by SK Ryder
The murky shapes of overgrown vegetation pressed around them and half-buried a narrow, two-story house. The last streetlamp stood at the lane’s mouth, and the only light in the immediate vicinity seeped through a crack between boards nailed across a downstairs window. The weak glow revealed a decrepit porch and weed-choked stairs. Moldy decay hung in the muggy air like the scent of homeless ghosts.
“Where are we?”
Arie turned to her with an amiable smile. “We’re here, sweetheart.”
“Where the last victim died?” She looked around. A short, dead-end lane, lined with other homes or sheds—she couldn’t be sure in the darkness. No signs of life. “No one heard her scream?”
“They don’t scream. They moan.”
“Really? That’s . . . odd.” Odd, too, how disoriented she felt with every nerve suddenly standing on end for no reason she could name. Though she thought that she ought to.
“Come. Let me show you.”
She hesitated, but took his offered hand. He guided her up the two creaking steps, kicking aside a roosting chicken, when the front door opened and a rangy silhouette appeared.
“Took you long enough. Not only the sorriest tits in the whole place tonight, but you make me wait for it on top of it. My junk’s like a rock, man.”
Cassidy’s jaw dropped. Arie, however, didn’t look at all surprised to find his nephew at a crime scene and copping an attitude to boot. He tucked her hand into his elbow as though preparing to shepherd her down a garden path.
“And you are disobeying my orders by keeping that light on.”
“Just ’cause you can see in the fucking dark, don’t mean I can.”
A hard edge slid into Arie’s tone. “Don’t make me regret you.”
Zack’s mouth snapped shut on whatever other grievances he might have had. He stepped aside, glowering, as Arie escorted Cassidy through the door, tugging her a little when her feet became reluctant. The young man’s eyes, burning fever bright, bored into her at close range. He reeked of sweat and greasy hair, and the bite she had left on his lip still oozed a little. Blood smeared the threadbare gray T-shirt hanging limp on his sparse frame.
Unease welled deep inside Cassidy, trying to push past dense walls of confusion. She didn’t know where she was, and wasn’t even sure why she was there. Impressions jumbled around her head with no meanings attached, like figments of a dream . . .
Of course. Another dream. She was still back at the hotel, and nothing here was real—regardless of how realistically it stank of rot and stale urine. She closed her eyes and forced herself to relax, trying to transport herself to the cool, clean mountainside. But when she looked again, squalor still surrounded her. Just ducky. Jackson’s already been by. Wonder when Dominic’s gonna show up.
A single battery-powered camping lantern teetered on a sagging cardboard box and illuminated the narrow, cramped interior. The remnants of countless takeout meals lay scattered together with dog-eared magazines featuring large-breasted women in provocative poses on the covers. The thin mattress in the middle of the floor gave her pause, marked as it was with ugly dark stains.
Zack slammed the door behind them. “Small tits, brunette, and she bites. You know that’s not what I like.”
Arie inclined his head as he looked her up and down, assessing. Something was different about him, though she couldn’t quite decide what. “She is what I want tonight,” he said as though speaking to himself. “Her spirit is strong, and her scent is . . . extraordinary.”
“Oh, fuck you, man. Scent. Who gives a shit if there ain’t no tits?”
The words didn’t register with her so much as the angry frustration they carried. A shiver ran through her at the notion that something might be wrong, and that maybe she ought to pay more attention. But her thoughts were spinning their wheels in a mud hole.
Arie leaned in to slide his large nose along her jaw, inhaling. She flinched but otherwise remained rooted to the spot. Not because he restrained her, but because her legs simply wouldn’t obey her commands. Apprehension wormed through her stomach. Only a dream, she told herself. Creepy but harmless.
“She is ambrosia,” he murmured. “Ripe and warm with lime spice and chocolate sweetness, and . . . ah, yes. I thought so.” He stepped back to look at her, gaze narrowed with speculation. He didn’t wear his glasses anymore, and his eyes . . . Her head whirled. She’d seen that hyper-dilated look before. Somewhere.
“Interesting.” He poked a finger hard under her chin, lifting it, and she tripped back right up against a wall. She winced when he rubbed a thumb over the remnants of the bruise she kept so carefully covered with makeup.
Zack came up behind him. “Motherfucker. Is that what I think it is? How is that even fucking possible?”
“It’s old news, and not local. She’s a reporter from Orchard Beach, didn’t you say, sweetheart? Colorado before that?”
She muffled an affirmative, and he released her to sag against the wall. She couldn’t look away from those bottomless eyes. It was like being sucked into an abyss.
Arie’s mouth curved into a thin, hard smirk. Some of his teeth looked a little longer and sharper than they should be. “Are you ready, sweetheart?” He held out his hand to her, and she took it without making any conscious decision to do so. Her bag slid off her shoulder and thumped to the floor.
“F-for what?”
“To learn how they died. What they felt. For your story.”
Yes. Yes, of course she wanted to know. She had to. For the scoop.
She also wanted to throw up as he led her to the soiled mattress.
Zack cackled like a manic clown.
Then the room spun around her and she lay crushed against Arie’s barrel chest. Something wasn’t right. She tried to struggle, but her limbs felt heavy and stiff like useless dead things against those massive arms, thick as tree branches and just as unyielding. He even smelled of trees. She closed her eyes to float in a forest of evergreens on a hot, dry day.
“Don’t be so stubborn, sweetheart. Relax,” Arie purred. “Enjoy.”
She twitched, torn between surrendering to the sensual promises whispering through her body and the ice spreading in her gut.
“I’ll be with you to the end.” He nuzzled against her neck.
Silly to resist. He was her friend after all. She sighed.
Then a breath of stale beer brushed her face and withered the evergreens. Hard hands groped beneath her dress, tore at her underwear. Brutal fingers dug into her flesh. Memories crashed over her. Two years ago, a deserted path on campus, two men, reeking of beer, holding her, pawing at her, tearing at her clothes . . .
“She is mine,” said a new voice. A familiar voice.
The mental fog thinned a bit. She would die here, she suddenly realized. A wave of nausea surged up her throat.
“What the fuck—”
“Shut up,” Arie snapped.
Her assailants stood over her where she lay sprawled across the foul mattress. The boy had his hand on the fly of his jeans. Arie gripped his arm, restraining him. Neither one of them looked at her.
Cassidy scrambled to uncooperative legs, scanning the room for a way out. Plenty of windows, but all boarded up. Another door. She lunged for it, found it locked. She threw herself against it, bounced off, stumbled in a pile of garbage, panting. Panic. She should be feeling panic tearing her up. But only her logical mind told her she had to get away and fast, any way she could. Otherwise she’d be the next slashed throat washing up on a beach somewhere.
Drugs. The son of a bitch drugged me. How could I’ve been so stupid?
“Holy . . . shit.”
She whirled, wide-eyed, ready for anything—anything but this. A column of black leather stood inside the door. Cassidy almost laughed, hysteria rippling in the back o
f her throat. A dream. Only a dream. A crazy, freaking nightmare of a dream.
Arie pushed Zack in her direction. The boy took a hold of her arm. She hardly noticed.
“Dominic Marchant. What a rude surprise. You might have knocked.” When there was no immediate response, Arie chuckled. “Yes, I know you, pup. Your reputation precedes you.”
“You have something of mine,” Dominic said, sounding almost bored.
Arie glanced at Cassidy. “Yes, I thought I smelled someone’s punk in that. Impressive. For a pup. It seems everything your esteemed sire says of you is true.”
“Do you believe everything said by madmen?”
Malevolence split his face in a brilliant sneer. “You still live because I believe this madman.”
“Truly.” Something between a sneer and a yawn. “Magnifique.”
With that, Dominic stepped into the room. A strange amusement lit Arie’s face as he watched the taller, younger man stalk past like a great black cat claiming territory. The boot heels thumped a slow, dispassionate rhythm against the floorboards, the leather clothing creaked, and the ornate hilts of the dragon swords protruded over his shoulders, one on each side. Lantern light struck blue highlights in his haphazard hair.
He stopped to look at her, expressionless, his eyes pools of black ink in the snow of his face. She couldn’t have said how, but she could feel his entire body thrum with leashed energy.
“Dominic?” It was him. And it wasn’t. She had never dreamt of him like this before. He always made an impression in life as well as in dreams, but now . . . now he took her breath away.
Zack dropped her wrist and took several uncertain steps back. “What the fuck, Arie? This guy a friend of yours or what?”
“Well, now. That all depends on how far he feels like pushing his luck tonight. Won’t it Dominic? Or should I say . . . Nico?”
Dominic gently grasped Cassidy’s chin. The tingle racing along her jaw and down the back of her neck made her shudder.
Do not fear, Cassidy. No matter what happens.
The words were as clear as though he spoke them aloud, soothing and irresistible. But she heard something beneath them as well. The mask of his face had slipped for an instant, revealing an abyss of nameless terror.
“Get me out of this nightmare,” she croaked, tears welling.
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Zack mocked. “So you guys sharing?”
“I don’t share,” Arie said with no small contempt.
Trust me, Dominic’s voice whispered again. Then he let go of her and turned to the other man. “Nor do I. She is mine.”
Not what Arie wanted to hear. His mood darkened considerably. “You don’t seriously expect me to let an upstart youngling walk away with this morsel, do you? Out of the generosity of my silent heart perhaps?”
“Oh, fuck no,” Zack declared with such vehemence Cassidy flinched.
Dominic held out his hand and she grabbed it as though diving for a lifeline. His fingers closed hard around hers.
“You will let me walk away with her because you do not want to explain to him what happened to me if you don’t.”
“Oh, I won’t have to. You’re leaving. Alone. I suggest you take that offer. I won’t make it again.” The tone brooked no argument.
“Hell, yeah,” the boy confirmed, and Cassidy clenched a fist with the urge to punch him just to shut him up already.
A tremor raced through Dominic’s fingers in her other hand. No fear. Her nerves bristled with the knowledge that he tried to convince himself as well as her. But when he spoke, he sounded in complete control, his voice a dark, fluid vibration in the sultry air. “You will not stop me. You will forget about her. You will forget you ever saw me.”
Arie’s eyes narrowed into black slits. “You . . . arrogant . . . little . . . mongrel. Do you even know who you are insulting?” He paused a beat before finishing in a thunderous roar. “I don’t give a shit who your sire is. I’ve put pups like you down in every age since the reign of Nero and you will be no exception.”
Fear. It stabbed through Cassidy like a hot, jagged knife. She flinched toward Dominic, cleaving to his side. But instead of gathering her close and protecting her from this mad dream, he shoved her away so hard she went sprawling to the filthy floor.
“Son of a bitch,” she cried, not sure what hurt more—the jarring impact or the betrayal by a supposed friend when she needed him most. Again!
Dominic leaned toward Arie, his arms wide in invitation. “Then come—”
Arie morphed into a flash of yellow, streaked across the room, past the place where Dominic had been, then continued on to the back of the room and straight through the wall in a deafening crash. Dominic stood where he had before.
Cassidy stared at him, glanced at the hole in the wall. Pieces of wood and chunks of plaster clattered in the swirling cloud of dust. “What—?”
“Oh, you’re so dead, man,” Zack said, shaking stringy hair out of his eyes. “Shoulda run when you had the chance.”
Ignoring these dire predictions, Dominic kept his gaze trained on the hole as he slung the swords off his back in a surreal blur of movement. The steel blades hissed lethal promises as they unsheathed. The scabbards rattled to the floor, kicked aside. Light flashed along the razor-sharp edges that whirled, hummed, and moved into position, crossed low in front of him.
Very calmly he said, “Come and get me, old man.”
Wind rushed through the room, kicking up the debris in a swirl of motion. On the room’s far end, though, there was nothing but the hole in the wall. A thump, the swish of sword blades, a grunt, a sharp cry of pain. Cassidy spun on a heel and stared, slack-jawed and uncomprehending, at the fantastical scene of Dominic stuck halfway up the wall. His paper white face twisted in a hideous grimace.
It took her several seconds to understand that what kept him pinned up there were his own swords. Both their hilts protruded from his chest.
The boy reeking of lust and refuse laughed. “Told ya, you shoulda run.”
Rage and pain tore through Dominic. He’d let his own terror render him blind to the true extent of the threat posed by the ancient Roman. All because of Serge and his inane babbling. He should have killed that delusional old fool then and there on the roof and been done with him. Now he certainly would never get the chance. The price for that mistake would be his life.
And Cassidy’s.
Arie sneered at him. “Stupid child.”
Dominic slammed his hands and heels into the wall for purchase and arched his back against the hand guards. Every movement sliced more lung, flesh and bone even as the wounds tried to heal around the cold, sharp steel planted to either side of his frantic heart. Hitting the heart would have been a mercy. It wouldn’t have killed him, but the blood loss would have rendered him unconscious—and of little entertainment value.
A cry of agonized frustration ripped from his throat.
“No. Stop this, please.” Her voice, so soft and human, wrapped around him, calming him. She rushed closer, stared up at him, wide-eyed with confusion and shock. “How the hell . . . Oh, my God, Dominic . . .”
No, this wasn’t how he wanted her to find out about him. But at least no scent of fear hovered about her. Only outrage. He tasted blood in his mouth, felt it flow from his nose. He tried to smile for her and failed. She didn’t believe this was real. Like the sweet kiss in her bed, this, too, was merely a dream.
And in her dream, her hands wrapped around the hilts of the swords—and stopped. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Pull, Cassidy,” he whispered. “Pull them out.” Not that he truly believed she could. Or that Arie would let her. No matter. He’d take any chance he could to save her life right now, no matter how remote.
She dropped her hands. “I can’t. I could kill
you. Stay still. I’ll have to call 911.”
Arie tossed back his head and boomed with laughter. “Sweetheart, you really have no idea what you are trying to free, do you?” He appeared all too eager to explain.
Dominic growled a warning.
“Geeze. You don’t know when to quit, do you?” the boy chided.
Cassidy took a step back.
“Non,” Dominic said quickly. “I am sorry, Cassidy, mon amour. So sorry I brought you into this.” He swallowed a gob of blood, coughed. “So sorry . . . that I cannot save you. Forgive me. I beg you.”
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“I hope you never will.”
“Someone hand me a fucking box of tissue,” the boy scoffed.
Aurelius cast his minion a disapproving look before crossing his arms and leaning against a wall. He looked composed and thoughtful in spite of his now disheveled appearance. His bright shirt was un-tucked, one sleeve hanging by a shred. A hole gaped at the knee of his slacks and both shoes were gone. Thick hair stood on end around his brutish face.
“This human means that much to you? You would give your life for hers?”
“Oui.” No hesitation.
“What?” Cassidy squeaked, looking between them. “No. No, this is crazy. What are you talking about?”
The ancient one ignored her. “Well, I won’t ask your life, pup. But I will demand your loyalty and obedience until such time as I can deliver you back to your sire, who . . . will be most grateful.”
Dominic couldn’t suppress the tremor crawling in his flesh. Death. He wanted death. Not hell at the hands of the creature that had sired him. But even this would not be too high a price for her life. “And she walks free.”
