She frowned and leaned over to him. She wanted to help him, to make him feel at peace just as much as she did with him. “It’s okay. I’m here for you, Zane, and I still know who you are,” she said softly, offering him a smile, “Who you really are.”
Zane frowned, shaking his head, “Why should you care?”
Serena bit her lip, kneeling down, “Because I do!”
“Hardly!” he scoffed, “I heard you and your ghost—your lover, right?—heard you talking about me!” He shook his head as his long, unkempt dark hair shook more in his face. “We’re not right, right? That’s what you said! What you told him!” he forced himself to relax again and groaned as his head rolled about on his shoulders, “Don’t pretend to care about me just to make me feel better. It’ll only piss me off more.”
She frowned, freezing her grip as she watched the emotions cave into his face as he confessed hearing Devon and her conversation. And while she remembered saying the words, she couldn’t recall if she’d ever believed them. She bit her lip. Was she falling for Zane? Could she actually get over Devon, even with him still haunting her? She had sworn to be faithful—had even been ready to marry Devon—but what did that mean now? Looking into Zane’s golden eyes, she suddenly felt like everything was right. There was no more doubt or panic at not knowing what was coming, because she at least knew that he wouldn’t let her face it alone.
And she found herself forgetting…
She nodded, “I… I did say that, but I—”
No! Stop it, Serena! Devon pulled away from her, using her aura to build his mock-body as he always had before; hollow and translucent and trapped in her aura because neither of them was ready to let go of the other. She couldn’t even remember what it was like to not have him attached to her auric field. And now he was pulling at her; using more energy than he ever had before in an effort to pull her away from Zane. You’re mine! Mine! His voice bellowed in her head and the dresser on the other side of the room began to shake.
She cried out, gripping her head and dropping to her knees as Devon howled and pulled at her, “N-no! Devon… please! I can’t… I can’t keep… don’t make me…”
Zane’s eyes flashed again and a deep growl emitted from his throat as his aura began to shift from blue-to-red, his eyes widening momentarily before narrowing in on Devon.
He could see him?
“Get away from her! Leave her alone, you clingy bastard! Can’t you see you’re hurting her?” Zane yelled.
Devon whipped and writhed in rage at the accusation and Zane’s hair shifted from the force, We were fine until you showed up, monster! We were together and we were happy and—
“Happy? Sitting alone in some shit-hole in the woods with nobody but a ghost to keep her company? And a pussy of a ghost, at that! You think she was happy like that?”
“Zane...Devon...” Serena whimpered and turned to Devon, growing more uncertain.
No! I won’t let it end like this! I’m doing what I should have done in the beginning! Devon flew at Zane, beginning to tear free of Serena’s purple aura and disappearing for a moment before emerging once again in Zane’s; her ghostly lover now bathed in scarlet as he struggled to take control of Zane’s body.
Zane growled, fighting back Devon’s advances as he steadily lost more and more of himself to the invasion. As Zane’s life began to drain from his eyes and Devon’s force began to occupy them, the body began to shake with violent spasms.
“Devon! Get out of him now! This isn’t the right way to do it!” Serena cried out, taking Zane’s shoulders and shaking him.
“Too late.” Zane’s eyes shifted and glassed over as Devon took control. As Serena watched, the last auric tendril receded back into the body as he finished.
“Z-Zane?” Serena frowned, stepping back, “I didn’t… where? Where is he? Where is his aura?” She began to shake, feeling cold and alone and, worst of all, whole. The part of her aura that Devon had occupied for all those years had been returned to her, and the new sense of strength was overwhelming.
“Serena!” Zane’s voice seemed different with Devon using it, “I did it! I got him!” he looked at his new hands and examined his face, beginning to laugh excitedly as he confirmed his success, “I’m… I’m back! I have a—”
“How could you do this?” she screamed at him, “You knew this wasn’t the way! You knew this was wrong! It wasn’t supposed to be like this!”
Devon stepped towards her, his motions clunky and uncoordinated in his new body, “Don’t you see? Now you don’t have to choose between him and me! You can have me in his body!” he smiled, but it looked foreign and wrong on Zane’s face, “It can be like we always wanted!”
“I never wanted this! You’ve… you’ve killed him! I can’t even see a trace of him left! We were never supposed to steal a body, Devon!” she sobbed, shaking her head.
He frowned and stared in disbelief, “Were you… did you actually feel something for him? Something past just this body? I thought—”
“You thought wrong!” she hissed, glaring at him through tear-filled eyes. “You’ve been dead too long, Devon! You aren’t like you were! You never would’ve done this before! You might be Devon’s aura… but you’re not him! Not anymore!”
He sneered, shaking his head angrily, “You… you’re lying! You betrayed me! You said ‘forever’! You promised…” he flinched and looked down at his arm as the tattoos began to glow, “What? What is this? Who are—” he shook and dropped to his knees, whimpering as his aura began to inflate and shine brighter than before; the red becoming so massive and overwhelming that the entire room looked like it was bathed in blood. His body continued to shake at the aura’s epicenter as swirls of new color—new aura—began to writhe through the calamity. “H-HOW ARE YOU…” he clutched his head and whimpered before twitching violently and snarling. “You’re not welcome in me either, you phantom fuck!” The body lurched forward with a tremor as its joints began to break and shift with start of the transformation and the bright, pained eyes locked on Serena as Zane’s voice—Zane’s real voice—came through:
“Get out! Go get Zoey and wait for meeEEEAAAHHHHHHH!”
Serena tried to run to him but was overpowered by his aura and thrown towards the door. Crying at the impact, she pulled herself up, giving one last glimpse at the chaos before she rushed out the door and into the hallway.
Zoey!
Had to find Zoey!
She frowned, trying to remember the right path as she began to maneuver through the ghostly-white catacombs.
It wasn’t until she saw Zoey running towards her that she realized she’d been calling her name.
“Serena! What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Zoey! It’s Zane! I think he’s…” she choked on the words and lost her voice as she buried her face into Zoey’s shoulder.
10
Monsters
Zane couldn’t forgive himself. He had become the monster plenty of times before—more times than he dared to imagine—and it had always ended in disaster.
Although it wasn’t new…
…it had never been this personal.
And while he had struggled in the past to keep at least a part of himself in control—enough to not destroy everything!—he had succumbed entirely to its wishes this time.
The memory of Serena as she hit the door flashed in his mind.
The look of pain and confusion and terror in her eyes right before she’d left the room in a panic.
She’d trusted him! She’d cared about him! She was the only person left who didn’t see him as an unstable weapon ready to explode at any moment. And he’d hurt her…
He’d given her reason to fear him.
He had hurt not only the woman he cared for, but, in doing so, he had destroyed the ghost—the one she truly loved—in a jealous rage.
No. Not destroyed…
It was no accident; no fault of the curse or its influences.
He’d wanted it!
&
nbsp; Needed to destroy what stood in his way.
He shook his head as he thought of the rage as he’d reacquired his body from Serena’s lover. In his fury—in his need to be rid of him—he’d dismantled every fiber of Devon’s aura.
And he’d made sure it hurt.
Zane groaned and splashed more water on his face. He hadn’t even known such a thing was possible…
But apparently the beast did.
It showed him exactly how to destroy every last trace of his competition until he was certain there’d be nothing left to send to wherever it was they went to.
And he’d loved it!
He truly was a monster.
He looked in the mirror and saw that his eyes, though still bloodshot, had finally shifted back to their normal shade.
“You will live with the guilt of your true self until the day the beast consumes it all. You will perish knowing that, even in death, you will only cause more suffering.”
The rasping voice of the Taroe elder and his explanation of the curse the night he’d been given the tattoos echoed in his head. He let himself remember the pain he endured that night; the burning of the mystical ink as it was stabbed and scraped across his chest and back and arms while the Taroe tribe chanted in celebration of his punishment.
Maybe it would be best if he left. Maybe he could find a place where he couldn’t harm another; where the beast could destroy him and no more harm would have to fall on anyone else.
Maybe, in torturing himself, he could spare the world.
“Maybe I should just go home.” Serena grumbled into the palms of her hands as Zoey did her best to soothe her.
“He’s really become that overcome by that curse then?” Isaac asked, looking at Zoey with a deepening frown.
Zoey sighed and nodded, leaning her forehead against his stomach as he stepped over to the two.
Serena bit her lip as she watched Zoey and Isaac’s interactions. Even in a moment of seriousness their body language spoke wonders. Though they’d only been together a short period of time, they seemed so happy already. So perfect!
She scowled and looked away, holding back her envy.
“He was so angry! Even his eyes looked different!” she explained, “He kept trying to relax, but it just kept coming back!”
Zoey nodded slowly, “His rage is beginning to overwhelm him…”
Serena looked up, “He said that…” she frowned, trying to recall, “… that the curse wasn’t the cause of his rage. Is that right?”
“We can’t be certain of that,” Zoey shrugged, “None of us knew him before it happened. Gregori took him in after he found him trying to drink himself to death.”
“But vampires can’t get drunk…” Serena frowned and looked up.
Zoey nodded, sighing, “Yup. And that only served to fuel his rage further. So Gregori decided, since both you and your brother had left, that he could take Zane in and try to turn his life around.” She gave a gentle smirk, “To try to give him a fresh start on a new path.”
“Did it work?” Serena asked.
“More or less, I suppose.” Zoey shrugged one shoulder, “Zane certainly took to the training well, and it wasn’t long after that he began climbing the ranks as a clan warrior. That had seemed to turn things around, but as his fits of rage became rarer and rarer the curse became that much more sensitive to the slightest trigger.” She scoffed at a memory and shook her head, “He destroyed his first room—and this was a nice room, mind you! Gregori pampered him well—when he stubbed his toe on a door frame one night. By the time we’d gotten him sedated he’d already torn down the wall surrounding that door and most of the walls surrounding it for good measure. Gregori had scolded him later over how costly his temper was becoming.”
Serena frowned and looked down, remembering how Zane had lectured her about the cost of maintaining the clan. “So is his rage a side-effect of the curse, or is the curse piggy-backing on what was already there?”
Zoey frowned, “I’m certain that he had anger problems long before the Taroe put the curse on him—I’m guessing they saw it as a cruel irony to make his short fuse a literal one—but I also think that knowing what his rage was capable of after that made it that much harder to control.”
Isaac frowned, “Like when you know you shouldn’t think of something…?”
“Then that’s all you can think about.” Zoey nodded, “The curse has been eating away at him ever since, and every transformation has been just one more step towards having that thing take over him completely. That seems to be the bulk of the curse, to slowly destroy the victim from the inside by turning their worst trait against them.” She rubbed her forehead and winced, “If he’s so far gone—if the rage has consumed him that much—it may already be too late.”
“What do you mean? What will happen to him?” Serena asked, panicking.
“The Taroe are tribes of magic practicing humans that have separated themselves from society. They live peaceful and self-contained lives and have, over time, developed a method of focusing one’s magical energies through an enchanted ink that they use to tattoo themselves. When one of them comes of age they’re given their first tattoo, and with every following year or every shift in the tribe’s rank more tattoos are added. Usually, the ink serves to channel the wearer’s thoughts to boost their power, but there’s something different in Zane’s case. The ink triggers from his rage and the magic starts the transformation, but his body wasn’t made for that sort of thing. While Isaac and other therions are naturally built to shift forms, Zane’s isn’t; so every transformation takes a greater and greater toll on him.”
Serena looked up at Zoey and shook her head, getting more and more irritated by the idea of somebody willingly doing this to Zane, “But what does Zane have to do with the Taroe? Since when do they get involved with our kind?”
Zoey shrugged, “Normally they never would. Most can’t even say they’ve found a Taroe tribe, much less been cursed by one. But while he was just a sang—and not even pure-born, at that—the curse has altered him. Though he shouldn’t be able to see or use any of his auric channels, he’s achieved auric feats in his beast form that most need years of training to accomplish. He can see in multiple spectrums; going beyond simple vision or seeing auras, but heat radiation, ultraviolet, gamma…” she shook her head, “When he becomes that thing there seems to be no limit. I watched him change in the middle of a fight against a gang of rogues, and in the middle of the chaos one of them took a sword to his leg! Cut it clean off from the knee!” She sighed, “And the damn thing just grew a new one right there. Then it made a note of using what the vampire had cut off to beat him to death. If it wants something badly enough, it adapts to find a way.”
“Oh my god…” Serena stared in shock at her friend, “B-but… why? Why give him that kind of strength?”
“Because strength without control is crippling.” Zoey sighed, “He can’t trust himself in a fight, because the moment it comes out there’s no control over who it kills. He’s already been seen as too much of a risk with other warriors from the clan who wouldn’t get within five meters of him! The power isn’t the curse, Serena, the curse is not being able to contain or direct it and having to live with the knowledge of what it’s done and the lives it’s ruined.
“In the end—when he turns back; when he becomes Zane once again—he’s no more powerful than he would have been before the curse. No auric control or enhanced vampire strengths. Just another sang that has to own up to something no sang should ever be capable of doing.”
“So the Taroes were willing to put so many lives at risk just to make Zane feel guilty?” Serena growled.
Zoey sighed and nodded, “It would certainly seem that way. I can’t vouch for either of them; I wasn’t there. I hadn’t even heard of something like this before, so I have to imagine it doesn’t happen too often. Whatever their intentions were, it worked, his mind’s beginning to break from the guilt and the torment on his body, and the only thi
ng that seems to slow down the process is you.”
Serena’s eyes widened and she looked over, “Me? You mean that he’s never…” she frowned, “Why me? He didn’t even know me until the other night!”
“Either way,” Zoey stood up and stepped beside Isaac, “you seem to have some sway over it; something that nobody else has, and that makes you vital to our survival and his.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do? I don’t think he’ll even want to talk to me after what just happened, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to face him knowing what he did to…” Serena frowned and looked down, still upset about the loss of Devon. Though she couldn’t put all the blame on Zane for what had happened, it was easier than the alternative.
“I can’t tell you what to do, Serena. You’ll need to decide that. I just hope you can come to understand that he’s not a monster. He’s gotten that for far too long already.” Zoey took Isaac’s hand and she offered Serena a comforting though forced smile before they left to head back to their room.
“Right… Thanks, Zoey.”
Serena sighed, thinking back to her memories with Devon and how he had always been there for her. She frowned and gazed down at the ring she still wore.
Scarlet Night: The Complete Trilogy Page 15
