The Possession

by Jennifer Armintrout

  “Fuck,” he repeated, pinching the bridge of his bloodied nose with his thumb and index finger. The digits protruded from a fingerless black glove and were marked with bad, homemade tattoos.

  “Hi. I had some car trouble. You got a phone in there?” I smiled, hoping I could squeak by before his head injury cleared up and he remembered he was supposed to be invisible.

  “No, there ain’t no phone,” he growled, but his demeanor changed instantly as he dragged his gaze from my shoes to my legs and parts farther north. “Somebody musta forgot to pay the bill.”

  When he laughed, it sounded like dirty bubbles popping in his throat. He smiled—I guess I was supposed to find the expression charming—and displayed broken, rotted teeth. His dirty hair hung down beneath a ratty bandanna, but he looked as though he honestly believed I found him attractive.

  “Oh, darn.” I eased my hands into my back pockets, my fingers closing on the stake. I waited for the moment when he would realize something was amiss. When he was wrapped up in his confusion, I would strike.

  It didn’t take as long as I expected. No sooner had I spoken than his brow wrinkled and his eyes narrowed. “Wait a minute, you’re not supposed to—”

  I lunged forward, bringing the stake down hard so it would penetrate his sternum. The impact vibrated up my arm, shaking my bones painfully, but I’d hit my mark. He didn’t have time to scream before he burned.

  Good thing, too, I thought as I rubbed my elbow. I wasn’t exactly in fighting shape.

  It seemed too gutsy to burst through the front door. Besides, they’d spray-painted a huge, complicated mark on it, and I had the sneaking suspicion it might be another spell-type thing to keep out, or alert them to, intruders. I walked around the side of the building, where no lights indicated the presence of the Fangs.

  A side door, carelessly left unlocked, opened to a dark room. I would never accuse the Fangs of being an intellectual organization. It took me a minute to recognize it was a kitchen. My gaze fell on the empty sink. If Cyrus was human, they either weren’t feeding him or they were diligently doing the dishes.

  I was feeling pretty confident as I crossed to the door opposite me. Then it opened, and in stepped the ugliest vampire I’d ever seen.

  I think she was a woman, but I didn’t have time to ask before she grabbed a butcher knife from the counter and hurled it at me. I dodged it, whirling toward the huge commercial gas stove. I grabbed one of the cast-iron burner plates and hurled it at her. She knocked it out of the air with a swipe of her huge forearm, and kept advancing.

  Retrieving the stake from my pocket, I braced myself in a ready stance. But she didn’t attack me the way I thought she would, with full physical contact. Instead, she lunged, grabbed a handful of my hair and jerked me upward.

  Plenty of experience with battered women in the E.R. had taught me a valuable piece of combat knowledge: Never let your hair go where your body doesn’t. Once the scalp was pulled free of the skull, it didn’t grow back easily. I wasn’t willing to chance it, so I stopped struggling, dropped the stake and clamped both my hands on my head as she hauled me over the top of the stove. With an expression of clinical disinterest, she flicked the dials and ignited the burners.

  Pain exploded in my back as my flimsy T-shirt caught fire and seared my skin. Screaming, I kicked my feet, grappling for footing as I lay horizontal on the stove. I managed to hook my heels over the lip of the counter and arch upward, breaking free just long enough to get out of the range of the flames.

  Though I was clear of the burners, I was still on fire. I dropped to the ground and rolled on the shockingly cold tiles, yelping in agony as my charred T-shirt separated from the skin beneath.

  The vampire made another lunge for me as I rolled to my feet. I sidestepped her, and her miss proved to be my window of opportunity. I snatched the stake from the floor and caught her between the ribs as she rounded for another pass.

  Her face contorted in disbelief as flames traveled up her body. She clenched my arm, my hand still locked on the stake, in a death grip, as though the simple action would be enough to drag me into hell with her. Then her hand disintegrated into ash and I tumbled backward onto my burned elbows.

  With all the noise we’d made, I expected the room to flood with angry biker vampires. When it didn’t seem that would happen, I climbed to my feet and shrugged off the burned remains of my T-shirt.

  Of course, I couldn’t have worn a decent-looking bra.

  Why does it matter what you’re wearing when you find him? my all too insightful brain asked accusingly. And don’t let the fact you’ve probably got third-degree burns bother you more than your appearance, or anything.

  Shaking my head as though I could knock the thoughts loose, I stepped cautiously through the kitchen door, into a wide hall. The floor bowed out to accommodate a curved inner wall. I’d never been a faithful churchgoer, but I knew enough to guess the room beyond the wall would be the important one. As I advanced along the curving hallway, the large, double doors of the main entrance came into view, along with the set of doors leading into the church proper. Another chalked-on sigil marked the latter. Beyond them, the muffled sound of music didn’t disguise angry voices.

  No wonder the vampires hadn’t heard the struggle in the kitchen. I pressed my ear to the wood, avoiding the chalk marking, to eavesdrop.

  “Where the hell is Angie? The glamour’s not going to hold much longer if she doesn’t get her ass back to the circle,” an agitated male voice warned.

  “She’ll come back,” a calmer female replied. “She’s probably checking on the guy.”

  The guy. That could only mean Cyrus. My heart pounded wildly in my chest. That someone else acknowledged his presence made my job suddenly too real.

  “If she’s not back in five minutes, I’m going after her,” the male vampire declared. His footsteps thundered closer to the door than I found comfortable.

  I backed away, glancing around for some way to secure the doors from the outside. A row of chairs was lined up waiting-room style beside a rack of pamphlets about natural family planning and how to pray the rosary. I grabbed the nearest chair and lifted it off the floor so its legs wouldn’t make a sound. With held breath, I eased the flat back beneath the door handles and slid it up until the rear legs were wedged against the carpet. It wouldn’t hold them indefinitely, but it would give them some trouble, if I was lucky.

  Down the hall a little way I found another door. This one was plain wood, with rough edges and a flimsy doorknob. I tried the handle and found it unlocked.

  Does no one care about security these days?

  A set of stairs led down into a dark basement that, at first glance, appeared to be empty. My foot was on the second step when the rhythmic creak of bedsprings stopped me.

  A woman gasped and a man groaned in the darkness. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. I recognized that male sound.

  I guess Angie was “checking” on him, after all. Unexpected jealousy burned in my stomach. I blamed it on the sputtering blood tie between us, and the fact I hadn’t exactly planned to walk in on him mid-coitus.

  I flattened myself against the wall, praying I was out of sight of the bed, wherever that was. Charging down the steps and starting a fight would only get me killed, especially considering this Angie person apparently had something to do with the spell cloaking the place. I’d had plenty of run-ins with witches—well, at least one—and I didn’t feel like taking my chances with another.

  It seemed like forever before they were finished, probably because of the awkwardness and embarrassment of the situation. I started to wonder how much time had passed, and if the vampires upstairs would come looking for Angie. I hadn’t heard any pounding on the doors yet, but I might have mistaken it for the pounding of the bed against the floor. They were really going for it downstairs.

  Finally, their ecstatic noises ceased, and the bed creaked as Angie climbed from it. “I’ll be in the bathroom.”

  I fo
und it strange that a vampire with the power to make an entire building vanish into ruin would speak with such timidity to Cyrus, human or vampire. Then again, mortal terror of his dear old daddy probably inspired unusual reserve in most of his followers.

  I heard Cyrus’s sigh of contentment over the rustle of sheets as he arranged himself on the bed. A pang of longing speared through me, the exact feeling someone would get watching the ex they dumped shopping happily for china patterns with his new love. You can put the vampire into the human, but you can’t take the human out of the vampire.

  When the bathroom door closed and I heard the sound of running water, I made my move. I came down the steps as quickly and quietly as I could, but he still heard me. My eyes adjusted easily to the darkness and I found him, staring at me in disbelief as he sat up on the bed.

  He was still human. I could tell from the smell of him, and the warmth that seemed to wrap around me. He’d cut his hair.

  He opened his mouth, probably to shout to Angie for help. All he managed before I covered his mouth and nose with the chloroform-soaked scrap of my burned T-shirt was “No, she’s—”

  Then it was done. He dropped, limp and unconscious, to the bed, and I lifted him over my shoulder. Carrying his weight this way was easier, but getting up the stairs took a bit more effort. Luckily, the woman in the bathroom seemed to be filling the tub. She never heard me struggling up the steps, into the hall and back through the kitchen.

  If my departure had set off any sort of magical alarm, it was too late. I dumped Cyrus in the back of the van and drove into the desert before anyone could pursue us.

  Chapter 16

  Unpleasant Discoveries

  Despite the fact she could barely walk, the damn woman insisted she come along with him.

  Max ground his teeth as he paused for the umpteenth time for Bella to catch up. “You know, this would go a lot faster if you’d just stayed at home.”

  “That place is not my home,” she snarled—actually snarled, the vicious bitch.

  “You know what I meant.” He let her pass him a few steps before he started again. “You’re not exactly incognito with the smell of blood all over you.”

  “If you would have done a better job patching me up, I would not smell like blood.” She limped a few steps, then visibly forced herself to straighten her leg.

  Max sighed in frustration and caught up with her easily. “Do you want me to carry you?”

  Her gold eyes widened, then narrowed in anger. “Absolutely not!”

  Damn. It might have been fun to let her climb on him piggyback style, her legs wrapped around his waist.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he cursed out loud. Thinking sexually about a werewolf was practically bestiality. And if he were going to swing that way, he’d much rather do it with something that didn’t talk as much as she did, like a goat or a pony.

  Ally or not, she continued to grate on his nerves.

  Her expression flickered for a moment, and she looked hurt and offended. Then he remembered he’d spoken aloud, and she probably thought his remark was directed at her.

  He’d opened his mouth to explain when she cut him off. “Fine. Carry me, if you think it will be faster.”

  Recovering fast, he smiled superciliously. “I do.”

  She stood behind him, tentatively placing her hands on his shoulders. He stooped slightly and reached back to lift her up. The natural place to rest hands, of course, was the perfectly round curve of her ass.

  Pervert. Furry. Furvert, he chastised himself as he boosted her onto his back. “Up you go.”

  “This is humiliating,” she growled at him, her mouth so close to his ear her breath stirred his hair.

  He hooked his elbows under her knees to help support her. Her arms around his neck didn’t choke him. She was strong enough to hold her own weight, for the most part.

  “You wouldn’t have been humiliated if you’d stayed at home,” he pointed out, then corrected himself. “At the apartment.”

  “Fine. You are right and I, a lowly female, am wrong. Is that better?” Was that a hint of playfulness he heard in her voice?

  It buoyed his spirits some. “Much. Are we still going straight?”

  She’d refused to let him drive the car while they searched for Nathan. She’d said she couldn’t get a good scent that way.

  The thought turned his stomach.

  She lifted up slightly, audibly sniffing the wind. “No, turn up ahead.”

  Her heels dug into him and she balled the shoulders of his T-shirt in her hands and tugged. He yanked the front of his shirt flat. “Stop that, I’m not a horse.”

  “Sorry,” she said in a way that implied she didn’t care what kind of animal he was. “But turn right up ahead.”

  The farther she led him into the neighborhood, the more it looked familiar. Dread tightened his guts. “Are you sure we’re on the right track?”

  She gave a snort of disgust. “Do you have a better way of finding him that you are not sharing with me? Using it to second-guess my sense of smell? I said turn right.”

  In the guise of hoisting her higher on his back, he jostled her wounded leg. “Sorry, did that hurt?”

  “You are a spiteful man. I will be glad when this is all over.” She suddenly sounded tired and even laid her head against his shoulder as he walked.

  Not for the first time that night, he wondered how much pain she was in and how she could put up such a strong front. Idiot. If she would just tell him she needed a rest, he would let her. Even though she didn’t deserve his pity.

  Maybe it was a good thing they were on the same team. If they hadn’t been, he might have killed her before now.

  They walked in silence for a while, her weight surprisingly heavy at his back. Though she was slender, her body was all lean muscle, firm but not hard owing to the thin layer of feminine fat that softened her curves.

  She could use a little more of it, he thought, shifting her so her bony pelvis didn’t bite into his back. He was not, he assured himself, not irritated at the fact her body being pressed so close to him would probably succeed in giving him a fatal hard-on. He was pissed off that she didn’t listen, and now he had to cart her heavy ass all over Grand Rapids.

  She’d gone so long without talking, he wondered if she’d fallen asleep. But then she sat up abruptly, her body completely rigid. “He is close. That way.”

  “Of course he is,” Max grumbled, turning in the direction indicated by her impatient shirt tugs.

  The direction of Cyrus’s old place.

  Anger burned in Max. Of course he would have something to do with this. “I know where he’s going.”

  “Then take us there faster,” she ordered impatiently.

  Max picked up the pace a little, not quite as eager to find their quarry as she seemed to be. “Why? You’re in no shape to fight, and I certainly can’t with you hanging on me like a diseased monkey.”

  She slapped him on the top of the head, a pretty ballsy thing to do to someone she was riding on, in his opinion. “I am a wolf. Please do not make me any closer to your pathetic species than I already am.”

  “Oh, sorry.” He rolled his eyes, despite the fact she wouldn’t see it. “But you seem to conveniently forget I’m not a human.”

  “You were, once.” She said it like it was a bad thing.

  He let that slide. “If I’m right—and as we’ve established, I’m rarely wrong—he’s going to Cyrus’s mansion.”

  “On Plymouth Street

  ?” She sounded as surprised that he knew about the place as he was surprised she knew.

  “That’s the one. In cozy with him, were you?” It was a cheap shot. No self-respecting werewolf would get it on with a vampire.

  That bothered him more than it should.

  “I read the Movement files on him during my training. He was one of the best known outlaw vampires living in this area, so it seems impossible that he would not still have connections here,” Bella insisted. “Li
ke your girlfriend, who lives here now.”

  “She’s not my…” Max shook his head. “Listen, this is Plymouth. If I go that way, we’re going to Cyrus’s house.”

  “Are there no other houses on that street?” She sounded so satisfied with herself, he almost dumped her on her ass.

  He picked up the pace once more. “You’re gonna feel pretty stupid when you’re wrong.”

  But she wasn’t wrong, at least, not right away. They walked a few blocks and got a dirty look from an elderly couple in evening clothes.

  “You should have stayed home,” Max whispered as he lifted a hand in friendly greeting to the woman, who screwed up her face in a sour glare and hugged her fur wrap tighter to her chest. “They’re going to call the cops.”

  “Then I will come back and eat their housecats,” Bella said close to his ear.

  A completely involuntary—because he wasn’t at all attracted to her—shiver went up his back at the feeling of her lips brushing his skin.

  She chuckled. “Oh, I bet you hoped I did not notice that.”

  “It was from muscle fatigue, I assure you. Ever think of, like, Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig?” Another cheap shot. It was her fault. She reduced him to them.

  The remark didn’t phase her. “So, I suppose I could do that again. Or maybe…”

  As her voice died away, something warm and wet and rough and unmistakably a wicked, pointed tongue traced the outside of his ear. His knees buckled and he nearly crashed to the sidewalk.

  “Don’t do that,” he said, a little more sharply than he’d intended, as he recovered his footing.

  “Why not? Do you not like it?” She was teasing him, deliberately teasing him, when they were supposed to be working.

  He blew out a frustrated breath. “Because I train my dogs not to lick. It’s bad manners.”

  Her laughter was surprisingly feminine. He’d expected something throaty and seductive, like her voice. If he’d thought about it at all, that is, which he hadn’t.