Insatiable Desire

by Rita Herron

  Vincent scrubbed a hand over his head, his heart hammering.

  “He was questioned regarding a serial-killer case back in Nashville,” McLaughlin continued. “Seems he dated a couple of the vics.”

  Vincent’s blood ran cold. He’d also dated at least one vic here. “They find any proof?”

  “No, finally collared a mentally challenged guy in the town. He’s in jail now.”

  Vincent scowled. Sounded similar to what had happened in Eerie. What if Bluster had framed that man and Crane? Bluster was a young guy, appealing to women. They’d trust him if he approached them.

  He flew around the curve, adrenaline pumping. He had to get to Clarissa.

  Bluster had been interested in her all along. What if his interest was because he was the killer?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Clarissa slowly regained consciousness as if she’d fallen into a deep sleep. Her attacker hadn’t been Hadley.

  But he was a demon in a human body. One she’d trusted.

  Pain and betrayal knifed through her, along with cold terror.

  The screams of the dead surged to life again, more shrill and demanding.

  Desperately working to block them out, she opened her eyes, but darkness cloaked her surroundings, a black so void of light that she couldn’t discern her location.

  The scent of death, blood, woods suffused her.

  She tried to move, but her wrists and ankles were tied to a wooden stake. Where was her abductor?

  Was he going to kill her now?

  Her lungs ached for air, and she tried to yell for help, but her throat was too parched and dry to scream.

  A vile breath suddenly broke the eerie silence around her.

  She wasn’t alone. The monster who’d trapped her was here now, skulking in the dark, watching her. Enjoying her fear while he waited to kill her.

  Vincent’s heart pounded as he drove up the winding drive to Clarissa’s.

  The house was dark, empty, eerily silent as he let himself in. Wulf met him at the front door, then barked. Concerned, Vincent followed the dog, checking the house thoroughly, but there was no Clarissa.

  Wulf pawed the floor and trotted up to the attic, and Vincent followed. He stopped in the doorway and stared at the candles on the floor in a circle—she’d been communing with the dead.

  Where was she now?

  He called her name, but Wulf pawed at the floor as if trying to tell him something.

  Sheer terror froze Vincent to the spot.

  A piece of black rock lay in the center.

  Rage bolted through him. God, no. He’d left Clarissa last night thinking she was safe. Had left her to keep her safe.

  But now she was gone . . .

  Emotions crowded his chest, so painful that he nearly doubled over. Then the rock began to move.

  His eyes widened in shock.

  Hands fisted, he watched as the rock scrawled the words “Black Forest” onto the wood floor.

  Swallowing back fear, the truth hit him, the truth he’d feared all along.

  The demon had come for him and had taken Clarissa.

  He intended to use her to destroy Vincent and force him to join his father’s side.

  Dammit. He didn’t care about himself or his damned soul.

  But he had to save her.

  Downstairs, the floor creaked, and he froze, senses alert as he reached for his weapon. Slowly, he moved into the hall and down the steps, checking the shadows and corners.

  Just as he made it down to the second floor, he spotted the silhouette of a man in the hall.

  He inched closer, weapon poised. “Stop, or I’ll shoot.”

  “Valtrez?”

  Bluster’s voice. The son of a bitch.

  He lurched from behind the corner, aiming his gun at the deputy’s chest. “Where’s Clarissa?”

  Bluster’s eyes widened. “That’s what I came to find out. I called and she didn’t answer.”

  “You took her, didn’t you?” Vincent inched closer, fury in his voice. “What did you do, Bluster? Trade your soul to the devil?”

  “What in the hell are you talking about?”

  “I know about Nashville,” Vincent ground out. “And the black rock, that it came from the cave in the Black Forest, that that cave was built as Satan’s palace on earth.”

  Bluster shifted, blew a breath between his teeth, then held up his hand in surrender. “It’s not what you think,” he said. “You have to hear me out.”

  “Just tell me where Clarissa is, dammit!”

  “I don’t know,” Bluster said. “I’m not the enemy here, Valtrez. I thought you were. That you’d come to hurt Clarissa.”

  For a long minute, the two men engaged in a standoff, distrust and suspicion hanging between them.

  Then Bluster slowly lowered his gun. “It’s the truth. I came here because of what happened in Nashville, but not because I’m the killer. Because I thought something weird, something supernatural happened there.”

  Vincent narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “Back in Nashville. I wasn’t convinced the mentally challenged guy committed those crimes of his own accord. The crimes were too sophisticated. And the things he said . . . they made me think he might be possessed. I heard about this town, about Clarissa being a medium. So I came here to get to know her because I thought she might be able to help.”

  Vincent’s heart pounded. Bluster sounded convincing. But so could the devil.

  “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”

  Bluster dug in his pocket and removed several sheets of folded paper. “Look at those. It’s a profile of her, and of you. I checked you both out.” He huffed. “There’s also notes on all the legends here in town and of other supernatural sightings across the States.”

  Vincent examined them, saw the research Bluster had done. Other crimes in various areas that he’d suspected might be paranormal-related. Bluster might be on to something. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?” Vincent asked.

  Bluster’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Because I didn’t know if you might be one of them.”

  A demon?

  He was. But he refrained from sharing that detail.

  Instead, he turned back to his main focus. Finding Clarissa. “I think he has her,” Vincent said instead.

  Bluster jerked his head up toward the attic. “How do you know?”

  Vincent explained about the candles and the black rock. Bluster insisted on seeing them for himself. Vincent didn’t quite trust him yet, but he followed him, scrutinizing his every movement.

  Bluster studied the candles. “She was communing with the dead.”

  Vincent nodded. He just hoped she hadn’t joined them.

  Then something shiny and metallic glinted in the dim light. He strode over and picked it up. A badge.

  He glanced at the deputy, and recognition dawned, as well as the truth.

  The badge didn’t belong to Bluster.

  It was Waller’s.

  Clarissa swallowed, struggling to keep her voice from cracking and feeding his pleasure by crying. “I know you’re not the sheriff, not the man I’ve trusted all my life. So why don’t you leave his body and show yourself?”

  A sinister laugh reverberated through the darkness, and then a strange, throaty and sinister voice rumbled from Waller. “I am Pan, the god of fear.”

  “Why take over the sheriff? He was a decent man.”

  “He’s old, and his heart was weak,” the demon voice said. “When it failed, he chose his path.”

  Clarissa had to do something. “Fight him, Sheriff. Make him release you.”

  “I can’t,” Waller’s voice rumbled out weak and strained. “It’s too late for me.”

  “Yes, you can, Sheriff. You’ve protected the town all these years.”

  “But I let him use me for evil because I was afraid to die. And now all those girls’ deaths are on my hands.”

  “Death is not the end,” Clarissa sa
id. “You can pray for redemption.”

  Waller’s shadow moved, but the sinister laugh reverberated again, and a black aura totally engulfed Waller, obliterating his face. The demon was too strong, had totally possessed the sheriff.

  Her chest ached. “Where am I?”

  “The cave of black rock, Satan’s palace.” The demon’s voice again, as cold as ice.

  She choked back tears, didn’t want him to see her fears. “Why here?” she asked.

  “Because this is where it began, where my power is the strongest. Where Valtrez will reunite with his father.”

  “Vincent is coming here?”

  “You sound shocked?” Another grating laugh. “You didn’t think he would come for you?”

  She refused to answer, but her mind spun with the truth. This demon intended to use her to bait Vincent.

  “Your plan is flawed.”

  “Flawed. How, Clarissa?”

  “Using me to get to Vincent. He doesn’t care about me.”

  A flash of jagged teeth and reddish-orange eyes lit the inky darkness. “Oh, he will come, Clarissa. He has to. It is his destiny.”

  Clarissa closed her eyes, willing herself to be strong. If Vincent came, maybe they could destroy this demon together.

  She had no idea how to fight him, though, so she prayed to the spirits to help her.

  “Stay strong, Clarissa.”

  The soft voice broke through the barrier of the spirits’ screams, silently entering her thoughts.

  “Mother?”

  “I’m here, baby.”

  Tears filled Clarissa’s eyes. She thought she’d never hear her mother’s voice again.

  “Pan is now the god of fear, Clarissa. Another god of fear destroyed me years ago. You must fight him with every ounce of your being.”

  “I don’t know how,” she whispered silently.

  “Yes, you do. You’re strong—don’t let your fears defeat you.”

  Other voices screamed in her head, though, the cries of the lost souls. A hundred all at once. Her head throbbed, and her vision blurred as helplessness set in.

  “He’s summoning the dead to torture you,” her mother said softly. “Close your mind to the cries. Defeating this demon is the only way to save the dead and the living.”

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “I’m not strong enough.”

  “Yes, you are. Do not succumb, and you can vanquish him.”

  The demon’s voice intruded, breaking the connection with her mother. “Trade your soul to me and I will let you live.”

  “No,” Clarissa said between clenched teeth. “I’ll never give you my soul. Never.”

  “Then you will burn at the stake, and your precious Vincent will watch just as he watched his mother die.”

  Bastard.

  “You can kill me, but even in death, I’ll fight you,” she shouted. “I’ll help the lost ones cross into the light, and you won’t be able to stop me, because I’m not afraid of you. And I’m not afraid of dying.”

  The demon’s laughter pinged off the dark black walls, sending fear zinging through her veins.

  But she felt her mother’s presence, and the vile sound of his laughter only intensified her resolve to destroy him.

  Pan tasted the heady flavor of victory on his inhuman tongue. Clarissa was ready to break. Her head resounded with anguished spirits. Summoning them to torment her had been simple.

  Their pleas would push her over the edge.

  Burying her alive, beneath the ground with the bones of others who’d passed, where she would forever lie in the midst of the dead who screamed for her help, seemed like justice.

  But he had another plan.

  He was, after all, the god of fear. Watching her suffer gave him great pleasure.

  And Valtrez would come for her. He knew it.

  Just as he’d used the girls’ greatest fears to kill them, he would use Valtrez’s to destroy him.

  For Vincent’s greatest fear was that he would be like his father.

  Now Pan would wait for Vincent to come to the cave of black rock.

  The place where it all began.

  The place where it would end, and he would win.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Vincent shuddered.

  Black Forest, a place so dark that no light existed. A place his father had called the land of the dead because it was even more desolate and filled with misery and loss than Hell’s Hollow. A place where flowers couldn’t grow, where there was no color. Where strange, inhuman creatures existed, where poisonous plants and venomous snakes sucked the life from any human who passed through.

  Except he and his father had survived it unscathed.

  Because they weren’t human . . .

  The truth struck him so swiftly that his legs buckled. He didn’t know who had sent him the message, the demon or one of the spirits, but he understood the meaning. He would find Clarissa in the Black Forest in the hands of the demon.

  And he’d used Waller as his vessel.

  His heart stalled in his chest. Bits and pieces of the last few days snapped into place. Waller had called and specifically asked for him because he knew the Black Forest. Waller had known about Vincent’s past and his family.

  He had suffered a heart attack the week before.

  That must have been when the demon took over his body.

  Holy hell . . . everyone in town trusted him, especially Clarissa.

  But Vincent had been running in circles, dodging his past, and hadn’t seen it.

  Sweat beaded on his brow as he turned to Bluster. “I have to go into the Black Forest. That’s where he’s taken Clarissa.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “No, it’s too dangerous.” Vincent hurried toward the door. “You need to stay here and protect the town in case I fail.”

  Although failure was not an option.

  Bluster nodded, and Vincent ran toward the door, jogged downstairs and outside to his car, and jumped inside. He reached inside the SUV’s glove compartment and retrieved the maps he’d bought of the area, spread them out, and searched the mountains. His mouth tightened into a flat line when he located the forest, and he switched on the engine, barreled down the drive, and spun onto the road through the mountains.

  The Black Forest lay northeast of Hell’s Hollow. Tension knotted his shoulders as he maneuvered the curvy roads and raced around the slower traffic. He took a curve too fast, his tires screeched, and the SUV skidded toward the guardrail. Dammit. He tried to compensate but sent the SUV into a spin.

  Inhaling sharply, he righted the vehicle and barely managed to avoid going over the ridge, then continued deeper into the mountains. The sharp ridges and jagged peaks taunted him as he neared the Black Forest, and the scent of death and evil permeated the air when he parked and climbed out at the overhang. Void of a path, he had to hike in on foot.

  Although his gun would probably be worthless against the monster he faced, he tucked it in the waistband of his jeans anyway and entered the dark recesses of the wooded land of horrors.

  Immediately, the sounds of life so familiar in the mountains died, and an overwhelming sense of death and doom engulfed him. Flickering patches of red and orange that looked suspiciously like floating eyes followed him as he traveled deeper into the bowels of the blackness.

  Screeching sounds grated through the eerie silence, echoing around him. Inhuman noises, cackling and chomping, teeth gnashing, filled the air, air that was so hot it felt like the devil’s breath burning his skin. Maybe this was a wasteland for the lost souls who worked for Satan.

  The thick, tangled vines clawed at him, trying to strangle him, and he removed his pocketknife and hacked at them, ripping them from his legs. As if the vines were alive, a shrill cry of anguish splintered the air, but he plowed on, slashing them viciously.

  Snakes hissed and slithered around his feet, snapping at his legs, but he kicked them away, then used his hands as a weapon, literally sending them flying, popping,
and exploding. Snakeskin floated like dust in the air, lighting on his hair and shoulders, but he forged on. Yet the floating eyes followed him, glowing like monsters waiting to attack.

  His lungs begged for air, but the vile taste of death filled each breath. Some kind of large creature suddenly snarled and hissed, its body an apelike animal, its head human.

  Cursing violently, he swung his hands out and the creature suddenly exploded. Hair, blood, and inhuman organs burst and spewed, and he swiped the sticky substance from his hands onto his jeans.

  A mile deeper and another mile; the smell of death grew stronger until he finally spotted the cave.

  For a brief moment, fear totally paralyzed him. But through the darkness, Clarissa’s soft cry for help floated to him.

  He closed his eyes, saw her as she’d offered herself to him the first time he’d taken her, then remembered the tender way she’d given herself to him by the sacred pool, the way she’d looked into his eyes with total trust and love when she had no reason to trust or love him.

  Emotions he never wanted to feel again clenched his heart. He didn’t want a heart. Having a heart meant hurting, sorrow, excruciating anguish.

  But his own pain didn’t matter. Only Clarissa’s did.

  Hardening himself against the emotions, he forced himself to enter the cave.

  He didn’t care if he died. As long as he saved Clarissa.

  Pan watched as Vincent entered, taking immense joy at the tortured expression on his face. He had been here years ago when Vincent had killed his father, Zion.

  But Zion had earned a second chance and would rise as the leader of evil at midnight. Pan wanted his sacrifice to be ready.

  He would win Vincent tonight. The medium was the key.

  Pitting the lovers’ greatest fears against each other would ensure his win.

  Time for the fun to begin.

  As Vincent stepped into the cave of black rock, visions of ancient demons assaulted him, as if he could see demonic wars and shattered alliances from times past. Centuries of evil bred from Satan had congregated here for strength, forming coalitions and planning strategies to overtake the world and obliterate good.

  The Black Forest. Satan’s palace. A place where life no longer existed, where souls had been bartered to the evil source and the screams of the tormented creatures who’d succumbed to the darkness boomeranged off the walls.