I kick at a rock and send it flying into the nearby bushes. It hits something with a thud. Branches tremble; a moan echoes. One of the walking fleshbags ambles out, reaching for me, moaning like a tipped cow. I grab the blade from where it’s secured on my thigh. I didn’t make it through months locked in a jail cell while the dead threatened to eat me just to let Sparrow sucking the blood of some newly dead woman break my spirit.
The blade vibrates in my hand, then slices like butter as I chop the head off the walking corpse. I wait for another one to walk out of the brush.
By the time I’m done releasing my frustrations on the dead, night has fallen. They’ll be sleeping in piles, no longer a bother until sunrise. I walk out on the nearby dock and collapse to my knees. The sleeves of my leather jacket are coated with the fluids of the departed, sticky and thick. I strip off the jacket and dip the sleeves in the water. As I scrub away the gunk, I want to scream.
The loon calls again, an eerie tremolo that echoes over the water. Dark and haunting. Reminding. Something fluttering on the edge of the dock catches my attention. It’s a dark-brown feather. I tug it out from the splinters of weathered wood and tuck it into my pocket.
Shaking the water off my jacket, I stand and look out over the dark lake. I don’t understand how this went so wrong.
I walk toward the small castle. The water around the moat is still, as the dead underneath sleep. I shouldn’t have come here. I know better than to return to the scene of the crime. Not that we committed any crimes here. I just know that this place is going to remind me of him.
I push open the heavy wooden door and secure it closed behind me. Nothing will try to get in at night, but in the morning they might try. I’d rather be safe than sorry.
I make my way upstairs and find the room that we stayed in together. There are soot-covered sticks in the fireplace and an unburned pile of wood in the corner of the room.
I throw my jacket on the bed to dry. After pushing a dresser in front of the door, I stand in the middle of the room and take a few moments to calm myself.
When shit went south before, I packed my crap and went to college. I tried to run from my demons, but they just caught up with me when Jim showed at that party and took me to bed.
The way I see it, I’ve got three choices: go back to Gabriel’s Kingdom with my tail between my legs and learn how to be a glittery princess, go back to the earthen plane and vacation in Bora-Bora and meet some new people, or go back to the burning caves and keep my eye on Sparrow.
Going back to Earth sounds good. I’ve got plenty of money for the first time in my life. I could start over.
I look around the bare room. But there’d be no Sparrow. He is the first man who has ever shown me love and caring and truth. Am I ready to drop that and run? I spent twenty-five years of my life being nothing but trailer trash; going back to that isn’t high on my bucket list. I’d be wealthy, but I’d still be the same old me—can’t rub out trailer. Lord knows I’ve tried.
I open the window and push the only chair in the room closer so I can gaze over Hell at night. The chair has a high wingback; Sparrow tried to sleep in it last time we were here. Back then, I had to promise him I wouldn’t try to unbutton his coat to get him to sleep in the bed with me.
I drop down, exhausted. A cool breeze blows in the window, and the sounds of night soothe me, until I fall asleep curled up in the chair.
. . .
Sparrow
They left Sparrow alone in the lair all day. Locked him in the room with the cots and took off. Hunger was tearing him apart. Sparrow’s insides were on fire, sparks lit his veins, and a deep grumble that wouldn’t stop echoed in his throat. Sparrow could barely control his body or his mind at the moment. The thoughts in his brain tumbled among the woman who had showed up and tried to drag him away, the sneers from the other Hellions, and the fact that they had detained him when they left.
It was hours before they finally returned. Jim instructed the other Hellions to rest. They each fell onto a bed, sleeping soundly.
Sparrow couldn’t tell where the others had been—didn’t really care. All he knew was that he couldn’t sleep. He was wired, ready to move. The pressure around his neck was tight and left him digging at his skin in an attempt to relieve it, but nothing helped.
The Hellions didn’t rest for long, before Jim finally ordered them out of the room.
One of the Hellions, a large beast with scars on his face, growled as he walked by Sparrow, “Dinner’s here.”
Sparrow’s stomach clenched at the thought of food.
They exited the room. He could sense that she was there before Jim crossed the lair and opened the front door.
Sparrow could sense her unease, and it was all he could do not to move toward her and do something. He knew better and didn’t look in her direction when her eyes fell on him.
A line of women entered the room. Sparrow could tell by their smell that they were freshly departed. Their blood was tainted with death. He was so ravenous his mouth watered.
Then, in the blink of an eye, she just suddenly disappeared from the room.
“Bitch,” Jim murmured, staring at the empty space where she once stood.
Jim crossed the room, took a Bloodwhore by the neck, and bit down. His mouth was coated in blood when he let the body drop to the floor.
The other Hellions drained the Bloodwhores dry, drinking until nothing but husks remained.
Sparrow stepped forward, ready to feast with his fellow warriors. He touched a short, pretty-faced girl, who was standing in front of him, waiting. An offering. Sparrow’s stomach heaved as his skin touched hers. He shoved her away, and the girl’s wide eyes filled with relief.
Jim’s hollow laughter filled the room. “You deny her?” Jim asked. “You’ll starve, Birdman. Can’t go back to your legions of pigeons if you’re deader than a doornail. Eat.”
Sparrow stood still. He was hungry, famished. His eyes glanced to the refrigerators across the room. He could see that they held bags of blood.
“Oh no,” Jim tsk-tsked at him. “You eat fresh. I need you strong like the others.” He motioned to the other six beasts who were wiping their faces. Blood smeared their skin and teeth, their venomous smiles.
The only thing Sparrow felt now was disgust.
. . .
Meg
My eyes flutter open to the sound of moaning below the window. I lean forward and see the dead have collected outside the castle. Strange. I didn’t make any noise to attract them. I lean back in the chair as memories of my dreams flash through my mind. There were a lot of images of Sparrow sucking on some chick’s neck. I touch my face and find my cheeks are wet. Shit, maybe I was making noise in my sleep.
Next time I see Nightingale, I’m going to choke the life out of her.
“Child?” Clea appears, scaring the shit out of me.
“Oh God.” I grip my chest. “You can’t do that to me.”
I wouldn’t mind Clea being here right now if it weren’t for the look on her face. She knows I found out about the blood sucking. I hate it when people look at me with pity and sorrow. Reminds me of those doctors when I woke up from my coma in the hospital, after they read my medical chart in front of me, their faces drawn in sympathy.
“Don’t look at me like that,” I snap.
“Are you going to stay here now?” she asks. Looking around the barren room, disgust veils her face.
“I’m not sure.” I didn’t think this place was that bad. There’s a bed, a fireplace, and no Sparrow touching his lips to another woman’s neck. I think this place is pretty perfect, actually.
“I’d like you back at the caves.” Clea moves her dark hair over her shoulder. “It’s safer for you there.”
“Safe?”
“If fresh souls out here learn what your blood can do . . .” She shakes her head. Anyone with a little bit of my blood can cross the planes, just like I can. They can get out of Hell. They can return to the Earthen plane.
“It’s not so bad.” Clea stands and walks closer. “The blood.”
What do you say when your mother tells you drinking blood isn’t so bad? It’s like I’m twelve, and she might as well hand me a beer or a joint. I lick my lips, remembering the smell of the blood, the way it felt sliding down my throat. The fullness. My face twists in revulsion.
“Don’t feel that way about it. This is what we are.” Her voice is soft, understanding.
I look up at Clea, as disgusted with myself as she is of the room.
“This is why I birthed you on Earth, so you’d have choices. Down here blood will keep you sated. But since you are half light, you can survive by other means. The darkness will always be there, though, wanting its fill.”
Well that explains why I could barely contain the darkness while I was in Gabriel’s Kingdom. Explains why I could never eat my fill when Sparrow and I were trapped down here the first time.
The dead moan from below the window.
“And Sparrow?” I ask.
She sighs. “He is a Hellion now. He needs it until his time is done. It will keep him strong. They are dangerous creatures with dangerous undertakings. You don’t want him weak.”
“And the Bloodwhores?”
She tips her head. “Is that what this is really about?”
I play with the ring on my finger. “I can’t do it.” I shake my head.
Clea kneels at my feet and looks at me with large dark eyes. “There is something highly sensual about it.”
I snap to attention.
“I very much enjoyed feeding from Gabriel.” Her voice is soft with cherished memories.
I choke. Oh God. I didn’t need to know that. No kid wants to hear their parent’s stories about sucking each other’s blood.
Clea smiles. “Sorry.” She stands and floats back to the bed to sit again.
“I can’t watch him feed from other women.” The thought of it makes bile rise in the back of my throat.
“Oh, child.” Clea makes a movement, an expression of relief. “Sparrow refuses to drink from any of them.”
I touch the tattoo on my chest, my heart thundering under my fingertips. Sparrow is supposed to be mine, and I am his. The change just screwed up the parts of his brain that used to remember this.
Clea stands and holds her hand out. “He’s weak from the change. And he has refused every Bloodwhore.” She wiggles her fingers. “Come. You must return. He needs you.”
I hesitate, remembering the way he gripped my arm two days ago and asked who I was.
“He doesn’t know me.”
“Give him time. Come.”
I stand, move to grab my jacket off the bed, then take her hand.
“Take us back.”
I whisper the words and return us to my room in the burning caves. Poof.
After moving away from Clea, I hang my jacket on the back of a chair.
“This entire situation reminds me of some dirty vampire movie.” I touch my teeth. “I don’t have fangs,” I warn her.
“They’ll come out just before you feed, then retract like they were never there.”
Oh, the things I’ve learned in Hell. I run my tongue over my teeth, trying to feel anything different.
“I’ll send him to you.” Clea leaves.
I open the window to let the air in and sit on the edge of my bed, unsure of what the heck I’m supposed to do with myself. Sparrow is going to suck my blood. I contain a shiver. What if it hurts? What if he doesn’t like the taste of me? We’ve barely spoken two words since he took his role as a Hellion. What am I supposed to say to him?
Don’t let me forget you. Using my thumb, I roll the ring on my finger.
There is a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I say.
The door opens, and the Hellion that is Sparrow steps in. He seems larger and darker. He closes the door softly behind him and waits.
I’m not sure what to do.
There is a heck of a lot of awkward silence before I ask, “Do you remember me?”
Sparrow’s eyes roam over my body. If he remembers anything, he says nothing.
I notice he looks pale, gaunt. Like he’s starving.
Let’s get this over with.
I reach for my blade; I cut the soft skin of my inner forearm. It’s so sharp I barely feel a thing.
Sparrow’s nose flares. He moves so fast that I barely see him until he has my arm in his hand. His mouth lowers to the deep cut, and it’s like I am no longer in the room; there is just Sparrow and his meal.
He latches on, his teeth on my skin, the sharp pinch of pain, the movement of his tongue. Sparrow sucks. The feeling intensifies. My knees weaken. The sensations confuse me. It’s strange. Even though I’m slightly repulsed, heat floods my body. I want to rip all of Sparrow’s clothes off and jump his bones.
Feeling lightheaded, I drop to my knees, my arm still held above my head by Sparrow. His grip loosens, and I feel his tongue brush over the cut.
I feel so weak that I can’t help but close my eyes.
. . .
Sparrow
“Come with me.” The daughter of Lucifer held her hand out to Sparrow.
Sparrow glanced at Jim, awaiting orders.
Jim waved his hand in annoyance. “Go. Her authority trumps that of the commander of the Hellions.” The distaste in his voice was strong.
Sparrow followed Clea out of the lair. They moved down the hall.
“You should not have waited this long,” Clea said as they turned at the stairwell. She touched his arm, her icy fingers threatening to send a chill throughout his body. “Refusing the others, it was the right thing to do.” Clea smiled. “You have instincts, follow them.” She floated down the stairs; Sparrow followed. After walking down the hall, her hand hovered over the knob of the wooden door in front of them. “She is my child.” Clea’s black fathomless eyes were anything but kind at the moment. “Do not forget this.”
Sparrow knew it was a threat, a reminder.
Clea knocked on the door and waited for the voice on the other side. She pushed the door open and shoved at Sparrow’s back. “Close the door behind you,” she said softly. “This thing between you both is private. Keep it that way.”
Clea was gone. Sparrow walked into the room like a trouble child. She was there. And she was anxious. He could smell her fear; it was sweet, soft, and cakelike. Sparrow could remember the taste on his tongue, sweets that he had eaten not too long before the change. Was it with her?
“Do you remember me?” Her voice was soft, demanding.
While her skin was milky white, she was tainted with dark; he could sense the part of her soul that was like him now. And then, something else he didn’t quite understand. He wanted to remember, but he couldn’t. Something in his brain was begging for him to remember. It was as though the morning rays of sunlight were reaching for him, but he couldn’t quite grasp them.
She sighed, reached for the blade strapped to her thigh, and used it to cut her wrist.
Sparrow could smell her blood as soon as the blade first grazed her skin. He was starving—should’ve eaten days ago—but couldn’t bring himself to touch those other women. But this one standing in front of him, she was right. Her blood called to him, rich and sweet, commanding. Sparrow moved as though she was some celestial being, her gravity drawing him.
He fed, filling the void in his center, and when he was done, she lay limply on the floor. Sparrow was horrified—sated but completely horrified, given Clea’s warning. And then, as though Jim knew the moment that Sparrow had taken his fill, he called Sparrow away.
Sparrow fled the room in a blur, moving faster than ever. Her blood, fresh and alive, made him faster and stronger than he had remembered ever being.
. . .
Meg
“Oh my. Oh no.” My shoulder is pushed, and I am rolled onto my back. Clea slaps my cheeks with
her cold hands. “Wake up.” She slaps harder.
I groan. My mouth feels dry.
“Wake up, wake up.” Clea shakes my shoulders.
I open my eyes and feel the hard floor on my back. “What happened?” I try to sit up, but my head spins.
Clea reaches out to support me. “He took too much.”
I move my arm. With blurry vision I see that there is only a faint mark from where I cut it. Small dots from Sparrow’s teeth surround the area.
Clea looks panicked. She touches my forehead. “He left you like this?” she asks.
I try to shake my head, but the world spins and my stomach heaves.
“He shouldn’t have left you like this.” She stands. “Can you walk?”
I try, but I don’t have the energy to lift my ass off the floor. I want to do nothing more than curl up on the stone underneath me and drift off into an hours-long nap.
“I’ll get help.”
Clea leaves and returns with two men. At least, I think they’re men. Like the other creatures of Hell, they have horns and scales, but they look very humanlike. They cross the room with swift strides and reach for me.
In an instant I am reminded of the day the Hellions came for me. They chased me up the stairs, burst through the locked door to my bedroom, and did terrible, terrible things to me. Things no man should ever do to a pregnant woman. I panic, try to scramble away, and slap at their hands.
“No! No. No. No. Don’t touch me.” I reach for my blade and hold it out to protect myself, the tip grazing one of their chests. “Go away! Go away!”
“Child?” Clea frowns.
Next, the memories of a childhood with John Lewis flood my vision. He hated me—let me know it each day after I turned twelve. Never laid a finger on me before that, but there was something about the number twelve that gave him the permission to let loose. An old scar on my leg throbs where he threw a butter knife and it stabbed into my skin.
Nightingale Girl Page 8
