Blood Moon's Servant: A Paranormal Thriller

by Leah Kingsley

  His heart thudded in his chest as he crept up the stairs to Damien’s apartment. He struggled to craft words to get his attention but avoid triggering him into violence. A simple explanation of what he knew and how he intended to use the information ought to do the trick. He rapped on the door and held his breath.

  “What you want, mage?” The calm, level voice had come from behind him.

  Charles spun on the spot and choked on a gasp. Damien was lurking at the top of the stairs. He was never where he belonged. Charles fought the panic clawing at his insides. He had wandered straight into a trap. “Why aren’t you in your apartment?” The question leapt from his lips on an accusatory rush.

  “Breakfast.” Damien held up a paper bag and smirked.

  Charles gaped. Such a normal response from a nefariously evil creature. Damien stepped forward. Charles backed away. Damien unsuccessfully hid a smile as he unlocked his door.

  “Would you like to come in?” he invited with mock politeness.

  Everything inside Charles screamed for him to run. He ignored his gut and stepped through the door. The apartment had at last been furnished. Two tall, walnut dressers stood side-by-side with matching bedside tables tucked between them and the double beds. A large, oak desk rested in the corner at the bottom of Damien’s bed, and a pale, leather loveseat barely squeezed into the space at the end of Peter’s. A small, round table and two wicker chairs were tucked into the nook immediately to the right of the front door. Everything was in perfect condition. Charles would have bet his entire scholarship that the lot cost more than their exorbitant tuition.

  He swept a jealous gaze around the room and huffed out an annoyed sigh. Most Darks were born with bottomless family fortunes. Money came easy when you were able to manipulate anyone and everyone you met. In true Dark fashion, this overkill power wasn’t overkill enough. In the event a Dark was ever unexpectedly down on their luck, they could make anything they wanted appear out of thin air. Had Damien created his furniture out of darkness? A shiver ran down his spine at the thought of touching something so vile and corrupt. Charles gritted his teeth and perched on the edge of the chair closest to the door. He fought to speak past his rising panic. He hadn’t been this close to a Dark since Lara Tzadik had tried to murder him in the hospital.

  “Calm down.” Damien was struggling to keep a straight face. “I plan on killing you in a place that won’t get blood on my carpet.” Charles blanched. Damien sighed. “That was a joke, mage.”

  Charles gripped the armrests of his wicker chair. “I know who you are.” Damien froze with an expression of startled horror. “You’re Damien Gray, and you’re supposed to be in prison. Don’t even think about getting rid of me because that won’t get rid of the problem. I’ve sent all the information needed to convict you to a trusted individual.” There was no need to mention that this trusted individual was his mother.

  “I see.” Damien swallowed, his eyes darting nervously around the small space.

  Elated relief swept through Charles. He was not a terrible person who took pleasure in observing others’ discomfort. It was rewarding being the one in charge of a Dark’s destiny, though. Years of Alex’s abuse flashed in his peripheral vision as he took a moment to savor the fleeting feeling of confidence.

  Damien shifted from foot to foot. “So, what are you going to do with this information?”

  “I’m the one asking the questions.”

  “So ask them.” Damien sagged into the chair opposite.

  Charles shifted in his seat with phrases from Damien’s note replaying in his head. Why did they have to have so much in common? “Why did you stab Chris Jackson?” He was determined to stick to his interrogation and ignore how pathetic Damien looked. He raised an incredulous brow. Since when did Darks look pathetic?

  “I was high.”

  No remorse. How typical of a Dark. “What’s your obsession with Amy?”

  Damien flushed. “Obsession is a strong word.”

  “Answer the question.”

  “We grew up together. She doesn’t have anything to do with my arrests.”

  “All right.” Charles scowled. “If you’re not in the mood to discuss Amy, let’s chat about why you’re not dead.”

  “What the actual hell?”

  “In a few short moments, this webpage will be all that remains of the memory of Damien Gray,” Charles quoted. “If you wanted to die so badly, why didn’t you go ahead and kill yourself?”

  “Damn.” Damien sank further into his chair. “When you said you knew everything, you meant it.”

  Charles fought a grin. Praise from a Dark was oddly satisfying.

  Damien glowered out the window. “I tried. I really did. I pulled the trigger, swallowed the pills, even jumped off a bridge at one point. Nothing worked. Super Darks are stupidly hard to kill.”

  Charles’s insides went cold. “You’re a Super Dark?” Super Darks, the children of two Dark parents, were rumored to have triple the power of a regular Dark. The chill seeped into his core and slid down his spine. This must be why Damien had so much more strength than Alex. He was three times worse than Charles’s worst nightmare.

  “Yes, I’m a Super Dark. That’s why you should believe me when I tell you to relax. If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead. If I wanted to harm your friends, I would have by now.”

  “You still haven’t answered my question about Amy.” Charles needed more time to think. Was Damien telling the truth? Were some Darks only ninety percent evil?

  “I’ve had a crush on her for years,” Damien mumbled to the floor. “She wasn’t always nice to me, but I’ve never been able to get over her.”

  Charles laughed out loud. “You expect me to believe you’re a broken-hearted Super Dark who’s in love with a human?” Damien was feeding him a giant load of crap. Darks were brilliant at manipulating others. Damien had figured out just how to play him, knowing he would sympathize with being a loser.

  “Shut it. I answered your questions, now you answer mine. What are you going to do with your information?”

  Charles met his cold, unnatural gaze. An eerie reddish glow shown in Damien’s emerald green eyes. He swiftly looked away. He had one last question. Should he push his luck?

  I am not working with Alex.

  Charles startled at the voice in his head. Get out! He struggled to shove Damien from his mind. His efforts had absolutely no effect. Charles fought panic. An unnatural wave of calm swept through him. It slowed his heart and set off every alarm bell he had. “Stop it! Stop!” He was shouting out loud. “Stop using your powers on me!” The smothering calm lifted. The unwelcome presence was gone.

  “Sorry.” Damien looked simultaneously apologetic and pissed off. “But you’re sitting there accusing me of stuff I would never dream of doing. I want you out of my apartment as much as you wanted me out of your head just now.” He straightened and fixed Charles with a probing look. “But before you go, I think you have something that belongs to me.”

  Charles blanched. He slid Damien’s wallet across the table and stood to leave. “I won’t report you to the police until and unless I think you’re a threat to my friends.”

  “That’s fair.”

  “Don’t ever use your powers on them. Not even that stupid calming thing you do. I know you used it on Amy last night, and it’s just not fair. You mess with their emotions, and it messes with their heads.”

  “I was only trying to help, but quit the lecture. If that’s your condition, I’ll stop.”

  Relief rushed through his veins and swept aside the tension. He had survived the meeting. Someone pounded on the other side of the door the second Charles touched the handle.

  Damien scowled. “Looks like I have more unwanted visitors.”

  Charles opened the door. Zack stood on the stoop with his face flushed and his eyes wide with panic. “Have either of you seen Amy?”

  “Not since last night.” Damien crossed to the sink and drew him a glass of water. “Is somet
hing wrong?”

  “Jessie and I can’t find her. She never showed up to class and she hasn’t been in her room all night.”

  A sinking sensation filled Charles’s gut with dread. Amy hadn’t been seen since last night when he had left her alone with an ex-con Super Dark who had been arrested for attempted murder.

  Twenty-two

  AMY OPENED HER eyes to a dimly lit room. She instinctively moved to check her watch, and a thrill of fear rippled in her chest. Her hands were secured behind her back with a pair of plastic handcuffs. She screwed up her face as her heart began to pound. It was just like Alex to want her awake when she died. She took a steadying breath to absorb her surroundings. She was lying on a musty twin bed, facing a window with its drapes shut tight. Amy expelled a weary sigh and willed her fear away. This was her second kidnapping in two years. She was getting disturbingly good at handling life as a hostage.

  She struggled into a sitting position and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her pulse pounded against her temples with the worst migraine in history, and waves of vertigo rocked her to her core. Her blurry gaze landed on a hand-carved nightstand to her left. Something about it tugged at her memory. Unease snaked through her gut, an uneasiness entirely separate from waking up a prisoner. She slid her gaze around the room with goosebumps rising on her arms. A poster of Harry Styles was taped to the wall near the window, a poster with a tiny tear in its top right corner. She gasped as cold realization doused her in shock. She was being held captive in her childhood bedroom in the house her family had fled months after her baby sister had died.

  Her heart pounded painfully in her chest as she gazed around her bedroom, her vision blurring with tears. Possessions belonging to her fourteen-year-old self surrounded her, choking her strength and smothering her in grief. Amy had been practical when she packed for the move to Toronto. She had taken useful stuff like clothes, shoes, and money and left behind everything and anything that reminded her of Katie. A stack of faded magazines sat atop her dresser beside a plastic silver pin that claimed “best sister of the year.” Unopened cards and letters sat piled on her desk amongst a detritus of badly marked homework. Everything was exactly as she had left it, plus a thick layer of dust. Amy hung her head. She had assumed her mom had sold the house, but it must have sat empty for the past four years. No one wanted to live someplace where a child had died in the backyard.

  She took several deep, cleansing breaths and shoved her gruesome thoughts aside. She needed to focus on crafting an escape. Now was not the time to freak out about the past. She struggled to remember the face of her captor. It was becoming increasingly clear that it hadn’t been Alex. She had met him after moving to Toronto, and he would have had no idea where she used to live. But if it wasn’t him, then who? How had she even been abducted? Someone had knocked on her dorm room door, and she had gone to answer it thinking it was Jessie. Everything grew fuzzy after that. She had the nagging feeling her captor was male, but the rest of his features were blurred, and fighting to recall them was making her headache worse.

  Amy left her room, determined to get answers. She drifted through her house like a ghost in a dream, recognizing every stain on the carpet and every ding in the paint. There were marks on the wall where her parents used to measure her and her siblings each year. She paused to touch Katie’s final chalk mark, and tears poured down her face. “I’m sorry,” she whispered into the silence. Amy wiped her eyes on her shoulder and continued forward through swaths of pain. She had had her first kiss on those stairs and had lost a tooth playing hide-and-seek in the dark. She had fought with Justin and, in a wild rage over who knew what, thrown his prized Lego ship at the wall and left a large scratch on the molding. She had run down the hall the day Susan came home from the hospital and looked into her little sister’s face for the very first time. The memories washed over her in waves of endless anguish, and she floated to the first floor on a gentle mist of grief.

  She wandered into the living room with her mind a million miles away. Three steps into the open space, she froze. Max O’Neill, her ex-boyfriend and afore mentioned first kiss, lay sprawled on her leather couch with his feet up on the coffee table. Her sadness morphed into rage. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “Glad to see you’re awake.” Max gave her a lopsided smile. “Want a grape?” He held out a plastic bowl of ripe red fruit.

  “Untie me. Now!” She was going to kill him the second he did.

  “Amy, Amy, Amy. You might have been able to order me around when we were kids, but not anymore.”

  “You kidnapped me?” She swished her hair in an explosive gesture of fury. Her ex had been a jerk, but trying to make it as a criminal? That was next-level stupidity, even for Max. A literal pain knifed her chest as betrayal singed the scar tissue of her heart. She and Max had been close even before they dated. He had been her next-door neighbor for years and her most trusted confidant for half her life.

  “Chill out.” Max’s blue eyes twinkled. “I’ll let you go just as soon as your boyfriend shows up.”

  “What does Zack have to do with this?”

  “Uh, everything.” He lifted a mocking brow. “But don’t concern yourself with the details. Take a load off. Relax.”

  She stared at him. “Did you go insane in the last four years?” This was not the boy she had poured her heart out to when things got bad at home.

  “Sit down and shut it. I’m trying to watch TV.” He turned up the volume, and Amy froze. He was following a news story on Susan and Chris’s classroom.

  “We have received numerous reports of another gunshot heard late last night,” the blonde reporter announced, her expression grim. “Police have not yet determined whether the shot corresponded to a death. Authorities caution families against sending money to the perpetrator. This encourages further violence and puts the other students at risk. Let’s check in with Andrea, who’s live on the scene.”

  “Thank you, Morgan.” The picture switched to the sprawling lawn outside Hilltop Middle School. A tall, slim redhead stood with two police officers, one of them Kimmy. “I am standing in front of Hilltop Middle, the school where an armed gunman is holding a class of sixth graders for ransom.” Andrea recapped the situation and turned to Kimmy. “Joining me this morning is renown RCMP officer Kimberly Wolf. She is heading up the case here at Hilltop Middle and has previous experience with the gunman inside. Officer Wolf, in your expert opinion, do you think the offensive footage on the Internet is accurate?”

  Kimmy scrunched up her face as if annoyed at being caught on camera. “The footage is accurate. There’s no point in down-playing cruelty when families respond to it by paying for it to stop.”

  “Do you have a statement regarding the shot heard last night?”

  “There was a shot heard last night at around ten p.m.,” Kimmy replied, deadpan.

  Amy fought a snort of laughter. Kimmy did not waste words. They had asked for a statement, so she had given them one by stating exactly what they had already said.

  “Do you think this will be a regular occurrence?” Andrea pressed, her lips tightly pursed.

  Kimmy gave her a troubled frown. “Could you be more specific?”

  “Is it a coincidence, do you think, that the two shots were fired almost exactly twelve hours apart?”

  “If you are suggesting there is a pattern developing⸻”

  “Do you think there is a pattern?” Amy made a derisive noise. The redhead was annoyingly pushy.

  “Cardelle receives money to keep the students alive.” Kimmy’s tone was prickly. “Killing them every twelve hours does not align with his goals. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a job to do.” She turned her back on the camera and marched away, leaving the polished Andrea flustered and speechless.

  “Well, there you have it,” Andrea wrapped up the interview, even though she had already been dismissed. “Back to you, Morgan.”

  Max turned the TV down. “Sue’s in that class.” His words
were weighted with misery.

  Amy ignored his concern with an angry flip of her hair. If he was truly worried about her little sister’s safety, he wouldn’t be wasting his time keeping her, Amy, hostage. “Of course she’s in that class.”

  “Sucks.” Max shoved off the couch and strolled into the kitchen. “If you’re hungry, let me know.” Amy tiptoed toward the screen door. “I went shopping while you were asleep.”

  She threw the door open and ran for it. Porch, steps, and overgrown yard flew beneath her bare feet. She struggled to open the gate with her hands behind her back. Max burst onto the porch with a bellow of rage.

  “Help!” Amy screamed. “Somebody help me!”

  Max tackled her to the ground and clamped a hand to her mouth. She bit his fingers. “Cooperate or you’ll be killed.”

  She went limp beneath him on a jolt of ice-cold fear. She had learned her lesson with Alex. Death threats were to be taken seriously.

  Max kept his hand fastened over her mouth until he had dragged her inside. He slammed the door and tossed her onto the couch. “You stay.” He retrieved a roll of duct tape and wound it around her ankles. “I didn’t want to do this. You made me do it. You did this to yourself.”

  Twenty-three

  PETER SCRUNCHED UP his face and slumped against the rental car’s passenger-side door. Rows upon rows of high-rise apartments flashed past his window. All he saw was a smiling young kid with fiery-red hair. Calling Alex’s sister was like pealing a band-aid off a slow-healing wound. What had Nova been through since he had last seen her? What would she think of Alex’s insanity? He turned his vacant stare on Kimmy. “What do I say to her?”