Zane had explained that her father’s death had been Keith’s doing, and there was no doubt at this point that he was also their mother’s murderer. And, with all this new knowledge—this new knowledge that had been thrown into the spotlight—she had absolutely no idea what to do or where to begin. Instead, as she took her head into her hands and trying to control her jagged breaths, she focused on a far simpler and far more pressing task:
“Do. Not. Cry!” she whispered to herself, “Not even one goddam tear or I will—”
Are you about to threaten yourself for wanting to cry? Devon’s voice chimed behind her as his warmth encompassed her. You know that it’s okay to cry, right? Just like those cheesy after-school specials preach; ‘don’t bottle it in’ and all that jazz.
She faked a smile, wishing that she could lean against him but knowing she’d only find warm air where there should have been flesh. Sighing, she looked down sadly and tapped harder at the desk.
Don’t worry so much! It’s like you said, we’ll find a body soon. Devon said.
“I hope so,” she sighed, “But at least I’m not finding my own food, right?”
He nodded. Devon had always had a distaste for her having to fend for herself to find sustenance, as to not break any laws from feeding on humans, so being in the clan, where she was supplied with all the “blood”—if she could really call it that—she needed, must have been a relief to him. Smiling at his reaction, she found herself wondering if Zane felt that same way about their feeding habits, but quickly shook those thoughts away.
What’s on your mi— Devon started to ask before suddenly disappearing, along with the warmth and his ghostly influence on her aura.
Startled by the sudden silence, Serena started to call out to him but stopped when she heard laughing from the door.
Growling, she turned towards the door and positioned her hands out as her aura shifted into the shape of a bow in her grip, holding it at the ready for the intruder on the other side. With the laughter growing clearer, an auric beam appeared in the middle of her “weapon” and she drew it back like an arrow—following the movements and habits from her archery training—and leveled it at the door.
“Get out of here, Keith!” She shouted.
“Oh my! Ouch! Is that the greeting I deserve, my dear sister! No hugs or tears of joy to see me once again?” Keith smirked.
“Go to Hell, you prick! You haven’t been gone nearly long enough!” She growled as she ‘fired’ at him.
Side-stepping the purple beam of light as it collided with the wall, Keith scoffed. “Hmm, tempting! But I’d rather not.” His own, stronger aura shot out and grabbed her own as she moved to fire another one at him, pausing to let him continue. “However,” he laughed as he held out his hand and an auric bolt of his own shot back at her and slammed into her chest, “since you seem so taken with the place, you’re welcome to take my place!”
The force of the impact knocked the wind from Serena’s lungs and the ground from beneath her feet, and she cried out as she fell back before everything turned black.
Smoke was already filling the entire building as Zane rushed through the halls, slamming on every door he passed and warning others to head to the main hall for evacuation instructions. The panic in the halls was becoming stifling, and even without an aura he could feel the combined energies making the hazy air crackle. Finally, he reached Serena’s room and, not about to waste any time, kicked in the door and growled as a cloud of smoke poured from the opening and into his face.
“Serena? Serena!” he rushed in and began scanning the room through burning eyes, “God-fucking-dammit! Serena! Answer me!”
A short ways to his left a breathy cough and a stifled whimper sounded and he honed in on it, starting towards the source.
Then the beast called.
Crying out in pain as he tried to hold it back, his vision turned red and fell to the floor; Serena still unconscious several feet from him. Reaching out to pull her to him, he cringed as the bones in his arms began to fracture and lengthen all at once. Trying to pull himself together to reach Gregori’s daughter, he shrieked out in pain as his back lurched forward. He growled, seething in pain as he continued to fight to get to Serena. If she was truly special—if the beast saw anything in her that would give him the chance to force it to stop—then he had to reach her.
Both of their lives depended on it!
“G-god damn you!” he gritted against the pain as he struggled to fight the change, “I… I know you can f-f-fucking hear us!” he growled and shook his head, “Me! You can hear me! You can hear—AHH! Shit!—hear me… and you sure as shit can understand!” trying to ignore the violent shift of his organs he fought to crawl closer, “And… I swear on everything I hold sacred; if you allow her to die then I’m going after her!” the change slowed and the pain numbed. He smirked through his agony and nodded, “Y-yea? Don’t like that, huh? Not having a body put a damper on your fucking plans? Try to see how much death and destruction you bring as fucking worm food, you dumb bastard! You need me and we need her! Now… let… me… GO!”
The pain hit him like a semi-truck and knocked him to the floor. Every centimeter of his body burned and ached and throbbed and stung as everything shifted at once.
And all he could do was smile.
“Th-thank you!” Though it was excruciating, he could feel his body shifting back; the beast working overtime to put him back together fast enough to save her! Nodding as the torture subsided, he pulled himself up, “We’ll settle this later, asshole!”
With nothing left to hold him back, he rushed forward and scooped Serena’s body from the floor with ease before retreating back into the halls to escape the growing flames.
As he turned a corner and broke through a curtain of fire he was met head-on by a massive creature as it lunged at him. Before he could react, both of them were thrown back and through the wall behind them. Zane roared as the layers of mortar and plywood and drywall and electrical wiring shattered and snapped around him as he struggled to protect Serena’s body in the process.
She couldn’t be injured!
She wouldn’t be injured!
They would be sure of it!
“I won’t—” he snarled as they crashed to the floor on the other side of the wall and the world went redder and hotter. “W-we…” he grinned and set Serena down carefully—making sure to keep her out of his and the therion’s range—and nodded to himself, finally allowing the pain to come, “WE WILL NOT LET YOU HURT HER!”
The change came all at once, hitting him out of a mutual need rather than simply wanting to see him suffer from prolonged agony. One moment he was in Hell—howling and cursing in agony—and the next they were whole.
Perfect!
The therion that had caught him off guard huffed angrily at the sight of them on the other side of the wall and sprinted on all fours towards them. Seeing their opponent’s reaction, a mouth far-too-big for its face curled up in an amused sneer that tickled the lobes of their misshapen ears and they ran a long, narrow tongue over the bottom row of razor-sharp fangs. Catching sight of this, the therion’s face shifted—its once confident dark-orange aura recoiling as fear settled in—and it halted in mid-stride to rethink its approach.
But there was no other option for it.
No choice that wouldn’t ultimately lead to the same outcome.
“DEATH!” They cackled and leapt through the hole they’d made in their previous form.
The therion’s eyes went wide and it scrambled to turn in the narrow hall and flee only to have them come down on its back; a talon from one foot slamming down and hooking the vertebrae of the whimpering therion’s spine.
As they relished in the succulent cocktail of terror and pain that rolled from their prey in great waves, a shiver coursed through their body and their scarlet aura shot from their chest and ensnared the therion. Retracting the talon and stepping down, they hoisted the massive mythos into the air to face them in all their gl
ory; that it might know—when it landed in Hell—what not to fuck with!
“YOU WERE WRONG TO PISS HIM OFF, MUTT!” they cackled, running a clawed hand across the therion’s sternum and letting its life gush down its torso and flow in torrents to their feet, “BUT WE ARE VERY GLAD THAT YOU DID! NEVER BEFORE HAS HE LET US OUT SO FREELY!” They wet their black lips before extending their tongue and dipping it into the gaping wound in its chest. They moaned as their enemy’s life-force flowed into their mouth, and the light spectrum shifted momentarily as their eyes reacted to the energy. “OH YES! VERY GLAD, INDEED!”
The therion whimpered again, trying to struggle against them, its aura sagging more and more as its death became a certainty.
“WE HOPE YOU’LL UNDERSTAND,” they came down with their claws once again, taking the front half of the therion’s face off and letting it slam wetly into the wall before leaving a trail to the floor, “IT’S JUST BUSINESS!”
Zoey was certain that she hadn’t blinked her eyes once since waking up alone on the forest floor to the smell of smoke and the psychic cries of her clan-mates. The journey from the woods was torturous, each step bringing her that much closer to an already agonizing truth that she wanted so desperately to prove false. Isaac’s absence and her clan’s attack couldn’t be a coincidence—not with how he’d been acting the night before—and she had ignored every sign just so she could…
She choked on a sob that was soon-after drowned out by the howling of sirens.
As a fire truck shot by—flashing lights and blaring wails warning any in its path to move aside—she threw out her aura and hooked it. As her psychic tether pulled her off her feet, she drew herself in until she was able to grab hold of the roof-mounted ladder and hitching a ride with the EMT caravan to whatever remained of the Vail Clan’s headquarters.
Though it seemed like hours, the truck came to a screeching halt in front of the building only minutes later, and as the crew began to flood from the vehicle, Zoey threw her aura out and carried herself to a ledge on the third-floor and snuck in through a window.
The elevators were already out of service in response to the fire, and the shriek of the building’s alarm made any sort of clear thought as to how to get underground difficult. Finally, fed up with logic and calculations, she opted for the more Zane-like approach and tore the elevator doors from the wall and lifted the cab out of her way to open up a straight drop in the shaft.
Like an Olympic diver, she hurled herself over the platform and into the plunging depths of the pitch-black elevator shaft; relying solely on her aura to gauge the distance to the bottom. As she plummeted in a nosedive, she threw out several auric tendrils and began ripping each level’s door free from the wall, positive that their escape would be hindered if they were forced to clear them on the way out.
With the bottom fast approaching, Zoey focused her aura into three sections and secured a hold in the shaft as a fourth tendril shot out and broke through the passage to their clan’s lobby. Using the auric slingshot she’d set herself into, she launched herself through, using the momentum and added force to catapult herself into the depths of the inferno and following after the familiar auric signals of her friends.
It wasn’t hard to find them.
Zane had already transformed and was dripping in the blood of more therions than she cared to guess. Scanning the area, she “saw” Serena, unconscious and badly beaten, in a room on the other side of the hall and she started towards it before coming across Zane’s handiwork.
Bits and pieces of his previous opponents—still wearing the color and claw of their bestial forms—littered the bloodied hall and adding the stink of blood to the lingering traces of agony and terror left behind. Her eyes took in the aftermath of her friend’s onslaught before coming to rest on him as he squared-off against another therion.
One with an all-too-familiar aura…
Her eyes widened, “Isaac!”
A myriad of questions went through her head as she watched the two circling one another, searching for an opening to rip through.
Had Isaac been planning this the entire time?
Was his affection for her really just an act?
Was he responsible for whatever had happened to Serena?
And, probably the most burning question of all:
Did she care if Zane ripped him apart?
She shook her head, again abandoning the burden of thought and rolling on pure instinct, and went to rush towards the two. An angry and tortured shriek tore past her lips as she approached, causing the two to shift their gazes at whoever was crazy enough to come between their death match. Seeing Zoey coming at him, Isaac turned his body to face her; his usually fierce and intense eyes now glassy and dull. Zoey stopped several feet in front of him and frowned at the empty expression—no sense of recognition or familiarity; neither love nor hatred to give away his motives—that he gave to her.
There was nothing of him in those eyes.
Trapped in the dead orbs, Zoey wasn’t aware of the newcomer until their guttural growl echoed through the hall and up her spine. Daring to look away from Isaac and towards the sound, she saw that another therion—aura boiling over with rage from the evidence of its allies’ deaths surrounding it—that zeroed its sights on her and started a mad-dash in her direction.
It couldn’t see the vacancy in Isaac’s eyes.
It couldn’t see the concern hers.
It only saw what it wanted to see: a vampire standing in front of its leader amidst the strewn body parts of countless other therions.
She cried out and took a step away from the approaching threat. “Isaac!”
But he didn’t respond; didn’t even bat an eyelash as the other therion grabbed her by the throat and pinned her against the wall, snarling as it pulled back its opposite hand for the killing blow.
Seeing this, Zane let out a furious bellow and grabbed her attacker’s shoulder to pull it back. Dead-set on Zoey’s death, the therion blindly rolled its shoulder free and threw Zane back. He crashed into the ground and growled as he lifted himself up again.
They were down, but they were most certainly not out of the fight!
But the filthy dog’s efforts had bought it enough of an opening to slaughter Zoey before they could get to them. As its claws came down at the screaming Zoey, their eyes widened to take in the horrific yet enticing sight of the impending death.
But it didn’t come.
The other dog—the one they’d been ready to maim moments earlier—suddenly seemed to have a change of heart and held his comrade’s arm only several inches from Zoey’s face, bearing his fangs at him as a warning before pulling him away from her and shoving him down the hall, not shifting his gaze until the other was gone.
Zoey looked up at her unlikely savior, her eyes shimmering with an expression they didn’t understand. “Isaac!”
The therion grunted and puffed its chest, but made no move to attack her.
Their eyes narrowed at the two as the scene unfolded. “YOU KNOW THIS MONSTER?”
Zoey looked at them and shook her head, “Zane! You don’t understand! He was being contro—”
Snarling, they stepped towards the two. Their scarlet aura whipped free and slashed at the walls, raining down debris on all of them. “WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? LOOK AT WHAT THEY—”
“Enough!” Zoey glared at them and threw her sea-blue aura out and pinned them against the wall, “This is hardly the time for me to have to explain to you when you’re like this!” she closed the distance between them and slapped her hand on their side with enough force to drive her point.
And then they were tired.
So very, very tired…
Zane groaned, slumping to the floor as a nauseating dizziness turned the world on its side. In the distance—off in the real world, far from the haze he was trapped within—he could feel his body shifting and tugging; hearing the pops and snaps of a body doing what it was never meant to do:
Become something else.
<
br /> As the sounds and sensations faded, so did his grogginess, until he finally felt secure enough in the world to sit up without fear of slipping into orbit. As he’d suspected, his body was once again his own. He blinked at the sight of his own fingers before looking up at Zoey and the therion. Luckily, his pants hadn’t been ripped too badly and, by some miracle that seemed only to work in comic books, were able to stay on.
“Y-you’re getting too good at that!” he shook his head at Zoey and sighed, “And wasn’t this place on fire a second ago?”
Zoey shrugged, “I put them out.”
“You can do that?”
Another shrug, “No oxygen, no fire. All I had to do was—”
“You know what,” Zane held up a hand to stop her, “I just remembered that I have a headache and your big words won’t help that. Straight to the point; fire is gone! Now, more importantly:”—he turned his attention to the therion and glared—“who is this and why am I not killing him?”
Zoey bit her lip and glanced up at him before looking away again, “He’s...” she blushed, keeping her gaze down.
The therion whimpered and Zane almost thought he saw the creature blush.
Zane shook his head and sneered, “It doesn’t matter, either way! They are our enemies!” He glared, “Or have you already forgotten about Grego—”
Scarlet Night: The Complete Trilogy Page 13
