Scarlet Dusk

by Megan J. Parker

  Isaac, like Raith, was wearing simple street clothes for the ease of transforming when the time called for it, and, like Zane, he was impatient. He’d initially refused the request to help them track down Maledictus, taking Zoey’s hand in his and telling them he wouldn’t leave her side for anything until she woke up. Both Zane and Raith—having their own lover to weigh their situations against—couldn’t argue with the loyal therion’s convictions, but they’d known that they needed as many on their side as they could get, and the few Vail warriors they’d been able to muster weren’t going to be enough. It had been Raith, having an understanding of both Zane’s desperation and Isaac’s focus on Zoey’s wellbeing, to convince him.

  “Serena is the most powerful psychic this clan has,” he’d said, “Second only to Zoey. If anybody could get through whatever was clouding her mind and bring her back, it’s her.”

  Sighing impatiently, Isaac glared at the others. “We gonna take all night, or are we going to kick some ass?”

  Zane couldn’t help but smirk at that as he slipped his favorite katana into a sheathe on his back. “I’m with Dick-zilla, guys! Let’s get a move on!”

  It was just after four in the morning when Zane’s entourage—two non-matching cars and Isaac on his motorcycle—took to the streets and started towards Sacred Gates, what had once been an asylum for the psychotic and criminally insane. Back when the Gates had been open, psychiatry had been more of a series of torturous experiments and counterproductive practices that typically did more harm than good. As time passed and studies into psychotherapy advanced beyond scheduling near-drowning sessions or drilling holes into patients’ skulls, the treatments that the doctors at Sacred Gates began to fall under scrutiny. As more and more media attention fell on the hospital and more and more people began protesting the inhumane treatment of their patients, the Gates found themselves forced to hide most of the horror stories they’d created before everyone working there faced criminal charges. Many doctors had reportedly killed themselves on Sacred grounds, while others suffered nervous breakdowns that moved them from the staff files to those of the patients. Several reports of a few patients who’d only suffered of minor mental afflictions being killed to keep what they’d seen quiet bubbled to the public’s attention, and, practically overnight, Sacred Gates was turned into a vacant site that served as nothing more than a reminder of far too many horror stories.

  Ever since then, the unholy gates of Sacred Gates Asylum were locked to the public.

  The property, being as massive as it was, represented too great a financial burden to simply destroy, and any hopes of selling the land were soon after dashed when a prospective buyer learned of the history. Even those without superstitious reservations felt unnerved with the idea of having any investment in a place with such a terrible history. As the years passed, the building—like the stories it contained—faded into a sweet oblivion; falling victim to disrepair and neglect and, though fewer chose to admit it, shame—the sheer abundance of dark energies that had been pounded and saturated and shocked and drilled into the very foundation turning it into a festering place of self-destructive magic cast by an unknowing many.

  Zane, riding shotgun next to Raith in a dark blue SUV, pulled back the slide on his pistol—feeding a round from the clip into the chamber—before setting the safety and holstering it before beginning with the next gun.

  “Are those going to do you any good if Maledictus can now move in overdrive, as well?” Nikki leaned in from the back seat.

  Zane shook his head, but still worked to load the second gun. “Probably not, but I’ve seen enough zombie movies to know that having lots of guns is never a bad thing.”

  Raith rolled his eyes, “I’d like to go on record and point out that at no point did I ever say there would be zombies.”

  Zane shrugged, drawing back the slide and letting it slap back into place. “No, you didn’t. But he said that he can bring the dead back to life; that is to say that he can control a bunch of walking dead people, right?”

  Nobody answered.

  Zane holstered the other gun and sighed, “Right?”

  Nikki chuckled, “Well, sure, but that doesn’t mean—”

  “I rest my case,” Zane crossed his arms in front of his chest and watched as they pulled into the run-down parking lot of the once the proud Sacred Gates. “And remember: shoot ‘em in the head.”

  Raith sighed, “Damn you, Romero!”

  Zane led the team of nine—himself, Isaac and Raith, Nikki, four of the Vail clan’s warriors, and, though he still wasn’t quite sure why, Celine—around to the front of the building.

  “Yea… he’s definitely in there; I can sense him!” Zane paused and looked back, “What are the chances he hasn’t noticed us yet?”

  Nikki scoffed, “Are you serious?”

  Raith frowned and shook his head, “Not that I agree with her means of response, Zane, I’ve got to agree with her on this one.”

  Zane rolled his eyes, “Uh huh, I’m sure if it has nothing to do with your history.”

  Raith sighed, “I can say with confidence, old friend, that even if you were fucking me I’d still have to agree with Nikki on this one; there’s no chance Maledictus hasn’t noticed two cars and an extremely loud motorcycle”—he shot Isaac a glare—“pulling into his hideout.”

  Isaac cursed under his breath.

  Zane did the same. While he’d certainly been hoping for stealth, he also knew better than to expect it. After letting another stream of vulgarity fly under his breath, he nodded—more to himself than the others—and signaled them to enter, falling back long enough to step in beside Raith.

  “Just for the record, buddy, I wouldn’t fuck you if you were the last warm hole on Earth.”

  Raith chuckled, “I’ll just have to try and contain my heartache ‘til this is over, I guess.”

  MALEDICTUS ROARED AND SLAMMED DOWN THE HALL. The previous night, coming back from all the hell of Zane and his buddy-bunch dropping an entire wood chipping plant on top of him and then having to deal with the cops—that damned marine!—and the firefighters, he’d found Serena struggling to escape. In his haste to get out and lure Zane away from his lair, he hadn’t bothered to check Serena’s cell. As it turned out, the warped doorframe that he’d been slammed into—the foundation and source of the enchantment he’d placed on the room to keep her locked in—hadn’t closed properly, and, as a result, the spell had never reset. By the time he’d gotten back, the blonde vampire—though rendered as weak as a human from starvation—had nearly ripped her binds from the wall.

  If he’d showed up ten minutes later…

  Enraged at the events he’d endured and the discovery of his soon-to-be bride trying to get back to the one thing he hated most in the world, he’d gone a bit overboard with forcing her into a new room and recasting the containment spell on the new cell; testing the crippling shock spell on Serena until her hair started to fizzle and burn.

  Fuck it, he’d thought as he kept the current passing through the shrieking blonde vampire until he’d had his fill, I’ve always preferred short hair, anyway.

  Now, however—even in hindsight to the torture he’d put her through the night before—it suddenly didn’t seem like enough.

  Roaring, he hauled back and kicked through the new door, the aged and unused hinges screaming from the strain and startling Serena, who instantly began to shiver at the sight of him. Maledictus, still growling, cleared the distance between them in two massive steps and dragged her to her feet.

  “You called to them, didn’t you; used one of your insipid mind tricks to tell them where you are, didn’t you? Deceitful, fucking slag! I should’ve lobotomized you the moment I dropped your disgusting carcass in here! You’re mine—MINE!—and until you realize and accept this I will be certain to rip everyone who tries to claim you to pieces and shit on what’s left!”

  Serena stared at him—confusion and fear dulling her eyes until she realized why he was so angry—and
, mustering some hidden reserve of strength, she smirked at him. “Oh? I didn’t have to contact anybody, komodo-cock! I’m sure they could smell your scaly crotch-rot the next town over”—she spit in his face—“and now that they’ve found me, we’ll see who’s shitting on who! If I know Zane—and, trust me, I do—he’ll have—”

  Maledictus slammed a fist through the wall a few inches from Serena’s head, cutting her rant off and causing her to flinch. “DO YOU FORGET WHO KNOWS HIM BEST, YOU FERMETED TWAT-SCAB?” he snickered and shook his head, holding out his arms in a mock-crucifixion pose. “Your little boyfriend and I were one and the same until recently.” He raked his elongated pinky talon—which, in the process of the previous night’s “renovations,” he’d allowed to grow to just over eight inches; keeping his other claws at only two—just beneath her chin and pushed up just enough to draw a bead of blood. Her whimper motivated an excited shiver from him, and his tongue snaked out and threatened to graze her cheek, “And if I know him—and, trust me, I do!—he’ll be too busy cowering in my shadow to offer you even the slightest thought!” He scoffed and shook his head, turning away, “When I get back, buttercup baby, I’ll be wearing your friends’ skins as a robe and Zane’s head as a new codpiece. Perhaps you’ll be more compliant towards behaving as the slut we know you to be once you see his dead eyes gazing up at you from my loins!”

  With that, he slammed the door, making sure to check the seal on it twice.

  They’d barely made it halfway through the main entrance before the stink of rot dropped the entire group to their knees. In a single step, the sheer density of the putrid odor overwhelmed their senses, seeming to swallow all the air in their lungs and refusing to let any fresh air in to dissipate it. As they squirmed and fought for air—one of the warriors and Celine trying to crawl back for the door in hopes of reversing the effects by reversing the direction—Nikki, grimacing and forcing herself to take slow, steady breaths, rose to her feet. Seeing this, the others stared, unable to speak, and pleaded with their teary eyes for the secret that was allowing her to breathe.

  “Re-relax…” she said, seeming to grow more comfortable with the air with every passing second. “It’s a trick; a sensory illusion. The Leiche is trying to—hey, no!” she hurried towards the center of the group, where one of the warriors—Charles, an auric with an affinity for psychology and auric manipulations of psychotic minds who Zane had hoped would prove a valuable asset on this mission—had begun to panic. “Stop! Stop it! Get a grip! It’s in your mi—AGH!”

  Charles’ frantic mind started lashing out, and though Zane couldn’t see his aura he couldn’t deny the effects it was having; the closest warriors to him suddenly flying in every direction as the wave hurled them back.

  Raith, seeing Nikki get flung across the room, was the first to get control of his senses—suddenly filling his lungs with air and letting out an enraged howl—as his body began to change. Still howling, Zane saw his friend’s jaw dislocate and roll about as his muscles reformed and took new shape before yanking his jaw—now jutting several inches past his upper lip—back into place; his skull warping and reshaping around the misshapen lower-half. Though the transformation was causing his arms and legs to break and reform, Raith was still able to scramble to his feet and begin a long-winded sprint as he took either side of his yellow, button-up shirt into his hands—a human left and a therion right—and ripping the material from his body. With his back to Zane, the still heaving vampire could see his friend’s spine rolling and reforming under his already sweat-drenched back. The howl continued to roll from Raith’s bestial throat, the sound echoing down the halls and throughout the asylum, as the change completed in time for him to spring into the air and catch Nikki in midair and snag hold of an old, dusty chandelier.

  Zane struggled to stand, repeating to himself that the air was breathable and, with each cycle of the mantra, finding the stench less and less foreboding until he couldn’t smell anything. Satisfied that he was no longer under the manipulation, he gave Nikki—still clutched in her therion lover’s arms—a quick once-over; though her magic and combat made her a valuable ally, she was, at least in body, still human. While something like being struck by an auric wave might’ve been a painful, if not crippling ordeal, with somebody like her it was very much a fatal risk. Spotting a trail of blood traveling down the dusty crystal segments, Zane shifted his gaze upward and spotted one of the warriors impaled on one of the spires adorning the side of the fixture.

  “Oh no…” Zane bit his lip.

  So much for non-lethal…

  Looking back at the group, where Charles’ renegade aura continued its onslaught. Isaac, not far from the panicking auric, had also transformed into his therion form to anchor himself to the floor with his claws. Though he looked strained and was clearly struggling with his own mental uprising against Maledictus’ illusion, Zane could see that—with the auric whirlwind dying down—he had himself handled and knew better than to the proud therion by asking. Past Isaac, already suffocated by the illusion, was the bug-eyed body of Charles; a thick, bloody foam beginning to creep from his gaping mouth and nostrils. The others that had been caught in the chaos, except for the one who had met his end on the chandelier, lay dead, having, like Charles, succumbed to the suffocating illusion.

  “Jesus-fucking-Christ…” Zane groaned, looking around the room. “Barely in and the shit’s already hit the fan.”

  “Ma-maybe… maybe we should go; let’s just go!” pleaded Celine, who was still wheezing with every breath as she wavered beside the warrior, an auric combat specialist, who’d tried retreating towards the door with her when the illusion had struck them.

  Zane ignored her, and instead focused on the auric beside her. Though he was young—both in appearance and in years—he wore a great deal of scarring on his face and neck, the left side of his jaw somewhat offset by some prior injury that hadn’t quite healed right. Past this, however, Zane saw a maturity and rigidity in his posture and in his expression that gave away his maturity. His light-brown hair was short and even, a traditional and nondescript style that left his stoic features and wise eyes to hint towards the sort of person he was.

  Something about this young auric vampire demanded respect.

  “You hurt?” Zane asked.

  The auric shook his head.

  “Did you keep her safe during all that?” he nodded towards Celine.

  The auric nodded.

  Zane fought the urge to roll his eyes, then felt suddenly guilty for it. “Good to go then?”

  Another nod.

  Seeing a pattern, Zane raised an eyebrow, “Can you speak?”

  Not out loud, sir, the auric’s voice chimed in his head, and, from the way the others around him shifted, he could tell everyone could “hear” him. Therion crime lord tore my tongue out when I was on assignment.

  “Yeesh,” Zane frowned and looked back at Isaac, who stood not far between them, and Raith, who finally let go of the chandelier and set Nikki on her feet. “You gonna be alright working with these two? I don’t need some checkered history with their kind impacting your willingness to—”

  If I may be so bold, sir, I’d like to admit a lie.

  Zane raised an eyebrow, “Oh?”

  It wasn’t a therion that took my tongue, sir. It was you—well, that thing that was inside you.

  Zane stared. For a long moment he couldn’t bring himself to respond, unsure of even how to respond to such a confession. Finally, knowing that he still had the mission ahead of him and a team to lead, he sighed and nodded. “Not that it’ll make much of a difference, but I’m sorry. And I’m sorry I don’t remember… all that. If you don’t want to continue—”

  If I may be so bold yet again, sir; I was aware of the details of this assignment when I agreed to suit up. I knew who we were going after, and I knew who would be leading us.

  Zane felt himself smile at that. “You going to be alright taking orders then?

  The auric gave the first hi
nt of a smile. To be blunt, sir, I wouldn’t trust anybody else with leading me into taking my revenge on this twisted shit.

  “I like your style, kid,” Zane offered, “What’s your name?”

  Michael Johnson, but my friends all call me ‘Long-John Silver.’

  Raith and Isaac both let out a set of stifled chuckles that sounded like dogs choking on a Milk-Bone.

  Zane fought the urge to laugh with them. “Why in the hell would they call you that?”

  Michael laughed, a strange-yet-musical sound coming from a mouth with no tongue. I came in second place holding my breath in training.

  “That,” Zane chuckled and nodded, “is probably the coolest nickname story I’ve ever heard.” He nodded towards Celine, “Probably helped to keep her in one piece, too, didn’t it?”

  Michael nodded.

  Zane nodded back and looked at Celine, “You owe that kid your life.”

  Celine didn’t offer any response.

  Zane rolled his eyes and turned away. “Now the only question is—”

  Looks like a certain crusty nutsack and his pube-posse have gone and tracked me down! Maledictus cackled in his head, causing him to double over in shock and agony. Like my little trick, Zaney-boy? I appreciate you bringing all the added backup for me to twist and mangle—kinda like the red shirts from Star Trek, right?

  Zane growled, shaking with rage, “You bastard! Those were warriors! They had—”

  Blah blah blah. Spare me your inflated conscience; you just got through having a tender moment with somebody covered in evidence in what we did to him—poor fucker can’t even talk because of us!—and you want to spout about how important each one of those warriors were? The only reason I’m sad to see them go so easy is knowing that the numbers just got whittled down to you fucking clowns. Still… WHOO! Who knew that a head-shrinker auric would go ballistic and… well, look who I’m telling; you were there! Maledictus’ auditory cackles echoed about the building, bringing all the warriors to square themselves against any possible attacks.