by Trina M. Lee
The closer we drew to the hospital, the thicker the negative energy became. I shielded hard against it, but it slapped against my shields, seeking a way in. Shaz shivered slightly in the warm night air, but Arys seemed entirely unaffected.
We crossed the expanse of lawn, and I searched the upper windows for the beings I felt watching us. I saw nothing.
We reached a small side door. It was locked, but Arys had no trouble getting in. He went first, and I followed with quickly growing trepidation. My instinct screamed at me to turn back. Only the steadily humming cross kept me going.
“Feel that?” Arys’s voice echoed inside. “The energy in this place is wild. The FPA probably has no idea how massive it is.”
I paused to take in our surroundings. My eyes easily adjusted to the dark. I still would have given just about anything for a light. We stood in a long, white hall. It was littered with broken boards, fallen beams and glass. Graffiti marred the walls, but it was messy and hard to make out.
“It’s insanely cold in here,” Shaz said in a loud whisper. “It feels like we’re being watched.”
“It feels like something is trying to shove its way inside me.” With gritted teeth, I pushed back against the unwelcome spirit. It was a human spirit and no match for me.
“They’re attracted to us,” Arys mused, “because we are so in tune to them. They can feel it.” His vampire energy was lively and hot. He was vibing off the building and its long deceased occupants.
“Are you enjoying this?” Shaz muttered in disdain, picking his way along behind me through the debris. “Good Lord, this place is a health hazard.”
“I am actually.” The low chuckle that echoed around us was creepy, even for Arys. “Don’t worry, pup. I imagine the FPA have had the asbestos cleaned up. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be making this their Edmonton home base.”
“That’s reassuring.”
We reached the end of the hall where the elevator was. In a sketchy building with no power, it wasn’t a viable option. I glanced around, looking for the stairs. As I passed the elevator, the doors slid open.
I shrieked and jumped straight into Shaz who swore. Arys’s laughter quickly turned my fear into anger.
“If you can’t stop being creepy, then stay down here while we go up,” I snapped at the smirking vampire. “The fact that you’re enjoying this place is really making my skin crawl.”
Arys sobered, his smile fading. “I’m a vampire, Alexa. Are you not used to it by now? This place reeks of death and power. I feel at one with a place like this. It’s… comfortable.”
A stray beam of light made its way through a broken window to slant across Arys’s face. His pupils were huge, drowning out the color in his eyes. He was right at home here while I was ready to run screaming back the way I’d come like a soon-to-be victim in a horror movie.
I felt the shadows all around me, slinking about in the darkest corners and crevices. The energy here did not entice me. It terrified me. I wanted nothing to do with it.
The dark and the light, as twin flames, this was where we differed. It was unsettling to see the absolute darkness in Arys’s eyes, and I saw it clearly. The way I felt in the forest, being one with the earth and all it encompassed, that’s what Arys felt in a place like this. The realization was harsh and a little sad.
“This is starting to feel way too much like a scary movie,” Shaz laughed, a high nervous unnatural sound. “Are you sure the FPA has a base in here?”
I clutched the cross necklace tightly between my fingers. Focusing hard on the pendant, I searched its energy for its link to Kale. It was hard to ignore the pressing negative entity outside my realm of focus. The spell Brogan created continued to hum, steady and stronger now that we were inside.
“Yes. They are here. And, I wouldn’t doubt that they already know we are, too.”
We pushed on, moving as fast as we could in the pitch-black stairwell with rusty barbed wire wound around the handrail. As good as my vision was in the dark, it wasn’t as good as Arys’s. We reached the second floor and found what appeared to have been a laboratory of some kind. Fewer windows were boarded up here. Right away, I saw the old bloodstains on the floor.
I backed out of the lab, toward the stairs. “Higher,” I whispered. “This isn’t the floor.”
Something horrible had taken place in that lab, something that promised to reveal itself if we didn’t leave. My heart pounded in my ears. I was beyond scared. An unseen threatening force far outweighed a physical threat like a vampire group beating. I don’t do ghosts, and I sure as hell don’t do pissed off ghosts with a serious need for vengeance.
Shaz stuck close to me as we made our way up. He was oozing fear as well. Arys must have been drowning in it. Fear was a lovely intoxicant. Unfortunately, not for the one feeling it.
We bypassed the next few floors, stopping when we reached the sixth. We were much closer now, though we still saw no sign of habitation by anything alive. Entering the hall of the sixth floor, I gasped when I felt a tug on my hair.
“Please tell me one of you just grabbed my hair.”
“Nope,” Shaz’s response was accompanied by Arys’s amused, “Sorry, love. Not me.”
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed at the spirit that lingered too close for comfort. It darted in close to grab my hair again before fleeing. I proceeded to curse up a storm that left Arys chuckling like an immature teenage boy. “This isn’t funny, dammit!”
The sixth floor housed several rooms, each of them containing beds with restraints. My stomach shriveled as I passed the rooms, glancing into each one with fear of what I would see. I knew the government was getting their hands dirty in places where they didn’t belong, but this was just ridiculous. The unrest here was violently disturbing.
I paused in the middle of the hall, listening carefully. It was faint, but I could just barely make out the high frequency squeal given off by electricity.
“They’re upstairs. The top floor. They have power up there.”
I was ready to stop stumbling around in the dark. The debris was potentially deadly. Even with keen eyesight, it was impossible to see every fallen board, nail or shard of glass.
A blood-curdling scream rang out. It was followed by the slamming of a door at the far end of the hall. My heart thundered so hard in my ears that I thought for sure it would burst. Shaz moved in close to me, reaching to grasp my hand. His palm was clammy and cold. Panic flowed openly from him.
Arys was already heading down the hall toward the sounds. Shaz and I exchanged a glance before following him slowly. I was keenly aware that we were also being followed. A look back revealed nothing, but I felt them there, creeping along behind us.
“I can’t understand why anyone would willingly walk into this place.” Shaz gripped my hand so hard it hurt. The bones in my fingers began to grind together, and I winced.
With my free hand, I pulled my phone out to check the time. We’d only been in there for ten minutes. It felt like forever. I couldn’t wait to get out. I noted that, though there was no clear reason for it, the signal was almost dead in here. Fantastic.
Arys stopped at the end of the hall, peering through the window of the closed door. He didn’t hesitate before grabbing the knob and turning. I felt the sudden urge to shout at him to stop. It was too late.
I stopped dead in my tracks. A grey mist burst from the room to cover Arys. The mist pulled apart into separate shapes. Several figures circled him, reaching out with wispy tendrils of energy to touch him.
“Are you seeing this?” I whispered to Shaz, scared even to breathe for fear of attracting the unwelcome attention of those things down the hall.
“Oh, yeah.”
Arys stared into the room before turning to look at us. His eyes were solid black. The heavy energy was really getting to him. He was vibing off it and clearly enjoying it.
“You’re not going to believe what’s in this room.” Without another word, he strode inside the room with the ghostly f
igures trailing after him.
Continuing on down the hall couldn’t possibly be a good idea, but I did it anyway. Shaz tugged on my hand as if trying to stop me. I could feel his wolf’s unease. The wolf didn’t understand ghosts nor did it want to.
Another scream rang out. It turned my legs to jelly. Each step that brought me closer to the room was harder to take. I forced myself to turn the corner and peek inside. I felt the blood rush from my face. Vertigo hit me and I lost my balance. I would have hit the nasty, contaminated floor if it weren’t for Shaz.
Arys stood in the doorway watching the ghostly scene play out before him. A woman lay strapped to the bed. She was a spirit, re-enacting her horrific death. The ghosts dispersed from Arys to take their places and play their roles. One of them, a doctor, smiled at me before reaching for a phantom tool that no longer truly existed.
He approached the bed with his macabre little medical saw raised high. Nurses stood off to either side, watching intently. Their faces showed little expression. They felt nothing as they witnessed yet another murder. How many times had they watched something like this take place?
The air seemed to have been sucked from the room. I felt like I was suffocating as I watched the doctor turn on the rotating blade and lower it to the imprisoned woman’s forehead. I couldn’t look away, couldn’t do anything but listen as the blade sliced through her flesh and into the bone beneath.
She screamed, that same scream I’d heard twice already. The nurses moved in to hold her as she flailed, straining at her bonds. The doctor didn’t let up as blood spattered his hands and face. Only when the woman lay dead and still did he stop. Then the scenario restarted, and the entire thing began again.
I shook my head, my mouth open in a silent scream of my own. I couldn’t watch that again. Holding tight to Shaz’s arm, I dragged him with me away from the door. Arys turned to us with a strange sort of half smile tugging at his lips. The dark power in this building was affecting him in a bad way.
“Arys, we’ve got to get out of here. This place, it’s not good for someone with power like ours.” I tried to appeal to his sense of reason, but I could see that it was long gone.
He advanced on Shaz and me with a predatory gait. “There’s something very bad here. I know it’s dangerous, and yet, all I can think about is which one of you I want to bleed first.”
Oh, great. This was just what we needed.
I gathered my power, ready to use it on Arys if I had to. The act of tapping my power drew the attention of the spirits inside the room, and they all turned to gaze at me as if I were interrupting their gruesome scenario.
“Arys, we have to get upstairs. You need to keep it together. You don’t want to hurt us.”
My pleas fell on deaf ears. He was lost in the rush of the hospital’s influence. His voice was low and smooth, seductive. “I always want to hurt you, my wolf. I’ve just had many years to practice restraint.”
“This is not the time nor place to lose your mind,” I growled, my fingertips dancing with gold and blue energy. “I have business here. Enough of this horror movie shit.”
The last few words echoed in the silent hall. Where my fear ended, my fury began. I was ready to knock Arys on his ass if he couldn’t control what the place was doing to him. I was here only to make demands of the FPA, not to be harassed by dead people that I did not kill, and most certainly not to fend off Arys.
“Let’s go,” I said to Shaz, jerking a thumb toward the exit to the stairwell.
Arys remained where he was, outside the door to the room of terror. He watched us ease away. Amusement danced in his eyes. “I’ll give you a head start.”
“Is he fucking serious?” Stunned horror filled Shaz’s face. He was all fangs and claws as the wolf surfaced in response to the threat.
“Come on.” I didn’t waste time. I knew a crazed vampire when I saw one. I ran for the stairs with Shaz hot on my heels.
The sudden and total absolute black as we ran up the decrepit staircase was blinding. I tripped before reaching the first landing. I fell down on one knee in the glass, dirt and hospital debris. A spider web brushed against my face, and I fumbled to get it off me. Shaz grabbed my arm and dragged me to my feet. Wearing heeled boots had been a bad idea.
We were rounding the corner of the landing when Arys caught us. He grabbed me from behind, jerking me off my feet. My hand slipped from Shaz’s, but I shouted at him to keep going.
Never in all the time I’d known Arys had he ever treated me so viciously. He slammed me back against the wall, causing broken plaster and drywall to rain down around us. Something thumped into the side of my head, but I was too busy fighting off the power drunk vampire to pay it any attention.
Pinning me to the wall, Arys went for my throat. A burst of power went out from me. It threw him off his feet, and he crashed into the stair railing before tumbling down the steps to the floor we’d just escaped. It didn’t slow him down for long. He got right back up, lunging up the stairs.
I threw an energy barrier up between us. He hit it hard enough to stumble back, but it held. I stared at my lover on the other side, wondering what had happened to him. Arys had always proven to be the stronger of the two of us, the rock. I had never seen him manipulated by a force bigger than he was. This building housed things darker than I had imagined, things dark enough to affect my vampire.
Arys sneered at me from the other side of the invisible barrier. Gliding his hands over its surface, he smiled. “This is amusing.”
Gripping the railing, I backed up the stairs toward Shaz, keeping my eyes on the vampire. I knew we could turn our shared power on one another, though I didn’t know to what extent.
Arys dissolved my barrier by simply pulling my power into him, making it his. Like a rabid animal, he came at us again. Before he reached us, there was a bright flash of light. It stopped Arys in his tracks.
Falon appeared on the stairs, separating Arys from Shaz and me. With a small gesture, the angel effectively held Arys frozen in place.
“Twins,” he sighed dramatically. “Always their own undoing.”
“What are you doing here?” I lacked the ability to sound annoyed with him. Much as I hated to admit it, I was glad to see the asshole angel right then.
“Saving your ass from your other half, apparently.” Falon marched past me to the upper landing where the secrets of the top floor awaited. “His power is rooted in darkness. The evil here seems to like him. It’s probably better if he doesn’t come any further.”
Falon pulled open the heavy door at the top of the stairs and motioned for me to hurry up. Shaz didn’t need to be told again. He ushered me up without hesitation. I glanced back at Arys.
“I can’t just leave him.” Splitting up didn’t seem like a great plan. It never worked out well for people in the movies.
“Spare me the romantic drama and get your ass moving,” Falon snapped with a loud flap of wings for emphasis. They settled in against his back to hug his body tightly. “I have better things to do than babysit Shya’s prized werewolf. Let’s get this over with.”
Just that fast, I was no longer glad to see the cocky prick. The remnants of my fear melted away in the face of my sudden rage.
“Better things to do? Like the woman who’s trying to have me killed? I’m aware that Shya doesn’t know about your fuck buddy.”
“Are you going to blackmail me, Alexa? You’d better be careful.”
Shaz tensed beside me but he remained silent. He had never dealt with Falon before, and he didn’t need to start now either.
The only thing that kept me from slapping Falon’s smug face was the ghostly apparition that appeared behind him. It was a soldier. He moved to block the doorway, as if he would keep us out. The FPA set up their base on a floor haunted by military mental patients. Fitting.
“Your vampire will be fine.” Falon walked through the soldier without so much as acknowledging him. “I’ll get him on the way out. How many vampires is that in your co
llection now? Just two?”
I followed him, shuddering as the soldier’s ice-cold energy passed through me. I clenched my teeth. “What’s your problem with me, Falon? Really.”
Being stuck with Falon hadn’t been part of my plan for the evening. Of course, not a damn thing that had taken place so far had been part of the plan. I hated leaving Arys in the stairwell, but he was out of control. Still, I felt secure with Shaz at my side; we could handle this.
Falon seemed taken aback by my serious question. He’d been expecting more vulgar language. Frankly, so had I, but I wanted to know. He’d had a problem with me from the moment we’d first met.
The seventh floor was much quieter metaphysically than those below. The wing we were in was without electricity, but I could see the glow of lights far in the distance. The hallway was clean and empty. It was like stepping into a whole new building, though I could still feel the murky promise of evil far below my feet.
We made our way toward the light, passing through several sets of large, heavy double doors along the way. When I’d given up on getting a response, Falon said, “Nothing personal, O’Brien. I just don’t like your kind.”
“What kind is that?” This from Shaz who was watching the angel the way a cat watches a bird seconds before it pounces.
“The kind that walks the line. Those who exist in between. Vampires. Werewolves. Even some lesser demons. Those who were once human but have been changed. Unnaturals.” There was bitterness in Falon’s tone.
“Got a reason for that?” I couldn’t keep the snarky edge out of my question.
“Don’t need one.”
Oh, he had one. That much was clear. Actually, I didn’t need him to share; it really made no difference to me.
As we pushed through the next set of double doors, an ear splitting alarm went off. The hall immediately filled with men in uniform, guns drawn. Several of them shouted in surprise as they took in Falon’s silver wings. I raised my hands to show I was unarmed. Shaz did the same. Falon merely smirked.
