by Lauren Dawes
He went to her apartment block, finding only a trace of her scent leaving the building. It was still fresh. He went north, keeping the scent of his quarry in his nose.
As he rounded a corner, fresh blood was on the breeze. It was human blood, but it was a start. Perhaps her transition had already begun. He tracked the scent to an alleyway and smiled. The half blood was there, curled up against a wall in the shadows of the alley. At her feet was her first kill.
The walls were painted with her victim’s blood, dripping from the mortar, pooling in sticky puddles in the corners. Nox’s heavy footsteps echoed all around him, amplified by the high walls. She didn’t even stir as he crouched down in front of her. He drew in a deep breath to confirm what he had suspected. She had transitioned. She was the last half blood in existence, and he was about to kill her. He would be a hero amongst the other Sicarii, remembered forever in the history for eradicating the half bloods from the vampire race.
Sliding his blade free, he positioned it above her heart. The tip dimpled her skin, but was yet to draw blood. He wondered what he would do after this. If all the half bloods were dead, what were the Sicarii to do? Perhaps he and his brothers would take up contract killing humans, or maybe bounty hunting fae? The only thing he was sure of was there would be death wherever he walked.
*
Indi’s eyes opened slowly when she felt a pinching sensation on her chest. When she focused on what was in front of her, a lump formed in her throat as the flood of memories came back to her. She was drowning in them, barely keeping her head above dark water as she remembered what she had forgotten. Her nose began to bleed.
The dank smell of death in that alleyway haunted her senses, her memories. She kept thinking this was the end—this was what death felt like, what death looked like. Death was a …
‘Vampire,’ she whispered. The word sounded implausible, but the idea of it felt so right. Nox’s head snapped around, his pearlescent eyes penetrating hers so completely that she couldn’t look away. She dived into the cool water of his eyes and knew that he was the one who had dragged her into the alleyway. He was the one that had attacked her, snapping her collarbone and draining her dry. Burning pain brushed through her left shoulder, her body remembering the pain of her injury even though it had healed long ago.
Swallowing her pained sounds, she forced the fear from her eyes. ‘You killed me,’ she breathed, swallowing down on the hard lump in her throat. It wasn’t often that someone got an opportunity to come face to face with their killer.
‘I did, but I didn’t get to give you your final death. That’s why I’m here, to take your head and your heart.’ He pressed the blade in, drawing a bead of blood from her skin that trickled like a warm finger caressing her skin. She held in the scream, the searing pain lancing through her heart. The pain woke up her anger; the giant cat stretching and sniffing at the air. Its lips peeled back from its teeth as a trickle of a growl vibrated through its vocal cords.
Nox’s eyes widened, the pressure on the knife tip easing off just a little. ‘What are you?’ he breathed.
‘I’m fucking angry, that’s what I am.’ She kicked out at one of his kneecaps, pain exploding through her own legs as she felt like she’d just kicked a brick wall. Fighting back the tears, she watched as his face turned into an ugly grimace. Her anger growled at her, demanding she got up and protected herself. Sitting back on her haunches, she sucked in deep breaths to stop the feeling of queasiness that had been assaulting her body before. She couldn’t afford to just wait for him to recover. Forcing her mind back in the game, she looked up to see that she had taken too long.
He was standing now, towering above her crouched form. She turned her body towards the dumpsters and began crab walking backwards until she bumped into Beth. Her best friend was still out cold, the blood from the cut on her head oozing out slowly. The smell drifted up Indi’s nose, making her head swim for a moment. She felt intoxicated by it.
The only thing she could hear was the rush of air filling and emptying from her lungs. Her jaw ached, pounding in time with the blood surging through her veins. It was Nox’s laughter that eventually brought her back. She looked up at him, anger curling around her body.
‘What?!’ she spat.
He laughed again. ‘This is going to be so easy.’ Nox launched himself at her as the last syllable slipped over his tongue. Time slowed down, her brain working through her options. Her eyes darted left and right, searching for a weapon. Her breathing was sawing through her open mouth, the noise echoing in her ears, cancelling out any other sound as she focused hard on survival.
She looked up, checking where Nox was, but she couldn’t see him. She blinked slowly, a soft growling breaking through the sound of her breaths.
The growling became louder, more angry and violent. This sound she understood. Her vision swam, but she forced her brain to focus. Standing over Nox was a giant, shaggy-haired, black dog. Its fangs were bared in Nox’s face, Nox returning the favour, revealing incisors two inches long. Spittle hung from the jaws of the dog, landing in thick, hot, sticky strands on Nox’s cheeks and forehead.
Nox’s eyes were glowing as he fought back against the dog. Indi stood up shakily and took a tentative step towards the two of them. A piece of glass crunched under her shoe, and the dog turned around to stare at her, its lips curled back from its teeth in challenge.
Indi stared into its eyes and recognised something familiar about them. One was the colour of an emerald, the other icy-blue. Indi took another step closer, determined to get a better look at the dog. But when its ears flattened against its skull, she rethought her actions. She took a step back, dropping her eyes to the ground until a yelp exploded through the night.
Indi’s eyes swung back. Blood was pouring from the dog’s side, the hilt of a knife flush against its side. Nox pulled the blade free, causing more blood to cascade from the wound. The dog jumped off Nox, backing away until the wall was at its back. Nox stood up, flipping the bloodied knife from one hand to the other, watching the blood pour from the wound. Nox’s lips twisted into a menacing smile and Indi licked her lips. The smell of it; coppery and sweet, the sound of it spilling from the dog’s body whispered to every cell in her body. She suddenly felt like an addict to something she hadn’t ever sampled before; a slave to something that was primal and raw and everything felt right to take what she wanted. She fought her body, fought her legs from taking a step towards the dog. If she gave herself that one step, it would lead to another and another until she took its life.
Nox said, ‘It calls to you.’ Indi’s eyes fixed on his. ‘You want it, don’t you? You want to taste his blood. Take his vein,’ he urged.
Indi looked back at the pool of sticky, red blood under the dog. It was running down its side, its leg, matting in its fur and making Indi crazed with desire. The smell of it was intoxicating. Indi blinked, realising that she had taken a few steps closer. The dog whimpered, its eyes blinking dolefully at her. Those mismatched eyes …
The dog was a sudden blur of movement, shifting even faster than Indi, and apparently Nox, could track because when Indi caught up with the movement the dog was on top of Nox again. Its giant paws pinned him to the ground. Nox laughed into the dog’s face before he screamed out in pain. The dog’s claws had protracted into his skin like a cat’s.
Nox screamed out again, throwing his head back, his teeth gritted with pain. The dog latched onto his exposed throat, squeezing its jaws shut. Nox clawed at the sides of the dog, raking his nails over his ribcage, plunging fingers into the wound still spewing blood. The dog whimpered again, but didn’t release its jaws. Nox pushed and pulled at its fur, trying to get it to move. But with its eyes fixed on Indi, the dog choked the life from Nox.
Indi had seen a lot of gruesome things in her life. She’d been responsible for most of that gore. But what she saw in that alleyway would haunt her memories forever. Nox was finally still when his head was removed from his body. The dog eviscerated Nox, tea
ring through skin, bone and sinew until there was nothing but air between his neck and shoulders.
The dog’s muzzle was dripping with blood as it limped off Nox’s body. Indi backed up until she was next to Beth again. Indi would die before she let Beth get hurt anymore. When its bi-coloured eyes stared at her, she panicked. She was next. Out of instinct, she bared her teeth at the dog. It held her gaze for a long time before whining and sitting down near her feet. The wind was howling down the alleyway now, creating a wind tunnel with Indi and Beth stuck in the middle. Beth’s skin felt clammy under her touch, and Indi knew she had to get her out of there.
Indi looked up the length of the alleyway. It was only another thirty feet to get out. If she hoisted Beth over her shoulder, she could make it out of there. She glanced down at the dog, finding it shivering with cold. It looked like its skin was crawling with a million bugs under all its fur and they were all trying to get out at the same time.
Drawing Beth closer to her, she cradled her head against her chest even though she was covered with blood. The dog howled mournfully, closing its eyes as pain clearly ripped through its body. Indi watched with wide eyes as the fur along its back seemed to be getting shorter and shorter, appearing as if it was being sucked into its body.
Naked and shivering, its body started to reshape. Bone and flesh was torn and knit back together again. The dog’s body twisted and writhed until it formed into the shape of a man—the muscles still shivering and realigning as moans escaped his lips. With his back to her, she could see the huge wound in his ribs where Nox had stabbed him. She could also see the nail marks where Nox had raked his fingers over his sides. Tiny rivulets of blood escaped slowly down his body.
‘Indi?’ a tired and pain-filled voice asked.
She recognised that voice. ‘Rhett?’ she asked incredulously. Resting Beth against the wall, she went to him. Brushing his hair back from his face, one sky-blue and one pistachio-green eye stared up into her face.
‘You have to take his heart,’ he whispered.
‘What?’
‘His heart. Take his heart. He won’t truly be dead unless you do.’
‘What the hell just happened?’
‘I promise I’ll tell you later, but you have to take the vampire’s heart.’
Indi licked her lips and looked up at Nox’s dismembered body. ‘I can’t,’ she replied after a moment.
His lips pulled into a small smile which quickly turned into a grimace. ‘I’ve seen you with a knife. You can do it.’
‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘I changed back too quickly. I’ll be alright once I’ve eaten and start to heal. But you must kill the vampire properly. Now,’ he demanded.
Indi stood up and walked over to the corpse. With her knife held strong and steady in her hand, she crouched by his body. With shaking fingers, she tore the buttons from his shirt, exposing his pale chest. The tattoo that she’d been so interested in at the café looked as if it was floating on top of his skin rather than being imbedded in it. Now that she could see it, she recognised the design as a snake—a viper. Its head sat on his left pectoral muscle, its huge jaws open over where his heart rested below. The snake’s body twisted and writhed along his skin, wrapping around his shoulders until finally ending with a tail that wrapped around his neck and throat to the base of his skull.
Indi visually measured where his heart would be and took the blade to his skin. Black blood oozed from the incision, dribbling down between the muscles in his chest. When the knife hit bone, she put all her weight behind her and pushed. His chest cavity succumbed to the pressure, caving in around his heart.
His blood was thick; pooling in the cavity like a sinkhole had just formed. Indi looked desperately at Rhett. Sweat had broken out on his brow as he watched her.
‘Reach inside his chest and find his heart,’ he urged.
Indi looked back down at the sludge and swallowed. She could do this. She’d taken someone’s hand for God’s sake. Biting her lip, she dipped her hand into his body finding his blood only slightly warmer than the ambient temperature. Her fingers flexed out and touched the muscle she was looking for. She tested its limits before putting her knife into the space.
The aorta was the hardest to cut through. It was a solid inch of thick, rubbery tissue. When she finally cut through the remaining tendons and connective tissue, Indi took out his heart and put it on the ground beside her. If there was protocol for this, she had no fucking idea what it was. His heart was black, but the veins running through it remained a bright, scarlet red. She looked over at Rhett. Pain was straining his features. She had to get him out of this alleyway or he’d freeze to death.
When she looked back at the body, it had changed colour. His skin was becoming translucent, so much so that she could see each blue vein under his skin.
She asked Rhett, ‘What’s happening to him?’
‘His body is ashing. With the head and the heart gone, the rest of the body disintegrates.’
‘Is that normal?’
Rhett managed a nod. Fascinated by the process, Indi looked down at the body again just as an icy gust of wind blew down the alleyway, causing Nox’s body to flake away even more.
Nifty trick, she thought idly before standing up and taking a look at Rhett. He was sitting up now, but the wound in his side was still open and oozing blood. Indi licked her lips.
‘Indi?’ Rhett asked. She tore her eyes off the wound, but wanted to look at
it again. Distracted, she asked, ‘Huh?’
‘Can you take me back to yours? The blade had silver in it and it needs to
be cleaned before it heals badly.’
‘Sure. Yes,’ she said without knowing whether she entirely meant it. ‘Can you walk?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, standing up and testing his legs. Indi had to look away. Maybe Rhett didn’t have a problem with nudity, but she sure did. Shucking her coat, she threw it at him without looking. ‘I don’t want to get a reputation for walking around town with naked men in the middle of the night,’ she said. She looked back down at James, or Buddy, or whoever he was supposed to be. ‘What are we supposed to do with him?’
‘I’ll call someone who can help.’
‘Who?’ she asked.
‘It doesn’t matter. They’ll help.’
Indi went to Beth, scraping back the hair from her forehead. The cut was still bleeding slowly, but it was much better than it had been before. The smell of her blood was enthralling, but she would die before she hurt Beth. She closed her eyes and focussed on getting her and Rhett back to her apartment without too many people seeing them, but then she heard Beth’s heart beating easily in her chest and the smell of her blood became too much of a lure.
‘I can’t take her Rhett,’ she admitted, pressing herself against the wall of the alleyway. ‘I want to take her blood.’
‘Indi, you have to. I barely have the strength to keep myself upright.’
‘How can I when I want to kill my best friend simply because she had an accident?’
‘You have to try. I know you can do it Indi. I believe you won’t hurt her,’ he said.
She thought about it for a second. ‘I can’t.’
‘Indi. Look at me,’ he demanded in a strong voice. She couldn’t do anything but look at him, at his strong jaw and dark hair. His eyes were two brightly-burning orbs holding her in place, tightening her chest and sending her heart fluttering. ‘You. Can. Do. This,’ he gritted out; wincing as he held his side with a shaking hand.
Indi swallowed and turned back to her best friend. She could do this. She could. All she had to do was not look at the cut. Indi picked her up carefully and drew her over her shoulder before making her way to the entrance of the alleyway.
‘Good girl,’ Rhett murmured from behind her. It would have sounded condescending coming from anyone else, and worthy of a slap in the face for it, but from Rhett it sounded good. It sounded right.
Chapter 31
T
he wail of an ambulance siren roared up North Street, stopping outside Indi’s apartment building. When they pounded on the door, Indi made sure Rhett was hidden before letting them in. He didn’t want to go to hospital for treatment, and Indi didn’t blame him. If she could turn into a dog at will, she’d be pretty wary of doctors too.
‘What happened?’ the first EMT asked. She was pale; her freckles standing out on her cheeks like a sprinkle of brown sugar on porridge. Her fire-red hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, her face free of makeup except for some strawberry lip gloss. Crouching down to get a better look at Beth who was laid out on Indi’s couch, her purple surgical-gloved hands tested the cut on Beth’s head carefully. Indi glanced back at her partner standing watch in the doorway. Emergency workers, especially the paramedics, hated coming to Hell at night. There was a ninety per cent chance that every call out was going to turn into a drug heist.
‘She called to tell me her car had broken down,’ Indi said. There was no way in hell that she was going to tell them that she was somehow drawn there. ‘When I went down there, she wasn’t in the car. I heard her scream and when I went to investigate, I found her next to a dumpster down an alleyway.’
‘Was there anyone else there?’ her partner asked from the door. His hazel eyes were narrowed, suspicious. His coffee-with-cream skin seemed luminous in the light coming from the hallway. Indi thought he must have been around forty or so. His hair was shaved, but not to the skin, so he still had a thin layer of curly, black hair on his head. The creases around his eyes and mouth either meant that he smiled a lot, or frowned a lot. By the vibe he was giving off now, she suspected it was the latter.
