a tight ball as dark madness consumed me. Hair tore through my skull. Muscle formed to bone. Veins ran with blood. Flesh knit itself to me.
My brain ran with memories of something dark, something evil. A new presence lurked inside my mind. A canvas of bitter hate dwelt in a dark corner, infecting me with its poison. Memories, not my own, ran in a constant blur of motion.
Distorted limbs and bloated bodies. Blood everywhere. Disease. Waste. Famine.
In that moment, realization dawned. The LCD I’d just killed was Pestilence and it was his tainted soul consuming me.
I was dying. Lust screeched, battling for dominion against the foreign body invading us.
I fell to my face. Tiny pebbles gouged my cheek and cut me open. Sweat bathed my body. I curled into the fetal position. The pain, like a living entity, ripped me apart from the inside out. I couldn’t think to move. To do anything other than moan.
The cries and grunts of fighting went on around me. Why was I here? How had I gotten here? I needed to get away, but my body wouldn’t obey my command to move.
“Ya-el.” Wrath again.
I moaned, cupped my ears and rocked back and forth. “No,” I croaked with a voice I hardly recognized.
The world tilted. My stomach heaved.
“Ya-el...Come to me.”
“Nugh,” I muttered nonsense, resistance slipped as the new monster inside demanded I obey the Master.
Pestilence took hold of my limbs, Lust was losing ground. I hadn’t fed her in days and she was growing weak. Something wet leaked down my nose.
I started moving. Pestilence exerted his will, forcing me to use limbs unable to sustain my weight. I dragged myself, inch by bloody inch, my fingers split open and a bloody mess as I continued to scrape them along the rock.
I bit my bottom lip. “God please,” my voice broke.
“He won’t hear you down here,” Wrath mocked, derision filled laughter echoing around us. The screams of the tortured rose in crescendo at the sound of his voice.
“He doesn’t respond to dogs,” he spat. “You want me, Ya-el, inside of you. Admit it.”
“No.” But even as I denied it my broken body responded to the black death of seduction in his voice. I whimpered, and turned my face away. He was too beautiful to gaze upon. Too perfect. My breasts were heavy, my thighs wet and even though every inch of me screamed in agony I knew if he touched me I’d let him take me and gladly die in his arms.
Dancing fire caught my eye. Not the liquid heat of lava, but pure white light.
It was Billy, wielding a sword of flame. He parried, thrusted, felling many demons. Then he twirled, brown eyes glittering with rage as he advanced on me.
I urged my body to move but all I could manage was the slow crawl of death.
Everything happened so fast. Billy was upon me; face a cold mask of hatred. Sword lifted.
“Mine,” I heard Chaos screech.
“Billy,” I croaked with a voice grown hoarse. Now I knew Luc had been right, Billy had meant to kill me all along. In that moment I knew how Kemen must have felt. I was too tired to fight, too tired to care. A small smile tipped the corner of my mouth as I waited for the blow that would finally end my wretched life.
The cold fingers of death shivered through the air. I felt its presence like an electric current slide against my flesh. But it wasn’t my body death pricked.
A flash of silver sliced through Billy’s chest. His eyes grew wide, as if shocked. He stared at the spike jutting from his stomach as a bloom of crimson began to spread against the white of his shirt.
Those big brown eyes of his I’d always found so mesmerizing looked at me with an inexpressible depth of sorrow. He mouthed something I couldn’t understand and then dropped to his knees.
“Billy.”
Then he disappeared in an explosion of color.
Fingers of light—pearl and gold—stretched the length of the room and snatched the darkness out.
There were groans and howls of pain all around.
“No,” Wrath roared. “Not possible. He can’t...”
I jerked as the light touched me. The demons inside me shrieked, shrinking back. But the light sank in deep, stripped away the darkness and quieted their voices.
I gasped; the pain in my body choked me. Was I dying?
I could no longer hear Lust or Pestilence. For the first time it was totally quiet inside my head. I wanted to cry, but I laughed instead, swallowed in the warmth of that light.
Peace.
Beautiful peace.
I smiled, even as the agony of my wounds slowly leeched the life from me. My heart thumped slowly.
This was what Kemen had sought. Kemen, my beloved friend. “I’m...sorry.”
Everything started to turn fuzzy.
Thump.
Tired. So tired.
Thump.
“Hang on.” Strong arms scooped me up.
My lashes fluttered and for a second I saw gray. “Gray...Ma...?”
He touched my forehead and whispered words I could not understand. When he moved his hand the pain was gone. I was whole but now the pain was replaced by lethargy so deep I couldn’t resist its pull. I passed out.
Something shoved hard against my shoulder. I cracked open an eye unsure how long I’d been out but had to squeeze it shut immediately as an overwhelming sensation of vertigo rushed through me. Was I floating?
I groaned. So tired. Air rushed past me in an ear splitting whistle. Everything was still black and empty, but I was warm, cradled in strong arms.
Who was holding me? I couldn’t remember.
Sleep dragged me under again. Kemen’s smiling face danced behind my closed eyes. “Sandman.” I gave a happy sigh. “Is that you?”
He touched my cheek.
“They weren’t children. LCD.”
“I know.” The deep voice dragged me under, made it hard to think. But I had to tell him. He had to know.”
“Thought...killed you. So sorry. So, so sorry.”
“Sleep, my beauty.”
I snuggled in his arms. Eyelids weighted down. It’d been a dream. A bad dream. “Love you, Sloth.”
“I…do too.”
I smiled at the love trembling in those words, he hadn’t said, but I’d heard it all the same. I would be all right now, because Kemen was holding me. All was right with the world, it’d been a dream. Just a very bad dream.
Chapter 25
Birds chirping. Bad taste in my mouth. I grabbed my head. Too much light. I winced and sat up. Where was I?
Then my hand brushed something hard. I glanced down.
I was on my bed, in my room. I licked my lips and picked up the small tape recorder. There was a note tapped to the front with one word scribbled on it: listen.
It was signed G.M.
I clenched my jaw until my molars ached. Instinctively I knew whatever this was, I wouldn’t like it. But curiosity... I clic
ked play.
“I don’t give a bloody hell what ye have to do to bring Kemen to that club, ye do it.”
Sweat beaded on my brow. The voice was Grace.
“Let me worry about Pandora, stupid chit believes anything I tell her. She sucks up me crumbs of love like a starving child. She is utterly blinded to me. Do not worry about her.”
I gasped, hyperventilating, unable to believe my ears. It hadn’t been a dream. “Oh God.” I swallowed the bile.
“I don’t effin' care how ye make it happen, ye just make it happen. She believes the neph is rogue, she’ll kill him, trust me on that.”
I covered my mouth with my hand.
“Aye, she’s got the ring.”
I started shaking and fisted my hand into the blanket.
Her terrible laughter pelted through the tiny speaker. “If she is the woman of prophecy, we’ll know tonight. If not she’s expendable.”
The loud buzz of static filled the room. The recording stopped.
I shoved my hand into my mouth to keep from screaming and ran to the bathroom. I turned on the shower to the coldest setting. Stripped off my clothes and sat down, swinging the curtains shut. I hugged my legs to my chest as I rocked. The water was like shards of ice as it touched my skin.
A black bottomless pit of raw and awful grief welled up inside me. Sounds spilled through the room. Hopeless, empty moans.
Visions of that night filled my head with the awful agony of truth.
“Not a dream. Not a dream.” I couldn’t seem to say anything else. My brain was stuck in one gear, in that awful lonely place.
I groaned, growing louder and louder. Heat crept into my eyes. “Kemen.” My voice was reed thin. I swallowed hard. My vision grew blurry.
The dark void stretched long fingers throughout every part of me. It started in the pit of my stomach, ran up my arms and down my legs and then finally filled my head. It ate me like a slow leeching cancer. I rocked faster.
“Kemen. Kemen. Kemen!” I screamed the last, the sound of it more like a mournful wail. I threw myself forward and shook as sobs wracked my body.
For the first time in my life, I cried.
I don’t know how long I stayed that way, screaming and mumbling, drowning in her betrayal and the anguish of his loss before I smelled sulfur.
“Pandora!” Luc threw back my curtains.
I shook my head and sobbed. “Oh my God, Luc, oh my God, I killed him. Oh my God.”
He grabbed me, hugged me to his body. I clutched his shirt. “She lied to me. She lied to us. Oh God,” I moaned.
Then I was on my bed. He was hugging me, fingers digging into my back. I didn’t let him go, just squeezed harder. His hands were on my face. He wiped away the tears, but still more came.
“I killed him, Luc. She made me kill him.”
“Dora, ssh.” He patted my face. “Kemen was rogue.”
“No,” I yelled and hugged my arms to my chest. “She lied. She lied. It was LCD. He killed LCD, not children. She set us up. Play it.” I pointed to the recorder, then covered my eyes with my hands and rocked back and forth.
I hiccupped, great sobbing stuttering breaths. Luc played the recording several more times, seeming as shocked as I’d been. But with each playback his anger grew and morphed. He looked at me.
Luc grabbed me by the back of my head. “She would have killed you. I’ll kill her,” he snarled, his anger stirring mine. “I’ll tear her limb from limb.”
“No.” I slammed my hand on his chest. “She’s mine. She betrayed me, betrayed my trust. She’s my kill.”
A muscle worked furiously in his jaw.
“Luc, she’s mine. Do you hear me? Mine.” I brooked no argument, I would take none. Yes, Grace had betrayed us all, but she’d used me to do it.
He glanced away, eyes a dangerous shade of purple. I hugged his neck and kissed his cheek. His fingers dug into my waist. Mint of his warm breath fanning my neck, washed my skin with goose flesh.
I was so cold inside, so empty. I needed his warmth. His touch. Something to let me know I was still alive even though every beat of my heart made me feel I was slowly dying.
He nuzzled my neck. “She nearly killed you, Dora.”
I trembled. His strong hands kneaded the stiff muscles in my back. I groaned and turned into him, pressing myself against his hard chest, greedily sucking up his warmth.
“I’m so cold,” I stuttered, squeezing his neck harder.
He kissed my cheek. Then my nose. My closed eyelids. I moaned and he groaned. His lips touched mine.
I kissed him back. But the kiss was more than sex, or desire. It was the breath of life, of the knowledge that I was alive. Not whole. Not the same. But I lived.
My hands were frantic as I ripped his clothes off. He laid me down on the bed, mumbling incoherent words I couldn’t understand. Then he was inside me.
I arched my back and for a second there wasn’t pain—or death, or anger, bitterness, or even the self-loathing of taking a life that mattered more to me than my own—there was only now and the pleasure Luc’s body could bring.
His desire swept through me, raced down my skin with its fiery brushstroke, shifting my body into his Blonde bombshell. I wrapped my legs around his waist, matching his rhythm and groaning as I reached the peak of the spiral. Then I cried out, as the orgasm violently ripped through me. And for one glorious moment I forgot it all.
Lust, who’d grown strangely dormant, roared to life, flexing her muscle. She stretched inside me and filled me up. She fed off Luc’s desire, purring with satisfaction. But there was something else now, something dark, and small, and twisted, and it too stirred.
And with it, I came crashing back down to reality. My heart sped; the foreign darkness was a sour taste in my mind.
I grimaced, wanting to peel it off me. Fling it away. Luc stirred, sensing my agitation. He looked down at me. “Pandora?”
I shook my head and slid out from under him. I wrapped my arms around my thighs and rested my head on my knees.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, caressing my calf with his fingers.
I stared at the wall in front of me remembering last night and the furry demon hopping toward me.
“I went to Hell, Luc.” I glanced at him.
It was as if he’d become a wall of living stone. There was no betraying movement to hint that he’d even heard me. Finally he asked, “How?” His voice was flat, emotionless. As if we talked of the weather or things that didn’t matter.
“The ring.” I gave a bitter laugh. “She played me for a fool the whole time. The ring was spelled. It was never meant to kill him, it was meant to kill me.”
He clenched his jaw and I knew what he was thinking, all the times he’d told me to use it on Billy. Guilt etched a line between his brows.
“Don’t blame yourself,” I said.
“No.” He punctuated the word with a shake of his head. “I told you to use that a million times. I was so angry with you, Pandora. So angry that you kept choosing that priest over your safety. If I hadn’t...”
“No.” I placed my finger over his lip. “I would have used it anyway. At some point I would have gotten brave enough to use it. I trusted her, Luc. The whole time I doubted everybody else, even you at times, but never really her. I’d question things, things she said or did, but I never believed it, not with her. I just kept thinking I was seeing things wrong. That the day her house felt ice cold it was me having a panic attack. Me trying to see ghosts where there were none, because she was Grace. She was my ally, my friend. She would never betray me. She loved me.” I snorted, disgust dripped off my tongue. “She was right, I sucked it all up and always came begging for more.”
The pain of losing Kemen began to churn with a new thread of emotion inside my belly. Betrayal.
“What I can’t understand,” he said, rubbing his jaw as if trying to scrape the skin off, “is how perfect this worked out. It was as if they’d orchestrated this whole thing.”
; “The molestation ring.” I spat, repulsed by the new lows Grace had sunk to. “She set that up. She must have. It’s the only thing that makes sense. I wouldn’t have risked my life for anything else but innocent kids. She knew that.”
He shook his head. “You honestly believe she fronted that entire thing? Those were real kids. You saw them.”
Luc was still hanging on to the same thread I’d tried so hard to keep where Grace was concerned. Because the thought of her betraying us had seemed crazy, so far beyond the realm of possibility that it was unacceptable to even allow our minds to go there. But I was done being willfully ignorant. She’d tried to pit me against everybody, even Luc.
“Yeah, but only to make it more authentic. Casualties didn’t matter to her, this was never about cracking down on a vampire run molestation slash Molech worshipping ring. You and I both know the vamps were never smart enough, never organized enough to pull off something like that. The entire thing was a set up. To get me. She used my one weakness against me, the one thing I’d cross heaven and hell to try and save. Children. She took them there that first night, made me feel something, want to be the hero. But mixed in with those kids were LCD and somehow Kemen was smart enough to figure that out. That’s why he went there, to kill them, I just wish to God he would have told somebody. The whole damn thing was a set up.”
My fingers were curled into tight balls by my side, the inside of my body so full of heat and fury that if I could have spit fire I’d be burning the place down.
“But how?” He grabbed the hairs on the side of his head and gave a hard tug. “You could have used that ring at any point, but you didn’t. Instead you waited until the night you saw Kem.”
My stomach dipped. “I can hardly think clearly right now. I’m so upset.” My voice broke. I waited until I could trust myself to speak without crying again. “When I think about it, Luc, I’m not sure they cared whether I killed Kemen or not. I think all of this was about me. I think if I hadn’t told Grace about my priest problem she would have found some other reason for giving me the talisman, it just so happens I provided her with the perfect excuse.”