Right to Silence

by Lily Luchesi

  She sighed with relief when she saw her old coffin and all her things. The room was a dark, Gothic cave and she felt so comfortable, like being wrapped in a cocoon of the night. Her Funko Pops and Living Dead Dolls stared at her from their shelves on the wall, and the bands in the posters she hung up seemed to look less grim now that she was back where she belonged. Now that she was home.

  She heard Danny in the kitchen below and then coming up the stairs as she peeled off her old clothes and dropped them in the garbage pail in her bathroom. Parts were stiff with her blood. She belittled herself for not changing them at the PID.

  For most of her life, Angelica had been built like Marilyn Monroe and she loved it. She was comfortable with her body and used it whenever she could without shame. Her scars, before they had disappeared when she became full-blooded, and her tattoos only made her feel sexier. But when she removed her shirt and skirt and stepped into the shower, she finally saw something that made her hate her body.

  New scars. Many more than she had thought would be left from her time in Hell.

  Thankful she could not see her reflection to see how severe they were on areas she could not see with the naked eye, she gazed at the raw, pink lines now crisscrossing her pale flesh. Jagged, brutal scars: one along her right hip; a deep, flat one next to her navel where a blade had been shoved in long ways, stopping just before it punctured an organ; a large round one on her thigh, where the flesh had been completely bitten away; one in the center of her left palm where she’d been nailed to the table; and a thin one between her breasts. Her bicep had a fresh layer of pink skin grown over the chunk of flesh they had cut off of her and burned with holy water. She refused to think about the other area they’d stabbed her in.

  She was fairly certain that the wounds on her back from the repeated whippings would not be permanently scarred, but that was a small miracle. Might as well get a fucking tattoo that says “DAMAGED” on my forehead, she thought, fighting back a wave of anxiety and desperation. She didn't think she’d ever get rid of these, either.

  In time she could forget the torture she endured, but not with these as constant reminders. Every day she’d see them and remember how they came to be. She didn’t want Danny to see them either. The less he knew about her time in Hell, the better. She didn’t want him to look at her differently because of what she’d been through. Cringing pity and porcelain doll touches were not what she needed. What she needed was that same fierce, powerful passion he had always exhibited, and she was afraid he’d change toward her, thinking her too vulnerable for forceful ministrations.

  She despised being thought of as ‘vulnerable’ above all else.

  Angelica looked down and saw blood. She hadn't realized she’d been crying, lost in the darkness of her own mind. Wanting to wipe her eyes and finish washing her hair, she tried to stop crying, but every time she made a conscious effort to do so, the tears fell harder, making her knees shake and threaten not to hold her up any longer. Her sobs echoed in the shower stall, making her feel even worse. She hadn’t cried like this since Jonathan Price died. Her breath caught in her throat and her knees finally gave out, and she was kneeling on the floor, dripping blood from her eyes.

  She didn’t see it as vampire tears in a shower, though. All she saw was blood falling from her body, staining the white tile. All she saw was how her own blood littered the floor and walls of that cell she’d been locked in in Hell. It was then she realized how she had repressed what she’d endured so she could survive down there. Repeatedly, she told the demons who tortured her that they had not and would not break her. But they had. They hadn’t made her unable to be fixed, but they had cracked her armor and that crack would always be there, like gluing a China vase back together. It’s never the same, and the cracks still show, marring its beauty as a whole.

  Lost in the vivid flashback of her mutilation, suffering one of the worst panic attacks of her life, she didn't hear the bathroom door open, but she did hear her name being called. She was only brought fully back to reality when she felt Danny’s warm hands on her shoulders and back.

  The shower was turned off, and she felt herself being wrapped in a towel, comfortingly rubbed dry. Her tears were tapering off, and her body was not as shaky as it had been just a moment ago. It wasn’t just Danny’s blood that healed her body, it was his presence that healed her mind.

  “Come on,” he whispered to her. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

  No, I’m not, she thought, desperately clinging to him. But I will be. As soon as I get Leander in my sights and rip him apart I will be.

  She wrapped the towel around herself, feeling foolish and embarrassed. “I’m sorry about that,” she muttered.

  “Sorry? Angelica Cross, are you insane?” Danny asked, holding her even tighter. “Don’t you ever apologize. It’s me who should be sorry.”

  “For what?” she asked, genuinely confused.

  He pulled away to look her in the eye. “I knew. I had a vision of someone being tortured in Hell, and I called Mark about it. I knew it hadn’t happened yet, and he said he’d do what he could to prevent it, but he couldn’t do anything. That’s what I’m sorry for: I saw it happen and I could have stopped it!”

  “Don’t be silly. You could never have prevented it, even if you’d been in LA with me,” Angelica said, surprised and pleased that Brighton had been right and he was starting to see the future, even just a little bit.

  “And I’m sorry I didn’t stop, ask you how you were. I should have realized you’d have some nasty issues after that, and I didn’t even think to just ask if you were okay or not,” he continued. His eyes were so warm, they comforted her more than he knew. “Sometimes you’re so unbelievable, so larger than life, that I forget...I forget that you’re still human. And don’t contradict me. Your blood might say ‘vampire’, but your heart says ‘human’.

  “I love you. I won’t coddle you— I know you’d hate me for it —but when you need to cry I’ll be here. When you need to talk, I’ll be here. And I’ll make sure you get better. Because that’s what you do when you love someone: you give them everything you’ve got without reservation. I won’t let them take your light away.”

  Chapter Eight

  One month later

  Danny had heard the phrase “constant vigilance” many times. In fiction. In real life. From his father. He had never actually understood what it meant to be on your guard twenty-four-seven. He did now. And he was exhausted.

  “Mancini, look alive,” Bart snapped at him. He jumped, having dozed off on security patrol at the PID.

  “Sorry.” He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “Dude, you’ve been here nearly constantly. Don’t you sleep?”

  Bart smirked. “Well, I get in bed, but Helena doesn’t let me sleep much.”

  Danny grimaced, having never thought of Helena in that way, even when she was trying to get into his pants. “Too much information, man. You don’t see me sitting here and telling you what Angie and I do behind closed doors.”

  “That’s because you’re an old-fashioned prude,” Bart replied.

  “Oh you wouldn’t be saying that if you saw him a few hours ago,” Angelica said, walking into the room holding a bag in her black-gloved hand. “Here. You guys look dead on your feet.” She put the bag on the table in front of them and Danny thought it smelled Heavenly. “Mark and I caught a couple young deer shifters— I shit you not —in Norridge. They were destroying private property in the area. Fucking teenage shifters!”

  Danny had to ask, “You didn’t kill them, right?”

  That earned him a sharp smack to his head. “I scared them so badly I don’t think we’ll ever be hearing from them again. Can’t believe I was reduced to being a motherfucking truant officer!”

  Danny laughed. “I know. You usually come in all covered in blood.”

  “Speaking of blood, I’m going to warm some. That’s from Luke’s. We passed by on our way back, and now Mark is filing reports of ‘truant deer�
�. Truant deer! God help me. Bon appétit, gentlemen.” She kissed the top of Danny’s head and then left the room.

  “Hm. Evidently I don’t like kids no matter the species,” Bart said, opening the bag. “Can you picture what those people whose shit they damaged will look like when they see it?”

  Danny laughed, taking a bite out of his Italian beef. “I hope their insurance covers adolescent shapeshifters!”

  “If Angelica had her way, it would. She’s capable of running the world with that brain of hers.”

  Danny agreed, but before he could say anything, there was a scuffle of some sort down the hallway. Getting up, he saw that three agents had three prisoners, their faces covered in black cloth sacks and their hands bound in iron, consecrated cuffs. Demons. He knew Angelica was going to be pleased, but there was a pit in his stomach all the same.

  “You going to watch?” Bart asked, his mouth half full with food.

  “Watch what? The interrogation?” Danny asked.

  The werewolf laughed. “Have you ever seen Angelica deal with demons? It’s not an interrogation, it’s a medieval torture session.”

  Closing his eyes, Danny remembered the demon he and Angelica had trapped when they had been looking for Fiona. He had not realized what he was getting into as he watched Angelica slice off skin, pour holy water into wounds, and castrate someone that, although Danny knew better, looked like an accountant. It hadn’t been fun to participate in, and Angelica had claimed to hate doing it. And of course, she wouldn’t do it now that she had been tortured...would she?

  “I think someone needs to be there to help keep her in line,” Danny said, realizing that yes, Angelica would do whatever it took to find out why Leander had kidnapped her.

  “Good luck,” Bart said as Danny left, going down to where the interview rooms were. This hallway reminded him of the one when he used to work at the CPD. Small rooms with three chairs, a table, and one-way glass. In one room, extra chairs had been brought in, but these weren’t plain metal. They looked like electric chairs without being hooked up to anything. They were fully restraining the demons.

  Mark was outside the room with Angelica, and the vampire had an expression that said her patience was thinning with every passing second.

  “For the last time, you have me as the deputy director, and right now I’m on the clock,” Mark said. “I am not letting you do this. It’s highly illegal, even for us.”

  “And I am telling you for the last time that you don’t get a say in it. If this was any other investigation I’d be more than happy to let you take the wheel. But this is personal. It’s not normal by any stretch of the imagination,” Angelica said. “End of discussion.”

  Mark went to say something and then spotted Danny. “Good. Can you talk some sense into her? She wants to use these torture machines Mahon Quinn came up with back in the late eighteen-hundreds and—”

  Danny held up a hand. Mark’s frustration was hard to deal with and his head was already beginning to ache. “Mark, she’s the boss. And if she does somehow get in trouble with the mortal FBI, Mahon Quinn can get her out of it.”

  “Thank you!” She sighed and then walked into the interrogation room.

  Mark was gaping at Danny. “You’re okay with her doing this?”

  “No. But to stop her would be pointless. Mark...she’s the person I saw being tortured. If I’m right, let her get her revenge and she’ll feel better,” Danny said.

  “Christ...I never put two and two together after you called me with your vision. I wish I had, then I wouldn’t have given her such a hard time,” Mark said, face ashen.

  “Doesn’t matter now. I’m going in with her. Hopefully I can keep her from going off the rails like I did before.” Danny opened the door and entered the room, making sure to block his mind so that the demons didn’t try to feed off of him. He doubted they could when they were chained up, but better safe than sorry.

  Angelica gave him a look that he didn’t like very much. He’d seen her look at others like that before. “One question and answer honestly, Danny. Are you here to help me, or hinder me?”

  “Help you. Help you get closure,” Danny replied. “And not lose sight of the fact that you’re not like them, so don’t lower yourself to their standards.”

  “I’ll never be like them, hurting people just because it’s fun,” she spat. She removed her jacket and put it on a chair. The demons all just stared at them.

  “Usually we separate suspects, but in this case it might be better if you’re all in one room. So the remaining ones can see what happens when one of you doesn’t cooperate,” Angelica said. Her voice was saccharine, and she was smiling. Danny thought that you might have seen a smile like that on Lizzie Borden before she offed her parents. He had the sudden urge to flee.

  “Danny, while I start questioning them, can you fill those syringes on the table? Thanks,” she said, still smiling.

  The syringes she wanted filled looked like they came from an old horror movie set in a mental institution. She wanted them filled with holy water, and that didn’t bother Danny. It would be more effective than spraying them with it.

  There were a lot of them, and he wondered how many times she could inject one demon before it was dissolved into nothingness, trapped in its vessel?

  He watched Angelica study each captive, an amused smirk on her face.

  She stopped in front of the first demon and bent over so she was eye-level with it. “Now, let’s start out nice and simple: why does Leander Price want me so badly he sent every minion he had after me?”

  “Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you,” the demon spat. It had possessed a twentysomething blonde woman who looked like she might have been a stripper or, more likely, a prostitute. He supposed a demon wasn’t the worst thing she’d had in her if that was the case.

  “Wouldn’t you? I can’t imagine being inside this vessel is very fun, especially since you can’t slither out while you’re in this thing.” Angelica patted the chair. “I’m not in a habit of letting people go, but if I’m being honest, I don’t give much of a fuck about you to bother killing you. Tell me what you know and I’ll send you straight back to Hell.” She walked around her, graceful as a dancer even in the middle of a torture chamber. “Come on. Leander had to have said something. ‘Bring me Angelica Cross because…’ Come on. What did he want?”

  “Just you. That’s all he’d tell us. He wanted you and he wanted you alive. That was the only thing he pressed,” the demon said.

  Angelica arched an eyebrow. “He’s been trying to kill my family for centuries. All of a sudden he wants me alive?”

  The demon tried to nod, but its head was trapped in the chair.

  “Thanks. You’ve been quite the help. Danny?” She gestured to the demon and he knew she wanted him to tell her where the demonic essence was resting in the body.

  Danny smirked, never thinking he’d say this next phrase: “It’s in her fake left tit. ...Wow, that’s quite the novel sentence for me.”

  Angelica burst into a gale of laughter. Still chuckling, she took her custom knife and sent it in swiftly, piercing skin and silicone. The demon shrieked, and sulfur suffused the room as the essence was killed. The vessel’s head slumped forward, only held up a little by the metal strap, revealing a bad weave in the back. Blood was rapidly spreading across its hot pink shirt, and also dripping from its mouth.

  The two demons had the nerve to laugh, and Danny saw Angelica turn to them. No longer was she playfully waving her weapon around. Instead her eyes had changed, and her face was set in a way that Danny knew she meant business. If she ever turned that look on him, he’d run.

  “What are you two fucks laughing at?” she asked, her voice a low growl. “Do you think changing your vessels means I won’t recognize you anymore? Huh?” She backhanded one of the demons in the face, slicing its face open with her blade. It howled.

  She braced herself on the arms of the chair, face in its bleeding face. “I’ll never forget ei
ther of you. You can possess the corpse of Elvis fucking Presley and I’d still recognize you.” She turned to Danny. “Syringe?”

  He handed one to her, successfully hiding the trembling in his limbs. He’d faced madmen before, but he had never seen anyone with such death in their eyes as Angelica had.

  There were holes in the metal bar that kept the captive’s head stationary, and he now realized what they were for as Angelica took a long iron nail and shoved it through the hole and into the demon’s head, eliciting a pained yowl from it. Blood began to trickle down its face. Right after, she moved to the other demon and injected the holy water into its bloodstream.

  Danny stared as he saw the demon’s skin begin to give off steam. The holy water was coming out in sweat somehow, and it was burning it from the inside out. It was in too much pain even to scream as even its tears burned with the holy water.

  “Like it? I hope so, after all the times you did it to me,” she hissed, giving it another injection right before she turned and gave one to the other one as well. The blood in its head wound bubbled like it had been hit with hydrogen peroxide.

  Gingerly, as if touching their skin would harm her, Angelica unbuttoned the first demon’s coat and shirt, revealing a middle-aged pouch and man boobs. Taking her knife, Danny watched in mild horror as she reared her arm back like she was going bowling and then thrust the blade forward, digging deep right below the demon’s navel. The same place where her scar was. She twisted the knife, and blood gushed out of the wound.

  The demon cried out, nearly breaking the glass window with the unearthly volume. “Taste your own fucking medicine,” Angelica said. She turned the knife again and yanked it out, bringing with her a torrent of blood and what looked like a bit of small intestine. Her hand was covered in blood. Sweat pooled on the demon’s forehead and it was breathing hard. Angelica grabbed another syringe and stuck it over the open wound, squirting the holy water deep into it. It writhed and the smell of its sulfuric blood boiling permeated the room.