The Beautiful and the Damned

by Jessica Verday

  CHAPTER THREE

  Cyn tried to ignore the cop after he escorted Stephen to the door and then went back to his table and his coffee. But every minute felt like it stretched into an eternity of waiting. Waiting for him to say the words that began with “You’re under arrest” and ended with her being hauled off to jail.

  She tried to play it cool as she cleared away dishes and refilled drinks. Resisted every screaming impulse inside her brain that told her to steal the closest car and run away as fast as she could. But then she noticed the cigarette. It was resting on an overturned jelly holder.

  Figures. Just when she was trying to quit.

  Face carefully blank, Cyn grabbed the coffeepot and carried it over to him. “More coffee?” Then she said, “You can’t smoke in here.”

  Declan glanced over at the cigarette casually. “I’m not smoking it.”

  “You can’t have it lit, either.”

  “Right.” He picked it up and ground it into the jelly container. “I’ll have some more coffee, then.”

  Cyn smiled at him as she poured. “That was really nice of you to help me out with Stephen. But where’s your uniform?” One hand went to her hip. Straining the buttons across her top that weren’t already open.

  “I’m off duty,” he replied. “Just up here for a little R & R.”

  She’d already turned to take the coffeepot back when his voice stopped her. “Any recommendations?”

  “Hmmm?” Cyn played dumb long enough to buy her some time to think about the places she’d heard some of the locals mention. Downtown. The harbor. Tom’s Crab Shack. Just say any one of those.

  “Any recommendations for what I should do. Things to see? You’re a native . . . aren’t you?”

  “You should try Tom’s Crab Shack. But go on a Wednesday night. That’s when they offer the all-you-can-eat special. Biggest crabs around.” Her hands were getting sweaty, the coffeepot was slipping. “Here’s your check.”

  Cyn placed the check facedown on the table and then retreated to the kitchen. The silver bell dinged for her attention again, and by the time she delivered her last order of the night, the cop was gone. It took every ounce of self-control she had to walk calmly over to his table.

  I bet he didn’t even leave me a tip.

  But when she reached for his check, she saw the $1.24 he owed for the coffee . . . right on top of a crisp fifty-dollar bill. Then she saw what else he’d left behind too.

  His card, with the words CALL ME written on it.

  ~ ~ ~

  The sky was inky black with a haze of gray around the edges when Cyn started walking home from the diner. Marv had said he’d only need her for a couple of hours tonight, and for once, he’d been right.

  Sunrise was a long way off, though, and Cyn didn’t like to sleep at night. The dark brought bad things. Nightmares, with claws. And teeth. She liked to sleep during the day, in the brightest puddle of sunshine she could find.

  Two blocks away from her apartment, Cyn took a shortcut through an alley. Passing by an old brick hotel, she stuffed her hands into her pockets and walked faster. When the back of her neck suddenly tingled, she spun around. A second later the windows ten stories up exploded as two men fell from the building, locked in a spiraling death grip.

  Giant shards of glass preceded the falling shadows and shattered into a million pieces when they hit the ground. Less than a foot away from it all, Cyn took cover behind a stack of empty boxes sitting next to a Dumpster and covered her face with her hands, waiting for the cacophony to end.

  But it was only just beginning.

  They landed with a sickening crunch. Flesh and bone meeting hard pavement and freshly ground glass. The fall should have killed them. But they only seemed momentarily stunned before getting to their feet. Cyn peeked out from beneath her wig, which was hanging lopsided and obscuring one eye.

  Both of the men were dressed in dark clothes, but one was much larger than the other. He stood a full head taller as they sized each other up. That didn’t stop the smaller man, though, who bared his teeth and charged straight at his opponent, latching onto his throat. The sound the bigger man made as he tried to get away echoed bitter agony inside Cyn’s head.

  In the dark, they passed for two brawling humans. But when their faces turned to the light, Cyn could see they were something else entirely. The small man had a bull-shaped face and long black horns that curled down beneath his chin. The bigger man had a dog’s head, a short snout, and droopy ears.

  The dog-faced man suddenly twisted to one side, coming dangerously close to where Cyn was hiding. She cupped her hands over her mouth to quiet her breathing. He pulled free, blood dripping from a gash in his neck, and wiped a hand across his throat. Wheezing from the damage to his esophagus, he shook his head once and then launched himself at the smaller man full force.

  When they collided, they slammed into the building next to the hotel and went down. A tsunami of dirt and bricks rained upon them, leaving gaping black holes in the foundation and jagged cracks that ran up the walls.

  Stay calm. Don’t draw attention to yourself. It’s almost over.

  Cyn would have thought she was going crazy if she hadn’t seen glimpses of strange things her entire life. Shadows that moved. The feeling that someone was always following her. The faces living beneath hers. . . .

  And then there was that night at the bridge in Sleepy Hollow, with its weird jumble of mixed-up memories of a girl named Abbey who was alive and going to high school with her one moment, then dead and buried for months the next. It was almost like both things had happened at once.

  Ever since that night, things hadn’t been the same.

  Suddenly, the smaller man got the upper hand again, pinning the larger man on his back. Cyn knew what was coming next and closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to see it. Because of this, she didn’t react in time when the dog-headed man reached for something to throw at his attacker, and a brick went sailing past the boxes she was hiding behind.

  She only registered the sharp pain against the back of her head for a brief moment before everything went dark.

  ~ ~ ~

  She lost half an hour lying in that dirty alley, and when she came to, both of the men were gone. The only signs that either of them had been there were the piles of bricks and broken glass still littering the ground, and a greenish puddle of goo that Cyn didn’t want to stare too long at.

  She didn’t know what had happened, but at least there wasn’t blood on her hands this time.

  Stumbling, head spinning, she made it back to her apartment. The two blocks felt more like two miles, but somehow she made it.

  Of course, her “apartment” was just the back room of an abandoned print shop. It didn’t have a kitchen, and the bathroom consisted only of a meager toilet stall and dirty sink. But her plants had lots of sunlight, and no one came around. All she had to worry about was keeping the mice away.

  Cyn’s head ached as she entered the building. A lump the size of a tennis ball had formed at the base of her neck, and it was sore to the touch. Darkness cloaked the corners of the room, and she was so exhausted she barely remembered to tug the string attached to the dim overhead lightbulb as she headed to her sleeping bag.

  It was there the dreams found her.

  Blood was everywhere. Her hands were warm with it. Wet with it. Dark and sticky, it looked like she’d rolled around in a mud puddle. It stained the sheets, and was spattered all over her clothes.

  “Hunter . . .” She stared at her hands before she looked over at him. “There’s something wrong with me.”

  But Hunter couldn’t reply. Because Hunter was dead.

  His eyes, wide and glassy, stared up at the ceiling above his prone body. From her position beside him, Cyn could tell even without leaning over that his heart wasn’t beating. The lack of a steady rise and fall of his chest and the coloring of his face and hands confirmed it. That warm, sun-kissed skin that had always stayed so tan without him even trying was
now the shade of cheap copier paper. Sallow and gray.

  “Hunter!” She screamed his name, and this, this was her undoing.

  Her hands flew to him, fingers grasping greedily at the torn edges of his chest. Trying to stuff back in the spilled intestines that hung like shiny ropes from the slit in his belly. But her hands slipped. Slid. Couldn’t grab hold. Couldn’t find purchase in the mass of warm, wet blood that soaked through the sheets and dripped to the floor in a steady pattern that sounded like rain.

  When she said his name a second time, it was a raw moan. An anguished plea of fury and pain and heartbreak all rolled into one. “Hunter . . .”

  There was fresh blood on her pillow when Cyn opened her eyes. She’d managed to scratch her cheek in her sleep. Tucking the edges of the sleeping bag beneath her chin, she sat up.

  She longed for a shower, but the locker room she usually snuck into and used after her shift at the diner wasn’t open until eight. A quick glance at her clock told her it was only a little after three a.m. Her wig had fallen off in her sleep and she raked cold fingers through red curls—her real hair color. The portable thrift-store heater that sat next to the sleeping bag had seen better days and only heated a small portion of the large space around her.

  Scrubbing her hands across her face, Cyn got up and paced the wide expanse of concrete floor. The room was void of furniture except for a wooden chair and a three-legged table propped up by a battered copy of The Bell Jar. A half-open suitcase spilled forth its meager contents of clothing by the floor-to-ceiling windows that made up the entire length of the opposite wall.

  A dozen plants with brown leaves and shriveled blossoms created a barricade of shrubbery in front of the windows—her guardians against all of the bad things out there.

  Cyn walked over to the plants and stood before a ficus tree. Digging her fingers into the dirt, she pictured the leaves whole and healthy. In response, one of the leaves unfurled, the color changing from a brittle brown to a soft green before changing back again.

  “That’s it,” she said. “I knew there was hope for you. You’ll get there.”

  Warmth surged up through her fingertips from the cool earth, and she smiled. Cyn had always had a soft spot for plants, especially the half-dead ones. She liked the challenge of bringing them back to life.

  Then she made the mistake of glancing up at one of the cracked windows in front of her. It wasn’t her face that reflected there. It was his. Whoever was inside her.

  Male features were superimposed over her own face. Like a living Día de los Muertos skull. Pale skin, dark eye sockets, teeth stretched wide. His leering smile was a sucker punch, and her heart sank.

  “Oh, no,” Cyn said. “Not again.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Avian knew that Father Montgomery was bound to be asleep by the time he parked his bike in the old shed next to the rectory. Between the radiator hose on his bike going and the Grenabli demon/vampire fight he’d interrupted in an alleyway on his way back from the salvage yard, it was almost two thirty in the morning.

  He brushed some of the dead vampire’s ash off his coat sleeve. “Interrupted” was the wrong word. The Grenabli demon and the vampire had tried to team up against him, but he’d single-handedly taken both of them out with the blade he kept strapped between his shoulders. The vampire’s body had turned to ash. But the Grenabli’s cleanup wasn’t quite so easy—he was still a pile of green mush in the alley where he’d fallen.

  Avian thought about going in through the back door and waiting until morning to see Father Montgomery, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to quiet the nagging in his gut until he saw the old priest. Lately, something had just felt . . . off.

  His heavy boots made no sound as he entered the unlocked house, and there he found Father Montgomery fast asleep in a leather armchair by the fire, the book he’d been reading still draped across his lap, the blanket he’d thrown off puddling at his feet.

  With a snore and a snort, Father Montgomery woke when Avian put a hand on his shoulder. “What? Who’s there?”

  “It’s just me, Father.” Avian noticed the glasses that had slid into the chair cushion. “Your glasses are by your side.”

  Father Montgomery sat up and dug into the chair for them. Once they were in place, he gave Avian a beaming smile and stood to properly greet him. “Welcome home, my boy. It’s so good to see you.”

  Avian’s broad-shouldered six-foot-five-inch frame, made even bulkier by the black leather coat he was wearing, dwarfed the priest’s own hunched posture, but he bent to return the hug without hesitation. “It’s good to see you, too. But we need to have a talk about you leaving the door unlocked before falling asleep. Anyone could have walked in.”

  “That’s the point, Avian.”

  Another thing only Father Montgomery got away with—calling him Avian.

  “My door is always open to anyone who wants to come in.”

  “Anyone? You know very well what’s out there. I’d rethink that if I were you.”

  “Pish, posh. I’ve been perfectly safe for the fifty-nine years that I’ve been here. Nothing will harm me as long as the grace of God protects me.” At the mention of God, the scars on Avian’s back tightened. But he was used to that feeling and barely registered it. “Besides,” Father Montgomery continued, “that’s why I have you here.”

  “To protect you if he fails?”

  Father Montgomery shuffled over to the refrigerator and pulled out two plates. Turning on the tiny hot plate next to the sink, he peeled off the plastic wrap that covered a slice of meat loaf on each plate. “He works in mysterious ways. I accepted that long ago when you were first brought into my life. Who am I to argue if he wants to send me a personal protector?”

  Avian followed him into the kitchen and moved to get the cups that were kept on the second shelf in the cupboard on the left. The shelf Father Montgomery had trouble reaching without his step stool.

  “Fifty-nine years. And after all that time, you still won’t call me by the name everyone else uses.”

  “That’s because it isn’t your name.” Father Montgomery glanced over at Avian’s right arm, where a multitude of languages inked upon his skin all proclaimed one word: Thirteen. “I know, I know. You have reclaimed that name they gave you so long ago. But when we met, it was another name that God pressed upon my heart: Avian Alexander.”

  “And it meant absolutely nothing that Alexander was your father’s name and that I never would have stopped by the rectory if I hadn’t hit that bird with my bike?”

  Father Montgomery managed to keep a straight face as he replied, “The resemblance between you and that vulture was uncanny.”

  Avian shook his head, but he didn’t hide the brief smile that lifted the corner of his lips. “Speaking of bikes, did you know Pete’s Salvage Yard is being guarded by a hellhound?”

  “Is it, now?” Father Montgomery paused in the middle of reaching into the fridge again. The smell of warming meat loaf filled the small kitchen. “Any trouble?”

  “None that I could see. He said the dog came along with the junkyard when he inherited it. I’ll keep an eye on it while I’m in town, though.”

  “And how long do you think that will be?” The priest tried not to look too hopeful, but he was failing miserably.

  “I have to meet Mint in Louisiana sometime soon, but other than that my schedule’s open.”

  “Is he still running the hotel? He’s good people. Helping out those who don’t have anywhere else to go.”

  Mint was a Cajun witch doctor turned hotel proprietor who didn’t ask questions of those who needed shelter. Those who Avian was usually on a first-name basis with. When a family of succubi and incubi or passive Wasali demons needed a place to stay for a couple of weeks, Avian sent them to Mint. And when Mint had a couple of bad eggs pass through every now and then, like the Slavic Rumsalkya demons, he sent them on to Avian.

  “Yeah, he’s still there. Says he wants to retire soon, but we both know that
’ll never happen.”

  He sat down at the table as Father Montgomery proudly held up a bottle of ketchup. “Brand new! Sister Serena bought it for me when she went into town last week.”

  Avian took the bottle, and Father Montgomery put both plates of meat loaf on the table. Avian didn’t really care for mortal food (although ketchup did make everything taste better), but sharing a meal was something normal people did. And Father Montgomery liked that.

  Pretending they were normal.

  The priest bowed his head and silently mouthed a prayer before lifting his fork. Then he paused, glancing at Avian over the top of his glasses. “Your coat?”

  Avian stood back up and removed the leather duster, turning around to drape it on the back of his chair and revealing the wicked-looking sword still strapped on his back.

  “Weapons at the table.” The priest tsked.

  But Avian just ignored this instruction and sat down again. Father Montgomery knew when he was fighting a losing battle, so he returned to his meal. When Avian had doused his meat loaf in ketchup and taken a bite, the priest finally spoke about the thing weighing heavily on his heart.

  “I’m not sure how much longer the church will be able to remain open,” he confessed. “Our numbers have been dwindling and our coffers . . . well, they have seen better days.”

  “Tell me how much you need and I’ll get you the money.”

  Father Montgomery shook his head. “It’s not just the money, Avian. Although, I did have to tell Sister Serena that her hours will be completely cut after Christmas. We don’t have the funds to pay her even now, but I couldn’t let her go right before the holidays.”

  Avian waited for the priest to continue.

  “Even if I were to accept your donation, without a congregation it would simply delay the inevitable. I fear many of our members have started families of their own and moved on.” He glanced down at his plate forlornly. “It seems I am a shepherd without a flock.”