I’m forgetting something.
The fire fizzles out in my mind as a herd of shadowy figures run up the stairs. My eyes drearily trace the set of boots in front of me. His feet stop at a medical tray on a stainless-steel push cart. “Fuck, Sailor…I’ll get you out of this, and then we’re going to get you somewhere safe, you hear me? Just hold on.” I don’t respond. It’s too hard to find my place in the room. Everything is happening so fast and then not at all. Stop and go. Loud sounds then deafening silence. It’s too much to process and I’m tired. His blur of a hand brushes a moist set of hairs from my forehead. My eyes flutter as I try to lift them to meet his gaze. “You can’t die on me. Not here. You’re better than this, Sailor.” My head droops as he swings around me and works at my bindings. “She’s going to need medical attention. I almost got her, cover me!” Before he finishes, my vision begins to dim and my world slowly returns to darkness.
In my final moments of consciousness, my savior mumbles something and I feel him hoist me into his arms. It’s hard to understand exactly what’s going on, but I know in my gut to trust him, even though I can’t bring myself to remember his name. I try to thank him, but my strength evaporates. All I know is that I’m safe as long as I’m with him.
Chapter 2: Alive
In the pit of my stomach I feel an overwhelming sensation of falling, causing my conscious to stir. Panicked, I open my eyes to an unsettling darkness that irks me to the core.
“Where am I?” By far, this particular darkness is worlds apart from what’s seen in everyday life. It’s suffocating, unnatural, unholy, and vastly different from the shade that comes with the night.
It’s everywhere; invasive.
I turn to my left and then to my right, before spinning around full circle. And then, I pause. Nothing. Utter silence, not as much the wind blowing or the ramble of the outside world. My eyes scan downward at my feet. I’m healed. No aches, no pain, no blood. My suit from before is missing and instead replaced with my outfit from the night I crashed Club Hex. “What is this?”
Not long after I utter those words, a dash of darkness separates from the rest of the room and swoops down in front of me. I can tell it’s there, but it’s hidden in the shadows. “Alfonse?” A cold chill shoots down my spine as I utter the false name I gave him, unsure of what to expect. My gut tingles and my chest stirs in the unanswered silence. I don’t move towards it, but instead, wait. “Al…is that you?” I finally break after the silence lingers for far too long. Against my better judgment, I move towards the enigma, but it retreats further into the abyss. Not by much, but enough to maintain its distance from me.
Greetings, Miss Ray.
The fear I feel only evaporates slightly at the sound of his voice, but the implications of the situation bring another spark of anxiety to light. “Am I…?”
Dead? No. We’re inside your mind.
“Oh, is that so?” I let out a sigh of relief as I pause to ponder the concept. “So, is all of this your doing?” I wave my finger sporadically in the air. “Are you trying to hide your true form or some shit with this back alley hoodoo?”
Alfonse chuckles and I feel it in my gut as the sound waves travels insidiously throughout the seemingly infinite space.
No.
Damn it. Does our pact reach this far? I grit my teeth in frustration as I look deeper into the shadowy vicinity that he’s made his home. “If it’s really my mind, then why is it so dark in here? I know I can be a bitch sometimes, but damn. It’s almost pitch-black.”
You’re unconscious.
“Why?”
You were captured and tortured by a demon that had connections to the club you investigated earlier. They meant to possess you, but were unable to.
“Right, I remember now.” I shudder and grip my elbows. “It was because of you, correct?”
Precisely. You were drugged with a stronger dosage of Sphinx. They know you are different. That is apparent from your mere presence. The demons that captured you assume you are of both human and demonic descent. Not quite human, but not quite demon. A Nephilim. To them, you don’t appear to be an ordinary girl.
“Yeah, I know…all of this Nephilim talk going around is ridiculous, Al. What’s the big deal about them anyway?”
Your lack of knowledge never ceases to amaze me, hunter, he scoffs. The Nephilim were an ancient race of beings…powerful beings, not native to this world, and are now extinct. Your arrival has sparked quite the intrigue and has given some a reason to believe that they have, in fact, returned. They want you so they can gain access to the power these creatures were said to have. They want the power of your supposed ancestors for their own gain.
“Well they’re going to be pretty disappointed when they figure out I have none. I’m just a normal chick with a death wish.”
I’m sure the demon that tried to enter you already knows.
“So we won’t have to worry about him now, right?”
Not exactly. Now capturing you alive may not be a top priority. You still know far too much to be able to roam free.
“So that means it’s open season for me, huh? Shit. You couldn’t have killed him or something before he escaped?” I wait for his response, but the blanket of darkness in front of me fails to answer. “Ugh. Never mind,” I say, sighing as I begin to pace around in a circle. “Don’t even worry about it. It’ll be easier this way. If he wants revenge, he knows how to find me. I need information from him anyway. Him or his goons. They might have intel on the demons who killed my mom and the group that killed my dad.”
That was the day we made our deal, wasn’t it?
“Yeah,” I respond coldly. “It was.” There’s another streak of silence that breaks between us. I can tell he’s smiling even though I can’t see his face. Sick bastard. “Anything relevant you’d like to share?”
Of course. He chuckles. You’ve been rescued by your friends. I assume they’re the ones you called before you were captured. A peculiar bunch they are.
“Good to know. What about Ben? Did they get to him?”
I’m not sure.
“Typical,” I say as I reassess my surroundings in hopes of finding any hint of an escape route. “Now, how do I get out of here? I got some shit I need to take care of. Should I just start walking or something? It’s my mind, right? Maybe I should…click my heels?”
Your consciousness is returning, thus our ability to communicate…I can take you back now, but your existence won’t be as pleasant as you last recalled.
“Enlighten me. I was being cut into like a piece of holiday ham. What could be worse than that? Did I lose an arm or something? You can fix that, right?”
Rest assured, you are fully intact, Miss Ray, but ever since your scuffle in the coffee house, I’ve been preserving your body. Multiple gunshot wounds, bruised bones, cuts—torture. Before your friends rescued you, I was able to control the internal bleeding and aid in your recovery; however, I don’t think your friends would be too eager to see you miraculously heal from your condition in a matter of hours. You should have died twice over, easily. My powers are finite, and you are quite taxing in my current state. I left you alive and stable, but your body is a mess. Recovery will come in time.
“How long, exactly? Lying around isn’t exactly my style.”
Only you can be the judge of that. Although, I do advise you that it is unwise to go hunting in your current condition, no matter what the situation. I’m sure that much you know.
“You make it sound like I’m on life support or something. Is it really that bad?”
Humph, you seem to have taken the benefits of our pact for granted. If tending to your injuries is enough to weaken me, of course the injuries would have to be of notable concern. As I said, you would have died without my aid.
“Yeah, I see.” I tap my finger against my chin. “So, you said you could bring me back, but I have the option of waiting it out over here, right? In my mind? What’s the trade-off?”
You will wake,
eventually. Time moves different in here compared to the outside world. Compare it to the same phenomenon that you humans experience during sleep. Hours pass in reality, but only seems to be seconds in your slumber.
“Lost time.”
That is correct.
“Yeah, that’s no good. What about you? What happens to you?”
My time in this form is coming to an end from precautions taken by your camp. I am growing weaker, but I will set a series of events that will allow your body to wake. I assume that when you do wake, we won’t be able to communicate, which is a shame. You summoned me here, after all.
“I did…didn’t I?” It’s still a haze to me, but I remember calling out to him before I blacked out. Freakin’ drugs. I don’t like him in my mind, not one bit. How long has he been here?
Yes, you did…I arrived once you began to become self-aware. Although my true name wasn’t spoken, your intent and desperation was all that I needed. In a way, one can say your soul called out to me.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” I say with a snarl. “If you messed with me in any way and I find out, I’ll kill us both. So come clean.”
I highly doubt that, Miss Ray. He steps from the shadows but for some reason I am still unable to see his face, only an outline. His body looks only slightly better than the last time I saw him—the night we made our pact. In his current form, he resembles a tall man draped in a dark aura with malnourished features. Although I can’t see them, my mind’s eye allows me to perceive his appearance wherever the shadowy fog isn’t focused. Until we meet again, Miss Ray.
“Wait—what? No! I’m not done ye—”
A rush of emotion overtakes me, warming my body as the darkness begins to grow around me. Pleasure, ecstasy, love, hate, anger, confusion—and then, his smile; clearly visible through the dark fog that covers his face.
My world turns black once again, but when I open my eyes, I find myself in the waking world with the rest of the living, dumbfounded as to what just happened.
I notice I’m on a cot and immediately attempt to sit my body upright, but a bolt of pain drives me back to the confines of my makeshift bed while I clutch my side.
Al, you suck.
“Hey, hey, hold on! You nearly died back there.” Damn it, it’s my ribs. Definitely bruised. I ignore the set of hands hovering above me and look to the bandages wrapped around my waist—tastefully red and glazed with my own blood. And I’m shirtless with only a bra covering my breasts. It doesn’t ease the awkwardness one bit that I know the person who’s by my side. If anything, it only makes it worse. “Hey! Are you listening? Don’t touch those!”
“How long have I been out?” I press my body against the cot and scan my unfamiliar surroundings. Just from this room I can tell it’s an abandoned building-turned-safe-house for hunters. Has to be impromptu…there’s no way they could be stationed around all this junk.
“Almost two days…but you’re safe now.” His eyes are soft but his voice doesn’t match. He’s skeptical, as anyone else would be given the situation.
“Anyone follow?”
“No.”
“Anything follow?”
“No. Me and the guys were sure to be extra cautious. We know how to do things over here.” He smiles, but this is hardly the time to be smiling. I’m having mixed feelings about life at the moment.
“Okay, well stop gawking and get me a shirt. I feel naked.” His cheeks redden, giving a crimson hue to his caramel complexion.
“Umm, yeah, sure. After we found you, we had you dressed but it got to be kind of difficult when changing your bandages so we jus—”
“Go,” I say flatly. He leaves the room and shuts the door behind him. I exhale a sigh of relief and shake my head. How did I get into this mess? Geez.
Another bolt of pain plagues my abdomen, sapping my strength. I couldn’t make a run for it even if I wanted to. Not with these ribs, the blood loss, or this head-splitting headache. I can’t even find my weapons. Guess I’m stuck here.
The door to my room opens and the hunter returns.
“Here you go; it’s all I could find on short notice. I’m sure you didn’t want to wear the same bloody get-up you had before, right?” In his hands, he tenderly holds an oversized white tee shirt. It looks horrible but it’s better than being interrogated in my bra.
“I don’t think I can put it on myself. Can you help me out?”
“Sure.” He places the shirt on the bed and carefully sits me up. I wince at the sudden movement even though he takes his time. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Keep going.”
Slowly, he places my body against the wall my cot lays against. “We knew you were hurt, but we didn’t know exactly how bad,” he says as he reaches for my shirt. “Moving you while you were unconscious could have ended badly, so we had to do the bare minimum until we were sure you were okay. After we cut into your shirt, we had to dress the wounds. We wanted to be as cautious as possible.” I say nothing as he lifts my back with his hand and slides the shirt over my head. “Can you get your arms through?” I can’t remember the last time I was so helpless, especially with Alfonse backing me—actually, I can, and I’d rather not think about it.
“I think so.” I start with my left arm. It hurts to lift it, but I push through. I go for the second one, but the pain hinders my movement. “Shit. Yeah, Blaze…this one is a no-go.” Blaze studies my face and scrunches his brow.
“Yeah, your shoulder was pretty banged up. Let me help.” He reaches into my oversized shirt and lightly guides my arm through the orifice. “There, better.”
“Hardly.” I begin to laugh, but my pain quickly silences me. “Did you guys manage to get the boy I told you about?”
“No. We searched the compound but only found you.”
They must have separated us.
“What about my weapons? Did you manage to get those?”
“No,” Blaze responds. “But even if we did, I couldn’t give them to you. Not until your story checks out. I need answers.”
“Answers, huh? You don’t trust me? Little ole’ Sailor?”
“That’s the wrong thing for you to be saying given the situation. The crew doesn’t know exactly what to think. They don’t have history with you like I do. You drop off the face of the Earth, and then I get a voicemail saying you’re alive and hunting. If I would have gotten a distress call a few days out—sure, but months? That’s a bit insane. Especially since everyone is dead from that hunt except you.”
“I wasn’t supposed to go,” I say coldly as I shift my head away from his eyes.
“I know. We fought about it…but you did, Sailor. And you never came back.” Blaze slightly adjusts his head to realign my eyes with his. “I’m the last person you should lie to. I’m on your side,” he says before pushing off my cot and distancing himself from me. Presumably out of respect after helping me get dressed.
Blaze is right. If I can trust anyone, it’s him.
Blaze and I met not long after I got involved in the wonderful world of hunting. With him being around the same age as me, he often had a way to connect with me that the older hunters never quite could. We were both young when we got involved and spent a majority of our adult life fighting battles we shouldn’t—me with my quest for revenge, him with his family.
Just like me, he was baptized by blood, forced to grow up earlier than he should have. A squadron of rogue vamps turned his family, and he escaped without being bit. Eventually, he mustered up the nerve to hunt his family. He hunted them, starting with his kid sister and ending with his dad. He made himself an orphan with his own two hands and lived in fear, alone, until he found others who knew what it meant to face the darkness. And just like the rest of us, hunting became his life.
Oh, yeah…and we dated.
“You’re right…I just wanted to make sure that I was safe before I reached out to anyone. That was the plan originally, but then things changed. I got a lead on the demons that killed my mom and dad. I bit off
more than I could chew, I admit…and then I got captured. They were running an operation on an experimental drug called Sphinx. It’s meant to…somehow aid demons in possession.” I scrunch my brows as the memory of me being injected slowly begins to infiltrate my mind. They injected me. Fuck. My gut stirs at the thought of the blue liquid coursing through my veins and my skin grows cold. Next was the dream. Alfonse touched me, and then I woke up. His strangely intoxicating smile flashes in my head and I clutch my temple. How is that even possible? Did that stuff let him gain control of me?
“Hey…Sailor? Sailor, what’s wrong?” Blaze asks, his hand waving in the air. “You kind of just went all fuzzy on me. Do I need to call someone in?” He takes a step closer to my bed, but I hold up an open palm, stopping him before he can touch me.
“No.” I shake my head before massaging my temple with my thumb and pointer finger. “No, I’m fine. It’s just…I got a little light headed out of nowhere, that’s all. A lot is going on, right now. I guess I need some more time to rest.”
“I understand. Don’t push yourself too hard. It’s miracle you survived after all you’ve been through. We’ll talk another time, but until then, you’ll be on lockdown. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Don’t try anything stupid. This room is guarded,” Blaze says before walking towards the only exit to the room that serves as my prison. “These guys aren’t too keen on taking chances.”
“Blaze.”
“Hmm?” He stops and turns around before he reaches the door.
“Thanks for waiting for me to wake up. I appreciate it.”
“No problem. You would have done the same for me,” he says with a smile before spinning on his heel.
“Wait…this building is warded, right? Like, strong wardings against demons and the like.”
“Of course. You don’t have to worry about anything coming in to get you. We’re safe, and besides, anything that values its life would be wise to stay away from a group of hunters. We’re pretty bad news, or so I’ve heard.” He grins.
Sailor Ray and the Dark Descent (The Pact Book 2) Page 2
